Many Groups of Archaic Humans

 

Mary and Louis Leakey in 1962.

“People frequently ask me why I devote so much time to seeking out facts about man’s past…the past shows clearly that we all have a common origin and that our differences in race, color, and creed are only superficial.”-Louis Leakey

Louis S.B. Leakey was an African-born English anthropologist. He was born Aug. 7, 1903, in Kabete, Kenya. His parents were Anglican missionaries among the Kikuyu people of East Africa. Louis and his second wife Mary established an excavation site at Olduvai Gorge to search for fossils. The team made unprecedented discoveries of hominids millions of years old, including H. habilis and H. erectus. Leakey died on October 1, 1972.

Louis and Mary Leakey's legacy cannot be overstated. Their work had a tremendous impact on our understanding of human origins. The Leakeys recognized that there were various archaic humans living millions of years ago. In 1965, Louis Leakey wrote:

"Current findings on human evolution have brought us to the position where much of what we believed to have theoretically happened proves to be incorrect. Much that is in the textbooks, much that is still being taught in universities about human evolution is no longer true, but it continues to be taught because the implications of recent discoveries are insufficiently understood.

It was principally Weidenreich, Le Gros Clark, and a few of the people of that generation, just previous to mine, who put forward and strongly defended the idea that man had gone through a very simple series of stages of evolution: the pongid stage, an Australopithecine stage, a Pithecanthropus stage, and then man as we know him today. Theoretically, this had always seemed highly unlikely to some of us, since it meant that man had done something which no other mammal had done: evolved in a single straight line instead of having one main branch, with many experimental side branches which failed to make the grade. Yet the old theory persists. Linked with it is the concept, still very, very widely taught and very widely believed, that man in the relatively near past was at a pongid or ape stage of evolution. In such a very short time, three or four million years, as the books and many of my colleagues put it, we are supposed to have lost our huge canine teeth, lost our simian shelves, lost our long, brachiating arms, ceased to dwell in the trees, and many other similar but, I fear, erroneous concepts. These were theories which in the light of current facts no longer stand up."

Mary Leakey’s 1979 discoveries of footprints in Tanzania added to the evidence that humans walked the earth over 3 million years ago. At Laetoli, about 25 miles south of Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, Leakey discovered footprints of a man, woman and child created about 3.6 million years ago and preserved under falling ash from the nearby Sadiman volcano. The raised arch and rounded heel of the footprints showed that whoever left these footprints walked as humans walk today.

When Jeremy DeSilva compared the ankle joint, the tibia and the talus fossils of human ancestors ("hominins") between 4.12 million to 1.53 million years old, he discovered that all of the ankle joints resembled those of modern humans rather than those of apes. Chimpanzees flex their ankles 45 degrees from normal resting position. This makes it possible for apes to climb trees with great ease. While walking, humans flex their ankles a maximum of 20 degrees. The human ankle bones are quite distinct from those of apes. (Read about DeSilva’s research here.)

A recent discovery of a complete fourth metatarsal of A. afarensis at Hadar that shows the deep, flat base and tarsal facets that "imply that its midfoot had no ape-like midtarsal break. These features show that the A. afarensis foot was functionally like that of modern humans." (Carol Ward, William H. Kimbel, Donald C. Johanson, Feb. 2011) Read the report here.

Related reading: Louis Leakey: Scientist of the Day; 1.5 Million-Year Human Footprints in Kenya; Neanderthal Humans; Many Groups of Archaic Humans; Time to Jettison Young Earth Creationism; Was Lucy Human?; Ego's role in presentation of human origins

YEC and the Evidence of Red Ocher Burials

 

If you hold to Young Earth Creationism, you must deny the weighty evidence that suggests that God was working among early human populations.

Anthropologists agree that red ocher used in burial is symbolic of blood. They do not agree as to the nature of the blood. Does red ocher burial testify to a belief that the buried individual is returned to the womb of Mother Earth? Is it symbolic of placental blood? Or is it symbolic of a sacrifice of an animal that was then eaten? Did the red ocher symbolize sacrificial blood covering? 

While anthropologists do not agree on the nature of the blood being symbolized, they do agree that the practice of red ocher burial suggests the hope for life after death among Mesolithic and Neolithic populations. 

See this: BIBLICAL ANTHROPOLOGY: Red Ocher Burial Signifies Religious Belief

Inerrancy or Contextual Incongruities?

The diagram shows Nimrod's Sumerian wife. She named their firstborn son after her father, Asshur. This is an example of the cousin bride's naming prerogative, a distinctive feature of the early Hebrew marriage and ascendancy pattern.

Dr. Alice C. Linsley

Understanding the biblical texts requires paying attention to the anthropologically significant data. The empirical approach of Biblical Anthropology rejects the notion that there are "errors" in Genesis. Instead, it recognizes contextual incongruities. Consider a Native American chief with a fleet of birch wood canoes controlling trade between villages on the Mississippi in 1720. Fast forward a mere 200 years to 1920 when a river magnate controls commerce on the same river with his fleet of riveted steel ships. Same river, very different cultural contexts.

The contexts of the biblical persons in Genesis 4-12 were as distantly in the past to First Century Jews as they are to most readers today. Adam and Eve lived around 5000-4800 BC in a vast well-watered region called Eden. One of their descendants Nimrod left Kush (East Africa) and established his territory on the Euphrates River around 3500 BC (Gen. 10). Abraham was one of Nimrod’s descendants. Abraham the Hebrew controlled the water systems at Hebron and Beersheba and the wells that he dug in Gerar around 2000 BC. To understand biblical history, we must grapple with these contextual incongruities and the best disciplines to apply in this effort are cultural anthropology, archaeology, DNA studies, and linguistics.

Critical reading avoids imposing a presumed order or interpretation on the text. To flesh out the narrative we must notice the incongruities and discrepancies, trace the layers, and listen for the subordinated voices. Those often are the voices of women.

The term "layers" is helpful if we imagine the growth rings of a tree. The oldest rings are near the center of the tree. The layers are visible when we cut through the tree. That is what Biblical Anthropology does with the canonical Scriptures. It seeks to identify the oldest layers and to use that data to gain a clearer picture of the social structure of the early Hebrew. Antecedents matter!

Biblical anthropology asks about antecedents. It explores what comes before what is described in the text. What events preceded the events recounted? It seeks to understand the cultural context of the earliest persons named in Genesis: Adam, Eve, Cain, Seth, Noah, etc. It is concerned with ancestors and received traditions. From what earlier context did certain practices develop? What traces of ancient memory can be uncovered?

Over the past 7 years the international forum The Bible and Anthropology has helped to advance the science of Biblical Anthropology. If this research interests you, consider joining that forum.

Related reading: The Dispersion of the Early Hebrew; BIBLICAL ANTHROPOLOGY: The Hebrew were a Caste; Just Genesis: Learn About the Early Hebrew

Annie Maunder: Pioneer Astronomer

 

Annie Scott Dill Maunder FRAS was an Irish-British astronomer, who recorded the first evidence of the movement of sunspot emergence from the poles toward the equator over the Sun's 11-year cycle. She captured the longest coronial streamer (a ray like structure coming out from the sun) on record.

Annie was regarded as an expert in eclipse photography and was asked to take charge of photography of the Canadian Government's eclipse expedition to Labrador.

Annie was the daughter of the Rev William Andrew Russell, minister of 2nd Strabane Presbyterian Church, Co Tyrone, Ireland. She attended the Ladies’ Collegiate School, Belfast, and Girton College Cambridge, where she attained honors in the mathematical tripos (degree) examinations in 1889 and was Girton’s top mathematician of her year.

She began working at the Astronomer Royal in 1891. She was assigned to work in the solar department under its chief (Edward) Walter Maunder, photographing the sun daily through a telescope, weather permitting; then developing the photographs and examining the images with a measuring micrometer.

Sunspots were of particular interest to the department. Russell witnessed a giant spot in July 1892, and the resulting magnetic storm - a disturbance of the Earth’s magnetic field caused by material emanating from the sun in a manner not fully understood at the time - was recorded on the observatory’s instruments.

Annie joined the British Astronomical Association (BAA), and in 1894 was made editor of its journal, a role she carried out for 35 years.

Related reading: Annie Maunder - Presbyterian Historical Society of Ireland; STEM Education: A Turbulent Sun

Conch Trumpet Used to Gather the People

Indigenous Americans apparently used sound to organize local communities similar to the way that the Israelites used the shofar.

Conch-shell trumpets have been found in burial contexts at Chaco Canyon, despite the nearest source of the shells being some 1,000km away. Today, these shells are used in contemporary Pueblo ritual practices, suggesting that they were also significant in ancient Chacoan society.

Previous studies indicate that sound was integral to ritual pageantry in Chaco Canyon. However, it was unknown whether communities beyond the canyon also placed significance on auditory experience.

Researchers found that "if somebody blew a conch-shell trumpet from the great house at the center of all five Chacoan communities, the sound would have reached almost all of the surrounding settlements."

Chaco Canyon was a major center of ancestral Pueblo culture between 850 and 1250 B.C. It was a place of ceremonies, trade, and political activity for the prehistoric Four Corners area. Chaco is remarkable for its monumental public and ceremonial buildings and its distinctive architecture. It has an ancient urban ceremonial center.

Read more here: Call of the conch; Chaco Culture

Stone Age Humans Used Wood

 

Humans of the Stone Age were extremely resourceful. They used organic materials close at hand to fabricate tools and useful implements. Gesher Benot Ya'aqov in Israel, is an ancient site on the bank of the Jordan River south of the historic Lake Hula. Excavations exposed the remains of fires from 780,000 years ago. There is evidence of cooked plant foods, nuts, and fish. Some wood is also preserved in the sediments, including a wooden plank with intentional shaping. This currently is the oldest modified wooden artifact in the archaeological record.

Dr. John Hawks, a world renown paleoanthropologist, recently wrote a fascinating article about the prehistoric use of organic materials. The article focuses mainly on the use of wood. Hawks wrote: 

"The most well-known archaeological site with ancient wood is Schöningen, in central Germany. At the edge of a lake 300,000 years ago, people hunted horses and left behind the butchered horse bones, stone tools, and many wooden spears, throwing sticks, and other artifacts."

 

Another site where Stone Age wooden artifacts have been found is in Italy. Hawks explains:

"Poggetti Vecchi, Italy, is a site with thermal pools that preserve evidence of straight-tusked elephants and other animals from around 170,000 years ago. Archaeologists have uncovered least 39 wooden tools, many of them interpreted as digging sticks. Many of them were described in 2018 in an article led by Biancamaria Aranguren.

All the artifacts identified at Poggetti Vecchi were made from boxwood, Buxus sempervirens."

 

Another discovery too place at Kalambo Falls. The Kalambo Falls is just upstream of where it enters Lake Tanganyika. Hawks reports:

"Last year, Lawrence Barham and collaborators reported an unexpected discovery from their recent work at Kalambo Falls. Opening new excavations into the riverbank deposits, they uncovered many wood artifacts. These include an apparent digging stick, logs that were cut by stone blades, and a remarkable pair of logs that had been notched to fit one over the other. Barham and coworkers are not sure what the function of the notched log structure may have been, but they speculate that it may have served as the foundation of a hut or shelter, or it may have served as a platform or part of a walkway, or even as a workbench. What is clear is that ancient hominins applied patterned effort to shape the logs and build with them. This structure is around 476,000 years old."

 

Also in Africa, Hawks notes:

"one of the earliest wooden artifacts from Africa is from Florisbad, South Africa. That site is a natural spring with peat deposits that can preserve organic materials for a very long time. A number of wooden artifacts were identified during excavation of the springs in the 1930s and thereafter, but these tended to disintegrate quickly after excavation. The anthropologist Kenneth Oakley visited Florisbad and took one wooden artifact to London, where the wood was treated with chemicals similar to those used to preserve artifacts from later waterlogged sites. The artifact was later examined by Desmond Clark, who interpreted it as the broken point of a larger throwing stick. In 2003, Marion Bamford and Zoë Henderson carried out a re-examination of this artifact to provide some modern detail. One of the most interesting aspects was the wood that it is made from: kundanyoka knobwood (Zanthoxylum chalybeum), which today occurs no further south than Zimbabwe. The implication is that a very much warmer climate occurred around Florisbad at the time this tool was made, although the dating and context of the artifact are still uncertain."

Hawks points out that wooden artifacts also have been found in southwestern China. Xing Gao and collaborators excavated a large area south of the city of Kunming and exposed levels of ancient lakeshore between 361,000 and 250,000 years old. The excavations revealed stone artifacts, remains of varied plants and pollen, and 35 wooden tools.

Additionally, Hawks notes that "Aranbaltza is a floodplain site in northern Spain, with several archaeological localities dating back to between 140,000 and 50,000 years ago. One of these localities is Aranbaltza III, where in 2015 Joseba Rios-Garaizar and coworkers recovered a pointed wooden tool, around 20 cm in length. The evidence of crushing and wear at the pointed end suggested that this stick had been used for digging."

Read more about Stone Age wooden artifacts here: "Four amazing Stone Age sites with ancient wooden artifacts"

Related reading: Materials Science (Part 1 - Metals); Materials Science (Part 2 - Ores); Materials Science (Part 3 - Resins and Oils); Materials Science (Part 4 - Conglomerates); Archaic Shell Technology

This Microfluidic Chip Can Remove Risky Cells.

 

Advances in medical science are happening so quickly that it is almost impossible to keep up with the latest developments. Some new treatments are helping patients with spinal cord injuries. Now a small plastic device may be added to a variety of treatments.

A tiny device built by scientists at MIT and the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology might be used to improve therapy treatments for patients suffering from spinal cord injuries.

In cell therapy, clinicians create induced pluripotent stem cells by reprogramming some skin or blood cells taken from a patient. To treat a spinal cord injury, these pluripotent stem cells can become progenitor cells, which differentiate into spinal cord cells. These progenitors are then transplanted back into the patient.

These new cells can regenerate part of the injured spinal cord. However, pluripotent stem cells that don’t fully change into progenitors can form tumors. These are the risky cells that need to be removed.

This research team developed a microfluidic cell sorter that can remove about half of the cells that can potentially become tumors without causing any damage to the fully formed progenitor cells.

Read more here.