"Despite the documented evidence of chess historian H.J.R. Murray, I have always thought that chess was invented by a goddess." George Koltanowski, from Women in Chess, Players of the Modern Game
Pages
▼
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
My Ancestors Were Cave Men. Well, Duh!
According to present scientific opinion, we're all descended from apes that once "evolved" (I have yet to read an explanation of just how or from what, precisely, we evolved, unless they're still teaching we're descended from amoebas - like they said way back in high school, lol!) who lived in Africa, and those apes slowly walked out of Africa on all fours and spread across the world in "waves." The questions surrounding "genetic anomolies" that crop up every now and then in the archaeological record are dismissed or, if they are addressed at all, are belittled as "bad science."
Those African apes who came "out of Africa in waves" became modern man - except for all the lines that died out, and except for "Neanderthal Man" that the African apes killed off, evidently, during the last "wave" of migration out of Africa, starting some 60,000 years ago.
Where did so-called "Neanderthal Man" come from? What happened to the period of time between 60,000 years ago and 35,000 years ago, when so-called "Cro-Magnon Man" first appeared on the scene? How did African apes become Cro-Magnon? For that matter, how did Cro-Magnon become Homo Sapiens-Sapiens, so called "modern" man? How was the "kill off" of "Neanderthal Man" accomplished?
NOBODY KNOWS...
Well, I don't buy the current orthodoxy for an instant. Never have, never will. At present, our research into DNA, particularly with respect to our human antecedents, is in its infancy. There are just too many unanswered questions, too many uncertainties, too many variables, and to much uncertain science still in its primitive stages, to accept SCIENCE'S time line on "human evolution." Talk to me 100 years from now - only you won't be able to unless you can resurrent the dead because 100 years from now I'll be long gone! Damn!
I found this article interesting because it traces some "cave" ancestors back to about 1000 BCE in this specific area. It doesn't purport to go back to 1,000,000 BCE, 100,000 BCE or even 10,000 BCE; it doesn't purport to go back to the original "Eve" and "Adam." Smart move, researchers.
I don't know why it became fashionable to equate living in a cave with being backward or something less than fully human (as that term is accepted today; sometimes I wonder if we aren't de-evolutionizing? Is that a word? You know what I mean - some modern humans are going backwards!) At the time, it may have been by far the smartest thing to live in a cave. Modern man, we are such know-it-all, judgmental jerks!
From The Times
July 15, 2008
Cavemen and their relatives in the same village after 3,000 years
Roger Boyes in Berlin
The good news for two villagers in the Söse valley of Germany yesterday was that they have discovered their great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents — give or take a generation or two.
The bad news is that their long-lost ancestors may have grilled and eaten other members of their clan. [No evidence whatsoever was presented for this teaser throw-away comment in the article].
Every family has its skeletons in the cave, though, so Manfred Hucht-hausen, 58, a teacher, and 48-year-old surveyor Uwe Lange remained in celebratory mood. Thanks to DNA testing of remarkably well-preserved Bronze Age bones, they can claim to have the longest proven family tree in the world. “I can trace my family back by name to 1550,” Mr Lange said. “Now I can go back 120 generations.”
Mr Lange comes from the village of Nienstedt, in Lower Saxony, in the foothills of the Harz mountain range. “We used to play in these caves as kids. If I’d known that there were 3,000-year-old relatives buried there I wouldn’t have set foot in the place.”
The cave, the Lichtensteinhöhle [LOL! Aptly named!], is made up of five interlocked natural chambers. It stayed hidden from view until 1980 and was not researched properly until 1993. The archaeologist Stefan Flindt found 40 skeletons along with what appeared to be cult objects. It was a mystery: Bronze Age man was usually buried in a field. Different theories were considered. Perhaps some of the bodies had been offered as human sacrifice, or one generation had been eaten by another. [Yeah, right. What about an ancestral burial ground, nimnuts???]
Scientists at the University of Göttingen found that the bones had been protected by a thick layer of calcium: water dripping through the roof of the limestone cave had helped to create a sheath around the skeletons.
The analysis showed that all the bones were from the same family and the scientists speculated that it was a living area and a ceremonial burial place.
About 300 locals agreed to giving saliva swabs. Two of the cave family had a very rare genetic pattern – and a match was found.
The skulls have been reconstructed using three-dimensional computer techniques and placed in a museum. “It was really strange to look the man deep in the eyes,” Mr Lange said.
The bones of history
— The oldest human genetic material is thought to have been discovered at the Sterkfontein Caves near Johannesburg in 2001
— Fossilised faeces found in Oregon this year contained DNA dating back 14,000 years, placing people genetically similar to Native Americans in the area 1,000 years earlier than previously thought [Actually, there is evidence scattered all across the United States, from west coast to east coast, of habitation dating back to as far back as perhaps 50,000 years ago]
— Australian scientists announced in 2001 that they had extracted DNA from the country’s oldest human skeleton, 60,000-year-old Mungo Man, who is distinct from the line that previously suggested all modern humans traced back to Africa [You won't read about Mungo Man in scientific journals; he's too "inconvenient" - doesn't fit into the established and accepted "norm."]
Source: Times archives
**********************************************************************************
Added as a postscript: Just how wrong is the conventional chronology?
LOL! I found this quote staring me in the face right after I posted the above, and visited The Daily Grail.com. I just love it when a plan comes together...
No comments:
Post a Comment