>I would remind you that you claim that full humanity existed 5.5 mya,
>before the "anthropological record" shows even the earliest *beginnings*
>of humanity. You have admitted that "no one on the entire planet..
>agrees with" you:
Actually Stephen I somewhat exaggerated when I said that to make a point to
Jim. Truth does not lie in how popular a view is. Even if I am the only
person holding a particular view, it does not make it wrong. As Mark Twain
once pointed out, if religious truth were determined by the number of
adherents, then Buddhism is the true religion.
In point of fact there are a few who do find my views quite acceptable. For
a couple of people who at least find my views intriguing see this and
related notes about the same time:
http://www.calvin.edu/archive/asa/199707/0005.html
While this gentleman does not agree with everything I believe (who does), it
does refute your statement above.
>Therefore, your attacks on others for "grossly mis-representing the
>anthropological record" is somewhat lacking in credibility until you
>attend to this "beam that is in thine own eye" (Mt 7:3).
>
Stephen, you have a problem. By acknowledging that few would hold to full
humanity back to 5.5 million years, and by acknowledging that I am not sure
what to do with the piths, and by acknowledging that there is a decreasing
amount of preserved material with which to examine this problem, I have
exactly represented the archeological record as it is. I have not
mis-represented anything and such a silly charge as yours above is offensive.
>GM>NO ONE, absolutely NO ONE disputes that Homo Erectus was on the
>>line to modern humans.
>
>This is overstating it a bit. Jim Foley's Fossil Hominid FAQ says that
>"the relationship between erectus, sapiens and the Neandertals is still
>unclear":
>
Jim Foley does not doubt that H. erectus is in the line of modern humans.
>"Despite this, there is little consensus on what our family tree is.
>Everyone accepts that the robust australopithecines (aethiopicus,
>robustus and boisei) are not ancestral to us, being a side branch that
>left no descendants. Whether H. habilis is descended from A.
>afarensis, africanus, both of them, or neither of them, is still a matter
>of debate. It is possible that none of the known australopithecines is
>our ancestor. The discoveries of A. ramidus and A. anamensis are so
>recent that it is hard to say what effect they will have on current
>theories. It is generally accepted that Homo erectus is descended
>from Homo habilis, but the relationship between erectus, sapiens and
>the Neandertals is still unclear. Neandertal affinities can be detected in
>some specimens of both archaic and modern sapiens." (Foley J.,
>"Fossil Hominids FAQ", April 16, 1996).
This does not say that homo erectus is not an ancestor of humans. Read it
again, my friend.
>
>But Tattersal has a diagram which shows that early "Homo Erectus was on the
>line to modern humans":
>
>Mya
>0 -
> | H. sapiens
> | | H. neanderthalensis
> | | /
> | | /
> | H. heidelbergensis
>1 - \
> | \ H. erectus
> | \ /
> | \ /
> | |
> | H. ergaster
>2 - | P. robustus P. boisei
> | H. habilis | /
> | H. rudolfensis | | /
> | \ | | /
> | \ | | /
> | A. africanus P. aethiopicus
>3 - | /
> | | /
> | | /
> | | /
> | A. afarensis
> | |
>4 - A. anamensis
> | A. ramidus /
> | \ /
> | \ /
> | \ /
> | \/
>5 - |
> | |
>
>
>(Tattersall I., "The Fossil Trail", 1995, p234)
>
Hate to tell you this Stephen, but Homo ergaster is the name for Homo
erectus found in Africa! Homo erectus is the name for the same fellow found
in Java and China. The differences between the two are so small, that most
anthropologists do not accept the separation of ergaster. Walker and
Shipman's book Wisdom of the bones is about the only erectus skeleton ever
found in Africa, the Nariokotome boy. Throughout their book they call it
erectus. Since I was following the more widely accepted taxonomy, that
subsumes ergaster into erectus, my statement stands. Ergaster is not
something foreign to erectus.
Notice that ergaster is in the ()
"Our ages indicate that the earliest known Java hominids are 0.6 to 0.8
million years older than the type H.erectus from Trinil, at least 0.6 million
years older than the inferred age of H. 'erectus' (OH-9) from Olduvai Gorge,
Tanzania, and of comparable age to the oldest specimens of H. cf. erectus (=H.
ergaster) from the Koobi Fora region of Kenya. These dates further indicate
that hominids ventured out of Africa much earlier than previously thought."~C.
C. Swisher III et al, "Age of the Earliest Known Hominids in Java, Indonesia,"
Science 263, Feb. 25, 1994, p. 1118-1121, p. 1120
>GM>The same can be said of the Bilzingsleben people who scratched
>>the image of a quadruped on a bone.
>
>Agreed that "Bilzingsleben" is archaic "Homo sapiens":
>
It is not generally agreed upon. As I said they are either erectus or
archaic sapiens. The excavators believe it is erectus, other believe it is
archaic h.s.
see D. Mania and U. Mania and E.
Vlcek, "Latest Finds of Skull Remains of Homo erectus from Bilzingsleben
(Thruingia)", Naturwissenschaften, 81(1994), p. 123-127, p. 125
And Stephen Mithen in his book The Prehistory of the Mind, calls the
Neanderthal. It doesn't matter what they are called. Their behavior, their
building of a village, their building of a social space, their drawing of
animals on bones marks them as human.
>GM>You can not find anyone who says that Homo erectus or archaic
>Homo sapiens were not on the line leading to modern man!!!!
>
>Even this is not as clear as you make out. The latest thinking is
>that "H. erectus" refers to the Asian form (eg. Java Man, Pekin Man)
>and H. ergaster, who remained in Africa, was our ancestor more
>direct ancestor:
>
>"After H. habilis comes H. erectus. Again, fossils may more correctly
>be H. divided in two. The earlier kind which arose in and then
>migrated out of Africa could be reclassified as H. ergaster, leaving H.
>erectus in its new, narrow sense to describe those descendants of H.
>ergaster who migrated into Asia. Then H. ergaster would be our true
>ancestor." (Wood B., "Boning up on dates", New Scientist, 20 May
>1995, p27)
>
Using the more widely accepted taxonomy it is clear. I will modify my
earlier statement, no one doubts that erectus/ergaster is in the line of
human evolution. The differences are so minor as to be unworthy of separation.
glenn
Foundation, Fall and Flood
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm