Free Republic

...we find the now inhospitable and hyper-arid zone of the southern Jordan Rift Valley was frequently lush and well-watered in the past.Our evidence suggests this valley had a riverine and wetland zone that would have provided ideal passage... out of Africa and deep into the Levant and Arabia...Our findings from sedimentary sections ranging 5 to 12 metres in thickness showed ecosystem fluctuations over time, including cycles of dry and humid environments. We also found evidence for the presence of ancient rivers and wetlands.Luminescence dating showed the sedimentary environments formed between 125,000 and 43,000 years ago, suggesting there had been multiple...

Contact: Robert Sanders rsanders@berkeley.edu 510-643-6998 University of California - Berkeley Alleged 40,000-year-old human footprints in Mexico much, much older than thought Berkeley -- Alleged footprints of early Americans found in volcanic rock in Mexico are either extremely old - more than 1 million years older than other evidence of human presence in the Western Hemisphere - or not footprints at all, according to a new analysis published this week in Nature. The study was conducted by geologists at the Berkeley Geochronology Center and the University of California, Berkeley, as part of an investigative team of geologists and anthropologists from the...

On September 10th the media began highlighting the latest fossil find which is argued, once again, to be representative of an ancient ancestor of humans—Homo naledi. We are wary about how we respond to brand new discoveries, since always the “jury is still out” when these stories are first splashed in the media and portrayed as conclusive proof of various claims. We have documented their rashness time and again (e.g., Miller, 2015a; Miller, 2015b; Miller, 2015c), and this story is no exception. Fox News highlighted South African deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa’s statement that “history books will have to be rewritten”...

Niede Guidon still remembers her astonishment when she glimpsed the paintings. Preserved amid the bromeliad-encrusted plateaus that tower over the thorn forests of northeast Brazil, the ancient rock art depicts fierce battles among tribesmen, orgiastic scenes of prehistoric revelry and hunters pursuing their game, spears in hand. “These were stunning compositions, people and animals together, not just figures alone,” said Dr. Guidon, 81, remembering what first lured her and other archaeologists in the 1970s to this remote site where jaguars still prowl. Hidden in the rock shelters where prehistoric humans once lived, the paintings number in the thousands. Some are...

LONDON (Reuters) - An analysis of thousands of skulls shows modern humans originated from a single point in Africa and finally lays to rest the idea of multiple origins, British scientists said on Wednesday. Most researchers agree that mankind spread out of Africa starting about 50,000 years ago, quickly establishing Stone Age cultures throughout Europe, Asia and Australia. But a minority have argued, using skull data, that divergent populations evolved independently in different areas. The genetic evidence has always strongly supported the single origin theory, and now results from a study of more than 6,000 skulls held around the world...

"Australopithocines evolved into Homo erectus around 1.5 million years ago and Homo erectus, in turn, evolved into Homo sapiens around 400,000 years ago." This is presented to school children as no less certain than Washington's crossing of the Delaware. The statement makes dual claims: (1) there are fundamental anatomical differences between these three categories, and (2) each occurs in the right time frame. Let us examine these claims. The anatomical differences between these three groups must be very substantial for the statement to have any meaning. Any anthropologist should be able to spot a Homo erectus on a crowded subway...

Timothy G. Standish, biology First published in In Six Days Science and origins testimony #9 Edited by John F. Ashton Dr. Standish is associate professor of biology at Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Michigan. He holds a B.S. in zoology from Andrews University, an M.S. in biology from Andrews University, and a Ph.D. in biology and public policy from George Mason University (University of Virginia), Charlottesville, Virginia. He teaches genetics at Andrews University and is currently researching the genetics of cricket (Achita domesticus) behavior. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reading The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins was a pivotal experience for me. I had...

NEW YORK (AP) -- A new analysis of bones unearthed nearly 40 years ago in Ethiopia has pushed the fossil record of modern humans back to nearly 200,000 years ago -- perhaps close to the dawn of the species. Researchers determined that the specimens are around 195,000 years old. Previously, the oldest known fossils of Homo sapiens were Ethiopian skulls dated to about 160,000 years ago. Genetic studies estimate that Homo sapiens arose about 200,000 years ago, so the new research brings the fossil record more in line with that, said John Fleagle of Stony Brook University in New York,...

One more piece of evidence has been added to the debate on whether there was any interbreeding between Neandertals and early modern humans. Around 50,000 years ago, small groups of anatomically modern humans migrated out of Africa and began to colonize the rest of the world. Known as Cro-Magnons for the site in France where the earliest remains were found, these early humans co-existed with the Neandertals then living in Europe until the Neandertals became extinct roughly 30,000 years ago. What happened and why—did the two groups war, did they mate, did they even meet?—has been an enduring puzzle...