By Joan d'Arc
Who came up with
Person Man, degraded man, Person Man? - Linnell/Flansburgh, “They Might Be Giants”
In his book The
Twelfth Planet, Sitchin posits that the Nefilim (Anunnaki) “did not create
the mammals or the primates or the hominids, or the genus Homo,” but rather,
created the first Homo sapiens. Sitchin deduces from the Sumerian
writings that the Anunnaki arrived about 450,000 years ago, just before the
warmer climates of the interglacial period occurring about 435,000 years ago
“brought about a proliferation of food and animals,” and “speeded up the
appearance and spread of an advanced manlike ape, Homo erectus.”
Cylinder seals of the Sumerians depict the “shaggy ape-man among his animal
friends,” and complain that it let the animals loose from Anunnaki traps.
Another Sumerian text states that “the Mother Goddess gave to her creature,
Man, ‘a skin as the skin of a god,’ a smooth, hairless body, quite different
from that of the shaggy ape-man.”
Sitchin contends
in this book that the space travelers took the species Homo erectus and
“implanted on him their own image and likeness.” Importantly, he asserts:
“Evolution cannot account for the appearance of Homo sapiens, which
happened virtually overnight in terms of the millions of years evolution
requires, and with no evidence of earlier stages that would indicate a gradual
change from Homo erectus.”
On the other hand,
in his book The Gods of Eden, William Bramley has queried whether it was
the species Homo sapiens which was the guinea pig for the genetic
engineering of the Anunnaki gods, and whether it was the species Homo
sapiens sapiens which was the end result of these manipulations. In support
of his thesis, he quotes the Encyclopedia Americana’s interpretation of
the fossil record of sapiens sapiens as appearing “with seeming
suddenness just over 30,000 years ago, probably earlier in eastern than in
western Europe.”
Which Shaggy “Ape-Man” Was It?
It is commonly
agreed that Homo sapiens sapiens, fully modern humans, arrived on
the scene rather abruptly only about 30,000 years ago. Whether or not we agree
with the currently accepted evolutionary paradigm, let’s see how it squares
with the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis, and as well, let’s explore a few
alternative explanations.
It is commonly
suggested in anthropological literature that “bipedal hominids” appeared in
Africa between three and four million years ago. Fossils of the genus Australopithecus
are “well represented by many specimens from various places in Africa,”
displaying a pelvis which would “accompany bipedal locomotion,” and generally a
cranial capacity which is “small by human standards but large for a small ape,”
write Lasker and Tyzzer in a college text book entitled Physical Anthropology.
Crude stone tools also appeared about 2.2 million years ago but it is generally
unknown “whether the earliest stone tools were made by Australopithecus
or by a more advanced contemporary hominid.”
It is clear,
however, that these populations were very distinct from modern humans. Extreme
variation has been noted in this species, which has led some scholars to
believe there were at least two species of Australopithecus, while
others consider these variations to be the result of differences between local
populations, sexes, or variations in the gene pool arising over time.
Regardless of these differences of opinion, it is widely agreed, write Lasker
and Tyzzer, that “at least the early members of the genus were evidently
ancestral to our species.” They clarify, “evidence from East Africa shows that
divergence somehow occurred within the lineage, since robust Australopithecus
was apparently contemporary with members of the genus Homo about 1.5 million
years ago.”
On the other hand,
the transition between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens has been a
difficult issue for anthropologists to settle. Importantly, although each
“species” exhibits its own distinctive traits, “there is a tendency to
exaggerate the differences.” Ignoring questionable specimens and limiting
consideration to fossils found in Java, Peking and East Africa, write Lasker
and Tyzzer (p. 352-354), “the range of variation of many features of Homo
erectus falls within that of modern Homo sapiens.” In addition,
there is a remarkable similarity between Homo erectus finds from Lake
Turkana, East Africa, dated 1.5 million years before present and Homo
erectus fossils discovered in Choukoutien, China, dated 400,000 to 500,000
years B.P. (before present), suggesting a “long equilibrium period during which
little change occurred.”
We need to remind
ourselves that these lineages are, at best, educated guesses; that is, guesses
made by people educated in the Darwinian tradition. For instance, in his
book Mankind Evolving, Dobhansky suggests that the evolution of Australopithecine
to Homo sapiens occurred in a continuous lineage within a single
gene pool. Stephen Stanley disagrees. In his book The New Evolutionary
Timetable, he outlines his thesis that “a very small number of discrete,
long-lived intermediate species may have overlapped each other.” Zuckerman has
stated that “attempts to place fossils in an evolutionary sequence depend
partly on guesswork, and partly on some preconceived conception of the course
of hominid evolution.”
In short, it’s
best not to take any of these contrivances very seriously. The species Homo
habilis (the “Handy Man”), the Leakey family’s 1964 missing link, consisted
of a lower jaw with teeth, a collarbone, a finger bone, and some small
fragments of skull. For the first time, writes Richard Milton in Shattering
the Myths of Darwinism, “a new human species was to be described on the
basis of teeth and fragments alone, and in circumstances where the association
of the bones as those of a single individual was conjectural.” It has since
been suggested that one of the hand bones is actually a piece of vertebra, two
of the other bones may belong to a tree-dwelling monkey, and six other bones
came from an unspecified non-hominid.
With regard to Homo
habilis, its hands and feet are also very apelike, calling into question
the human-like picture of the Leakey’s “Handy Man,” as well as other “supposed
human ancestors one usually encounters in Time-Life picture books and National
Geographic Society television specials.” According to Cremo and Thompson in Hidden
History of the Human Race, some researchers have even concluded that,
“there was no justification for ‘creating’ this species in the first place.” It
has been suggested that Homo habilis was “mistakenly derived from a
mixture of skeletal elements belonging to Australopithecus and Homo
erectus.” Others believe Homo habilis bones are completely australopithecine.
It is no wonder that Richard Leakey’s assessment of the material in this book,
displayed on the back jacket, states: “Your book is pure humbug and does not
deserve to be taken seriously by anyone but a fool.” Could somebody be feeling
foolish?
I love Lucy
In 1994, two arm
bones, an ulna and a humerus, were established as belonging to the mysterious
creature, Australopithecus afarensis. It is typical that an entire
evolutionary sequence can be extrapolated from a few bones, sometimes even
scattered across a few miles. Such illicit extrapolations can eventually come
to describe a creature which “climbed in the trees but also walked on two legs
when on the ground.” Hmmm. Could these researchers be looking for a
“transitional” find?
The best known
fossil of A. afarensis is the one called Lucy, which you can see at the
Museum of Natural History in New York and London. From her glass case, writes
Richard Milton, “Lucy peers with an intelligent gaze at visitors, her posture
fully erect and humanlike, her hands and feet also short and humanlike.”
Incredibly, Lucy’s apelike appearance was ignored when she was restored to
ostensibly lifelike appearance for both of these museum exhibits. In actuality,
the hands and feet of this species are long and curved like that of a
tree-dwelling ape. The finger and toe bones of this species are “highly curved
even when compared to those of a modern ape like a chimpanzee.” Milton quips:
“Just why Lucy should have been restored to have humanlike hands and feet,
contrary to the known anatomical facts, remains a mystery which only her
restorers can explain.”
Specifically, the
rib cage of A. afarensis is conical in shape, not barrel-shaped like a
human rib cage. Lucy’s shoulders, trunk, and waist have a “strong apelike
aspect to them.” At an international conference held in Paris in 1989,
anthropologist Peter Schmid stated that A. afarensis “would not have
been able to lift its thorax for the kind of deep breathing that we do when we
run.” He explained that the abdomen was potbellied and there was no waist, thus
restricting the flexibility required to accomplish the feat of running. In
addition, Leslie Aiello’s work on body weight and stature of A. afarensis clearly
identified it as an ape. The australopithecines were more apelike in their body
build; heavily built for their stature, like that of a present day ape. Richard
Leakey sums it up: “Australopithecines had been bipeds, but were restricted in
their agility; while species of Homo were athletes.” According to Leakey
in Origin of Humankind, the inner ear structure of A. afarensis
has been shown to exhibit semicircular canals which resemble those of apes. The
structure of the pelvis and lower limbs also suggest an apelike gait. Leakey
also states that A. afarensis was not a toolmaker.
A Gorilla Picnic without the Basket
With regard to
different Australopithecus finds in South Africa called P. robustus,
Ian Tattersall—Curator of the Department of Anthropology at the American Museum
of Natural History—describes in detail the dentition, skull size and shape and
facial architecture of fossils attributed to this 1.7 million year old species.
His illustrated compendium entitled The Last Neanderthal shows an upper
skull of this australopithicene, which exhibits, in his words, a “sagittal
crest reminiscent of those in some gorillas.” Describing the brain case,
Tattersall admits it is “hard to estimate it as a proportion of body size,
because not very much of the body skeleton is known.”
However,
neither the author nor his publisher, Simon & Schuster, are reticent to
reproduce alongside these descriptions an artistic rendition of these supposed
“pre-humans,” with arms and legs of modern human proportion. A color
illustration shows a rather tall and lanky, fully upright gorilla-human couple
carrying a gorilla-human child, walking through an open pasture with a fully
upright gait. The pastoral scene is complete with frolicking gorilla-human
children and several deer: essentially a gorilla-human picnic without the
basket, circa 1.7 million B.P. Alongside this scene, Tattersall suggests: “it
is likely, if not entirely certain, that these hominids used bones and horn
cores for digging.” As noted earlier, Leakey has stated that this hominid
was “not a toolmaker.” Tattersall hasn’t lied; he has merely suggested that the
hominids picked something up and used it to dig. Chimpanizees do that. But, as
sure as they are standing, there should be no question that fully
upright bipeds would be toolmakers. It goes with the territory. Everything is
wrong with this picture.
Such artistic
license has been the hallmark of the Darwinian evolutionary paradigm. As
Richard Milton explains in Shattering the Myths, alongside prints of the
busts of Piltdown man, Java man and Neanderthal man, “Darwinian restorations
based on fragmentary finds of bones and teeth always manage to convey a
distinct ‘missing link’ quality to their former owners.” While the Piltdown man
was a hoax in which someone actually put a human skull with the jaw of an ape,
essentially the same artistic motif blends humans and apes in popular books and
even in museum displays, to give the missing link-look to genuine fossils. The
missing link look also includes the illicit addition of human proportions to
the limbs, and an upright bipedal gait. Milton adds: “this modern confidence
and apparent precision in reconstruction is not based on further discoveries of
fact, but takes place despite the discoveries of recent decades—that the
evidence for humankind’s own evolution is actually nonexistent.”
When I have had
occasion to point out such Frankensteinian artistic license, people have looked
at me incredulously, and have asked, “you mean somebody makes these up?”
Yes, Virginia, they do. It is even more horrendous that museums are guilty of
this crime against truth. They should be held accountable for purveying such
outright lies to the public under the ostensible purpose of education.
In fact, according
to Milton, the status of Australopithecus as an extinct ape was actually
established as long ago as 1954 by zoologist Solly Zuckerman, who deduced, by
measuring the skulls and teeth of a large number of modern apes, human specimens
and Australopithecine fossils, that the head of this species was
balanced like that of an ape, its brain was the same size as a modern gorilla,
and its jaw and teeth are predominantly apelike. The same conclusion was
reached by Charles Oxnard of the University of Western Australia in 1984. In
his book, The Order of Man, he deduced that “Australopithecus is an
extinct ape and is unconnected with humankind’s ancestry.”
Also, in Hidden
History of the Human Race, it is maintained that generations of experts
have been “wildly mistaken” about the australopithecines. The authors point out
that even Louis B. Leakey had concluded that australopithecines were a side
branch and not in the direct lineage of sapiens. Since Homo erectus
was thought to be a descendant of Australopithecus, Leakey also removed erectus
from the line of human ancestry. Zuckerman has been almost a lone voice in the
wilderness, challenging the assumptions about the Australopithecus-Homo
sapiens relationship, but apparently this small band of voices has not been
enough to challenge the status quo. As he asserts, the voice of higher
authority, in due course, has become universally incorporated into all
anthropology text books. This voice of authority has managed to keep the
human-like view of Australopithecus intact in the mind of the general
populace. Incidentally, Cremo and Thompson point to institutions such as the
Carnegie Institute and the Rockefeller Foundation as two of the primary sources
financing evolution, the Big Bang theory, and the materialistic cosmology in
general.
While the current
paradigm invites australopithecines to mankind’s family picnic, it is clear
that defining Australopithecus as simply a “biped” is not enough to put
this creature in the human family, since there are more aspects of humanness
than simply exhibiting some form of bipedalism. In The Origin of Humankind,
Leakey concludes that the shape of the Homo lineage earlier than two
million years ago must be regarded as an unresolved question. This is because
it remains heavily disputed whether the size ranges of early fossils indicate
variation between males and females or whether the size ranges indicate different
species. Under the most ludicrous diagram consisting of two versions of
evolutionary boxes with the names: A. afarensis, A. africanus, H. habilis,
A. robustus, A. bosei, H. erectus, and so forth, Leakey writes: “Family
trees. The existing fossil evidence is interpreted differently by different
scholars, although the overall shape of the inferred evolutionary history is
similar.”
Yes, the overall
shape would be similar, since all of the box designers are working with
the same Darwinian, materialist, causal, paradigm! How could we expect the
shape of an evolutionary diagram to be anything but a linear, historical and
connected movement of the representational animal figures of a powerful Western
totem? Interestingly, it’s even called a “family tree”!
Forms of Temporal Tinkering
It is
questionable, writes Richard Milton in Shattering the Myths of Darwinism,
that “the geological column is a record of processes taking millennia to
unfold; and whether the fossils it contains are a living succession.” The
various sedimentary rock strata which are piled on top of each other in
supposed chronological sequence represent the successive phases of the
deposition of sediment. These strata are extensively classified and correlated
all over world. Interpretation of this stratigraphy is complicated by the fact
that some of the beds have been eroded over and over again, which provides gaps
in the sequence. In addition, the Earth’s crust has been distorted by folding
and volcanic activity. Nowhere in the world, writes Richard Milton, “is there
known to be a complete sequence of sediments from the oldest to the most
recent.”
In addition, most
dating scientists practice “intellectual phase locking”: the practice of
correcting experimental errors on the side of the currently accepted values.
When various dating methods produce discordant dates for the same sample,
Milton asserts, “the figures are adjusted until they seem right.” The most
common way to harmonize discordant dates, he explains, is to label the
unexpected or unwanted dates as “anomalous.” This is why many dating results
seem to support each other: the dating scientists have discarded the unwanted,
anomalous results. Dates must land inside a certain “ballpark” and must
corroborate other established dates. A scientist who obtains a date which is
way outside the ballpark would not rush to publish such a finding, while a date
which coincides with other findings is published immediately.
By assuming the
fact of evolution, scientists can date their hominid finds by morphology, and
construct from this a sequential contrivance called evolution. On the sole
basis of their commitment to evolution, Cremo and Thompson assert in Hidden
History of the Human Race, dating scientists decide that a more ape-like
specimen should be moved to the early part of its possible date range so that
it does not overlap with a more human-like specimen. Likewise, a human-like
specimen is moved to a later, or earlier date, within its own possible date
range. Thus, the two specimens are separated in time. This orchestration is
based on the morphology of the specimens, or “morphological dating.” As Cremo
and Thompson maintain, “it would look bad to have two forms, one generally
considered ancestral to the other, existing contemporaneously.” This is the way
in which a “temporal evolutionary sequence” is born.
By assuming as
factual the evolution of the great ape lineage into the human lineage, the
search for the ultimate missing link causes scientists to perform what we might
call “temporal tinkering.” A tautology is then utilized to enforce this rule:
the morphology of fossils is used to select the desirable dates within the
possible date ranges of the sites, thus preserving an evolutionary progression
in the clay of their minds. This “artificially constructed sequence,” which is
designed to fit the desired evolutionary paradigm, is then “cited as proof of
the evolutionary hypothesis.”
By formulating a
temporal sequence which presupposes that the hominids did not co-exist,
this methodoloy assures that no fossil evidence will “fall outside the realm of
evolutionary expectations.” This “co-existence” factor is an unhallowed and
unacceptable conclusion, and is to be avoided at all costs. Yet, fossil
evidence in China, for instance, does indicate that several different types of
hominids did co-exist in the middle Middle Pleistocene. In fact, it would appear
that humans have been around much longer than we have suspected and, indeed, it
is highly suspect that what we are looking at in the fossil record is the
co-existence of two separate animals: ape and man.
Dating Homo Erectus?
While supposed
evidence of a close relationship between arboreal apes and humans is forced on
the public, other evidence for a much more ancient and separate origin of
humans remains effectively buried. Cremo and Thompson’s findings in Hidden
History of the Human Race indicate that human origins actually have nothing
to do with the great ape lineage.
Evidence hidden
away from public scrutiny indicates that humans are not related at all to the
great apes, but are a separate species of exceptionally ancient origin. The
authors outline the evidence discovered over the years which indicates that
humans have a much more remote history than the accepted paradigm would convey.
Possible human skeletons from the Eocene and Miocene periods have been
discovered. However, the authors write, because these finds don’t fit into the
accepted scheme of things, they are undocumented, uninvestigated, and
conveniently “forgotten.” In contrast, they write, “finds which conform to
accepted theories are thoroughly investigated, extensively reported, and safely
enshrined in museums.”
Java Man is an
example of the problems involved with the search for humanity’s enigmatic
“missing link.” Modern researchers have pronounced that the so-called Trinil
femurs (leg bones) of “Java Man,” found in Indonesia, are not Homo erectus,
but are the bones of fully modern sapiens. According to the authors of Hidden
History of the Human Race, it now appears that “we can accept them as
evidence for anatomically modern humans existing 800,000 years ago.” Yet,
visitors to museums around the world are still treated to casts of these items
in the context of Homo erectus, and in the context of fossil evidence
for human evolution out of Africa in the established sequence. The twist is,
the Trinil femurs are fully modern, but the skullcap attributed to this
creature is more archaic. It has been suggested by many that the skull does not
belong with the femurs but, rather, with the skull of Pithecanthropus,
an extinct ape.
According to Cremo
and Thompson, the formation where Java Man was found has a potassium-argon date
of 800,000 B.P., but other beds in this formation are dated at over a million
years. Flourine content test results on the bones are consistent with the date
of 800,000 years for modern humans in Java. The skull and femurs indicate the
presence of two kinds of hominids in Java during the early Middle Pleistocene,
one with an ape-like head and the other with legs of modern human type.
Therefore, “Java Man” is a totally contrived creature touted as mankind’s
missing link: Homo erectus.
Although Lasker
and Tyzzer write in Physical Anthropology that “the degree of difference
between Homo sapiens and Homo erectus is seen to separate them as
two species of the same genus rather than as two genera,” it should be noted
that any species designation is an arbitrary one. As also noted earlier, the
range of variation of many features of Homo erectus falls completely
within that of modern Homo sapiens. Additionally, there is a problem
with dating these fossils since, they state, “all fossils relating to the
transition from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens are too ancient to
be radio-carbon dated but too recent to be dated by the potassium argon
method.”
Nonetheless, the
mainstream human evolutionary paradigm calls for a swift divergence occurring
approximately two million years ago in the hominid line, which, as will soon be
illustrated, may represent two entirely different animals. This was ostensibly
followed by a long period of relative stability in the genus Homo
until about 400,000 years before present, when a new divergence seems to be
recorded. Does “something” seem to have happened at about the time frame which
Sitchin suggests for the arrival of the Visitors? Let’s explore.
The basic
anatomical pattern of Homo erectus exhibits a brain of about 900 cubic
centimeters, a long and low cranium, a small forehead, a thick skull, a
protruding jaw and prominent eye ridges. This pattern persisted, writes Richard
Leakey, until about a half a million years ago, followed by “an expansion of
the brain during this time to more than 1100 cubic centimeters.” Also by this
time, Leakey states, “Homo erectus populations had spread out from
Africa and were occupying large regions of Asia and Europe.” He goes on to
qualify that no unequivocally identified Homo erectus fossils have been
found in Europe, but it is surmised that they were there because of
the technology normally associated with their existence. It should also be
noted that the tool technologies which were utilized over a period of thousands
of years essentially overlap and are commonly thought to have been borrowed by
different types of human variants, including Neanderthals.
Did Homo Erectus Evolve Twice?
“The advancement
of knowledge,” asserts Van Flandern in The Anomalist, “should be the only
objective of scientific observation and experimentation, rather than the
propagation of commonly-held belief systems.” In that regard, the prehistory of
Homo erectus is now flying in the face of the mainstream paradigm which
states that humans came out of Africa. According to new Homo erectus
fossil finds on the Indonesian island of Java, the origin of mankind has been
pushed back to 1.8 million years, suggesting that “either erectus migrated
to Asia as soon as he appeared in Africa — which is rather unlikely — or
that different variants of the genus Homo evolved independently in different
places on the globe.”
Archeologist Yuri
Mochanov has spent the last decade excavating Diring, a site along the Lena
River in Siberia. His discoveries have forced members of the profession to
reconsider the commonly-held paradigm that humankind evolved and dispersed in
the warmer climate of Africa, where surely the environment would have been more
conducive to survival than under the extreme conditions of Arctic Siberia. This
Earliest Paleolithic layer has produced more than 4,000 artifacts, with some
500 of them identified as stone tools.
According to this
interview entitled “On Human Origins: Out of Siberia?,” published in The
Anomalist 2, the finding that Stone Age hominids lived in the far north as
long as 3 million years ago upsets the mainstream evolutionary paradigm in
several ways. While some archeologists are not convinced that the site is 3
million years old, all are convinced that the site is at least 500,000 years
old. Mochanov compares the Diring complex to the stone complexes found in
Olduvai Gorge in Africa dating from 1.7 to 2.7 million years ago. Yet, until
now, he points out, Siberia has not produced stone tools more than 35,000 years
old.
This type of stone
tool culture has no comparison in Siberia, Eurasia, America or Australia.
Diring is one of the oldest Paleolithic sites in the world, dating from between
1.8 to 3.7 million years B.P. It has been established that permafrost
conditions did exist in the area at the time, and experts have determined that
the average annual temperature in Yakutsk, Siberia was even lower than the
present temperature of ten degrees below zero (Celsius). The extremely frigid
climate presents “a major stumbling block for the existence of early man in
this area.” Mochanov suggests it was “the extreme environmental stress of the
region that actually gave pre-humans the fateful genetic nudge to
develop the large brain that defines the genus Homo.” Therefore, he
suggests, mankind may have evolved twice!
This thinking
suggests that these university-trained apologists for Darwin are not just
encouraged but trained to come up with such ridiculous explanations
which give evolution a leading role in the grand performance called the “human
race.” As Phillip Johnson points out, neo-Darwinists have “evolved an array of
subsidiary concepts capable of furnishing a plausible explanation for just
about any conceivable eventuality;” and these anthr-apologists do not seem to
notice that their knee-jerk reactions are problematical to the accidental
nature of Darwinian theory: that evolution is ipso facto a chain of
contingent events which easily could have been otherwise. The concept of
survival of the fittest is chaos theory at its finest; it’s an absurd dice
game.
How could both the
desert climate of Africa and the frigid climate of Siberia, two remarkably
dissimilar environments, independently and accidentally produce the same rare
evolutionary novelty called Homo sapiens? Don’t forget that this is a
novelty so rare that the supposed incremental steps leading to its development
could not possibly be repeated given the billions and billions of stars in the
Universe! When presented with archeological evidence that humankind may have
“evolved” simultaneously in vastly different environments on the globe, a
development that goes against evolution’s most basic theoretical premise, why
is it that the “fact” of evolution itself does not come under scrutiny? Or, why
doesn’t the correctness of the sacred geological column come under scrutiny?
Instead when the pieces do not fit, they are chiseled and drilled and made to
fit in the most ridiculous jury-rigged manner.
Anthr-apologists tell us on one hand
that evolutionary man is the winner of a preposterous survival lottery which,
given the incredible odds, should not have even occurred once. Then, when the
archeological record doesn’t mesh with the theory, the straight-faced
suggestion is that the independent evolution of mankind must have occurred twice!
There is never the suggestion that the emergence of the human form did not
occur without genetic tinkering from the outside, or that it is guided by a
currently misunderstood operant force or intelligent factor, or that it is a
gift of God, even in the face of evidence that either of these alternatives may
be the case. In order to be internally consistent with its current scientific
paradigm, the theory must explain a strictly ‘natural’ cause inherent within
the operating system: therefore, humankind accidently hit the bull’s eye
twice!
The Australian “Home Erectus” Controversy
A 1998 on-line article by Jim
Vanhollebeke entitled Kow Swamp: Is It Homo erectus? (“A
Refutation of the Supposed Insignificance of Certain Australian Hominid
Fossils”) presents arguments countering the assertion that the well-known but
conveniently ignored Australian Kow Swamp fossils, discovered as long ago as
the 1880’s, are representative of Homo erectus. The author argues
convincingly that the KS fossils, including Talgai, Cohuna, Nacurrie, Coobool
Creek, Kow Swamp, Willandra Lakes, and others, are not Homo erectus, but
are modern in age, dated about 10,000 to 30,000 years before present.
The KS fossils display primitive or
“archaic” features, but are of a very recent age. In addition, other much older
human fossils discovered in Australia display a much less “archaic” nature.
Therefore, as Vanhollebeke notes, the KS fossils remain as “odd footnotes in
the world of Paleoanthropology.” They are essentially ignored by most anthropologists.
The author writes:
Accepting these fossils for what they are has
been a problem for many anthropologists. Part of this problem, possibly, is the
fact that the present aboriginal population in this area of the globe, to
varying lesser degrees has been known to exhibit some or all of the traits that
make the Kow Swamp type so controversial. This would indicate an obvious line
(or lines) of descent. This is not really surprising when the age (or lack
thereof) of the fossils themselves is taken into consideration. Obviously the
specimens now preserved do not represent the very last of their kind.
Vanhollebeke suggests that direct
descendants of the Kow Swamp people would have continued in this isolated
region for thousands of years. In addition, it is plausible that the KS
populations dwindled slowly, and were diluted by gene flow with other types.
Yet the important point to keep in mind is that the KS fossils closely resemble
certain living groups of native Australians. Comparing KS fossil skulls to
aborigines in northern Queensland [see photos], he writes: “The KS-type fossils
are so recent that their unique archaic traits continue to show in living
descendants.” This can be a “delicate matter,” Vanhollebeke writes, in terms of
race. However, he admonishes, this is not really a matter of race, since it has
long been held that the only way to describe the physical features of certain
of Australia’s aboriginal populations is “archaic Caucasoid.”
If the features of the KS fossils
represented Neanderthal characteristics, it wouldn’t be such a problem, writes
Vanhollebeke. Problematically, the KS fossils more closely resemble Homo
erectus. As he explains, even late Homo erectus has been considered
to be extinct for hundreds of thousands of years. But here we have living human
beings who resemble these archaic forms. No wonder it is best to ignore this
situation.
In addition to this, Vanhollebeke
points out, the recent discovery of “Solo Man,” a large brained late Homo
erectus population living in Java, may actually have survived as recently
as 27,000 years ago. Solo Man was previously thought to have been extinct
200,000 years ago. This suggests two things: (1) This fossil represents Homo
sapiens and not Homo erectus, or (2) late Homo erectus
co-existed with modern man in Southeast Asia. Vanhollebeke asks: “Where are you
National Geographic?”
The fossil record in Australia shows
that there were in fact two distinct human populations in Australia during the
late Pleistocene (approx. 500,000 B.P.) There was an older yet more modern and
gracile type, and there was a much more recent but primitive and robust type.
Vanhollebeke writes: “When the media (and world) can marvel at the pile of
fragments they call 'Lucy,' there should be a little awe available for this
aberrant populace that never quite went extinct.” The story of mankind, he
writes, is “sketchy and full of speculation.” We must remain open to new ideas
when it comes to reconciling these anomalies.
Problems With “Transitional” Types
In their book, Hidden History of
the Human Race, Cremo and Thompson discuss various skeletal remains of
anatomically modern humans, as well as various human artifacts, which have been
given dates in the range of 2 to 55 million years, or more. Such discoveries
are part of the “hidden history of the human race,” and are considered
“anomalous” within the context of the currently accepted paradigm of human
evolution. As Cremo and Thompson write, in the past, “anomalous” evidence was
often “the center of serious, longstanding controversy within the very heart of
elite scientific circles.” Furthermore, evidence of this kind, the authors
assert, is not always of a “marginal crackpot nature.” Nonetheless, it is now a
matter of course to reject anomalous findings outright, and, further, to
“forget” they even exist. Consider, for instance, some of the following
evidence hidden in humanity’s closet:
·
Simple eolithic implements have been discovered on the
American continent in Pliocene strata dated at 2-4 million years.
·
Primitive bone implements, as well as shark teeth with
holes for use as jewelry and carving implements, have been found in Suffolk,
England, in formations dated at 2-55 million years.
·
A wooden tool which has been sawn and burned on one end
was found in England and dated at about a half million years. It appears that
only a metal saw could have accomplished this type of clear cutting, and only Homo
sapiens could have effected this feat (not Homo erectus!)
·
Simple chopping tools have been discovered in Pakistan
in formations dated at 2 million years. Tools of the same age have also been
found in Siberia and India. (The authors point out that modern tribal people
continue to manufacture very primitive types of stone tools.)
·
A highly anomalous find of a possible Homo erectus
fossil skullcap in Brazil challenges the theory that only anatomically modern
humans made it to the American continent.
·
A modern-type human jaw thoroughly infiltrated with
iron oxide was discovered in a quarry at Foxhall, England, in a 16-foot level dated
at 2.5 million years.
·
A fully modern human skull found in Buenos Aires,
Argentina has been dated at least a million years old.
·
An anatomically modern human skeleton in natural
connection was found on the Italian Riviera in a layer dated 3-4 million years.
·
An “atlas,” the upper bone of the spinal column, was
discovered in Monte Hermoso, Argentina in a layer dated 3-5 million years.
Flint tools and intentional use of fire in this area, at the same level,
indicates the presence of humans in the Americas at least 3 million years ago.
·
A modern human skull was discovered in the Sierra
Nevada mountains, under volcanic ash in a gold-bearing gravel bed ranging in
age from 9 to 55 million years old. Additional human skeletal remains, and a
large number of stone implements have
also been discovered in the same beds, so this is not an isolated
discovery.
·
The California gold country has been a hot bed of human
skeletal remains and implements having date ranges of 9 to 55 million years.
Stone artifacts and a modern type human jaw were discovered beneath the lava
caps in these gold-bearing gravels. In addition, a human leg bone found in
these gravels is dated at 8.7 million years.
In addition, there is strong
evidence for the presence of rounded bola (sling stone) makers in Argentina
approximately 3 million years ago. The bolas of Miramar point to the existence
of human beings of a high level culture during the Pliocene, or even earlier,
in South America. Because of their technological sophistication, sling stones
and bola stones represent the presence of Homo sapiens. Sling stones
have been discovered in various places around the globe, including England,
East Africa (Tanzania), and Argentina. Stone bolas were used for hunting by
wrapping them in leather bags attached to a long cord, and swinging them
overhead and letting go. The use of stone bolas necessitates the presence of a
leather working culture. The dates of 1.7 to 2 million years are considered
“anomalous,” since, it is believed, the australopithecines of this age were not
toolmakers, and furthermore, they were still confined to Africa.
According to the currently
prevailing paradigm of human evolution, the creature called Homo habilis,
who was not even a toolmaker, should have been confined to Africa during this
time period. The “standard view,” Cremo and Thompson point out in Hidden
History, is that Homo erectus was the first representative of the Homo
line to emigrate from Africa no more than a million years ago. Anything earlier
than this date is considered “anomalous,” (i.e. doesn’t fit). An indication of
the emotional import of such finds in scientific circles is the typical demand
for “higher levels of proof for anomalous finds than for evidence that fits
within the established ideas about human evolution.” Yet, there is no
difference in the workmanship of eolithic implements found in Olduvai Gorge in
East Africa and those found in England. If the stone tools of England are
rejected as being nature-made, Cremo and Thompson assert, then those of Africa need
to be thrown out as well!
The authors of Hidden History
suggest the incomprehensible: perhaps there were creatures of fully modern type
already at Olduvai Gorge in Africa during the earliest Pleistocene era. The
reason we can’t get around this is because no human fossils are accepted to be
that old. But, the authors point out, several human-like femurs discovered in
East Africa which were attributed to Homo habilis may have actually
belonged to anatomically modern humans.
The creature touted as Homo
habilis has since been shown to have a more ape-like anatomy. Further,
Louis Leakey found a bone tool in the same level as the stone bolas discovered
in East Africa, which, he stated in 1960, was some sort of “lissoir for working
leather.” Leakey believed this find suggested a more evolved way of life for
the Oldowan culture. Leakey reportedly discovered a fully human jaw at Kanam,
East Africa, dated approximately 2 million years.
As we have seen, distinctly
anomalous discoveries are not confined to 19th century “nutcases.” They have
continued, Cremo and Thompson insist, “with astonishing regularity” to the
present, but are not recognized for what they are. This is due to the fact that
the idea of the progressive evolution of humans from the great ape family
guides the acceptance and rejection of the evidence for evolution, and
contradictory evidence is pushed to the “lunatic fringe.” In fact, evidence
suggests that fully modern Homo sapiens appears to have existed in
Africa alone from very early times, at least two million years before
present. Taking into account only the more conventionally accepted evidence,
Cremo and Thompson have concluded that “the total evidence, including fossil
bones and artifacts, is most consistent with the view that anatomically modern
humans have co-existed with other primates for tens of millions of years.”
The Out of Africa Hypothesis
In Origin of Humankind,
Richard Leakey maintains that “the evolutionary activity giving rise to modern
humans took place in the interval between half a million years ago and 34,000
years ago.” He writes that “ripples of evolution” were going on in many
different populations throughout the Old World during this period, culminating
in a varying anatomy labeled “archaic sapiens.” The concept of “ripples
of evolution” might perhaps be better described as gene flow from a
“revolutionary event.” Let’s see if Leakey’s theories coincide with this
suggestion.
Leakey describes the
evolutionary model called the Multiregional hypothesis. This view posits that
the origin of modern humans was a phenomenon which encompassed the entire Old
World wherever populations of Homo erectus had become established.
Leakey cautions against this approach, specifically in light of the emergence
of new dating methods called electron spin resonance and thermoluminescence.
Using these new methods, researchers have overturned the neat sequence of
events which had earlier described the evolution of Neanderthal to modern sapiens
in caves in Israel. These new methods suggested that the human fossils from
Skhul and Qafzeh were actually older than most of the Neanderthal fossils by as
much as 40,000 years, suggesting that Neanderthals were not ancestors of
modern humans. How can this curious enigma be explained?
An alternative hypothesis
asserts that modern humans arose in a single geographical location—most likely
sub-Saharan Africa—and replaced the existing pre-modern populations after
extensive and rather sudden migration into the Old World. Interestingly, this
model has been variously called “Noah’s Ark” and the “Garden of Eden”
hypothesis, but most recently has been termed the “Out of Africa” hypothesis.
Leakey points out that in this model “these populations would have shallow
genetic roots, all having derived from the single, recently evolved population
in Africa.”
If it were true, the Out of
Africa model would predict that the fossil record would not exhibit maintenance
of regional continuity over time, but would show a displacement of regional
characteristics with modern African characteristics. This is mainly true with
regard to physical stature; indeed, the stocky, short-limbed Neanderthals seem
to have been entirely displaced by the tall, slightly built, long-limbed
people. Furthermore, if modern humans had emerged more or less simultaneously
throughout the Old World, this would be evidenced by the fossil record.
Clearly, it is not.
The oldest modern sapiens
fossils—dated approximately 100,000 years before present—are limited to
northern Africa, the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, and Israel. Leakey
writes: “no fossils of modern humans of this age have been found anywhere else
in the rest of Asia or Europe.” Keep in mind Leakey’s other statements that “no
unequivocally identified Homo erectus fossils have been found in Europe”
and that human fossils from Israel are older than most of the Neanderthal
fossils by as much as 40,000 years.
The majority of population
geneticists believe the Out of Africa hypothesis to be biologically plausible,
and are skeptical toward the Multiregional model, which requires extensive gene
flow across large populations, over a large geographical area, and over a very
long period of time. These populations would have to be genetically linked
while at the same time allowing for evolutionary change toward modern human
characteristics over the entire, dispersed population. This is unrealistic
given that such a scenario would, in all probability, produce more geographical
variation than is actually seen.
In terms of tools and art
objects, how are modern humans recognized in the archaeological record? The
fossil record shows an increased complexity in simple stone tools about 1.4
million years ago; a gradual change from what is called the Oldowan to the
Acheulian stone tool culture. Anthropologists use the Acheulian implements to
identify the so-called Homo erectus populations. While this increase in
complexity is notable, it changed very little over a very long period of time.
Leakey writes that stasis, not innovation, characterized this era.
When change came, however, it
was, in Leakey’s words, “dazzling.” The Upper Paleolithic Revolution, he
writes, was “so dazzling that we should be aware that we might be blind to
the reality behind it.” Beginning about 35,000 years ago in Europe, fine
tools were made from bone and antler, and tool kits comprised more than 100
different implements, including tools for engraving, sculpting, and making
clothing. This inexplicable revolution exhibited life-like animal carvings,
beads and pendants, and cave paintings as part of an innovative culture which
appeared rather abruptly across the Old World. Leakey writes: “unlike previous
eras, when stasis dominated, innovation is now the essence of culture, with
change being measured in millenia rather than hundreds of millenia.”
The Mitochondrial Eve Hypothesis
According to Sumerian records,
the operation carried out by the Elohim on the female Primitive Workers
resulted in Adam and Eve discovering their sexuality, or “knowing”—the biblical
term for sexual procreation—and became “as one of us:” able to give birth or,
perhaps more specifically, genetically compatible. The timing of the genetic
manipulations are of particular interest. Sitchin asserts that the Sumerian
record places the first genetic manipulation at about 300,000 years ago, and
the second at about 250,000 years ago. Biologists now subscribe to the theory
that there was an “Eve” in southeast Africa about 200,000 to 300,000 years ago.
The New York Times reported in November of 1995 that scientists have
concluded there was an “Adam” about 270,000 years ago, which, Sitchin suggested
in an interview, is “exactly, give or take a day or two, the date I propose
based on Sumerian writings.”
The Mitochondrial Eve hypothesis
is supported by research which traces the mitochondrial DNA inherited solely
through the maternal line. The reason that the organelle mitochondria is
traceable through the maternal line is that the only mitochondria which becomes
part of the cells of a newly formed embryo are from the egg and not the sperm.
Thus, scientists have traced the genetic ancestry of humans to a female who
lived in Africa about 150,000 years ago, who was “part of a population of as
many as 10,000 individuals.” Leakey writes in Origin of Humankind that
earlier dates have since been established; presumably dates closer to those
given in the New York Times article mentioned above.
The Mitochondrial Eve hypothesis
essentially supports the Out of Africa model, with one exception. The Africa
model presumes that the expansion of modern African populations included some
interbreeding with Old World pre-modern populations. The Mitochondrial Eve
hypothesis, however, does not allow for any genetic interbreeding with Old
World populations. It asserts that the modern African populations which
spread over the Old World completely replaced existing populations, with
interbreeding being almost a non-occurrence.
Analysis of present day human
mitochondrial DNA reveals no evidence of interbreeding with other pre-modern
populations. Of four thousand samples of mitochondrial DNA taken from people
all over the world for this project, no “ancient” mitochondrial DNA has been
found. All samples are remarkably similar and indicate the fairly recent and
common origin of human beings. If genetic mixing had occurred between ancient
populations, some people would have different mitochondrial DNA. Therefore,
Leakey charges, the “modern newcomers” appear to have completely replaced the
ancient populations between 150,000 to 50,000 years ago (give or take). The most
disconcerting element of this theory seems to be the fact of the exclusion of
genetic input from other populations which apparently co-existed. How did such
a total replacement occur? Was it a violent genocide?
The disappearance of the
Neanderthal population from the Earth is a mystery. In his book, The Last
Neanderthal, Ian Tattersall suggests the violent demise of their dwindled
population at the hands of other sapiens groups. Richard Leakey claims
that there is no evidence for a violent replacement of species, and he allows
for the occurrence of some interbreeding, even though it may not be reflected
in the archeological record. Tattersall indeed allows for this conjecture as
well. But strangely, there is an explanation which mainstream conjectures do
not take into account. Did the Neanderthals die in a planet-wide catastrophic
incident which the uniformitarian-based geological column utterly denies?
Who Are the Neanderthals?
The species Homo
neanderthalensis was more than simply a variation of ourselves, writes
Tattersall in The Last Neanderthal. On the contrary, the “big-brained
Neanderthals,” with larger brain cases (1500 ml.) than the current worldwide
average (1400 ml.), were highly successful during a period of extremely tough
climatic conditions in Europe and Western Asia for 150,000 years, and perhaps
longer. Tattersall adds “as far as we can tell, that’s a good deal longer than
our own species has been around.” It should be noted that Neanderthals are not
necessarily believed to be a different species, but a variation of sapiens.
It is generally agreed that
different varieties of humans were widespread in the Old World during the time
of the dispersal of the Neanderthals over Europe. Classic Neanderthal-type
fossils are a more or less local phenomenon spread sparsely over Europe, with a
higher percentage of finds in western France. To date, however, there is no
biological evidence that the Classic Neanderthal type ever occupied Africa,
Arabia or Asia. However, according to Hidden History, Louis B. Leakey
once suggested Neanderthals and other variants were the result of crossbreeding
between sapiens and erectus. He indicated no problem with the
ability of these two forms to interbreed, which suggests he considered them to
be the same species.
The theory is widely peddled
that the Western European Neanderthal population “had a range of vocalization
too limited for the development of proper language.” Some believe Homo
neanderthalensis to be a separate species from Homo sapiens, while
others believe it is a subgroup which could interbreed with modern humans and,
it is suspected, “would have done so if both were present in the same place at
the same time.” However, the Physical Anthropology text book presents
the erroneous statement that Neanderthal populations of Europe probably did not
have a modern vocal tract, even though the brain case was large and modern in
respect to parts important for speech. This information has since been
contradicted.
According to Jack Cuozzo, in Buried
Alive, a Neanderthal skeleton found on Mt. Carmel in 1983 was discovered
alongside modern stone tools. The Kebara II fossil had the only hyoid bone ever
found in a Neanderthal. The hyoid bone, a floating bone in the neck, is
essential for speech. The Kebara II Neanderthal proved that Neanderthals did
indeed speak. It is probable that the Neanderthals are much more modern than
the current theory allows.
The Sapiens Sapiens Signal
Although a “dramatic event” is
recorded in Western Europe about 35,000 years ago, Leakey and others believe
that this does not necessarily indicate that the “final emergence” of modern
humans occurred in Western Europe, as earlier believed. Paleontologists now
generally recognize Western Europe as “something of a backwater” on the
foreground of an advance that swept from East to West across Europe. In
this view, the Neanderthal populations “disappeared and were replaced by modern
humans.” Importantly, Leakey believes the Upper Paleolithic Revolution in
Europe was a “demographic signal and not an evolutionary signal.”
From where did this demographic
signal emanate? Leakey believes, on the basis of fossil evidence, “Africa, in
all probability—or perhaps the Middle East.” Leakey qualifies that, despite the
scarcity of technological evidence, since a narrow blade technology does appear
in Africa about 100,000 years ago, we have to go with the African origin of
modern humans. Supported by an abundance of fossil evidence in the Middle East
region along with new dating methods, it is also probable that Neanderthals and
modern humans essentially co-existed in the Middle East for as along as 60,000
years. Some Neanderthals of Europe have been dated at 100,000 years, making
them contemporaries of modern humans in the Middle East.
The Extraterrestrial Hypothesis
can provide an explanation for “anomalous” data exhibited by the fossil record.
According to the Out of Africa model, mankind seems to have emerged from both
Africa and the Middle East, the cultural nests of the Anunnaki during their
incumbency on Earth. The Out of Africa model can be seen in the context of the
mining operations which began there approximately 300,000 years ago,
culminating in the cloning of a human work force. This is the “sapiens
sapiens signal,” the “dazzling” cultural achievements of a certain core
group of humans which were moved from Africa to Western Europe, virtually
overnight.
According to Richard Leakey, the
known sapiens sapiens signal in Western Europe is far richer than
in Africa. For every archeological site of this era in Africa, there are about
two hundred such sites in Western Europe. Leakey maintains that this disparity
reflects “a difference in the intensity of scientific exploration in the two
continents, not on the reality of human prehistory.” The Extraterrestrial
Hypothesis suggests that this disparity may actually reflect the
“reality of human prehistory.” We must follow the sapiens sapiens
signal.
The Sumerians have written that,
after a time, some of the hybrid miners remained working the mines in South
Africa and others were transferred back to Mesopotamia, the location of the
biblical Eden. It is here that the Anunnaki had first landed and began their
irrigation and building projects, and where they subsequently set up cultural
centers for the propagation of human knowledge. Thus, although Africa is the
“birthplace of humankind,” the Sumer region is the “cradle of civilization,”
which began with transplants from the core Africa group.
The story is relayed in the
Sumerian texts. According to Sitchin in Wars of Gods and Men, as the
population of the Primitive Worker increased, gold production in Africa
increased as well. This in turn caused stress on the Eastern front, in the
refining and smelting centers of Mesopotamia. In addition, the waters in this
region were constantly overflowing, and dikes and canals were constantly in
need of being dug. The Anunnaki workers in Mesopotamia soon began asking for
their own Primitive Workers. They made a request for “the Black-headed people
to give the pickax to hold.” A text called The Myth of the Pickax
chronicles the denial of transfer of some of the Black-headed people to the
Mesopotamian region, and the subsequent heavy artillery attack on the walls of
the central compound in Africa where they were being protected. As Enlil’s
weapons broke through the fortification, the Primitive Workers spilled out of
their compound. It is written that Enlil “eyed the Black-headed Ones in
fascination.”
Ancient drawings thereafter
depict the Primitive Worker toiling for the gods in Mesopotamia, building their
houses, digging canals, growing food, rowing in boats, and waiting on the gods.
During this “animal like stage in human development,” archaic Homo sapiens
performed their work as “naked as the animals of the field.” It is written that,
when mankind was first created, they “ate plants with their mouth like sheep,
drank water from the ditch.” Were these people our “Neanderthals”?
The various layers of cultural
indoctrinations taking place in or near cultural centers over a long span of
time, which are part and parcel of the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis, would
explain the apparent cultural disparities noted over geographical areas once
some of these people left cultural centers in the Middle East. The
Extraterrestrial Hypothesis would explain the apparent co-existence of
primitive stone tool sites in some areas of the globe and high cultures in
other areas of the globe between 10,000-30,000 years B.P. What else but the
existence of an “anomalous” cultural factor, introduced from the outside, could
adequately explain this incredible discrepancy in cultural “evolution”? OMNI
Magazine published a story in January, 1995 about Samsat, a city with a
population of 50,000 along the Euphrates River Valley during the Roman Empire.
The history of Samsat dates as far back as the Neolithic Period. Tablets
found in the area written in cuneiform, a system of writing developed by the
Sumerians, is proof of the spread of the Sumerian culture into Turkey.
Four such sites which record the history of the Sumerians in
the area “may contain artifacts that overturn conventional notions of how and
where civilization began.” Another city called Kazane Hoyuk, had a population
“unheard of before the development of agriculture and civilization.”
This prehistoric city was one of the “independent seeds of civilization” which
“nurtured cultural advances at about the same point in history.” Thus, while
some humans on the globe were working with basic stone tools, others were in
the midst of a “dazzling” cultural revolution. In addition, strange
similarities have been noted between distant cultures which are not known to
have been in contact. These anomalies remain unexplained in archaeology, and
are explainable only by a “revolutionary event.”
Excerpted from Space Travelers and the Genesis of the Human
Form, Chapter 7, by Joan d'Arc, Available from The Book Tree (thebooktree.com)
