Archaeologica.org

In the archaeology news section for January 13th listed a report from Australia about ancient fossil hominid skulls being found that predated any other fossil hominid skulls anywhere else, including in Africa. As a person who is very interested in the subject of human evolution I read the article with interest. The claims were fantastic, and if true would overturn much of our understanding of human evolution. In the posted article the source of the information was attibuted to Rex Gilroy of the Australian-Pacific Archaeological Research Centre. A quick internet search for Mr. Gilroy and his organization reveals, unfortunately, that this story is complete bunk. Mr. Gilroy it turns out runs a webpage ( http://mysteriousaustralia.com ) that shows him to be a 'Yowie' researcher amongst other highly speculative lines of inquiry. He claims to have found over a dozen hominid skulls (that alone would be remarkable for one researcher) but a check of the pictures on his website show only rocks as far as I can tell. The pictures are poor so it is hard to say with certainty but I was very unimpressed. How this story made it into Archaeoligca's new page is beyond me.

Rex Gilroy is aware that his claims will not be acceptable to the hard-core 'Out of Africa' school of anthropologists, but he believes that this attitude will be changed as further pre-Aboriginal fossil finds come to light in this most ancient of continents.

Glad that he understands that!

People see two holes in a rock and say "its a face!"
I looked at Gilroy's website and it reminded me of the earlier posting on this forum, "Artifacts discovered unlike any ever found in America."
It also reminded me of the old
Ripley's Believe it or Not museum in St. Petersburg, FL, which I visited
when I was a kid. (It has since been modernized and sanitized.)
I believe they had the Fiji Mermaid and a few other things that were pretty famous, shrunken heads and the like, and it was very dusty, dark and creepy in there.
My favorite exhibit was the PETRIFIED HAMBURGER. It was sent in by a farmer back in the 30's who had found it while plowing. Well, it did
resemble a hamburger...or maybe a sausage biscuit, or maybe three layers of weathered rock.

"Bunk" doesn't even begin to describe it! That Gilroy asshole is a pathetic little fraudster.
A century ago he would have been with the travelling carnival selling snake-oil or operating the "woman-with-3-breasts" display. (Probably both).

I will admit, that crap got by me. Sorry guys, still a little flu residual in the brain.....


MichelleH
Admin/Mod

No problem, Michelle. It was good for a laugh.

J/M would probably swear that it's a piece of the True Cross.

Chalk it up to the curse of Friday the 13th Michelle. LOL! Thanks for your hard work and hope you get fully well. Flu = NO FUN.

Minimalist wrote:J/M would probably swear that it's a piece of the True Cross.

Geez....you really are missing J/M

I note how there's no mention at all of present day Aboriginals.

Their thousand and thousands of years on local knowledge is conveniently forgotten.

[quote="Anonymous"]I note how there's no mention at all of present day Aboriginals.
Their thousand and thousands of years on local knowledge is conveniently forgotten. [/quote]

"Knowledge"...? Come on!
A body of entirely uncheckable rumours and fairy tales – impressively labeled 'oral history' – hardly constitutes "knowledge"!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge

Rokcet Scientist wrote: "Knowledge"...? Come on!
A body of entirely uncheckable rumours and fairy tales – impressively labeled 'oral history' – hardly constitutes "knowledge"!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge

A lovely description of Wikipedia there, aptly followed by the link!

[quote="Realist"][quote="Rokcet Scientist"]
"Knowledge"...? Come on!
A body of entirely uncheckable rumours and fairy tales – impressively labeled 'oral history' – hardly constitutes "knowledge"!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge[/quote]

A lovely description of Wikipedia there, aptly followed by the link![/quote]

Cute statement, Realist, but unfortunately VERY beside the mark: apparently you missed the news – precisely a month ago – that Wikipedia, measured against the Encyclopaedia Britannica – has proved entirely correct!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4530930.stm

And you apparently missed a better story around the same time. A former member of JFK's office was falsely implicated in his murder on Wikipedia and threatened to sue. The Wikipedia owners had to admit the story was false, and the poster virtually untraceable, leading to new rules where you had to actually join with verifiable information before being allowed to post. The 'Encyclopedia Britannica' dodge was obviously only an attempt at damage-limitation, since it followed on suspiciously close from the original scandal.
Which is why only the gullible rely on "information" from Wikipedia.