400,000-year-old human remains found

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Nothxkbi

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Scientists could be forced to re-write the history of the evolution of modern man after the discovery of 400,000-year-old human remains.

Until now, researchers believed that homo sapiens, the direct descendants of modern man, evolved in Africa about 200,000 years ago and gradually migrated north, through the Middle East, to Europe and Asia.

Recently, discoveries of early human remains in China and Spain have cast doubt on the 'Out of Africa' theory, but no-one was certain.

The new discovery of pre-historic human remains by Israeli university explorers in a cave near Ben-Gurion airport could force scientists to re-think earlier theories.
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Link
 
Almost all evidence and more importantly, the molecular evidence, indicates the humans originated in Africa. Most reputable scientists agree with the Out-of-Africa hypothesis. There is no debate really. The only real debate is around when.
 
Ghost29 said:
Almost all evidence and more importantly, the molecular evidence, indicates the humans originated in Africa. Most reputable scientists agree with the Out-of-Africa hypothesis. There is no debate really. The only real debate is around when.
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Is not the really important thing about this discovery the age - 400k years as opposed to the commonly accepted age ( as far as I can tell ) of 250k-200k years for the emergence of homo sapiens sapiens?

Very interesting - thanks Nothxkbi.
 
Ghost29 said:
Almost all evidence and more importantly, the molecular evidence, indicates the humans originated in Africa. Most reputable scientists agree with the Out-of-Africa hypothesis. There is no debate really. The only real debate is around when.
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it does, however you have to look at your time frame, there might be evidence that man originated somewhere else and then moved to Africa, or that two species could have evolved at two different locations :)
 
zulgin said:
it does, however you have to look at your time frame, there might be evidence that man originated somewhere else and then moved to Africa, or that two species could have evolved at two different locations :)
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All humans alive today share a common ancestor.
 
Adam. The first Man. Not the first monkey to have evolved into a man like Darwin thought.
 
MR.C said:
Adam. The first Man. Not the first monkey to have evolved into a man like Darwin thought.
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If its Adam then the remains should be around 6700 years old (or was it 8700?). Seems your idea is out by a mere 390 000 years. Lets stick to actual facts in Natural Sciences
 
MR.C said:
Adam. The first Man. Not the first monkey to have evolved into a man like Darwin thought.
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Didn't Adam's kids marry females from another town?
Where did they come from?
Or were they hillbillies?
 
Archer said:
If its Adam then the remains should be around 6700 years old (or was it 8700?). Seems your idea is out by a mere 390 000 years. Lets stick to actual facts in Natural Sciences
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If interepreted literally yes. I still think this Adam fellow is more a literal representation of humans as a whole, not one single person but a collective of a time when we had reached a place of self awareness and intelligence, you know there was a point in time we reached that place albeight took a few million years.

We didn't just appear out of nowhere in the literal sence of creationism. Even the Garden of Eden. Perhaps we developed a conscious and awareness of our actions, we became who we are today where we realised our choices have consequences.

Most of us have that ability for ourselves to determine right from wrong. That didn't just appear out of nowhere, we evolved into that kind of being Archer. We are who we are because at some point we recognised our choices. ;)

Just my 5 cents worth.
 
w1z4rd said:
All humans alive today share a common ancestor.
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yeah, however earlier emigration might have occurred at a different location and then died out at some place. There are many reasons for these remains.
 
Nothxkbi said:
snip
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So what other parts do you choose not to interpret literally?

Right and wrong evolved yes. It was not magically given. As can be shown by how our laws have changed since they were first written down 5000 odd years ago. Heck, you can even see how right/wrong changed from OT to NT.

/awaits epic derail
 
Archer said:
If its Adam then the remains should be around 6700 years old (or was it 8700?). Seems your idea is out by a mere 390 000 years. Lets stick to actual facts in Natural Sciences
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Carbon dating is one of the least exact sciences out there. So is counting ice-rings at the poles etc.

Just about 15 years ago, a number of planes from WWII was discovered by sonar in Iceland/Greenland/somewhere.
According to the existing ice-ring dating, the planes was supposedly buried beneath the snow for a couple of hundreds of years.

Carbon doesn't only deteriorate with TIME, there are gazillions of other factors: Temperature when the animal/person died, pH of the surrounding ground, vegetation, exposure to sun, wind etc, amount of pressure applied, etc etc.

If you search through WikiLeaks you'll find an article on carbon dating where a skeleton was thought to be around 10 000 years old, yet it was a skeleton that had been buried under Pine trees for around 40 years.

Science is awesome when it's theory can be PROVED (meaning FACT).
Science and religion is exactly the same thing when theory upon theory upon theory suddenly becomes widely acceptable.

One nice example depicting theoretical science is that ad on Discovery channel:
If you ARE, you BREATHE, if you BREATHE you bleh bleh, ..... , and suddenly, you are ALIVE! :)
 
Pegasus said:
Didn't Adam's kids marry females from another town?
Where did they come from?
Or were they hillbillies?
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jip, and IIRC the one son was banished to another town as well.

I asked my Sunday School that exact question when I was grade 5 and she couldn't anwser me either.
 
Frag said:
Carbon dating is one of the least exact sciences out there. So is counting ice-rings at the poles etc.
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Carbon dating has an upper limit of around 60 000 years, so it could not have been used here. Regardless of that radiometric dating methods, including radio-carbon dating has a margin of error in the single digit percentage points, sometimes less.

Just about 15 years ago, a number of planes from WWII was discovered by sonar in Iceland/Greenland/somewhere.
According to the existing ice-ring dating, the planes was supposedly buried beneath the snow for a couple of hundreds of years.
Click to expand...

I mostly found this story on creationist web sites, which immediately made me suspicious. I found more objective and scientific sources here and here.

Extract:

The seekers of the buried aircraft never extracted intact ice core samples and subjected them to the tests used in scientific dating, and ice cores from moving glaciers aren't used for studying anything but glacial movement
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Experimental error, lack of objectivity (being creationists and all) and lack of the extremely important fact that ice core dating cannot be used to date anything other than the glacier itself

Carbon doesn't only deteriorate with TIME, there are gazillions of other factors: Temperature when the animal/person died, pH of the surrounding ground, vegetation, exposure to sun, wind etc, amount of pressure applied, etc etc.
Click to expand...

Incorrect. The decay of Carbon 14 isotopes begins when the organism dies, the decline then happens at a predictable rate. Only sub-atomic radiation can affect results, even then it is less than a tenth of a percent deviation, well within the margin of error.

If you search through WikiLeaks you'll find an article on carbon dating where a skeleton was thought to be around 10 000 years old, yet it was a skeleton that had been buried under Pine trees for around 40 years.
Click to expand...

I couldn't find anything on carbon dating on wikileaks, nothing on Google or any of the wikileaks search engines. Link?

Science is awesome when it's theory can be PROVED (meaning FACT).
Science and religion is exactly the same thing when theory upon theory upon theory suddenly becomes widely acceptable.
Click to expand...

Wrong. This topic has been thoroughly pwned on the Theory != Guess thread in this section.

One nice example depicting theoretical science is that ad on Discovery channel:
If you ARE, you BREATHE, if you BREATHE you bleh bleh, ..... , and suddenly, you are ALIVE!
Click to expand...

Not even close. That ad is not even remotely logical, it's merely for poetic effect and makes for entertaining TV.

I'll reserve judgement on this find until all facts are known. Anyway finding the oldest skeleton doesn't mean that's where humans come from. After all an even older skeleton may be buried somewhere else but may never be found. The only way to determine this is by mapping genomes, and they show that all humans alive today have a common ancestor from Africa. This is why I dislike popsci, it gets the general public hopping to all kinds of conclusions before scientists get their facts straight
 
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