35,000 year old "modern human" remains Discovered!

Yahoo News ^ | Sat Mar 6,11:27 AM ET | By ALISON MUTLER, Associated Press Writer

[vannrox]

Anthropologists Hail Romania Fossil Find
Sat Mar 6,11:27 AM ET

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By ALISON MUTLER, Associated Press Writer

BUCHAREST, Romania - Experts analyzing remains of a man, woman and teenage boy unearthed in Romania last year are convinced that the 35,000 year-old fossils are the most complete ever of modern humans of that era, a U.S. scientist said Saturday.

International scientists have been carrying out further analysis to get a clearer picture on the find, said anthropologist Erik Trinkaus, of Washington University in St. Louis. But it's already clear that, "this is the most complete collection of modern humans in Europe older than 28,000 years," he told The Associated Press.

"We are very excited about it," said Trinkaus on the telephone, adding that the discovery of in a cave in southwestern Romania "is already changing perceptions about modern humans."

Romanian recreational cavers unearthed the remains of three facial bones last year, and gave them to Romanian scientists.

Romanian scientists asked Trinkaus to analyze the fossils, and he traveled to the Romanian city of Cluj this week with Portuguese scientist Joao Zilhao, a fossil specialist.

Trinkaus said a jawbone belonged to a man aged about 35. He said part of a skull and remains of a face including teeth belonged to a 14- to 15-year-old male and a temporal bone to a woman of unspecified age.

"This was 25,000 years before agriculture. Certainly they were hunters," said Trinkaus. He said the bones were discovered in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains.

Trinkaus said the humans would have had religious beliefs, used stone tools, and a well-defined social system and lived in a period in during which early modern humans overlapped with late surviving Neanderthals in Europe, Trinkaus said.

Scientists will not give the exact location for the cave, but Trinkaus said it the humans survived because the area was "ecologically variable."

"It was close to the Banat plain and close to the mountains. They didn't have to travel more than 50 kilometers (30 miles)," to hunt, he said.

A team of international scientists from the United States, Norway, Portugal and Britain will carry out more field work in the summer in the cave and surrounding area this summer, Trinkaus said.

[vannrox]

Cool.

[PBRSTREETGANG]

35,000 year old "modern human" remains Discovered!

They found the man holding a remote?

[kjam22]

Experts analyzing remains of a man, woman and teenage boy unearthed in Romania last year are convinced that the 35,000 year-old fossils are the most complete ever of modern humans of that era

They found a jaw, part of another skull, and one other bone?? A whole new meaning to the idea of "complete" for me.

[Consort]

If they were unearthed last year, then they are now 35,001 year-old fossils.

[StriperSniper]

35,000 year old "modern human" remains Discovered!

Time machine accident?

[atomicpossum]

I thought they meant Helen Thomas....

[Conspiracy Guy]

That's my Uncle Thag. Put him back in the ground or I'll sue.

CG

[GladesGuru]

Mere hanging jewelry around the neck of a featherless biped doth not a human make. What is your source for the species ID of the specimen in the picture you posted? Was a DNA test performed?

Inquiring minds want to know.

[atomicpossum]

Mere hanging jewelry around the neck of a featherless biped doth not a human make. What is your source for the species ID of the specimen in the picture you posted? Was a DNA test performed?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Sorry, it was just an assumption. I guess that could be a particularly ugly monkey.

[searchandrecovery]

The current working hypothesis is that this is a relative of Dick Clark.

[TheGeezer]

Helen Thomas is not homo sapiens. She's a Neanderthal.

[IAmNotAnAnimal]

Please DO NOT do that while I'm eating breakfast...LOL

[ClearCase_guy]

A whole new meaning to the idea of "complete" for me.

Also note that based on these fragments, they "know" that these people had a religion, a well-defined social structure, and (perhaps) a real love of hopscotch.

[ASA Vet]

the humans would have had religious beliefs

Unless they also found some fossilized "beliefs" this is pure speculation.

How long ago did humans develop the abstract thinking ability which led
to supernatural beliefs, then to one of it's subsets "religion?"

[DTA]

>>>>>Trinkaus said the humans would have had religious beliefs, used stone tools, and a well-defined social system and lived in a period in during which early modern humans overlapped with late surviving Neanderthals in Europe, Trinkaus said.<<<<<<

In other words, 35000 years ago, Homo Sapiens lived in the Balkans while Neanderthals ruled the rest of Europe.

This may be one of the explanations why the history of the Balkans is so distorted and why the word itself has derogatory overtone in the rest of Europe.

[sr4402]

My question is, how is this date arrived? Radio Carbon dating, near other fossils, or what?

Radio Carbon dating is notoriously inaccurate, so most scientists use nearby fossils. The fossils dates are changed to fit evolutionary thinking. So the dates of this find will vary widely over time.

I would be interested in the skull shape if these were found in rock as they would be from pre-flood time. It would be very interesting to know their age upon death by growth rings. But I doubt they will be interested in that.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***Helen Thomas is not homo sapiens. She's a Neanderthal.***

Trogdolite!

[B.Bumbleberry]

Radio Carbon dating is notoriously inaccurate, so most scientists use nearby fossils.

I don't know where you get this from. I've always thought that carbon dating, calibrated in recent years using dendrochronology, is the standard for dating organic remains less than 40,000 to 50,000 YBP. Other index fossils are important, but how do you suppose those were dated to begin with? Carbon, of course.

[CasearianDaoist]

Nah, a welfare check.

[CommandoFrank]

Jimmy Hoffa, his mistress and bastard child???

[DannyTN]

Are you sure she's the same species?

[Tricorn]

What they don't want you to know is that these particular people had evolved from bacteria brought to earth from Mars by a meteor back when Mars was all watery. (That and the fact that they also voted for Gore in 2000.)

[Just mythoughts]

?"Romanian recreational cavers unearthed the remains of three facial bones last year, and gave them to Romanian scientists.

Romanian scientists asked Trinkaus to analyze the fossils, and he traveled to the Romanian city of Cluj this week with Portuguese scientist Joao Zilhao, a fossil specialist.

Trinkaus said a jawbone belonged to a man aged about 35. He said part of a skull and remains of a face including teeth belonged to a 14- to 15-year-old male and a temporal bone to a woman of unspecified age.



"This was 25,000 years before agriculture. Certainly they were hunters," said Trinkaus. He said the bones were discovered in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains"?


So who drug the THREE separate bones in that cave. I have no reason yet to dispute the age, however, making claims on three different bones coming from three different human beings, is very suspect. It sure is going to take a lot of ART work to give these bones a face and body.

[DannyTN]

The following article talks about advances in carbon dating that completely undermine the long ages evolutionists have been coming up with.

Carbon Dating undercuts evolutionist's long ages

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

Radio Carbon dating is notoriously inaccurate, so most scientists use nearby fossils. The fossils dates are changed to fit evolutionary thinking. So the dates of this find will vary widely over time.

So who is to say these remains weren't previously spelunkers from say 2000 years ago.

[ThinkPlease]

I'll see your link, and raise you another link. Index of Creationist Claims

[balrog666]

modern humans of that era..."

Found in a slurry of ancient cave bear dung.

[uncbuck]

There goes my breakfast....Arggghhh...

Thanks.

Have you ever tasted oatmeal...twice chewed?

[uncbuck]

Please don't insult us neanderthals.

No self respecting neanderthal would club that over the head and drag it back to the cave. No matter how hungry he was.

[Prodigal Son]

Article's actual title:

Anthropologists Hail Romania Fossil Find

[LiteKeeper]

YEC INTREP - ANTHROPOLOGY

[sr4402]

So who is to say these remains weren't previously spelunkers from say 2000 years ago.

Good question. Exactly what is the evidence here? Too many don't use critical thinking anymore and get suckered in to believing what the press or other scientist is foisting upon us.

Theory without data = Presupposition.

[DannyTN]

I see your link.

Between ICR's finding and the evolutionists response that contamination is common, it certainly undermines much of the credibiliity of carbon dating.

One begins to wonder whether any of the carbon dating is accurate. If old fossils can be contaiminated, then surely new fossils can be contaminated. How many other radiometric dating methods suffer from similar problems?

[sr4402]

I don't know where you get this from. I've always thought that carbon dating, calibrated in recent years using dendrochronology, is the standard for dating organic remains less than 40,000 to 50,000 YBP. Other index fossils are important, but how do you suppose those were dated to begin with? Carbon, of course.

Radio Carbon dating, has a presupposition that the radio-carbon was originally an initial value and was undisturbed over time. Mineral leaching can affect the dates widely. So many dates have been off, that scientist look for outside clues.

My point is that I have no frame of reference, in this article, on what the date was based on. Without that frame of reference, why should I believe this author?

[PatrickHenry]

Romania ping.

[ASA Vet]

The Banat Plain is in Timis and Caras Counties on the opposite side
of the mountain from the Black Sea regional flooding of ca 5600 BCE.

[DannyTN]

"No self respecting neanderthal would club that over the head and drag it back to the cave. No matter how hungry he was."

Yes the Nastasaurus makes for very foul eating. Researchers think the male nastasaurus was both blind and deaf.

[Right Wing Professor]

The following article talks about advances in carbon dating that completely undermine the long ages evolutionists have been coming up with.

Not really. They find tiny levels of ¹⁴C in very old coals. All that means is that, in addition to the atmospheric source, there is a mechanism for producing very low levels of ¹⁴C within the earth - likely irradiation by exogenous radioactive sources.

As Baumgardner admits, even if you claimed a common age for all the coals, based on the ¹⁴C content, and said that was the age of the Genesis flood, you'd come up with an age of 50,000 years. So he then has to introduce the ad hoc assumption of 'accelerated nuclear decay', for which there is no plausible physical mechanism, to make it consistent with Genesis.

[uncbuck]

They apparantly had no touch receptors as well.

[ThinkPlease]

One begins to wonder whether any of the carbon dating is accurate. If old fossils can be contaiminated, then surely new fossils can be contaminated. How many other radiometric dating methods suffer from similar problems?

That's why science has something called error bars, to determine confidence.

Also, it's good to remember that the levels that Baumgardner measures are trace amounts...corresponding to levels at the very upper time ranges of C14 dating, where people will be using other dating techniques primarily anyway, and simply using C14 as a guide to make sure that ages match with multiple techniques.

Few scientists are dumb enough to just use one technique, when there are many techniques available to get an answer. Any age given in a scientific paper is likely run through a battery of multiple tests to get it's age. Indeed, that's what a scientific paper is supposed to do....give you a detailed list of experiments done to get from the author's assumptions to their conclusion. A recipe, in essence for others to follow if they wish to replicate (and verify) the author's work. Included in that recipe is every technique the author used to verify his assumptions rigorously, lest he is called to the carpet for shoddy work.

Baumgardner isn't presenting anything earthshattering in his paper...he's just discovered something that other scientists have known for quite some time, and trying to use it for his own purposes...being specifically untruthful in that he should know damn well how other scientists do date analyses. Silly creationists.

[DannyTN]

"when there are many techniques available to get an answer."

Yes, there is radiometric dating, which suffers from several problems. Then's there is the location in the geologic column, which of course was dated using radiometric dating.

And always in the background is the certain knowledge that funding follows results and only spectacular finds get rewarded. Nobody rewards you for finding 350 year old remains. How much better if you can find 35,000 year old remains.

[hosepipe]

35,000 year old humans.. THATS EASY...

just try to find some LIVING intelligent humans NOW you got a problem... take Mexifornians as an example.. that state is bankrupt and they still LOVE taxes instead of spending less...

We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.~Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

[ThinkPlease]

Yes, there is radiometric dating, which suffers from several problems. Then's there is the location in the geologic column, which of course was dated using radiometric dating.

No, Danny, it's not that simple. You seem to think that there is only one form of radiometric dating...when in fact, there are multiple types of radiometric dating, with multiple methods of extracting answers.

Not only that, there are other, non-radiometric methods available that date within the past 100,000 years and give answers that agree with radiometric dating. Ice cores, varves, cosmic-ray exposure measurements are just a few. But don't just listen to me...check out this link by a scientist, who is also a devout Christian: Radiometric Dating

A worthy link.

[ThinkPlease]

And always in the background is the certain knowledge that funding follows results and only spectacular finds get rewarded. Nobody rewards you for finding 350 year old remains. How much better if you can find 35,000 year old remains.

I see it this way... The more the ICR peddles the same lies year in and year out, the more funding they can extract from the faithful sheep who have never learned to think for themselves, while making them think that they are the poor renegades touting the "truth". How much better if you can be the one to get the Bible taught in science classes? Think of the prestige and ministry income then!

[FourtySeven]

Project for tonight: Take a look at the Institute for Creationist Research's website, and see what "evidence" they have.

(already, the review about C14 is unconvincing...but just for kicks, I'll take a look at all of it...I'm more curious to see if all of their papers are written as poorly as this)

[Diamond]

All that means is that, in addition to the atmospheric source, there is a mechanism for producing very low levels of 14C within the earth - likely irradiation by exogenous radioactive sources.

[snip]..."As for the contamination issue, someone asserted that any C14 date of 30,000 years or more is due to contamination. If this is so, then why do they say the method is accurate to 50,000 years? If any C14 date has ever yielded a value over 30,000 years, this implies that such contamination is not ubiquitous. Of course, it could be that older measurement techniques were less accurate. Now, 30,000 years is about 5 half lives of C14, which means that a contamination of 1/32 (slightly less) would be required to achieve this date for a sample of infinite age. This is a substantial contamination.

Anyway, as for C14 dating in general, it seems clear that many, many results are much too young according to the standard view, and that explaining away one or two of them does not appreciably diminish the problem.

Here is another instance of an anomalously young carbon 14 date:

At the 1992 Twin Cities Creation Conference, there was a paper presented called “Direct Dating of Cretaceous-Jurassic Fossils (and Other Evidences for Human-Dinosaur Coexistence)”. Among other things, the results of carbon-dating of Acrocanthosaurus bones are given.

The authors noted that dinosaur bones are frequently (“as a rule”) found with a black carbon residue of some sort on the bones. The authors speculated that this residue could be the leftovers of the decayed skin and flesh: they quote the Penguin Geology Encyclopedia’s definition of “carbonization”: “Carbonization; the reduction of organic tissue to a carbon residue. An unusual kind of fossilization in which the tissue is preserved as a carbon film. Plants are commonly preserved in this manner, soft-bodied animals more rarely.” Since this material is organic, it can be used to carbon-date the fossils.

The authors describe in detail the measures taken to ensure that no other source of carbon contamination was present inside or outside the bones. When the bones were ground up and carbon-dated, the dates they received from the lab from different methods were 9,890 to 36,500 years BP (before present)." source

[ZULU]

"Radio Carbon dating is notoriously inaccurate"

There are some problems with radio carbon dating, but these can be corrected for. In general, its a reliable system if used right. They also use Potassium-Argon dating, tree ring width patterns and stratigraphy. Modern paleontology and archaeology has reached the level of forensic science.

And NOBODY changes dates to fit any preconceived ideas. That's preposterous.

"as they would be from pre-flood time."

I didn't know anyone had identified the date of Noah's flood or exactly where it occured.

[DannyTN]

I'm aware of other radiometric methods. But they all have rely on assumptions about starting amounts of elements which make them subject to error.

Problems with Potassium-Argon dating are well known. Argon doesn't always boil which is the assumption that is made. 16 different recent volcanic flows were dated as millions of years old.

Here is a link showing similar problems with the Rubidium-Strontium dating method. Where one set of rocks are dated much older than they are known to be.

More Dating problems

Whether such problems have been identified in all radiometric dating methods, I do not know. But it certainly casts significant doubt on it.

[ZULU]

You are right. There are minor problems with carbon 14 dating like changes in radioactive material in the atmosphere over time, or even bioplastic contaminants, but these can be corrected for.

When they are, its fairly accurate. Its generally given in + or - a certain number of years.

They also used thermoluminesce and potassium - argon dating
in addition to dendrochronology.

[ZULU]

"these particular people had evolved from bacteria brought to earth from Mars "

There is absolutely no proof for extra-terrestrial origins of life.

Even if there were, it would have had to have started somewhere somehow.