The Sound Of Settled Science

 

Nearly a hundred stone tools found at the Shangchen site in central China may push back the spread of our ancient cousins—hominins—out of Africa by more than a quarter million years.

 

The toolmakers lived at Shangchen on and off for 800,000 years between 2.1 and 1.3 million years ago, leaving behind tools that are unprecedented outside of Africa. The site’s oldest tools are roughly 300,000 years older than Dmanisi, a 1.8-million-year-old site in the Republic of Georgia with the oldest known fossils of our extinct cousin Homo erectus. […] 

 

“I’ve always said that once the Chinese researchers start looking for evidence on a similar scale as all the money spent in Africa, things will turn up!” exclaims Gerrit van den Bergh, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Wollongong who wasn’t involved with the study.

 

“It again shows how little we actually know.”

Indeed.

“It is time to accept that not all hominins found in Asia fit in the Asian H. erectus taxon, a species that has been largely employed as a blanket term,” she says. “I think that the question about the first Asian hominin identity is not closed yet.”

 

Regardless, Shangchen’s toolmakers would have had brains about a third the size of our own. While brain size isn’t everything, experts say that it’s astounding that such early, small-brained humans made it from Africa to China some two million years ago.

Well, maybe they weren’t from Africa.

38 Replies to “The Sound Of Settled Science”

  1. ‘…experts say that it’s astounding that such early, small-brained humans made it from Africa to China some two million years ago.”

    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

    Hogwash…John Kerry made it all the way to France and back just last month.

    1. Good one! I immediately thought – don’t small brained humans seem to make it everywhere? You win due to topical reference.:)

    2. And Catherine McKenna has been burning up jet fuel all over the world telling everyone they should reduce their emissions.

    3. Shangchen’s toolmakers would have had brains about a third the size of our own
      Excuse me, would have had?? They present no evidence that they have recovered any fossils, in fact:
      Since there aren’t hominin fossils alongside Shangchen’s tools, nobody knows for sure who made them.

      So, the chance that the “scientists” here are right on brain size, if fossils found, 100%, since no fossils were found, 0%.

      Remember, science is about proof, when “scientists” say “probably”, what they mean is, we have no proof, are not acting as scientists, and are going on our pre-convieved prejudices. You may then safely ignore all the part listed as “probably”, and, in many cases, simply assume that they are dead wrong.

      1. Exactly.

        This is Chinese Communist propaganda bought and paid for by Beijing, intended to further their idea that the first men were Chinese. Which they certainly were not.

        1. There are two schools of thought here. One is you want to be the original from which all others evolved (e.g. if you don’t believe the out of Africa theory then you must be a racist). The other is that you don’t want to be the original because this would make you the least evolved (e.g. Neanderthals were stupid, replaced by Homo Erectus).

          The thing about Africa is – no ice age glaciation. Imagine 4 km of ice scraping along the surface over thousands of years across Europe, Russia, much of China and all of Canada. This would leave behind virtually no recent fossil record.

          1. “Imagine 4 km of ice scraping along the surface over thousands of years across Europe, Russia, much of China and all of Canada”
            Actually when you look at maps that show the extent of the ice during the last ice age Asia had very little ice compared to North America and Europe.

      2. If you want to find a proof, study math. Science is about evidence. A particular theory can only be disproved, but never proved.

      3. After 300,000 years of making tools, Scientist and Archaeologist found Shangchena tool producers had made a Genius rock hammer and a Black and Decker hand drill.

        Can’t wait to see the worlds first water hose.

  2. The money for scientific grants is increasingly coming from China, and the Chinese want to be told that human history began in China. So they will be. Whether it’s true hardly matters.

    Who was it said that under socialism the future is known and the hardest thing to predict is the past?

  3. I was sitting in a bar in Regina when out of the blue, a large native guy looks at me and says: ”We were here first.”

    I looked at him and said, ”Look I have no problem with that. But when are you leaving.”

  4. Eastern Africa has been a good place to find early human remains due to lack of vegetation and broad, clear terrain. In other words, it’s an easy place to search versus, say, the Amazon jungle. See “The Streetlight Effect”.

  5. Nice article by National Geographic … who run yet another global warming story next month, claiming … “the science is settled”. Failing to even notice their own inconsistencies. Yes … ALL scientific studies get PAID-for by someone … someone who ALWAYS has an agenda. And in the case of Nat. Geo. … they’ll happily play stenographer for any entity willing to “donate” to the Society.

    1. Archeology, geology, paleontology etc, are sciences that allow unsettled science, probably because isn’t much money to be lost in having a dissenting view. The more money there is in any one science, the more scientists there are crowding in for a piece of the action. Therefore, more consensus is needed to keep the story straight and the funding alive. Imagine what would happen to climate science funding if, all of a sudden, government scientists started to downplay the fears of an apocalypse. What would happen if people woke up and realized that polar bear populations are more affected by human hunters than ice extent, or the recent wild fires in B.C. were the result of human invasion into the forest, not global warming, or the reason the cute penguins have crashed from 200,000 to 20,000 in population has to do with humans opening a food fishery in their habitat – literally stealing their food – not loss of Antarctic sea ice.

      1. You’re ill informed on the penguin issue. The “lost” penguins have been found alive and thriving.
        As for forest fires, do you think jack pines evolving to the point of requiring fire to reproduce was introduced by man? A forest grows and burns through dryness, lightning, or natural combustion. Man has been proven to be responsible for very little of it. A fire renews forests whereas if it were not a natural occurrence that demonstrated adaptation of a species it would have devastated the forests long before out arrival.
        As for polar bears, without man, they would thrive and perish in a cyclical fashion. Man, most likely, maintains more of an equilibrium than they historically had.

        You seemed to have clutched every enviro-weenie issue to your chest and believe it to be knowledge. Get help.

  6. There is too much to still discover. The only thing we truly know at this point is that we do have a history. Explaining the connections of the Denisovans, the Ainu, or the recently discovered pre-dating ancestors of south eastern Europe, is guesswork. We were raised with stories of living in caves ten thousand years ago and then we discover majestic cities three times that old. We were raised with biblical stories of sheep herders, and finding out, that a lot of the world had technology and mathematics beyond most people’s comprehension. We were raised thinking Clovis man settled North America, where we now know waves of Europeans, Africans, Polynesians, and Asians were mixing to become a new people.

    Our history is like driving through the mountains, if you don’t like the weather, wait until we go around the next bend.

  7. p.s. given the discoveries, I think we will soon discover that the “out of Africa” concept was a poorly visualized and ill informed theory. The data and the discoveries do not support this theory in any way shape or form. All indicators point to an Asian origin.

    1. There is a reason that most people came out of Africa. It is simple, for 9 of the last 10 years, there have been ice ages. Except in African, no ice in Africa. So, where would humanity flourish, the place covered largely in ice, or the place that is not?

      This isn’t rocket science.

      Not that the fact that that is self evidently true and obvious means it will never occur to the modern scientist, who base their ‘science” on prejudices.

      1. Please review geological records and post a correction to your comments. Southeast Asia has never been ice covered, and has more historical diversity within their jungles than Africa ever did. In addition, denser population, shorter people, and closer ties to older indigenous peoples than anyone from Africa. In addition, the fact that no Neanderthal DNA exists om a continent that supposedly spawned all life makes no sense. More likely a group wandered in and bred it out of existence.

        Playing the racism card was a stupid move and indicates more of your prejudice than mine.

        1. fact that no Neanderthal DNA exists om a continent
          Neanderthal DNA has been found in Africa, the most ancient African DNA shows some Neanderthal DNA.

          It is simple, really, long ago, we are all Neanderthal, then, we changed (this is called evolution). That change had to take place somewhere, that somewhere was Africa. The new humans then overran the earth, and crowded out and conquered the Neanderthals. This explains why there is less (nut not none) Neanderthal DNA in Africa, and more the further away you get from Africa (I am lumping the other two Neanderthal-like species in with Neanderthals here, such as Denisovans, they looked exactly the same).

          As for Please review geological records and post a correction to your comments. http://articles.latimes.com/2014/feb/04/news/la-ol-neanderthals-africa-dna-20140204
          OK, your turn, please review Genetic records and post a correction to your comments.

      2. Not a single culture … with similar Garden of Eden allegories … describe that setting as covered in ice!!

    2. IJ …..a wise person does not believe in absolutes, and that is the main axe I have to grind against religions. They have an emotional basis and are considered absolutes.

  8. now they will go looking for an ark, that floated ONLY about 5000 years ago:-)))

    1. now they will go looking for an ark, that floated ONLY about 5000 years ago:-)))
      If they are ignorant of what was actually written. Having looked it up (more people should do that, rather than just accept stuff), I found that there is nothing about the world being made in six days, instead, six periods of time, YOM in the Hebrew, length unspecified. I found not one word anywhere about any 5000 years, that appears to have come from a genealogy, where the word “father” can also mean grandfather, great-grandfather etc, as such, it cannot be used for dating.

      As for that flood, look here https://www.livescience.com/10340-lost-civilization-existed-beneath-persian-gulf.html . Note, In Genesis, “The Garden” was stated to be where there were four rivers, two of those rivers still meet Look on the map, that point is west of this ancient civilization said to be buried (or could have been buried, archaeology would be difficult), which makes this civilization “east of Eden”.

      Now, if humanity had just started, there would be few people (relative to today), they could have all lived in that one area (they had to start somewhere). If, then, this ancient civilization existed, and was flooded when the then current ice age ended (the seas rise 400 feet), the story of the flood can be true. It does not prove that it is true, but it can be. However, that is NO evidence it was 5000 years, ago, and plenty of evidence that it was far longer ago than that.

      BTW, the creation of Man in genesis says that Man was made out of the dust of the earth and would return to dust, IE, Man was made out of matter, mortal, as compared to God, made out of spirit, immortal, which appears to be the point it is trying to make. Thus, the method of the creation of Man is not specified.

      Note, the creation of the first life, plants, is stated like this “and God said, let THE EARTH bring forth plants”. That suggests that it was a natural, earthly process. For later life, sea life, then birds (dinosaurs), then mammals, then Man, it is not specified how they came to be, only that they did.

      There is what the Bible said in the original language, and there is what ignorant modern people who seem to believe it was originally written in English think it said, they are not the same.

  9. Apparently there once were more human looking bones available for study in China. After the reds took over, over time a lot of that stuff was lost. The thugs in power were too busy burying bones of a more recent vintage than caring about a few old bones.

  10. Guys on my last job site are having paleontologist give them alligator teeth, which are being dug up in the north end of the City of Calgary. There are so many, they are just handing them out like candy.

    Calgary was swamp land at one time. We have been in global cooling for a very long time, I welcome the warming I miss having beach front property here.

  11. Another interesting fact is that virtually all of the discoveries of man’s supposed ancestors were proven hoaxes. Piltdown man, Lucy, and other faked hominids. And the discoverers and hoaxes were directed by Jesuit priests or were Jesuit priests themselves.

    Like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

    1. Lucy is a fake Australopithecus afarensis? Wow!

      Great that we have other Australopithecus afarensis fossil remains.

  12. Joe Rogan Podcast talking about Sphynx being like 10-20K years old, mass solar ejections of 9700 BC and ice ages…!?
    Robert Schoch is an associate professor of Natural Sciences at the College of General Studies, Boston University. He has been best known as a proponent of the Sphinx water erosion hypothesis. Check out links to more of his work at http://robertschoch.com
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vka2ZgzZTvo

  13. Some things I have always found odd. One of those is the seeming insistence by anthropologists that “Lucy”, out of Africa, is the common ancestor of us all. Or at least, all human ancestors originated in Africa.
    Peer pressure and orthodoxy being what they are, I assume almost all anthropologists are evolutionists. Do they not believe that microevolutions happen every generation, everywhere? Snail darters can separately evolve in every pond, so that they have to be given separate “scientific” names as to genus and species. Won’t that be the same with humans? I mean, shouldn’t every proto humanoid society evolve into humanoid? Travel in geological age definitely was limited as compared to now. “Lucy” must have been very fertile to have her descendants fan out to all the continents, and replace or slaughter all other proto humanoid specie? It doesn’t seem likely. I mean, however did they make it from Africa, across the Sinai, and (1) through the deserts of the Stans, or (2) the high mountains of India or Burma, or (3) the then disease infested swamps of the Yangtze, to arrive at the Yellow River Basin. This sounds more like a re-rendering of Genesis, with the Garden of Eden placed in Africa, and “Lucy” is nothing more than a nom de guerre of “Eve.”

    1. OB, well said:-)))

      Science is about questions more so than answers. Answers are often wrong, questions not so much!!

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