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article imageOp-Ed: Early humans were more advanced than previously believed

By Eliot Elwar     Apr 28, 2012 in Science
Today, the latest fossils shed light on human evolution and migration, primeval human fire usage for cooking, Stone Age human fire usage for tool making, micro-stratigraphic evidence for early human fire usage, human tools date earlier than previously believed, science theories for becoming Human, and Homo Erectus and Neanderthal populations language capabilities.
According to China Daily, recent findings in anthropology shed light on human migration and evolution. In the Southwest of China’s Yunnan province, science researchers discover the latest human fossils have primitive and modern anatomical features. They may someday answer questions about early human migration challenges and primate evolution complexity. Anthropologists name the ancient human remains the Red Deer Cave People. Their partial skulls and other bone fragments were dated around 12,900 years ago. The fossil remains were uncovered during the 1970s and 1980s, but they were left unstudied. A scientific team of anthropologists and other researchers from China and Australia rediscovered the fossils.
Professors Ji Xueping of the Yunnan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archeology and Darren Curnoe of the University of New South Wales led the team, which included researchers from six Chinese and five Australian institutions. The cavemen's anatomical features surprised the researchers, which are distinct from modern humans. They appear different from many modern humans, whether they are alive today or living in Africa roughly 150,000 years ago," according to Curnoe during an interview with the BBC.
According to anthropologists, the Red Deer Cave people possessed thick skull bones, round brain cases, and large brow ridges. These Stone Age people had flat and short faces under their brains and they had wide noses and prominent jawbones. They lack a modern human-like chin. Their brain cavity X-ray scans show they had modern frontal lobes. Their tools included quartz stone-cutters, hand hammers, stone hammers, pyramids, and antler made shovels, which provided clear evidence for a late paleo-lithic culture, according to archeologists.
As said by Ji Xueping, the Red Deer Cave people were probably an extinct human species. Their discovery proves human evolution complexity in East Asia. They have Homo sapiens trait due to Yunnan’s distinctive natural environment, which provided an isolated paradise and reduce speed of the evolutionary process.
As reported by Scientific American, Humans tamed fire about one million years ago, which may have triggered the evolution of cooking. Archaeological research and excavations in the Wonderwerk Cave site in South Africa’s Northern Cape Province have discovered charred animal remains, about one million years old, which preceded Neanderthal and modern human populations by many generations. The discovery was the most persuasive evidence offering support for the cooking theory, a hypothesis developed by Harvaed University’s Richard Wrangham. Wrangham argued that the invention of cooking accelerated human brain size evolution around two million years ago with Homo erectus populations. This finding demonstrates that Homo erectus people were more advanced than previously thought.
According to the Telegraph, science researchers discovered that Stone Age man used fire to make tools about 50,000 years earlier than many of them previously believed. Early modern humans commanded fire in an advanced and sophisticated manner for generations. Early modern humans going back 75,000 to 150,000 years ago in coastal South Africa began using fire to heat stone and change its properties; this process is known as heat treatment. Before this finding, the first use of heat treatment was theorized to have originated in Europe 25,000 years ago. The fire usage technique was falsely believed to have been invented generations following modern human ancestral migration from Africa and settlement in Europe and Asia. Today, researchers discover that human fire usage began in Africa before modern human proliferation worldwide.
As reported by PNAS, the fire control capability was the critical period in human evolutionary history; however, when humans first developed this ability still remains enigmatic. Micro-morphological and Fourier transform infrared micro-spectroscopy (mFTIR) analyses of intact sediments at the site of Wonderwerk Cave in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa, provided scientific evidence for burning taking place in caves during the early Acheulean occupation, approximately one million years ago. This finding remains one of the earliest evidence for burning in the human archaeological record.
According to the Huffington post, science researchers discover that the oldest Homo erectus tools found were earlier than previously believed. Homo erectus populations were creating and using advanced stone tools almost 2 million years ago, much earlier than previous science theories argued, according to archaeologists who exhumed new artifacts in northwest Kenya. Homo erectus people never export the technology behind their sophisticated tools (hand axes, picks and flakes) when the people migrated out of Africa, according to Nature this week.
As said by many anthropologists, Homo erectus people were taller and more robust than modern humans when they appeared roughly 2 million years ago and proliferated across Africa, Asia and parts of southern Europe before disappearing from the fossil record roughly 70,000 years ago. They were the direct ancestors of modern humans and Neanderthals; these people mastered fire and were the first to develop cutting and butchering instruments known as Acheulian tools.
According to the Institute of Human Origins, becoming human remains a mystery within the scientific community. The evolutionary questions associated with Homo Erectus, other human species, and modern humans are not completely answered. Many scholars believe that Homo erectus evolved from Homo habilis in East Africa. However, in Kenya, recent findings have increased Homo habilis’ temporal range, suggesting there were two species that overlapped in time and causing scientists to question the direct connection between Homo habilis and Homo erectus. However, many scientists concur that Homo heidelbergensis evolved from Homo erectus in Africa and proliferated across the Old World replacing many Homo Erectus populations, which was similar to how Homo sapiens replaced Homo heidelbergensis and Homo neanderthalensis 750, 000 years earlier.
According to Anya Luke-Killam's paper on the Language Capabilities of Homo Erectus & Homo Neanderthalensis, although Homo Erectus and Neanderthal people have the human hyoid bone, which is necessary for either verbal or spoken communication, many within the scientific community question whether Homo erectus and Neanderthal humans could communicate like modern humans. Homo erectus and Neanderthal brains were similar to modern humans. Some scientists have been slow to agree that Homo erectus and Neanderthals communicated just as well as modern humans because of their commitment to Darwinism. Analysis of Homo erectus and Neanderthal sophisticated tool production, artistic creations, sufficient brains, and a hyoid bone confirms that verbal communication was necessary for the development of their tools and art work.
Although recent scientific discoveries demonstrate that early humans were more similar to modern humans, the study of human origins remains a mystery within the scientific community because it is based upon the religious doctrine of Darwinism. While micro-evolution eloquently and scientifically demonstrates plant and animal variation through time, Darwinism or macro-evolution fails the test of the scientific method because this process has never been observed during life’s 3.5 billion year history on planet Earth. The belief in life originating from death, fishes evolving into amphibians, amphibians changing into reptiles, reptiles developing into mammals and birds, and apes transforming into humans originated from the religious and philosophical corruptions of Darwinism. Bear in mind, Darwinism contributed to the creation of concentration camps in Germany during the Second World War and the persecution of non-whites in Europe, South Africa, and North America for many years before the 21st century. The time has come for many believers in the Darwinian mythology to liberate themselves from the religious paradigm facilitating the continuation of a pseudo-scientific dark age because religion and philosophy have no place in real science.
More about Homo erectus, Neanderthals, Modern humans, Homo sapiens, Darwinism