I am very grateful for you posting the abstract. THis is more important
than you think.
At 01:18 PM 10/27/1999 GMT, David J. Tyler wrote quoting the abstract:
>New accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon dates taken directly on
>human remains from the Late Pleistocene sites of Vindija and Velika
>Peina in the Hrvatsko Zagorje of Croatia are presented. Hominid
>specimens from both sites have played critical roles in the
>development of current perspectives on modern human evolutionary
>emergence in Europe. Dates of 28 thousand years (ka) before the
>present (B.P.) and 29 ka B.P. for two specimens from Vindija G1
>establish them as the most recent dated Neandertals in the Eurasian
>range of these archaic humans. The human frontal bone from Velika
>Peina, generally considered one of the earliest representatives of
>modern humans in Europe, dated to 5 ka B.P., rendering it no longer
>pertinent to discussions of modern human origins. Apart from
>invalidating the only radiometrically based example of temporal
>overlap between late Neandertal and early modern human fossil remains
>from within any region of Europe, these dates raise the question of
>when early modern humans first dispersed into Europe and have
>implications for the nature and geographic patterning of biological
>and cultural interactions between these populations and the
>Neandertals.
I had ordered the article, but hadn't bothered to read the abstract last
night. I should have. And when I read the abstract you posted, David, I
thought there must be a typo, so I went online to the PNAS to read it for
myself. The news of the late date of the Neanderthal is absolutely eclipsed
by the news that Velika Pecina dates 5000 years old. Thanks for this David.
The importance of the ~5 ka BP Velika Pecina human is that it was believed
to be the oldest modern human in Europe. His date had been 34,850 years BP.
And the next securely dated anatomically modern man was 26,000 years BP.
"No neandertal fossil has been given a reliable date more recent than
36,000 years B. P. (St. Cesaire). A date of about 34,000 years B. P. has
been published for a frontal bone of modern form found at the European site
of Velika Pecina. After that, the oldest securely dated modern skeletal
material from Europe comes from a site near the town of Pavlov in the Czech
Republic at about 26,000 years B. P." ~ Bernard G. Campbell and James D.
Loy, Humankind Emerging, (New York: HarperCollins, 1996), p. 463
Now, the interesting thing is that the Upper Paleolithic, the flowering of
modern mankind (supposedly) began around 40,000 years ago, yet now there
are no anatomically modern peoples found in Europe PRIOR to 26,000 years
BP, at lest 14000 years AFTER the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic. What
is found are artifacts which have been ascribed to modern humans (but found
with Neanderthal at Vindija) because they are pretty artifacts. Unless and
until anthropology can find a modern human prior to 26,000 years ago, the
possibility remains very likely that Neanderthal was the inventor of the
Upper Paleolithic. Such a view, in which Neanderthal invented the advanced
stone tool techniques would explain one of the biggest mysteries of the
Aurignacian tools. That mystery is summed up in the question: If modern
humans invented the Aurignacian and then invaded Europe, Why are
Aurignacian tools first found in Bulgaria (a Neanderthal stronghold) and
not in AFrica or the Near East first? After all, if the invader in the
Near East had Aurignacian tools before the invasion, we should find them in
his staging areas first. We don't.
If the date of the Velika Pecina human is correct, that would mean:
that Neanderthal invented the Aurignacian tools which anthropologists have
traditionally said were made by modern man.
that Neanderthals carved the oldest artworks in the world, including the
Vogelherd figurines which are the first carved statues, and the Galgenburg
figurine which is an extremely complex art piece which required drilling
the rock out in the space between the arm and the body. Both of these sites
are in Europe and date between 32-35,000 years old.
Bednarik states,
"the Vogelherd, Galgenberg, Hohlenstein/Stadel and Tolbaga portable finds
had long indicated that extremely sophisticated art existed 32-35 000 years
ago in central Europe and Siberia. At long last, this has been confirmed
for French rock art. Jean Clottes and his team are drawing the right
conclusion from it: 'it is now probable that elaborate forms of art were
created long before the Upper Palaeolithic and that they have not yet been
found because of taphonomical problems'. There is light at the end of the
tunnel." ~ Robert G. Bednarik, "Sensational Aurignacian Art Found," The
Artefact, 18(1995):87-88, p. 88
Now, it would appear that if one wishes to remain within the confines of
what the data is today, Neanderthal was a very inventive fellow contrary to
what Christian apologists like Wilcox say (David Wilcox, "Adam, Where Are
You? Changing Paradigms in Paleoanthropology" Perspectives on Science and
Christian Faith, 48(1996):2:88-96), p. 92). This new date as the potential
to change the anthropological paradigm but not in the way Wilcox
envisioned.This should also have some strong implications for what Hugh
Ross is teaching about anthropology. I will say however, that
anthropologists will be slow to accept the fall of Velika Pecina because if
it falls, the behavioral views many of them have of Neanderthal must also
fall with him.
glenn
Foundation, Fall and Flood
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/dmd.htm
Lots of information on creation/evolution