A skull from one of the bodies found in a pit in Spain. Photograph: Paul Hanna/Reuters
Posted on 06/13/2012 3:28:02 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Britain's leading expert on human evolution, Professor Chris Stringer, of the Natural History Museum, has warned in the journal Evolutionary Anthropology that the team in charge of La Sima has got the ages of its fossils wrong by 200,000 years and has incorrectly identified the species of ancient humans found there.
Far from being a 600,000-year-old lair of a species called Homo heidelbergensis, he believes the pit is filled with Neanderthal remains that are no more than 400,000 years old. The difference in interpretation has crucial implications for understanding human evolution...
La Sima de los Huesos was discovered by potholers exploring Atapuerca's cavern system. One brought back a few fragments of human bone. Excavations led by Juan Luis Arsuaga, of Madrid university, began in 1990 and within two years had uncovered two complete human brain cases. Ribcages, leg bones and jawbones were also dug up. Arsuaga tentatively dated the finds as being 300,000 years old...
This dating and identification has caused increasing upset among other palaeontologists. The scientists at La Sima believe H heidelbergensis is an ancestor of Neanderthals but not of Homo sapiens. However, others, including Stringer, believe it is indeed an ancestor of our species.
"The problem is that many of the skeletons unearthed at La Sima clearly have Neanderthal features," said Stringer. "In particular, their teeth and jaws are shaped very like those of Neanderthals. But all other evidence indicated Neanderthals did not appear on the scene for another 200,000 years. Dating these bones to such an early date completely distorts our picture of our evolution."
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
A skull from one of the bodies found in a pit in Spain. Photograph: Paul Hanna/Reuters
Chris Stringer has been the 20th/21st c Virchow for some time now.
http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~bramblet/ant301/two.html
“Rudolph Virchow (1821-1902), professor of pathological anatomy at the University of Berlin and founder of the field of cellular pathology. His hobby was archeology and he was to found the German Anthropological Society in 1869. Virchow’s influence in Germany through the second half of the 19th century was comparable to Cuvier’s in France through the first half of the same era. Virchow believed that people of the Stone Age were identical in biology to modern humans and he attributed the different anatomy of the Neanderthal to a combination of severe rickets, repeated fractures, and severe arthritis. The Neanderthal specimen thus was relegated to controversy.”
KEYWORDS: neandertal; neandertals; neanderthal; neanderthalsThe Neandertal EnigmaFrayer's own reading of the record reveals a number of overlooked traits that clearly and specifically link the Neandertals to the Cro-Magnons. One such trait is the shape of the opening of the nerve canal in the lower jaw, a spot where dentists often give a pain-blocking injection. In many Neandertal, the upper portion of the opening is covered by a broad bony ridge, a curious feature also carried by a significant number of Cro-Magnons. But none of the alleged 'ancestors of us all' fossils from Africa have it, and it is extremely rare in modern people outside Europe." [pp 126-127]
by James Shreeve
in local libraries
Homo heidelbergensis was only slightly taller than the Neanderthal
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-06/f-sf-hhw060612.php
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| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
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To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. |
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The Height of the Pleistocene Hominids, from Complete Bones [SINC / José Antonio Peñas]
Paging Claude Raines.
When I lived in Hollywood I saw various people everyday that looked like those in the image you posted.
Thanks for the very interesting post.
They look like a bunch of homos.
Yes, they look like homo sapiens, not that there’s anything wrong with that. Bob
I think it’s ludicrous.....and hillarious...to “watch” these dweebs argue over how many hundreds of thousands of years old these finds might be, when Earth and the entire universe is only approximately 10 to 12 thousand years old. I think they’re all as full of **it as the proverbial Christmas turkey!
Psalms 2:4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.
Data fudged to fit the hypothesis. Shpild be fired, lose tenure,require repayment of all grants and earnings, and never able to teach ever again.
Isn't that rather severe?
Fraud has been very lucrative to the global warming crowd. Can't we spread the wealth around?
They are still around.
I’ve been in P.E. classes with, or taught by, all three of those guys.
Also, the one in the middle was my drill sergeant, back in 1963.
Thank you for another cool posting, I love this subject though I can hardly make sense of it! My question relates to the last sentence in the paragraph posted. I understand it to mean that modern Eurpeans have this bony ridge over their nerve canal, but Asians, Africans, etc., do not? Can you possibly elucidate more on this?
Not as severe as I’d personally truly like it to be.
“My question relates to the last sentence in the paragraph posted. I understand it to mean that modern Eurpeans have this bony ridge over their nerve canal, but Asians, Africans, etc., do not? Can you possibly elucidate more on this?”
Sunken Civ posts this fragment on every thread that deals with anthropology and evolution of various hominids. This obsession has led to many wild speculations among the FR community. Here are the leading theories:
1. Sunken Civ does not have the bony ridge over his nerve canal. His repeated posting of this fragment is a subtle notice in an attempt to contact others of his kind.
2.Sunken Civ does have the bony ridge,but has had bad experiences with his dentist.
3. The real name of Sunken Civ is James Shreeve. He is trying to promote sales of his otherwise forgotten and unmemorable work.
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