Posted on 06/06/2016 1:47:13 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Prehumans living around 800,000 years ago in what's now southeastern Spain were, literally, trailblazers. They lit small, controlled blazes in a cave, a new study finds.
Discoveries in the cave provide the oldest evidence of fire making in Europe and support proposals that members of the human genus, Homo, regularly ignited fires starting at least 1 million years ago, say paleontologist Michael Walker of the University of Murcia in Spain and his colleagues...
If the age estimate for the Spain find holds up, the new report adds to a "surprising number" of sites from deep in the Stone Age that retain evidence of small, intentionally lit fires, says archaeologist John Gowlett of the University of Liverpool in England.
Excavations conducted since 2011 at the Spanish cave, Cueva Negra del Estrecho del Río Quípar, have uncovered more than 165 stones and stone artifacts that had been heated, as well as about 2,300 animal-bone fragments displaying signs of heating and charring. Microscopic and chemical analyses indicate that these finds had been heated to between 400° and 600° Celsius, consistent with having been burned in a fire.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencenews.org ...
Shallow ripples caused by heating run across a piece of rock excavated in a Spanish cave. This and other finds indicate that an undetermined Homo species lit small fires in the cave around 800,000 years ago, researchers say. Each square on the measuring stick covers 1 centimeter.
The human skull and jaw began to shrink starting a million years ago. The most likely explanation was that after the discovery of fire, they didn’t need the jaw strength that they previously did. I think that an argument could also be made that, with the invention of tools to scrape meat off the bone, there was also less jaw force required.
Which do you this it is, or is it both?
The physiological changes led the way — and we adapted our methods and tools to match. To suggest the reverse is just semantically adjusted Lamarckism.
Bet it was soccer hooligans.
And I tink its just about time ve had one!
“Bet it was soccer hooligans.”
Soccer hooligans wearing brown shirts...
>> The most likely explanation was that after the discovery of fire, they didn’t need the jaw strength that they previously did. I think that an argument could also be made that, with the invention of tools to scrape meat off the bone, there was also less jaw force required.<<
The most likely explanation is that the jaw needed to be realigned to form the words “carbon credits” — thus evolved liberals.
Cueva Negra del Estrecho del Río Quípar translates as
“The Cave as Black as Michelle’s Stretch Marks,”
and the discoveries therein should cause us to re-evaluate
naming an era “Stone Age.”
It is racist and approprationalist to identify a people
by their lack of martial sophistication
and their use of anything they couldn’t actually eat.
Going forward, this era will be known as Gun-Free Utopia.
Without fire and tools, those with weaker jaws could not survive. Fire and tools allowed more to survive, and strong jaws no longer needed to be selected for.
I thought the moslems taught the Europeans how to make fire.
This evidence is of a fire being present in a photo-Human dwelling place does not answer that question. The European area that is now Spain is believed to have populations of H. antecessor in that time frame which is currently thought to have evolved into H. heidelbergensis which was the likely ancestor to both H. neanderthalensis and later H. sapiens.
The question to me is when and how do anthropologists and paleontologists decide that these predecessors went from obtaining and preserving natural live coals to the ART of creating fire at will as is described in this article. While both acts require mental ability that is beyond that of any other animal now known, the latter is a definite aspect of tool making!
Nope, there’s “selection pressure”, it’s right in the Darwinian literature as if nothing is wrong, and it is Lamarckism.
Without fire and tools, those with weaker jaws could not survive. Fire and tools allowed more to survive, and strong jaws no longer needed to be selected for.
Selected for?
For what?
Their future survival?
All random of course.
I never knew you where a Doors fan?
Awesome.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
