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.

[VadeRetro]

At least we agree one did not come from the other.

Dinosaurs are more like great-uncles than grandfathers, yes. Still, the common ancestor (just before synapsids split off from the rest of the lineage) isn't much farther back.

[vessel]

> Older on top. Non-biblical mechanism.

Contemporaries laid down in layers which like most actual strata do not conform to the standard geologic column.
Biblical mechanism entirely.

[VadeRetro]

Now you're not even making sense. Your out-of-order anomalies are all going be some variation of extreme tectonic folding. Worse, you are not addressing why so many features are completely incompatible with a flood interpretation.

Why aren't all lavas (below some point) pillow lavas, as they should have been extruded under water? In fact, features of normal land life are visible up and down the geologic column from the time life colonized the land. Not just land life forms, but hardened tracks, raindrop imprints, glacial scarring, sandstorm residue, crystallized salt, fossilized dung, etc. These things do not form or harden under water.

Why so many layers with such obviously different histories? You can't account for all the kind of things below with a flood story.

While the specific example is fictional (to illustrate relative dating principles), it's not unrepresentative.

[vessel]

> Dinosaurs are more like great-uncles than grandfathers, yes. Still, the common ancestor (just before synapsids split off from the rest of the lineage) isn't much farther back.

Okay, so you would probably say about the same thing about humans and chimpanzees, that one is not from the other but related further upstream. So, where did those two chromosomes go? Or did the chimp pick up two we don't have in his "evolution"? We have 46 they have 48.

[VadeRetro]

So, where did those two chromosomes go? Or did the chimp pick up two we don't have in his "evolution"? We have 46 they have 48.

One or the other. It's a divergent feature.

Against that, why all the features pointing to common heritage? Why do we have the same cytochrome C molecule, and save for one silent mutation the same cytochrome C gene? Why do humans and chimps have what amount to viral infection scars (retrotransposons and similar features) in the genome not shared with any other life forms on Earth?

[VadeRetro]

Furthermore, if there's nothing going on there, why do we find fossil series that point in the identical direction to the genetic evidence?

(Reptile to mammal)

From here.

(Ape to human)

From here.

The latter link also gives a great summary of the overall evidence for common descent, which is crushing. It's utterly ridiculous to try to turn a blind eye to all that, especially when everyone knows that your motivation for so doing has nothing to do with the science and everything to do with your religion.

[vessel]

> Why so many layers with such obviously different histories? You can't account for all the kind of things below with a flood story.

Remember it's a drawing, a hypothetical case.

But all such formations do not require long periods of time but rather lots of activity during a short period of time.

> Why aren't all lavas (below some point) pillow lavas?

Non-pillow lava would be formed before being deluged, and after waters recede before subsequent secondary overflow, ie: tides of mud. Entirely within Biblical framework.

The only difference in activity is the time-scale. And the overwhelming majority of strata show no erosion between layers. Erosion between layers and subsequent infilling would certainly happen if these layers were all being laid down over vast time-spans.

All of the rest could happen in a very short period of an earth-shaping catastrophic, tectonic, volcanic and cyclonic maelstrom and thermal fluctuations, some before deluge, some during and some after, some before upheaval, during and after, etc.

[DannyTN]

"Completely ad hoc, unsupported by any shred of evidence, and already falsified by available evidence. We have calibrated the decay curve of C-14 well past the projected age."

Wrong again! ICR isn't disputing the decay curve of C-14. You are deliberately changing the subject from the excess carbon in fossils claimed to be super old, to that of ICR's investigation of decay rates affecting other non-carbon dating methods. And even if ICR's investigation of non-carbon decay rates proves false, it doesn't eliminate the possibility of bad assumptions about ratios of parent/daughter elements.

The evidence is the excess carbon in the fossils. It is not floor noise, as the decay curve would not permit a floor that high and the equipment is senstive enough to accurately detect the amounts of carbon. It is possible that all the fossils were contaminated to the same extent, making sort of a floor contamination level instead of a floor noise. But nobody has yet quantified where that contamination would come from. They have practically ruled out radiation as being insufficient. And subteranean microbes produce C-13 instead of C-14.

And I noticed Diamond called you on the Tree Rings. I thought "science" demanded peer review. Here you have a couple of scholars claiming to have found tree ring records but they wont release the data to be examined by independent scientists!!! Yeah that's real credible. NOT!!!!

[VadeRetro]

Remember it's a drawing, a hypothetical case.

Now you're just dodging. Everything it illustrates there is a real kind of feature, you just don't find absolutely all of them together that way. Here's a real case, lacking some--only some--of the volcanic intrusion stuff but otherwise presenting the same problems.

From this site.

You have not addressed how the heck you get all that out of one flood. I'll pile on a bit, then I've got to go. Freeper Ichneumon once made a nice post highlighting the problems with interpreting the Grand Canyon layers as flood sediments. I like to borrow it, as it's perfect for times like this.

Non-pillow lava would be formed before being deluged, and after waters recede before subsequent secondary overflow, ie: tides of mud. Entirely within Biblical framework.

There are non-pillow lavas all up and down. Nobody can find a global flood anywhere. Local floods, yes. In all eras. One big flood, no. No such ever.

I'll check back in a few hours.

[VadeRetro]

You introduced ICR's accelerated-decay-rate theory to explain the lack of C14 in coal. That is falsified by evidence of which ICR is aware, and no, dendrochronology is no more a house of cards than common descent, or non-flood geology, or old-universe astronomy.

I'm going out to eat. Just leave your next bit of lawyering obfuscatory blather here and I'll rebut when I get to it.

[vessel]

> (Reptile to mammal)

Pretty pictures. A lot like embryonic recapitulation don't you think? And even if they are accurate it would be like saying that because trees and rivers and human veins have branches they must be related. Form follows function, it's a design concept, not a happy accident.

And just how did the human "evolve" with two missing chromosomes?

> It's utterly ridiculous to try to turn a blind eye to all that, especially when everyone knows that your motivation for so doing has nothing to do with the science and everything to do with your religion.

My faith does not prevent me from using the scientific method, but warns me against "science falsely so-called".
The God who loves me encourages me to prove all things.

Drawings and theories and circumstantial evidence, no-matter how oft repeated and sincerely believed, are not proof.

When you really know then you have understanding, until then its all shifting sand, new drawings, new theories, new geneologies.

[Jeff Gordon]

Drawings and theories and circumstantial evidence, no-matter how oft repeated and sincerely believed, are not proof.

But a book written by bronze age men without pants is proof?

[vessel]

> You have not addressed how the heck you get all that out of one flood.

Yes I did, exaclty the same mechanics but shorter time than you would suggest, in order to prevent erosion which is not there, just add water and sand moves a lot.

Mix in a little limestone and you get concrete. Lot's of heat too. But do it quick or it will set in one big lump and won't spread out in nice layers. After a little while if you want a special effect, bend it break it and pour some more in to the cracks or press down and let it squeeze up from below. Be creative.

[vessel]

> But a book written by bronze age men without pants is proof?

The Bible is not my proof, I trust in it. I am one piece of evidence to prove that the bible is true, but let God be true and every man a liar. The Word of God is my foundation, my starting point, my reference, cornerstone, plum, level, standard and source of wisdom, understanding, truth, light and more.

It never fails, though many do not believe it and so do not receive understanding which comes from God.

[vessel]

> Ichneumon once made a nice post highlighting the problems with interpreting the Grand Canyon layers as flood sediments. I like to borrow it, as it's perfect for times like this.

The critics of creationism on that post are very confused, an the proponents a bit as well, I must admit.

The Grand Canyon could have had the uplifts as described by old earth geologists, but as I assert, during a short period of global upheaval and after a global flood had recently made a massive deposit of sand. This deposit could have then been cut out by a subsequent local event on the scale of one of the Great Lakes Bursting through an earthen dam. Really just a post storm puddle in the new mountains, maybe not even a sustainable from local drainage. This could gouge out the sand stone very quickly and wash all of the sediment out onto the high sea, no delta. This fits. The absence of a delta does not fit with millenia of erosion.

[DannyTN]

"You introduced ICR's accelerated-decay-rate theory to explain the lack of C14 in coal."

Wrong again! At least not in this thread. I reviewed every post I made in this thread, I've kept the discussion to fossils and stayed away from rate decay arguments.

You can't refute that ICR is right that there is too much unaccounted for C-14 in those fossils. So instead, you pick out some of ICR's work that at present they call nothing more than an investigation and ongoing work, and try to present it as a false and unproven claim to discredit ICR. Now that's intellectual dishonesty.

[Fester Chugabrew]

. . . the faithful sheep who have never learned to think for themselves . . .

Since you are above the faithful sheep, please tell us how much you know. Do you know how old the earth is? Do you know how it was formed? Were you there?

[VadeRetro]

Pretty pictures. A lot like embryonic recapitulation don't you think?

You all use the same dodges. Any evidence against your position is some kind of fabrication? I suppose your evidence for this is Piltdown Man (fraud from 1912) and/or Nebraska Man (misinterpretation from 1922)? You can't just run around saying "Lies! All lies!" every time you see something you don't like and expect credit for having the REAL science. If you don't like something in the Hylonomus to Asioryctes sequence, feel free to discredit away. I'm already familiar with most creationist obfuscation on the subject.

And don't be so sure there's nothing going on between embryology and evolution. Why do baby frogs look like fish? Why do baby horseshoe crabs look like trilobites? Why do hatchling lampreys look like basal chordates? Why do embryonic snakes and dolphins have legs?

And even if they are accurate it would be like saying that because trees and rivers and human veins have branches they must be related. Form follows function, it's a design concept, not a happy accident.

We're talking about viral infection scars here. What function? Creation science is about not seeing anything inconvenient.

My faith does not prevent me from using the scientific method, but warns me against "science falsely so-called".

Your faith seems to command you do quote some lawyerly misrepresentation from a few very dishonest sources. This hardly qualifies as using the scientific method.

Creationism is about supernatural explanations. It's about tearing down knowledge to make more room for mystery. All it offers is unlearning. It's deliberate stupidity, deliberate amnesia, deliberate fallacy. The Lord, if He exists, must be appalled at the lies perpetrated in His name.

Once drifting toward deism, I've become thoroughly agnostic from arguing with creationists. Still, I try to imagine that an anthropic being created the universe. If so, the universe must be assumed His primary work, the definitive masterpiece which is only summarized in anything that follows. Now, maybe some sacred text from some religion somewhere is the "true" word, His description of what He did. Even so, in the event of any conflict between his primary work, the universe itself, and the secondary work, deference must be made to the primary.

Your mission would seem to be distorting or dismissing the primary to protect the secondary. I'm really outside the discipline, but that looks like a basic theological error to me.

[VadeRetro]

I misread your 133 a little, but only a little. It's about differences relative abundance, not rate decay. It's still been refuted by the dendrochronology work cited elsewhere on this thread. Here's chapter and verse:

... Dr. Hovind must now explain how it was that groves of bristlecone pine trees were living in the White Mountains before Noah's flood! Did all the antediluvian bristlecone pines just happen to collect in the White Mountains after the flood, perhaps to miraculously take root? Even that straw is fatally flawed. A new generation of bristlecone pines, starting from scratch as it were, would have no overlapping tree-rings with respect to their antediluvian cousins. Overlapping tree-rings means a shared environment, and any tree which has grown in both the antediluvian environment and the modern environment is a tree which has survived Noah's flood.

How a tree, which supposedly lived in a tropical, lowland environment, survived being dumped into a high altitude environment subject to extremes of temperature, harsh winds, and desert-like conditions for part of the year, and that after being churned about in a flood for a year--a flood which was violent enough to rip up the earth's crust and pulverize great rocks, a flood which was packed with grinding sediments, is something best explained by creationists. While at it, they might also explain why there is no dramatic difference between the antediluvian treering pattern, supposedly grown under lush, tropical conditions, and the present day treering pattern which reflects a harsh environment. One would expect to see a dramatic change between big, fat treerings and thin, hard ones upon crossing that boundary in the treering sequence! Nothing of the sort is found in the 8000-year-old, tree-ring history of the bristlecone pine.

Nor are the bristlecone pines the only plants with a history refuting Noah's flood!

The King Clone creosote bush, today a patch of shrubbery 70 by 25 feet in the Mojave Desert about 80 miles northeast of Los Angeles, goes back 11,700 years! (This item comes from The Washington Post , December 10, 1984 and was noted in the Creation/Evolution Newsletter of November-December, 1984.) The evergreen shrub is called a creosote bush because it has a pungent odor like that of creosote, an oily liquid produced from coal tar.

Frank C. Vasek, a botany professor at the Riverside campus of the University of California, who found the bush, has determined that the patch of shrubbery originally began as a single plant sprouting from one seed. As the plant grew outward the interior portions died out, thus leaving a huge ring with each clump becoming a clone of the first growth. I guess Noah's flood didn't bother this desert shrub any! Did I say "desert shrub?" What is a desert doing in the supposedly tropical antediluvian world?

From here.

[VadeRetro]

If you imagine that reply as adequate, you have not read carefully or ... something. Limestones, shales, and sandstones are all sedimentary rocks, but they are not formed the same way. The Grand Canyon sediments contain all of these in distinct layers, each of which looks like the remains of a particular unique ecosystem. Spider tracks would not be left to be fossilized in mud during an incredible global catastrophe reshaping the planet in the manner your model attempts to describe. That's just two.

I don't feel like dragging you through them all. I leave it as an exercise for the lurker to find all the points you pretend not to see.