Posted on 10/03/2001 12:16:47 PM PDT by blam
Wednesday, 3 October, 2001, 18:00 GMT 19:00 UK
Science shows cave art developed early
Chauvet cave paintings depict horses and other animals
By BBC News Online science editor Dr David Whitehouse A new dating of spectacular prehistoric cave paintings reveals them to be much older than previously thought.
Carbon isotope analysis of charcoal used in pictures of horses at Chauvet, south-central France, show that they are 30,000 years old, a discovery that should prompt a rethink about the development of art.
The remarkable Chauvet drawings were discovered in 1994 when potholers stumbled upon a narrow entrance to several underground chambers in a rocky escarpment in the Ardeche region.
Because the paintings are just as artistic and complex as the later Lascaux paintings, it may indicate that art developed much earlier than had been realised.
'Discovered nothing'
The analysis was performed by Helene Valladas and colleagues at the Laboratory for Climate and Environment Studies at France's CEA-CNRS research centre at Gif-sur-Yvette.
The prehistoric cave art found in France and Spain shows ancient man to be a remarkable artist.
When Pablo Picasso visited the newly-discovered Lascaux caves, in the Dordogne, in 1940, he emerged from them saying of modern art, "We have discovered nothing".
They are obviously very old, but dating them has been difficult because of the small quantities of carbon found on the walls or in the caves. The element is needed, in the form of charcoal or bones, for the standard technique of carbon dating.
To overcome these problems the French researchers have used a newer technique called accelerator mass spectrometry. This separates and counts carbon isotopes found in dead animal and vegetal matter.
'Reconsider theories'
It found the Chauvet drawings to be between 29,700 and 32,400 years old. This is about 10,000 years older than comparable cave art found in the Lascaux caves that are around 17,000 years old.
Art may have progressed in leaps and bounds
According to Helene Valladas the research shows that ancient man was just as skilled at art as the humans who followed 13,000 years later.
"Prehistorians, who have traditionally interpreted the evolution of prehistoric art as a steady progression from simple to more complex representations, may have to reconsider existing theories of the origins of art," she says.
The research is reported in the scientific journal Nature.
I dont understand, what exactly was re-evaluated, according to this article?
The youngest Neanderthal skeleton found is 27,500 years old. I believe we are the Neanderthal.
Yup. I like the way you think.
Can anyone doubt that at least some of what we call ancient myth has some foundation in actual events? What will the story of WTC911 sound like in 30,000 years?
Good point. If you come up with a good story, email me. It could be a guide to solve some of the riddles/myths from our own past.
Who is "we"?
All of us alive today. I believe they bred with the moderns and we are the consequence.
(neanderthals)...At times,when at the beach,one can see people,heavy set,somewhat longer at the arm than the others, very hairy,smaller forehead, thick brows...(sarcasm?)
C-14 half-life 5730 years. Assuming the carbon they used was organic to begin with and the special circumstances were correctly accounted for, they got a reasonable result and included the error range. Ordinary science within the accepted radio carbon range of 50,000 years..
I suspect there are Neanderthal genes in Europeans but not in Africans or Australians. Lot of Europeans have the body shape (stocky), head shape (long and narrow) and receding chin suggestive of Neanderthal genes. However the "experts" say that the Neanderthal DNA is incompatible with homo sapien.
BTW those horses are magnificent.
There is human DNA found in Australia that is incompatible with modern human DNA. I think it came from Mungo Man.
Mungo Man could be African: scientists
Scientists expressed caution yesterday over claims by Australian researchers that cast doubt over the theory that modern man emerged from Africa.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0101/10/pageone/pageone7.html
So taking evolution into account, a horse 30,000 years ago would look like.....hey, a horse!
If this is the case, I think it should also prompt them to rethink about the development of evolution...
It's based on the rates of creation and decay of the proportion of C14 in the atmosphere, which would be independent of earthly conditions that affect carbon concentration in the atmosphere. So goes the theory anyway.
Bred their way into us?? No way. Studies of neanderthal DNA indicate that it was about halfway between ours and that of a chimpanzee, clearly explaining why there was never any evidence of interbreeding. We could no more interbreed with them than we could with horses and, further, all scientists agree, there is no way we are descended from them.
That presents yet another insoluble problem for evolutionists: to believe that modern man evolved, there would have to be some closer hominid, i.e. some hominid between us and the neanderthal which we COULD have descended from and, since this closer hominid would be closer to us both in time and morphology than the neanderthal, his works and remains should be very easy to find; they should be all over the place. Neanderthal works and remains are all over the place. Neanderthal was the major inhabitant of this planet just prior to us. Here's one of Jay Matternes' modern reconstructions(not based on diseased specimens) of what they looked like:
Not really all that bad looking. Not one of us, but a thoroughly modern man despite the DNA difference.
Mungo Man's DNA suggest he might be an erectus/homo sapien. This wouldn't be a problem for the Creationists because, as I understand them, they consider erectus, Neanderthal and homo sapien as just human variations.
Probably. 30K years isn't a long time -- as these things go -- and their environment hasn't changed all that much since then, so yes, I suppose they were filling all the "horse-friendly" niches 30K years ago.
So, how do you explain the 'hybrid' skeleton that was found? (No DNA)
Fossil may expose humanity's hybrid roots.(discovery of 24,500-year-old skeleton in Portugal's Lapedo Valley may be hybrid of Neanderthal and Homo sapiens)(Brief Article)
Author/s: B. Bower
Issue: May 8, 1999
Last Nov. 28, archaeologists working in Portugal's Lapedo Valley, 90 miles north of Lisbon, chanced upon a child's burial. At first the researchers, led by Joao Zilhao of the Portuguese Institute of Archaeology in Lisbon, viewed the 24,500-year-old skeleton as an example of modern Homo sapiens.
The shallow grave resembled other Late Stone Age human burials in Europe. A seashell lay among the child's bones, which bore the stains of an intentionally applied red pigment. By the time excavation of the skeleton concluded on Jan. 7, however, the scientists suspected that their find represented something far more interesting--an anatomical hybrid that could only have appeared so late as a result of extensive prior interbreeding between humans and Neandertals. H. sapiens and Neandertals both inhabited southwestern Europe for at least several thousand years, until around 30,000 years ago.
The Portuguese team called in an authority on Neandertals, Erik Trinkaus of Washington University in St. Louis, to examine the find. He agreed that they had uncovered a hybrid kid. Zilhao announced the discovery at a press conference in Lisbon 2 weeks ago. Trinkaus described the skeleton last week in Columbus, Ohio, at the annual meeting of the Paleoanthropology Society. A full description of the new fossil will appear in PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. "This kid surprised us," Trinkaus says. "The mosaic of anatomical features tells us that when Neandertals and modern humans met, they regularly interbred."
Some researchers at the Columbus meeting who saw slides of the new specimen echoed Trinkaus' view. Others argued either that any interbreeding was minimal or that the fossil merely represents a stocky modern human.
Much of the child's skull was crushed, although the scientists recovered brain-case pieces and the lower jaw and teeth. The rest of the skeleton was largely intact. Tooth development places the child's age at between 3 1/2 and 5 years, Trinkaus notes. Radiocarbon analyses yielded the burial's estimated age.
Modern human traits observed on the skeleton include a well-formed chin and relatively small lower arms. But the huge "snowplow" jaw, large front teeth, short legs, and broad chest betray a Neandertal heritage, Trinkaus says.
The prehistoric child did not belong to a group of modern humans who may have evolved squat bodies suited to Ice Age conditions, he asserts. Southwestern Europe did not get cold enough to instigate such changes, in his opinion.
Trinkaus suggests that Neandertals and modern humans interbred as closely related members of the same species, as some subspecies of baboons and other animals interbreed today.
Scientists who argue that modern humanity arose simultaneously in two or more parts of the world over at least the past 1 million years support Trinkaus' interpretation. "The Portuguese find indicates that one anatomically variable human species inhabited western Europe," contends Milford H. Wolpoff of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. "Human populations have always interbred."
I read one theory that places homoerectus in Australia prior to the arrival of 'moderns' 60k years ago and that the Aboroginies(sp) of today are the result of that meeting. (Ansestors of a combination of the two)
An experiment gone wrong? ;-)
So, how do you explain the 'hybrid' skeleton that was found? (No DNA)
One freak skeleton could best be explained as a birth defect. This is the standard problem with evolutionism; the theory absolutely demands that there should be many thousands of such skeletons, and so they search for a hundred years and finally manage to come up with one deformed neanderthal skeleton and proclaim victory. Likewise, according to evolutionary doctrine, the vast bulk of all fossils should be intermediate forms and, after combintg the Earth for 140 years, they come up with a little collection of 100 or so freaks, all of which could be explained without resort to evolutionism, and proclaim themselves winners.
What'w wrong with the picture? Discover Magazine ran a big article on the problem, and this was back around September of 96 I believe, which noted that neanderthals and modern humans had lived in close proximity for long periods of time particularly in the levant, and yet there was no evidence of crossbreeding whatsoever which was totally contrary to what you would expect. The question they asked was how was it possible that the two groups lived close together like that without sex ever apparently happening even once, noting that sex is generally a more powerful stimulus than any form of racism or tribalism.
Basically, that is the reality of the situation, and not the one freak skeleton.
What is a scientist's definition of a "few" lineages?
Your newest question:
What is a scientist's definition of a "few" lineages?
Where are you going with this line of questions?
Horses are only 25% as efficent as cows at converting cellouse into nutrients/energy. Humans cannot digest cellouse at all. During times of famine, (usually droughts), the horse population relative to cows plummets. (At least in ancient times)
(Sorry, don't know how to insert that picture again.)
Seriously, I sometime wonder about this cave art, or even the Indian petroglyphs we have here in Kansas. Did this really have some spritual significance, or is it more like the grafitti you see on a passing freight train?
Simply trying to determine if a horse of 30,000 years ago, considering evolution, could look EXACTLY like a horse today......
More skilled than some of the artists funded by the NEA.
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