Wednesday, February 16, 2005
I See Spencer Tracy As the Paleoanthropologist
Oldest Remains of Modern Humans Are Identified
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK (AP) -- A new analysis of bones unearthed nearly 40 years ago in Ethiopia has pushed the fossil record of modern humans back to nearly 200,000 years ago -- perhaps close to the dawn of the species.
Researchers determined that the specimens are around 195,000 years old. Previously, the oldest known fossils of Homo sapiens were Ethiopian skulls dated to about 160,000 years ago.
Genetic studies estimate that Homo sapiens arose about 200,000 years ago, so the new research brings the fossil record more in line with that, said John Fleagle of Stony Brook University in New York, an author of the study.
PALEOANTHROPOLOGIST
Look! Now the fossil record places the birth of Homo Sapiens at around the same time the genetic evidence suggests!
An interested crowd gathers.
IRISH COP WHO IS ALSO A CREATIONIST
Nothing to see here, folks, move along.
IRISH COP WHO IS ALSO A CREATIONIST smashes the bone fragments with a billy club.
PALEOANTHROPOLOGIST
Hey!
IRISH COP WHO IS ALSO A CREATIONIST
If you don't pipe down, I'm going to intelligently re-design yer face! Keep moving, folks, ain't nothin' here but some bits 'o bone, 'tain't older than precisely 6,000 years. And you, sir, a man of science, go home to yer ma an' leave th' "interpretation of evidence" and "testing of hypothoses" to th' church.
THIS CONCLUDES THE DUPONT-WESTINGHOUSE SCIENCE AND OUTDATED ETHNIC STEREOTYPE THEATER HOUR |
