Oh, Boy.....The Club Will Go Apeshit if This Pans Out!

[Minimalist]

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic ... uman_genus

Most paleoanthropologists have favored an African origin for the potential human ancestor Homo erectus. But new evidence shows the species occupied a West Asian site called Dmanisi from 1.85 million to 1.77 million years ago, at the same time or slightly before the earliest evidence of this humanlike species in Africa, say geologist Reid Ferring of the University of North Texas in Denton and his colleagues.

The new Dmanisi discoveries point to an Asian homeland for H. erectus, the scientists propose online June 6 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[john]

My dear sir,

I respectfully disagree. True to form

Das Klub will merely go "ape".

As in

Ape! Ape! Ape! Ape! Ape! Ape! Ape!


john

[kbs2244]

You have to remember the time frames these guys work with compared to the generation time span of the creatures.

They consider half a million years as nothing.

But a whole lot of guys could do a whole lot of walking around in half a million years.

[E.P. Grondine]

http://malaysiabreakingnews.blogspot.co ... r-her.html

Homo Heidelbergensis in Malaysia at 1.83 MYA

[Minimalist]

E.P., I'm borrowing your link for a similar discussion at Atheistforums.org.

[oldarchystudent]

OK so what exactly is going on here?

More and more I 'm seeing timelines being pushed back, from overturning Clovis-first to finding Hiedelbergensis in Malaysia? Schock's redating of the Sphinx, the questions posed by Gobekli Tepe, it goes on and on.

What does the timeline of human evolution and civilization look like now? I'm thinking everything we thought we knew about history is pretty much down the toilet, and I find that very exciting.

[E.P. Grondine]

Watch yourself on Shoch's redating of the Sphinx and Bauval/West/Hancock's redating of the Pyramids. Maybe, but there was no one grand civilization that taught all the ignorant other people.

What's going on in SE Asia is that excavation is finally occurring there, now that the chaos of colonialism is at an end.

The scholars who maintained the clovis first paradigm are passing on, while excavations are revealing early pre-clovis. Think of it as a radio-carbon revolution.

One thing that's going on is DNA studies.
Another thing that is going on are impact studies.

[oldarchystudent]

I read Schoch's Voyages of the Pyramid Builders. While I was impressed with the evidence for the redating of the Sphinx, I'm far from sold on his view of diffusionism.

Was there a proto-civilization that spawned some or all of the others? Maybe, some of the theories are tantalizing, but I haven't seen anything that convinces me yet. I'd love to see conclusive evidence if it's out there.

My hope is that we learn from the pre-Clovis finds, and dig a little deeper (literally) when investigating paeleo sites, here in North America and around the world. I am concerned that the Clovis-first paradigm led archaeologists to stop digging when they came to the bottom of the Clovis horizon. I think a lot of stuff was probably waiting for them if they had just gone down another foot or two...

I'm in two minds about diffusionism, but I am convinced that civilization is older than we say it is. I get frustrated when Gobekli Tepe is interpreted as evidence that hunter-gatherers were also hanging around in the area to build something monumental like that. I think you have to reach a state of sedentism before you can handle something of that scale.

[Minimalist]

I think you have to reach a state of sedentism before you can handle something of that scale.

What you need is a) the political power to organize people for a project and b) the population needed to pull it off in the first place. No one has as yet demonstrated that H/G models can produce that sort of excess population.

[E.P. Grondine]

I read Schoch's Voyages of the Pyramid Builders. While I was impressed with the evidence for the redating of the Sphinx, I'm far from sold on his view of diffusionism.

Was there a proto-civilization that spawned some or all of the others? Maybe, some of the theories are tantalizing, but I haven't seen anything that convinces me yet. I'd love to see conclusive evidence if it's out there.

My hope is that we learn from the pre-Clovis finds, and dig a little deeper (literally) when investigating paeleo sites, here in North America and around the world. I am concerned that the Clovis-first paradigm led archaeologists to stop digging when they came to the bottom of the Clovis horizon. I think a lot of stuff was probably waiting for them if they had just gone down another foot or two...

I'm in two minds about diffusionism, but I am convinced that civilization is older than we say it is. I get frustrated when Gobekli Tepe is interpreted as evidence that hunter-gatherers were also hanging around in the area to build something monumental like that. I think you have to reach a state of sedentism before you can handle something of that scale.

Okay, in my usual way I will come down from the mountain and deliver the truth.

Man had maritime technology very early on. This led to an increase in food sources and the exchange of technological improvements within the navigation area. Not only do you have sea food added to the diet, the use of other semi-domesticates began.

There were several particularly good environments for advance. One was SE Asia, in particular the coast of India, the other being the Black Sea and the lakes that existed before the YD. As the YD the Black Sea flooded following the YD impacts, one advanced people spread out into the Mediterranean Sea, then to the seaboard of the Atlantic Ocean. The people living in the Black Sea had nearly speciated.

That is why you have Gobekli Tepe.

[E.P. Grondine]

BTW, SE hominid evolution was set out in "Man and Impact in the Americas", a volume which many refered to at the time as pseudo-scientific nonsense.

Its author was regularly called a liar, a crank, and/or a thief.

[Cognito]

Man had maritime technology very early on. This led to an increase in food sources and the exchange of technological improvements within the navigation area. Not only do you have sea food added to the diet, the use of other semi-domesticates began.

Obviously, people always settled near or on sources of fresh water, a primary requirement for life. Water is also the transport system when no roads are available. Could pre-YD humans build roads? Yes. Would they have been economically feasible? No.

There were several particularly good environments for advance. One was SE Asia, in particular the coast of India, the other being the Black Sea and the lakes that existed before the YD. As the YD the Black Sea flooded following the YD impacts, one advanced people spread out into the Mediterranean Sea, then to the seaboard of the Atlantic Ocean. The people living in the Black Sea had nearly speciated.

Interesting comment regarding near speciation. Half the world's haplogroups originated in the Black Sea-Caucasus areas and dispersed worldwide with the post-LGM floods. They didn't disperse rapidly by walking.

[oldarchystudent]

Related...

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature ... _ancestors

[Minimalist]

BTW, SE hominid evolution was set out in "Man and Impact in the Americas", a volume which many refered to at the time as pseudo-scientific nonsense.

Its author was regularly called a liar, a crank, and/or a thief.

Now, E.P. be fair. That is not exactly what I said!

[E.P. Grondine]

BTW, SE hominid evolution was set out in "Man and Impact in the Americas", a volume which many refered to at the time as pseudo-scientific nonsense.

Its author was regularly called a liar, a crank, and/or a thief.

Now, E.P. be fair. That is not exactly what I said!

My apologies for not including your own first responses in the list, min.
You drew a completely inaccurate parallels between Ancient Near East text sources and other peoples' myth systems and Native American text and oral sources, and then based your assessment on it.
I'm looking for a single word to insert into this little list of adjectives, something like"fool".
Any suggestions?