Evolution Encyclopedia Vol. 2
A N C I E N T M A N Part 2
THE LAETOLI TRACKS Human tracks from Laetoli in East Africa are described in the April 1979 issue of National Geographic, and the February 9, 1980 issue of Science News. The prints look just like yours and mine. Evolutionists refuse to accept these as human prints, because to do so would destroy all their strata dating theories. One desperate scientist rented a trained bear and had him dance around in wet mud, in the hope the print would look like the human prints found in solid shale. His conclusion was that the Laetoli prints were identical to those of regular people.
"Mary Leakey has found at Laetoli in Africa, footprints which are considered to date from nearly 4 million years ago, and are indentical with the footprints of modern humans except that they are somewhat smaller. (Mary D. Leakey, "Footprints Frozen in Time," National Geographic, 155 (4): 446-457 [1979].) They might, in fact, be identical with the footprints of a modern female, of an age in the teens. Moreover, Mary Leakey and Dr. Johanson have found teeth and jawbones which, except that they are again a little smaller, are of virtually identical appearance with those of modern humans. These remains, found at Laetoli and Hadar, date from about 3.75 million years ago. Johanson found also at Hadar the bones of a hand, 'uncannily like our own' dated to about 3.5 million years ago." W. Mehlert, "The Australopithecines and (Alleged) Early Man, " in Creation Research Society Quarterly, June 1980, p. 24.
"[In 1982, Richard Leakey] was also convinced from the famous foot prints at Laetoli that the genus Homo existed 3.75 million years B.C. (700,000 years before Lucy)." A. W. Mehlert, News note, Creation Research Society Quarterly, December 1985, p. 145 [emphasis his].
"At a site called Laetoli in Kenya, 30 miles south of Olduvai Gage, in 1976-1978, she [Mary Leakey] made what she considers the most exciting discovery of her career: preserved footprints of three hominid individuals who had left their tracks in soft volcanic ash more than three million years ago. It is a remarkable record of `fossilized' behavior, establishing that very ancient man-like creatures walked exactly as we do. " *R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), p. 270.
Here are some comments from the National Geographic article:
" 'They looked so human, so modern, to be found in tuffs so old,' says footprint expert Dr. Louise Bobbins of the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. The best-preserved print shows the raised arch, rounded heel, pronounced ball, and forward-pointing big toe necessary for walking erect. Pressures exerted along the foot attest to a striding gait. Scuff marks appear in the toe area, and a fossilized burrow seams the footprint." (page 452)
"The footsteps come from the south, progress northward in a fairly straight line." (page 453)
"The crispness of definition and sharp outlines convince me that they were left on a damp surface that retained the form of the foot." (page 453)
"The form of his foot was exactly the same as ours." (page 453)
"[On the same level with the footprints and close to them] Trackers identified gazelles and other creatures almost indistinguishable from present-day inhabitants, but the saber-toothed cat and the clawed chalico--there, both now extinct, roamed with them." (page 454)
"Dr. Louise Robbins of the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, an anthropologist who specializes in the analysis of footprints, visited Laetoli and concluded: . .'Weight bearing pressure patterns in the prints resemble human ones' " (page 456) *Mary D. Leakey, "Footprints in the Ashes of Time, " National Geographic, April 1979, pp. 452-458.
THE GEDIZ TRACK The magazine, Nature (254(5501):553 [1975]) published a photograph of a footprint which was found in volcanic ash near Demirkopru, Turkey, in 1970. The print is now in the Stockholm Museum of National History. The print was of a man running toward the Gediz River, and scientists estimate its stratigraphic location as being 250,000 years ago. This print is not as clear as the Glen Rose tracks.
THE GLEN ROSE TRACKS In a Cretaceous limestone formation near Glen Rose, Texas are to be found some remarkable footprints. They are the tracks of giant men! You can go look at them for yourself. (But when you arrive, ask one of the old timers to tell you where to look. As soon as they are exposed, they gradually begin eroding away.)
Glen Rose is located in north central Texas, about 40 miles southwest of the Fort Worth-Dallas metropolitan area. The area has little rainfall, and for several months each year the Pulaxy River is completely dry. From time to time the river changes its course. This occurs at those times when the quiet river becomes a raging torrent. Because the river has such a steep slope (a drop of 17 feet [51.8 dm] per mile), it is the second-swiftest river in Texas and quite dangerous in time of heavy rainfall.
It was after the terrible flood of 1908, when the river rose 27 feet [82.3 dm], that the prints began to be noticed. The new riverbed brought to view a fiat rock bottom with animal and human prints in what was once wet mud, which had turned to stone.
Clifford L. Burdick, a mining geologist, and *Roland T. Bird, a paleontologist with the American Museum of Natural History, carefully examined and reported on the footprints.
The present writer is over six feet [18.2 dm] tall and has a foot that is about 101/2 inches [26.67 cm] in length. The Glen Rose tracks are 15 inches (38.1 cm] long, and were probably made by people 8.3 feet [25.38 dm] tall
"Yes, they apparently are real enough. Real as the rock could be . . the strangest things of their kind I had ever seen. On the surface of each was splayed the near-likeness of a human foot, perfect in every detail. But each imprint was 15 inches long!" *Roland T. Bird, "Thunder In His Footsteps," in Natural History, May 1939, p. 255.
(As mentioned later in this study, some of the human tracks are 21 1/2 inches [54.6 cm] long and thus would have been made by humans about 11.8 feet [25.38 dm] tall.)
During his research at the Paluxy River Bed near Glen Rose, Bird found not only human footprints, but also by them trails of large three-toed carnivorous dinosaurs, and the tracks of a gigantic sauropod. Each print was 24 x 38 inches [60.9 x 96.5 cm] in size, 12 feet [36.57 dm] apart, and sunk deeply into the mud! Both man and dinosaur were apparently running.
In 1938, under Bird's supervision, a trail of Brontosaurus tracks were taken from the bed and shipped to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. C.L. Burdick's findings were published in the Spring 1957 issue of The Naturalist.
The so-called "Cretaceous Period" is the only time when the dinosaurs were supposed to have lived. It is said to have spanned 70 million years, dating from 135 million to 65 million years ago. Man is said to have appeared no earlier than 4 million years ago. The "Glen Rose formation," as it is known by geologists, is dated as "Early Cretaceous," or 120 million years ago.
This formation is described as limestone, alternating with clay, marl, and sand, and in various shades of brownish yellow and gray. Its thickness is 40 to 200 feet [121.9-602.6 dm]. Preservation of such tracks in limestone provides conclusive proof of rapid formation. As soon as the tracks were made, a layer of clay, sand, and gravel washed in and filled them so they would not dissolve away. Also, if the tracks were not quickly covered they would erode away. There is no room here for hundreds or millions of years. The prints were made and covered and preserved fast! It may well be that the prints were being covered by rising, turbulent water, which, after covering them with sediments, washed out temporarily as the earth may have moved up or down. It was a time of geologic catastrophe on a massive scale.
Tracks are found in several of the layers of limestone, as they are exposed by river erosion. Man tracks have been found in layers BELOW that of the dinosaur prints! Fossils from land, sea shore, and open sea have all been found here.
Human footprints are found above, with, and below prints of bears, sabre-toothed tigers, mammoths, and dinosaurs.
Another striking evidence of the genuiness of these tracks is called "mud push-up." These footprints show "mud up-push" where the toes pushed up the mud in front and on the sides. This would not occur if these were "erosion markings," as some evolutionists claim. Lamination markings, indicating that the foot pressed through different colored clays beneath it, are also to be seen on many of the human and animal tracks.
Over a hundred human footprint trails have been studied in the Paluxy River area. Most of the footprints are unshod, but some appear to have some kind of covering on the foot. Some marks are of children's feet, but always going somewhere with adults. Some are of giants. Each one will have length of strides to match the footprint size. Quite a few of the tracks are 16 Inches [40.64 cm] in size, but several of the trails are of a man with a seven-foot [21.3 dm] stride and a footprint of 21 % inches [54.6 cm] in length. We estimate the 16-inch [40.64 cm] tracks to have been made by 8.8-foot [27.06 dm] tall people, and the 21 1/2 inch [54.6 cm] tracks by 11.94 foot [36.39 dm] people.
"An anthropological rule of thumb holds that the length of the foot represents about 15 percent of an individual's height." "May D. Leakey, "Footprints in the Ashes of Time," National Geographic, April 1979, p. 453.
C.N. Dougherty, a local chiropractor in the Glen Rose area, wrote a book, Valley of the Giants, in 1967. He has located, described, and photographed many of the human prints.
THE PULAXY BRANCH That might be the end of the matter, but in August 1978, accompanied by two friends, Fred Beierle decided to spend the afternoon searching for tracks. Then he found something unusual.
"I was looking for more tracks around what is commonly called the number two crossing, a section of the river, adjacent to the Robert Mack farm, where there are many dinosaur tracks. In the same formation as the dinosaur tracks, about 200 meters [218.6 yd] downstream from them, we found a charred branch from a tree embedded in the Cretaceous rock. The branch was about 2 inches [5.08 cm] in diameter and 7 feet [21.34 dm] long. It had apparently fallen into the soft, mud-like material which later became limestone, and while the branch was burning. It had quickly been buried, but had continued to smolder for sometime, thus being converted into charcoal, and had remained when the mud hardened into limestone." Fredrick P. Beierle, "A New Kind of Evidence from the Paluxy," in Creation Research Society Quarterly, September 1979, p. 87.
The three men decided that the branch had fallen off a tree which had been hit by lightning. For centuries that branch had been completely encased in stone. The fact that the wood was charcoal and not ash indicates that it was burning when it fell, and then covered while still burning. The wood clearly showed the sacks often seen in half-burned wood. It lay east west, at nearly a right angle to the river. The branch was 2.26 m [2.47 ft] in length. Its eastern tip was concealed, and only the upper part was exposed; the rest was embedded in the rock. The thicker eastern section was about 5 cm [1.968 in] wide, while most of the rest was about 2.5 cm [.98 in] in diameter.
Beierle sent a sample of the wood to *Reisner Berg of UCLA to have it radio-dated. The carbon 14 test result which came back gave a date for the burned wood of approximately 12,800 years. Corrected, this would agree with Flood chronology. (See chapter 7, Dating Methods, for radiocarbon dating problems.)
"The test showed that the wood is about 12,000 years old. Now, the mud must have hardened into rock after the branch fell into it. But the tracks in the rock must have been made in the mud only a very short time before it hardened, or else they would never have remained. So the tracks in the rock must be no more than about 12,000 years old.
"Nobody, as far as I know, has disputed that the dinosaur tracks found at the river are genuine. Thus, there must have been dinosaurs living about 12,000 years ago. (1) This conclusion, it will be noted, fellows whether or not the human tracks, of which many have been found, are genuine. On the other hand, when the dinosaur tracks have been shown to be comparatively recent, there is no reason to doubt that human tracks might be found in the same place." Op. cit, pp 88, 131.
So that radio-dated branch gives a recent date for the human tracks, thus showing they could definitely be human--but also dates the dinosaur tracks as just as recent!
THE ANTELOPE SPRINGS TRACKS Trilobites are small marine creatures that are now extinct. Evolutionists tell us that trilobites are one of the most ancient creatures which have ever lived on Planet Earth, and they existed millions of years before there were human beings. William J. Meister, Sr., a drafting supervisor, by trade (and, by the way, a non-Christian), made a hobby of searching for trilobite fossils in the mountains of Utah. On June 1, 1968, he found a human footprint, and there were trilobites in the same rock! The location was Antelope Springs, about 43 miles northwest of Delta, Utah.
Breaking off a large, two-inch thick piece of rock, he hit it on edge with a hammer, and it fell open in his hands. To his great astonishment, he found on one side the footprint of a human being, with trilobites right in the footprint itself! The other
half of the rock slab showed an almost perfect mold of a footprint and fossils. Amazingly, the human was wearing a sandal!
The footprint measured 101/s inches long by 31/2 inches wide at the sole [26.035 x 8.89 cm], and 3 inches wide [7.62 cm] at the heel. The heel print was indented in the rock about an eighth of an inch [1.676 cm] more than the sole. It was clearly the right foot, because the sandal was well-worn on the right side of the heel. Several easily-visible trilobites were visible in the footprint. It had stepped on them, pressing them underfoot.
No chance of hand-made "carvings" here, as the evolutionists charge at Glen Rose. The footprint was located halfway up a 2,000-foot mountain face, and Meister had to stop to rest many times as he climbed. Where he found the print, he had to make footholds to stand on, in order to search for trilobites. Meister mentions that he told Burdick and Carlisle about the site. This is what happened next:
"The first week in August, Dr. Clifford Burdick, well traveled consulting geologist of Tucson, Arizona, visited the site of the discovery at Antelope Springs with Mr. Carlisle [a graduate geologist at the University of Colorado]. On this visit Dr. Burdick found a footprint of a barefoot child in the same location as my discovery. He showed me this footprint August 18.
"The day before, my family and I had met Dr. Burdick at Antelope Springs. While there we found another sandal print. Dr. Burdick continued, and on Monday, August 19, he informed me by letter that he had found a second child's footprint.
"In addition to my discovery and that of Dr. Burdick, a friend of mine, George Silver, digging alone in this location, discovered more footprints of a human or human beings, also shod in sandals. His specimen, which he showed to me (1 also showed this specimen to Dr. Melvin Clark), had two footprints, one about a half inch [2.54 cm] above and on top of the other.
"Finally Dean Bitter, teacher in the public schools of Salt Lake City, discovered other footprints of human beings wearing sandals much like those found by George Silver and me. Both Dr. Cook and I have seen his specimens found at Antelope Springs, some distance from the site of my discovery." William J. Moister, Sr., "Discovery of Trilobite Fossils in Shod Footprint of Human in 'Trilobite Beds' A Cambrian Formation Antelope Springs, Utah, " in Why Not Creation? (1970), p. 190.
As a result of finding the footprints, Moister became a Christian.
*Leland Davis, a consulting geologist, analyzed the strata the footprints it had been found inand found them to be "consisting almost entirely of Cambrian strata"! This is the oldest regular fossil-bearing strata on the planet!
You can find a complete description of the Antelope Springs footprint discoveries in the book, Why Not Creation?, pp. 185-193.
Similar giant human footprints have been found in Arizona, near Mount Whitney in California, near White Sands, New Mexico, and other places.
OTHER GIANT PEOPLE In addition to the above, several other giant human footprints and even skeletal remainshave been found.
"The remains of giants were found in Java, twice the size of gorillas, and later the petrified remains of a giant were found in South Africa and reported by the world-renowned anthropologist, Robert Broom. [Based on those finds] Dr. Franz Weidenreich (1946) propounded a new theory to the effect that man's ancestors were actually giants. Dr. [Clifford] Burdick also tells about one of the unsolved mysteries of the Great White Sands National Monument near Alamogordo, New Mexico. Here is an area of about 175 aces (70.82 ha] consisting of alabaster, white as snow.
"It is believed that this gypsum was precipitated as arid winds dried up an inland sea. As this muddy sediment was beginning to harden, some prehistoric giant apparently walked across the drying lakebed, leaving a series of tracks made by sandaled feet. There are 13 human tracks, each track approximately 22 inches [55.8] long and from 8 to 10 inches [20.32-25.4 an] wide. The stride is from four to five feet [121.9152.4 cm]."H.R. Siegler Evolution or Degeneration. Which? (1972), p. 83.
THE ARIZONA TRACKS Ancient track marks are technically known as "ichnofossils." Recently two new clusters of them have been located in Arizona.
In the late 1960s, a private plane flown by Eryl Cummings made an emergency landing on a dirt road along the Moenkopi Wash, near the Little Colorado River of northern Arizona. While there, Cummings discovered in sandstone some fossil tracks which appeared to be that of s barefoot human child. Near it were some dinosaur tricks. Cummings recognized the strata to belong to the Kayenta, which evolutionists date to about 190 million years in the past. He wanted to return to the location, but never had the time or funds for an expedition. Years passed.
In 1984, Lorraine Austin found similar tracks not far from Cumming's site and told Paul Rosnau about them. That same year, Rosnau visited the area (later designated as site-1). Here he located many human tracks, dinosaur tracks, and a handprint of a child that had slipped and put his hand down to catch himself. Learning about Cumming's discovery, Rosnau received directions to his site, which turned out to be about 3 km [1.86 mid from site-1. In 1986 he searched for the Cummings site but was unable to locate the trackways, apparently because the dirt road had been widened and they had been eradicated. But about 100 mi [160.93 km] west of the road, he found dozens of man tracks. This location was named site-2.
Thirty full pages of information on this discovery will be found in a two-part article by Paul Rosnau, Jeremy Auldaney, George Howe, and William Waisgerber, in the September and December 1989 issues of Creation Research Society Quarterly.
The Arizona tracks are located in the Glen Canyon Group, which is part of late Triassic to early Jurassic strata and supposedly date to 175 to 100 million years in the past.
At least 300 tridactyl dinosaur tracks have been found, a cloven-footed hoof print of a mammal, bivalves (clams of the Unio complanatus, a freshwater bivalve which still lives in American lakes), large amphibians, lungfish, and 3 ungulate-like tracks (domestic sheep or wild big horn sheep).
Over 60 human tracks were mapped and photographed. A number of the human tracks were in stride cress, some were standing still with left and right foot near each other, all the rest were walking and going somewhere. In some instances, a shoe or something similar seemed to be on the feet. Here are some interesting comments by the authors:
[Describing one of the tracks:] "The other was an almost perfect barefoot track, typical of tracks made in soft mud. It has a deep heel, an arch almost level with the surface, a deep ball, and toe angle." Op. cit., part 2, p.81.
"Similarly, a lone, indistinct, eroded dinosaur track would not be considered authentic, but in an area of distinct tracks it would be accepted as one of many genuine tracks. The trails of man-tracks we have located together with the details of the human foot--toes, ball of foot, arch, heel and taper of toes--rule out chance formations of nature in a great many of our discoveries. "Op. cit., p. 91."[Here are] two characteristics of authentic human footprints: (1) on hard surfaces they will assume an hourglass shape; (2) on wet surfaces the heel and ball of the foot will make prominent impressions while the arch will not be prominent. I submit that at site-2 at Tuba City there are tracks that meet both these qualifications." Ibid.
"(1) There are track-ways with repeated barefoot tracks while others have shoe prints which are always headed in the same direction and in reasonable stride with each other. (2) Some are almost identical, existing side by side with the right distance and angles to each other. (3) There are impressions with sharp, shoe-shaped outlines. (4) There is an unusually high percentage (22 percent) of foot and shoe-like impressions in groups. . (8) There are other print pairs with strikingly identical features, always near each other." Op. cit., p. 92
"Among the impressions there are 30 that are better than the accepted human tracks displayed in the San Bernardino County Museum in Redlands, California." Ibid.
"There is a predominance of fossil bones and tracks of flesh-eating animals such as the phytosaurs, dinosaurs Dilophosurus, and Coelophysis. In normal ecological systems there are always more plant-eaters. Does this indicate that these carnivorous animals had come down to the area to eat the dead killed in a cataclysm?" Op, cit., p. 93.
OTHER HUMAN PRINTSMany other human tracks have been found in "ancient" stratawhere they are not supposed to be located.
Footprints were found in sandstone near Carson City, Nevada. The prints were clear and well-defined, with a report being given in the *American Journal of Science (also see * Herbert Wendt, In Search of Adam (1956), p. 519-520). Footprints were found in sandstone near Berea, Kentucky, about 1930, and were carefully analyzed by a state geologist. Some of the prints were in a walking stride. Distinct right and left Impressions were found, each with five toes and a distinct arch. The prints could not have been carved, since some of them were partly covered by a sandstone strata overlay.
Miners digging into a coal seam in Fisher Canyon, Pershing County, Nevada, found a shoeprint. the imprint of the sole is so clear that traces of sewed thread are visible. The coal bed it was found in supposedly dates back to 15 million years, while man is not thought to have evolved into being until about 1 million years ago. (Andrew Tomas, We are Not the First (1971), p. 24.)
Footprints were found close to a lake near Managua, Nicaragua. They were located 16 to 24 feet [48.77-73.15 dm] below the surface, beneath 11 strata of solid rock. Evolutionists have been in a running controversy about those prints for over a century. (It is a controversy they would rather run from.) Initially, the prints were dated at 200,000 years, but since the feet were perfectly modern, the age was reduced to about 50,000 years. The only geologist to visit the location also found traces of domesticated dogs and horses with the prints. But when Europeans came to America in the 16th century, they found no dogs or horses. Polished stone artifacts and projectile points were also found nearby.
Carbon 14 testing has recently been applied to the prints--yielding a 3000 B.C. date. But this would mean that, in very recent times, a most terrible catastrophe caused those thick layers of 11 rock strata above the prints. To make matters worse for the evolutionists, fossils and mastodon bones have been found in the strata above the human prints.
Harvard University has a sandal print that was found, next to human and animal tracks, near the city of San Raphael.
Other human tracks have been found in South America; New Harmony, Indiana; St. Louis, Missouri; Herculaeum, Missouri; and Kingston, New York (Creation Research Society Quarterly, March 1971, p. 205).
HUMAN REMAINS IN COAL Although Coal is supposed to date back to very early prehistoric times--millions upon millions of years in the past (300 million years ago is the date generally given)yet remains of people and their productions have been found in it. Evolutionists are very quiet about these astonishing facts.
It is very understandable how this could happen, since the vast forests of the ancient world were turned into coal and petroleum at the time of the Flood, recorded in Genesis 6 to 9.
1- The Freiberg Skull. A fossilized human skull was found in solid coal in Germany. When the coal was broken open, the skull was found inside.
"In the coal collection in the Mining Academy in Freiberg [Saxony], there is a puzzling human skull composed of brown coal and manganiferious and phosphatic limonite . . This skull was described by Karsten and Dechen in 1842." *Otto Stutter, Geology of Coal (1940), p. 271.
Presumably Tertiary in age, the coal would have far outdated the appearance of man, according to evolutionary theory.
2 - Juvenile Jaw. In 1958 the jawbone of a child of about six years of age was found in coal in Tuscany. It had been flattened like a piece of sheet iron. In this instance, it was found by an expert: *Johannes Hurzeler of the Museum of Natural History in Basel, Switzerland. (*Harroux, One Hundred Thousand Years of man's Unknown History [1970], p. 29.)
3 - Two giant human molars were found in the Eagle Coal Mine at Bear Creek, Montana, in November 1926. They are reported in *Frank Edwards, Stranger than Science, p. 77.
4 - Human Leg. A coal miner in West Virginia found a perfectly formed human leg that had changed into coal. (Creation Research Society Quarterly, March 1968, p. 147.)
5 - Human Skeleton. A human skeleton of a young woman was found embedded in the midst of thick, solid limestone on the island of Guadeloupe in the West Indies. fragments of shells and corals are also embedded in the limestone. This fossil is now in the British Museum in London. (This find was mentioned earlier in this chapter under "Guadeloupe Woman.")
MAN-MADE REMAINS IN COAL A variety of man-made objects have also been found in coal. Here are four of them:
1 - Gold Chain. In 1891, a lady in Morrisville, Illinois, accidentally dropped a shovelful of coal onto the floor while carrying it to her stove. A large chunk broke open, exposing an intricately structured gold chain "neatly coiled and embedded." Originally reported in the Morrisonville, Illinois Times, of June 11, 1891, the 10-inch [25.4 cm] chain was found to be composed of eight-carat gold. When the coal broke apart, part of the chain remained in each piece, holding them together. Thus there is no possibility that the chain had been dropped into the pile of coal.
2 - Steel Cube. In 1885 at Isidor Braun's foundry in Vocklabruck, Austria, a block of coal was broken and a small steel cube fell out. It had a deep incision around it and the edges were rounded on two of its faces. The owner's son took it to the Linz Museum in Austria, but later it was lost. A cast of the cube still remains at the museum. (*Andrew Tomas, We Are Not the First [1971 ], p. 44.)
3 - Iron Pot. In 1912, two employees of the Municipal Electric Plant in Thomas, Oklahoma, were working with some coal that had been mined near Wilburton, Oklahoma. One chunk was too large for the furnace, so it was hit with a sledge and it immediately broke open. An iron pot fell out, leaving an impression (mold) of its shape in the coal. An affidavit was filled out by the two witnesses and the pot was photographed. The pot has been seen by thousands of people. (Creation Research Society Quarterly, March 1971, p. 201.)
4 - Child's spoon. While still a child, in 1937, Mrs. Myrna R. Burdick, together with her mother found a child's spoon in soft Pennsylvania coal. A picture of it is to be found in Creation Research Society Quarterly, for June 1976 (page 74). Her address was listed as 1534 Kearney Street, Casper, Wyoming 82601.
MAN-MADE OBJECTS IN ROCK Objects made by people have also been found in noncoal materials. Coal formations are dated by paleontologists to millions of years in the past. Here are eight of these discoveries:
1 - Iron Nail. David Brewster found an iron nail in a Cretaceous block from the Mesozoic era. A report on the find was made by the British Association in 1845-1851, in which it was stated that a nail was found in a block of stone from Kingoodie Quarry, North Britain. The block containing the nail was eight inches [20.32 cm] thick and came from below the surface. The last inch of the nail, including the head, was imbedded in the stone, but the remainder, which was quite rusted, projetted into some till. (Sir David Brewster, Report of Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Vol. 14.; *Charroux, One Hundred Thousand Years of Man's Unknown History (1970], p. 181.)
2 - Gold Thread. In a rock quarry near Tweed, below Rutherford Mills, England, workmen were quarrying rock when they discovered a gold thread embedded in stone at a depth of eight inches [20.32 cm]. A piece of the object was sent to a nearby newspaper, the Kelso Chronicle. (London Times, June 22, 1844, p. 8, col. 5.)
3 - Iron Nail. Probably while searching for gold, Hiram Witt found a piece of auriferous quartz in California in 1851. When it was accidentally dropped, an iron nail with a perfect head was found inside. The London Times of 1851 carried a report on it.
(Before concluding this item, we will mention a parallel item; quartz does not require millions of years to form. Quartz crystals were found in a Nevada mine which could have been formed only within the previous 15 years. In the same area, a mill had been torn down and sandstone had formed around it in that length of time. A piece of wood with a nail in it was found in the sandstone.)
4 - Silver Vessel. Workmen were blasting near Dorchester, Massachusetts in 1851, and, in a bed of solid rock, found a bell-shaped metal vessel. The vessel had inlaid floral designs in silver, and showed a remarkably high degree of craftsmanship. A report on this find was later printed in the Scientific American (June 1851).
5 - Metal Screw. A mold of a metal screw was found in a chunk of feldspar. (Springfield Republican; reprinted in London Times, December 24, 1851, p. 5, col. 6.)
8 - Wedge-shaped Object. A wedge-shaped metallic object was found inside a piece of coal (Proceedings of the Society of Antiquarians of Scotland, Vol. 1, No. 1, p. 121.)
7 - Metal Bowl. An intricately carved and inlaid metal bowl was blasted out of solid puddingstone (Scientific American, June 5, 1852).
8 - Iron Nail. In the 16th century, Spanish conquistadors came across an iron nail about six inches [15.24 cm] long solidly incrusted in rock in a Peruvian mine. Iron was unknown to the Indians there. The Spanish Viceroy kept the mysterious nail in his study as a souvenir, and an account of this find is to be found in a letter in Madrid Archives (see archival year 1572). (*Andrew Tomas, We are Not the First [1971 ], pp. 28-29.)
MAN-MADE OBJECTS FOUND IN THE GROUND In locations in the earth far too deep to have been made by human beings (according to evolutionary theory) or in strata which is dated as being very ancient, man-made objects have been found:
1 - Doll. In 1889, workmen were boring an artesian well near Nampa, Idaho. A small figurine of baked clay was extracted from a depth of 320 feet [81.28 dm]. Just above the statuette, the drill, inside a 6-inch [15.2 cm] tube, had cut through 15 feet [45.7 dm] of basalt lava. Called the "Nampa image," the object may have anciently been a doll or an idol. (Immanuel Velikovsky, Earth in Upheaval [1955].) (As mentioned in chapter 19, Effects of the Flood, Parts of northwest America have thick layers of volcanic material, probably laid down just after the Flood.)
2 - Bronze Coin. A bronze coin from a depth of 114 feet [347.47 dm] was found near Chillicothe, Illinois by well drillers in 1871. This remarkable discovery reveals that ancient peoples lived in America before the time of the Indians, that they had coins, and that immense upheavals and changes in the land took place as a result of a catastrophe. (*Frank Edwards, Strangest of All [1962], p. 101.)
3 - Tiled Paving. In 1936 a resident of Plateau City, Colorado (close to Grand Junction) was digging a cellar. At a depth of 10 feet [30.48 dm] he found paved tile that was laid in some type of mortar. Nothing elsewhere in the valley was anything like it. The tiles were found in a Miocene formation, which would normally date them at 25 million years old. (*Frank Edwards, Strangest of All [1982], pp. 100-101.)
4 - California Finds. During the gold rush in the middle of the last century, miners in California found a number of unusual objects. These were either found fairly deep in the ground, or in "prehuman levels" of strata. It is of interest that these ancient peoples were themselves able to bore into mountains for gold and silver. One of their shafts was 210 feet [640 dm] deep into solid rock. An altar for worship was found in one of them. Here are more items found in California:
"[In California was found] A mortar for grinding gold ore at a depth of 300 feet [914 dm] in a mining tunnel; a mortar and pestle weighing 30 pounds [13.6 kg], beads, perforated stores; a 40pound [18 kg] oval granite dish. One human skull was found at a depth of 130 feet [396 dm] under five beds of lava and tufa separated by layers of gravel. Evidently man came before the lava flows, and deep canyons have been cut by rivers since the lava flows.
"An amazing number of stone relics have been found among the bones of the camel, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, horse, and other animals. The findings are almost always in gold-bearing rock or gravel." Creation Research Society Quarterly, June 1974, p. 23.
An elaborately carved rock and other worked stones weighing up to 800 pounds [362.8 kg] were found hundreds of feet below the surface, and reported in a California newspaper. ('"Frank Edwards, Strange World [1964].)
MAN-MADE MARKINGS ON PETRIFIED WOOD Scientists believe that petrified wood is millions of years old. The Petrified Forest in Arizona contains some of the largest examples of such materials. Man-made-mineralization markings have been found on specimens of petrified wood in various localities.
1 - Shaped Wood In India. Several years ago, small pieces of hand-worked petrified wood was found in India. The wood clearly was shaped prior to fossilization, and was later reported in a journal on anthropology. ( *Anthropos, 1963-64;1969, 921-40.)
2 - Cut Wood In Lombardy. Several petrified pieces of wood were found in Lombardy, Italy. Prior to mineralization, these pieces had been hacked by a cutting instrument. The wood was dated to the Pliocene Epoch, which is consider to be prior to the appearance of man. ( *Journal of the Transactions of the Victoria Institute, 13:343.)
MAN-MADE MARKINGS ON BONES Bones of animals, thought by scientists to have pre-dated mankind in the localities in which they were recovered, have been found with man-made markings on them.
1 - Cuttings on Rhinoceros Bone. The fossilized bone of a rhinoceros had man-made cutting marks on it. The bone was found at a site near Paris, and no rhinoceros has lived in Europe throughout recorded history.
2 - Formed Rhinoceros Horn. A sharp tool was apparently used on a rhinoceros horn that was found in Ireland. (*Robert F. Heizer, Man's Discovery of His Past [1962].)
3 - Notched Dinosaur Bones. This discovery came as a distinct surprise to the paleontologists: Two saurian bones were found, both with distinctly scored markings at regular intervals. The cuts appeared as if made by knives of some sort. Since the bones came from a Jurassic deposit, it was decided that the markings could not have been made by human beings. (*Journal of the Transactions of the Victoria Institute, 23:211-3.)
In summary of the above finds: (1) All historical dates only go back several thousand years and indicate a young age for mankind. (2) Because of the locations where they have been found, human fossil remains and tracks--as well as manmade objects--show that "prehistoric eras and epochs" are not very old after all.
THE INTELLIGENCE OF MEN The mind of man is an unanswerable hurdle to the concept of evolution. The theory teaches that natural selection, plus help from random mutations, made cross-species changes in plants and animalsand produced life forms adapted to survive in their environment. But the human brain does not fit into such a description. Man's mind is far too advanced for his survival needs!
A close friend of *Charles Darwin and co-developer of the natural selection theory, *Alfred Russel Wallace, decided that this problem of the immense, theoretically unnecessary capabilities of the human mind destroyed the whole theory.
"Wallace asked Darwin the question, 'How were all or any of man's mental faculties developed, when they could have been of no possible use to man in his early stages of barbarism?'
"At this point Darwin wavered and grew uneasy. How, indeed, could the struggle for life explain those mental faculties which set man apart from animals?.. Darwin answered, 'I hope you have not murdered too completely your own and my child.'
"Darwin then fell back to an older explanation, first proposed by Lamarck (1744.1829) and rejected by Darwin earlier, suggesting that when confronted with a specific environment animals somehow notice the situation and physically change in order to fn it. For instance, the giraffe, seeing the advantage of being able to eat from the tops of the trees, began stretching in order to reach the highest leaves. The longer neck which resulted was then passed on to the next generation and the next. Today we know that this is not so. We do not pass on physical characteristics acquired after birth: *Gottfried Oosterwal, "The Question Darwin Never Answered," in These Times, January 1970, p. 9.
*Wallace understood the theory as well as did *Darwin, and this was Wallace's conclusion:
"'Natural selection could only have endowed the savage with a brain a little superior to that of an ape, whereas he actually possesses one but very little inferior to that of the average member of our learned societies' " *A.R. Wallace, quoted in *R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), p. .
This was a crucial issue and basic to *Darwin's theory: No creature could have much more ability than the other creatures around it or the "struggle for existence" and the "survival of the fittest" could not produce evolutionary change. In the case of man's brain, Darwin assumed that Europeans were highly intelligent because they had competed against third-world natives who, Darwin thought, only had intelligence slightly above that of apes. But *Wallace lived with natives in primitive tropical lands--and he had discovered their minds were as advanced as those of Europeans; their skills were different, but not their mental faculties. Therefore, all mankind had intelligence far in advance of any animal in the world, and Darwinian theory was hopelessly wrong.
"How did man get his brain? Mary years ago Charles Darwin's great contemporary and co-discoverer with him of the principle of natural selection, Alfred Russel Wallace, propounded that simple question. It is a question which has bothered evolutionists ever since, and when Darwin received a copy of an article Wallace had written on this subject he was obviously shaken. It is recorded that he wrote in anguish across the paper, 'No!' and underlined the 'No' three times heavily in a rising fervor of objection . .
"Darwin propounded the theory that, since the reproductive powers of plants and animals potentially far outpace the available food supply, there is in nature a constant struggle for existence on the part of every living thing . . Darwin, however, laid one stricture on his theory: It could, he maintained, 'render each organized being only as perfect or a little more perfect than other inhabitants of the same country.' It could allow any animal only a relative superiority, never an absolute perfection--otherwise selection and the struggle for existence would cease to operate . .
"He (Wallace) committed the Darwinian heresy of maintaining that their mental powers were far in excess of what they [the natives in the tropics where he lived] really needed to carry on the simple food-gathering by which they survived . . '[They are] not in any way inferior to that of the 'higher races.' An instrument [the human brain] has been developed in advance of the needs of its possessor.'
"Finally, Wallace challenged the whole Darwinian position upon man by insisting that artistic, mathematical, and musical abilities could not be explained on the basis of natural selection and the struggle for existence.. Why else should men of simple cultures possess the same basic intellectual powers which the Darwinists maintained could only be elaborated by competitive struggle?
"'If you had not told me you had made these remarks,' Darwin said, 'I should have thought they had been made by someone else. I differ grievously from you and am very sorry for it.' He did not, however, supply a valid answer to Wallace's queries. Outside of murmuring about the inherited effects of habit--a contention without scientific validity today, Darwin clung to his original position. Slowly Wallace's challenge was forgotten and a great complacency settled down upon the scientific world." *Loran C. Eiseley, "Was Darwin Wrong about the Human Brain?" Harper's Magazine, 211:66-70 (1955).
"Wallace, Charles Darwin's 'junior partner' in discovering natural selection, had a disturbing problem: He did not believe their theory could) account for the evolution of the human brain.
"In the Origin of Species (1859), Darwin had concluded that natural selection makes an animal only as perfect as it needs to be for survival in its environment. But it struck Wallace that the human brain seemed to be a much better piece of equipment than our ancestors really needed.
"After all, he reasoned, humans living as simple tribal hunter-gatherers would not need much more intelligence than gorillas. If all they had to do was gather plants and eggs and kill a few small creatures for a living, why develop a brain capable, not merely of speech, but also of composing symphonies and doing higher mathematics? . .
"Neverthess, Wallace's problem remains unsolved; the emergence of the human mind is still a mystery." *R Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), p. 457.
In marked contrast with the remarkable intelligence of man, which is so far above any other living creature in our world, is the fact that the apes, which, according to *Darwin man descended from, have such poor minds that they hardly know how to devise tool-using by themselves) After discussing tool-using birds and animals, *MacRoberts deplores the fact that the great apes are so stupid:
" 'Given their hands and huge brains, it's amazing apes and monkeys don't do a lot more tool-using. They're incredibly stupid.' " *Michael MacRoberts, quoted in *A. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), p. 438.
*MacRoberts then adds the significant point that the reason the apes are thought to be so intelligent is because people assume they are.
"If Leakey had seen the Galapagos finch prying and stabbing hidden grubs with cactus spines, or watched California woodpeckers chisel trees into collective 'granaries' for storing acorns, would he say we would have to change the definition of man or birds?
"No, because primatologists are like doting parents. Anything `their' monkeys or apes do is remarkably clever, they expect them to be bright. And anything other animals do is 'just instinct,' because they're supposed to be far removed from man." *Ibid:
For additional information on this topic, see the quotation supplement, "13 - The Evolutionary Ancestor of Man, " and "14 - The Human Brain, " in the appendix.
THE LANGUAGES OF MAN Just as the human eye is amazing, so human speech is utterly astounding. How could mankind gain the ability to speak, when all other creatures can only utter a few sounds?
"Human language is absolutely distinct from any system of communication in other animals. That is made most clear by comparison with animal utterances, which most nearly resemble human speech and are most often called 'speech.' Non-human vocables are, in effect, interjections. They reflect the individual's physical or, more frequently, emotional state. They do not, as true language does, name, discuss, abstract, or symbolize." *George Gaylord Simpson, "The Biological Nature of Man," in Science, April 22, 1966, p. 476.
"Experiments with chimpanzees who 'talk' in sign language show that they can signal for things and get them, but 'they don't describe . . They don't argue . . They have no value system. They don't make moral decisions . . They don't know they're going to die . . We must never judge animals as if they were just badly brought up human beings." *Sir John Eccles, "Photons, Philosophy, and Eccles, " in Washington Post, March 15, 1981, p. F-1.
*Lancaster and others spent long periods studying the chattering of monkeys, and trying to relate it to human language, but without success.
"The more that is known about it, the less these systems seem to help in the understanding of human language." *J.B. Lancaster, The Origin of Man (1965).
Human language buffalos the scientists. There is no way it can fit into evolutionary theories. Language marks an unbridgeable gulf between man and all other life-forms on our planet.
"The use of language is very closely associated with the superior thinking ability of humans. In his ability to communicate man differs even more from other animals than he does in his learning or thinking . . We know absolutely nothing about the early stages in the development of language." *Ralph Linton, The Tree of Culture (1955), pp. 8-9.
Human language is astounding. As far back as we go, it has always been totally developed! Yet all available data informs us that writing did not begin until after 2500 B.C.! Earlier in his life, the author studied three ancient languages as well as several contemporary ones, and he was surprised to find that ancient ones were much more complicated than modern ones)
In ancient times, some races would alternately write backwards and forwards (one line from left to right, and the next line from right to left, etc. (Boustrophon, the Greeks called it; "as the ox turns with the plow', all the while using no paragraphs, and not even spaces between word and sentences! The result was very complicated reading, to say the least.
At the bottom of this page the preceding paragraph will be written as it would have been written in ancient times by men with far better minds than ours.
First, it will be left-to-right style, and, then second, in the earlier Boustrophon style (alternate left-to-right, and right-to-left).
The far more complicated pattern of ancient languages indicates that people back then had better mental capacities than we do today) Although having better minds, they lacked our wealth of written records. It was the invention of paper and printing that placed us at an advantage.
"The so-called 'primitive languages' can throw no light on language origins since most of them are actually more complicated in grammar than the tongues spoken by civilized people." *Ralph Linton, The Tree of Culture (1955), p. 477.
The very earliest languages were more highly complex than any language we have today. If you question this, take a college course in Sanskrit.
Written from left to right, here is that paragraph as we would write it today:
In ancient times, some races would alternately write backwards and forwards (one line from left to right, and the next line from right to left, etc. [Boustrophon, the Greeks called it; "as the ox turns with the plow', all the while using no paragraphs, and not even spaces between words and sentences) The result was very complicated reading, to say the least.
Greeks called it; "as the ox turns with the plow', all the while using no paragraphs, and not even spaces between words and sentences) The result was very complicated reading, to say the least.
CLICK TO ENLARGE
And in our day there are no "primitive languages," either.
"There are no primitive languages, declares Dr. Mason, who is a specialist on American languages. the idea that 'savages' speak in a series of grunts, and are unable to express many 'civilized' concepts, is very wrong.. In fact, many of the languages of non-literate peoples are far more complex than modern European ones,' Dr. Mason said.. Evolution in language, Dr. Mason has found, is just the opposite of biological evolution. Languages have evolved from the complex to the simple." *Science News Letter, September 3, 1955, p. 148.
"Many 'primitive' languages . . are often a great deal more complex and more efficient than the languages of the so-called higher civilizations." *Ashley Montague, Man: His First Million Years, p. 116.
"No group of human beings today, even those living in a stone-age culture, speak what could be conceived of as a primitive language. Furthermore, no known language in all of history was in any sense primitive. Elgin remarks, 'The most ancient languages for which we have written texts. Sanskrit, for example-are often far more intricate and complicated in their grammatical forms than many contemporary languages.'" *Las Bruce, Jr. "On the Origin of Language," in Up With Creation (1978), p. 284. [Bruce was completing his doctorate in linguistics when he wrote this article.]
There is a world of significance in the fact that ancient languages were always more complicated than those now spoken by mankind. This clearly points us to the fact that ancient men were more intelligent than those living on earth today.
"Many other attempts have been made to determine the evolutionary origin of language, and all have failed. . Even the peoples with least complex cultures have highly sophisticated languages, with complex grammar and large vocabularies, capable of naming and discussing anything that occurs in the sphere occupied by their speakers . . The oldest language that can reasonably be reconstructed is already modern, sophisticated, complete from an evolutionary point of view. " *George Gaylord Simpson, "Biological Nature of Man, " Science, April 1966, p. 477.
*Simpson, former professor of Vertebrate Paleontology at Harvard, has been one of the leading evolutionary spokesmen of the mid-20th century. Acknowledging the vast gulf that separates animal communication from human languages, he admits that the most ancient human languages were the most complex.
"Yet it is incredible that the first language could have been the most complex!" *George Gaylord Simpson, Biology and Man (1969), p. 116.
"The evolution of language, at least within the historical period, is a story of progressive simplification." *Albert C. Bough, History of the English Language, 2nd Edition (1957), p. 10.
"The so-called primitive languages can throw no light on language origins, since most of them are actually more complicated in grammar than the tongues spoken by civilized peoples [today]." *Ralph Linton, Tree of Culture (1957), p. 9.
Sanscrit was the ancient written language of the peoples who lived in India. It is the partial ancestor of many modern writing patterns. Whenever two words are written together in Sanscrit, a very different letter is written in place of both end letters; then the two words are joined into one) If each of those original words was, instead, placed next to a different word, the letter substituting for their terminal letters would be still different!
Here is a simple sentence:
I shall go to town today. "
Nothing complicated about that! Now, let us simulate what it would be like to put it into Sanscrirt: We will substitute different terminal letters and then join words, as they would do rapidly in Sanscrit:
`Xhalbzzowqoday:
Using the Sanscrit pattern (but not its actual letters or sounds), the following changes were made: the "I" and "s" was placed together, changing them to "X;" then the "I" and "g" was changed into "b"; the "o" and "t" into "z"; the "o" and "t" into "z" again (because the same two letters need to be twice combined); and the "n" and "t" into "q." It is as "simple" as that; yet ancient peoples had such powerful minds that they could write and read Sanscrit steadily and rapidly!
In spite of what the evolutionists claim, there is no evidence anywhere of evolution) It is not to be found in plants, in fish, in birds, in animals, in man, in fossils, nor in the languages of mankind.
Languages not only reveal that the most ancient of our ancestors were more intelligent than we are today, but they also clarify where the first people lived after the Flood. In great waves, the families of man moved outward from Anatolia (eastern Turkey) and northern Babylonia (northern Iraq) into all the world. And linguists today can trace the path.
For additional information see the appendix topic, "16 - Where Languages Lead Us. "
MONKEY TALK Since we have been discussing human language, let us digress for a moment to ape language. It has been widely reported that apes can use symbolic language, and therefore have a very high level of intelligence. This is supposed to be another "proof" that they are our ancestors.
Without taking time to detail the matter, it has been found that what really happens is that the apes do what they think their trainers want them to do, so they will receive treats! It is said that the humans are unconsciously communicating "symbolically," and that the animal gives the desired response which will bring the food reward. *B.F. Skinner found that even tiny-brained pigeons can use "symbolic communication" just as well as apes! (For much more on this, see Duane Gish, "Can Apes Learn Language?" in Evolution: the Challenge of the Fossil Record (1985), pp. 209-212; John W. Klotz, "Animal Speech," in Studies in Creation (1985), pp. 154-157.)
*Herbert S. Terrace, a psychologist at Columbia University, spent five years teaching a chimp named "Nim" to talk. But Terrace later wrote that he had decided that Nim was only doing that which pleased his keepers, and that much of it was just chance arrangements which had been misinterpreted as "verbal" intelligence.
"[By the end of the five years, in 1978] it was thought that Nim understood 300 signs, could produce 125 of them and had put thousands of 'sentences' together . . In 1979, Terrace wrote a book, Nim, in which he disavowed his previous results." *A. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), p. 328.
*Noam Chomsky, professor of Linguistics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology has been considered to be one of the world's leading linguists:
"There is no reason to suppose that the 'gaps' [between human language and animal sounds] are bridgeable. There is no more of a basis for assuming an evolutionary development of 'higher' from 'lower' stages, in this case, than there is for assuming an evolutionary development from breathing to walking." *Noam Chomsky, Language and Mind (1972), p. 88.
"Human language appears to be a unique phenomenon, without significant analogue in the animal world." *Op. cit., p. 87.
The thinking, reasoning power of the mind is located in the "gray matter," which is the cerebral cortex--the surface area of the frontal lobes. There is a certain small area in the frontal lobe is called 'Broca's convolution,' which appears to be the speech center in man. Monkeys and apes do not have this area at all.
"The most remarkable change in brain form, passing up the scale from monkey to man, is the comparative enlargement of the frontal and anterior lobes, and there can be little doubt that this enlargement is associated with man's supremacy in the intellectual sphere." *1955 Annual Report, Smithsonian Institute, p. 438.
George Gaylord Simpson is a well-known defender of evolutionism, but he says this:
"Human language is absolutely distinct from any system of communication in other animals . . It is still possible, but it is unlikely, that we will ever know just when and how our ancestors began to speak." *George Gaylord Simpson, "The Biological Nature of Man," in Science, April 22, 1988, pp. 478-477.
(Two of the next sections in this chapter (Ancient Cultures and As Far Back as We Go) parallel material in the section, Evidence from Civilization, to be found near the end of chapter 8, Age of the Earth. We refer you to that material for additional information.)
ANCIENT CULTURES Scientists frequently note that the races and languages of man indicate that mankind appears to have migrated from a central point, located somewhere in the Near East or Asia Minor. This would fit into the conditions following the Flood, and the fact that the ark came to rest in Eastern Turkey (see Genesis 8,9).
As the races moved outward, there would first be a brief interval, which scientists call "the stone age," and then would begin pottery, agriculture, animal husbandry, metallurgy, towns, writing, etc. The earliest pottery is found in the Near East, the earliest domestication of plants and animals is found there also. The earliest working in metals, the earliest towns and cities, and the earliest writing are also found there.
(For additional information on this, see the following: Pottery: *Cyril Smith, "Materials and the Development of Civilization and Science, " In Science, May 14, 1965, p. 908; plants: *Hans Helbaek, "Domestication of Food Plants in the World, " in Science, August 14, 1959, p. 385; animal husbandry: *H. Cambel and *R.J. Braidwood, "An Early Farming Village in Turkey," in Scientific American, March 1970, p. 52; metallurgy: *Gerril Smith, op. cit, p. 910; cities: *R. M. Adams, "The Origin of Cities," in Scientific American, September 1980,p. 154; writing: *Ralph Union, The Tree of Culture, p. 110.)
The earliest date in China goes back only to 2250 B.C., and in the Pacific Islands to around the turn of B.C. to A.D. (Much more information on the oldest dates of mankind will be found in chapter 6, Age of the Earth.)
Evolutionists tell us that 500,000 to 150,000 years ago, man developed a "modern brain." Then why did he wait until 5,000 years ago to begin using it?
Evolutionists tell us that man first originated in central Africa (because of ape bones they have found there, as discussed earlier in this chapter). Then why did all the earliest human cultural activities begin in the Near East instead of in central Africa?
Although attempts have been made to use recovered stone tools and other stone technology as a means of determining dates, it is now known that dates cannot be obtained from them.
"In archeology it is now realized, despite long resistance, that dating and classification by means of technical typology, for example stone tools, is no longer possible in many cases." *D.A. Bowen, Quarterly Geology (1978), p. 193.
THE EARLIEST DOMESTIC CROPS AND ANIMALS Using carbon 14 dating (which tends to date too high), the earliest wheat cultivation originated in Palestine or Turkey about 7000 B.C. Very soon afterward, maize and other plants (including beans and lima beans) were cultivated in Central America and Peru. The earliest barley was in the Near East about 7000 B.C. The oldest corn dates back to 5200 B.C. In Mexico.
The first-known dogs and sheep from about the same time are found in the Near East. Sheep were domesticated very early, and are found in Iran dating back to 6700 B.C. At about the same date in Jericho, goats appeared. The first domesticated dogs appear in the Near East and about 6000 B.C. By the way, no evidence of evolution of dogs or any other animal in this listing has been found. The earliest pigs were kept by 7000 B.C. The first cats were kept, as now, primarily to protect against rodents, and date back to 3000 B.C. in Egypt, and 2000 B.C. in India.
The earliest remains of cattle come from Greece and date to about 6500 B.C. The earliest in Mesopotamia are dated to 4500 B.C. The humped cattle of India first appeared in Mesopotamia about 3000 B.C. Domesticated cattle were in Egypt by 3700 B.C. Indian water buffaloes were in Ur before 2500 B.C. and shortly after in northwest India.
The donkey was in Egypt by 3000 B.C. The horse is thought to have been first domesticated in Mesopotamia about 3000 B.C. The onager (type of donkey) drew chariots at Ur in 2500 B.C. The common donkey was used as a beast of burden in Egypt about 3000 B.C. The earliest camels appear to go back to 2000 B.C. for the one humped dromedary, and 1500 B.C. for the two humped Bactrian camel. One expert (a confirmed evolutionist) says the earliest mention of the donkey as a domesticated animal is found in Genesis 24 (*F.E. Zeuner, A History of Domestic Animals [1963].)The earliest use of the elephant as a beast of transport comes from India about 2500 B.C.
The pigeon and goose were domesticated by 7000 B.C., and the duck about the same time; all first appearing in the Mesopotamia area. By 2000 B.C. they were in India. Pelicans were kept for their eggs in Egypt by 1400 B.C. Egyptians also had cormorants for fishing, and quails were first known in Egypt also.
The earliest domesticated animals in the Americas was late in coming. The alpaca and llama, date back to 2550 B.C. in Peru.
Here is a description of what appears to be one of the very earliest settlements: the region of Jarmo in northern Iran.
"Harland produced a map showing ancient agricultural centers as dots, most of which surround the very region where the ark landedlarmo, Ali Kosh, Palegawra Cave, Cayonu, and Catal Huyuk. From these various archaeological sites, remains of barley, einkorn wheat, emmer wheat, lentils, peas, goats, sheep, cattle, pigs, and dogs are reported. The dates, like 7000 B.C. given by Harlan and others for this near-eastern outburst of agriculture, probably collapse down to something tike 3400 B.C. when the vagaries of the C14 dating method are taken into account." George Howe and Walter Lammerts, "Biogeography from a Creationist Perspective: II. The Origin and Distribution of Cultivated Plants," in Creation Research Society Quarterly, p. 8. The Harland reference is as follows: "J.R. Harland, "The Plants and Animals that Nourish Man," in Scientific American, 235(3):89-97; especially note pp. 94-95.J
What is the total picture from all the above: (1) With hardly any exception, the first domesticated plants and animalsand all types of them, whether domesticated or not domesticated, first appear in the Near East. (2) The earliest dates for those plants and animals by which mankind survives only go back to 7000 B.C. When those carbon 14 dates are corrected, they become 3000 B.C. dates. (For more information on carbon 14 and radiodating, see chapter 7, Dating Methods.)
What about the million years before that time when man was supposed to have lived on planet earth? No mention, no history, nothing.
EVIDENCE FROM ANCIENT BRITAIN An engineering professor at Oxford University wrote an unusual book in 1967, in which he described the advanced intelligence, learning, and skills of ancient peoples in what is now England and Scotland. He called them "megalithic peoples," because of the large stone structures they built.
Over a period of 40 years, Thom surveyed some 600 megalithic sites which he dated to 2000-1600 B.C., and decided that Megalithic Man was an expert engineer, metrologist, astronomer, geometrician and boat-builder.
"It is remarkable that 1000 years before the earliest mathematicians of classical Greece, people in these [British] islands not only had a practical knowledge of geometry and were capable of setting out elaborate geometrical designs, but could also set out ellipses based on Pythagorean triangles.
"We need not be surprised to find that their calendar was a highly developed arrangement involving an exact knowledge of the length of the year, or that they had set up many stations for observing the eighteen-year cycle of the revolution of the lunar nodes."*A. Thom, Megalithic Sites in Britain (1987), p. 3.
"A civilization which could carry a unit of length from one end of Britain to the other . . with an accuracy of 0.1 percent, and could call for the erection of 5,000 to 10,000 megaliths, must have made demands of its engineers. . [and] methods of obtaining time from the stars must have been well understood. To obtain time from the stars the date must be known, and this came from the sun at the calendar sites." *Op. cit., p. 2.
"Megalithic man was a competent engineer. Witness how he could set out large projects to an accuracy approaching 1 in 100, and how he could transport and erect blocks of stone weighing up to 50 tons [45,359 kg]. He used the 3,4,5 right-angle extensively. He also knew the 5,12,13 right-angle triangle, the 8,15,17, and the 12,35,37 . .These triangles were used in a peculiar geometry, in which he constructed rings, set out in stone, of various shapes: circular, egg-shaped, elliptical, etc." *Op. cit., p. 9.
These ancient peoples of Britain understood levers, fulcrums, foundations, sheerlegs, slings, and ropes. They knew how to make and use highly accurate measuring rods. Just as modern surveyors do, on sloping ground they only made horizontal measurements. They could "range in" a straight line between mutually invisible points. They built and sailed excellent boats. They understood currents, tides, and movements of the moon. They were able to predict which full or new moon would precede an eclipse of the moon or sun.
It is becoming clear that similar technical knowledge was widespread in the ancient world, and found among the Greeks, Egyptians, Indians, Chinese, Incas, and Aztecs. Very likely, this was knowledge received, through Noah, from the peoples who lived before the Flood.
Keep in mind that these Britons were already using this high-tech knowledge by 2000 B.C. The date of the Flood was only about 350 years before that time.
AS FAR BACK AS WE CAN GO As far back as we can go, mankind has been just as intelligent--or more so--than men are today.
"Contrary to popular belief, man has long since ceased to evolve. Present day man, the human being that we are, does not differ essentially from the human being who lived 100,000 years ago. .
"If, by some miracle, it were possible to fetch a new-born child of that past age into our own time, and to bring him up as one of ours, he would become a man exactly like us." *Science World. February 1, 1981, p. 5.
"Most of what is popularly regarded as evolution of man is social, not biological, evolution . . Almost none of the human social evolution has been biological evolution." *Encyclopedia Americana, 1956 edition, Vol. 10, pp. 613.
"Schoolboys of the little Sumerian county seat of Shadippur about 2000 B.C. had a 'textbook' with the solution of Euclid's classic triangle problem seventeen centuries before Euclid . .
"Clay 'textbooks' of the schoolboys of Shadippur contain an encyclopedic outline of the scientific knowledge of their time, which will necessitate a sharp revision of the history of the development of science and, accordingly of the story of the development of the human mind . .
"It suggests that mathematics reached a stage of development about 2000 years B.C. that archaeologists and historians of science had never imagined possible." *New York Times, January 8, 1950, pp. 1, 28.
Man's brain capacity and his IQ has not increased down through the centuries. The ancient Greeks, Egyptians, and dwellers in the Mesopotamian and Indus Valleys of 5,000 years ago, were as intelligent as our generation. Indeed, certain facts which we have mentioned earlier indicate that, indeed, they were decidedly more intelligent!
"There is evidence that Homo sapiens has not altered markedly for hundreds of thousands of years." *Scientific American, November 1950.
There is no evidence anywhere of the evolution of the human mind.
"It would appear, then, that within the very brief period between about five hundred thousand to one hundred fifty thousand years ago, man acquired the essential features of a modern brain. Admittedly the outlines of this process are dim, but all the evidence at our command points to this process as being surprisingly rapid." LL Cohen, Darwin was Wrong (1984), p. 192.
For additional information see quotation supplement, "15 - Dating Early Man," in the appendix, and also "Evidences from Civilization" near the end of chapter 6, Age of the Earth.
EGYPTIAN DATING Egyptian dating is considered by archaeologists to be the key to dating the historical remains of mankind in ancient times. This topic is of such major importance that it deserves special attention. In spite of its significance, most of us have never heard much about it, much less the erroneous assumptions that it is based on.
With all this in mind, a special chapter has been assigned to this subject. You will want to read it carefully: chapter 35 (Archaeological Dating).
The next few paragraphs that will reveal the importance of that chapter:
Here are three interesting facts: (1) Evolutionists declare that men have been alive on our planet for over a million years. (2) The earliest historical events date back only a few thousand years. These come from actual historical records. (3) The most ancient historical dates known to mankind come from ancient Egypt.
There appears to have been a studied effort to push those Egyptian dates back as far as possible, in order to help lengthen out the historical time-span of mankind. Highly conjectural assumptions have been used as the basis of this Egyptian dating system.
Although the resulting earlier placement of the earliest Egyptian dates to a point farther back in history only involves at the most a few centuries, yet it has the effect of negating a majority of the chronologies given in that most accurate of ancient books: the Bible.
Those displaced archeological dates have had the effect of nullifying the value of important archeological discoveries, as they relate to Biblical events.
For much more on this, see chapter 35 (Archaeological Dating).
CONCLUSION At the Scopes Trial in 1925, the awesome-sounding Hesperopfthecus haroldcookii, was presented as evidence in favor of evolution. This was Java Man, and as the world looked on with bated breath, the news of the finding of two or three of his bones was triumphantly proclaimed by Clarence Darrow in the small courtroom in Dayton, Tennessee, as a great proof of evolution. Earlier in this chapter, we learned that Java Man later turned out to be just another fake. (Much more information on this court trial, which so heavily influenced forthcoming legislative actions all across America, will be found in chapter 30, The Scopes Trial.)
Another "ancient man" was discovered more recently. *Tim White exposed it as a hoax in 1983, and it was reported by an associate (*I. Anderson, "Humanoid Collarbone Exposed as Exposed as Dolphin's Rib," in New Scientist, April 28, 1983, p. 199).
A dolphin's rib was called a "human collarbone"! Afterward, laughing at the obvious foolishness of it all, someone said it should be named "Flipperpithecus"!
White accused a fellow anthropologist of a fraud equal to that of Java Man and Piltdown Man. His conclusive evidence: the bone in question was not property curved and the nutrient foramen, a tiny opening, opened the wrong way. White said this: "The problem with a lot of anthropologists is that they want so much to find a hominid that any scrap of bone becomes a hominid bone." *Allan Walker, quoted in the same article, said that skilled anthropologists have erroneously described the femur of an alligator and the toe of a horse as clavicles (collarbones)!
(As you may recall, "hominid" is the name for the mythical half-man, half-ape that evolutionists have for decades been searching for, without success.) It is a sad state of affairs when the only evidence that something exists is a theory it is found in.
*David Pilbeam of the Boston Museum was a lifetime expert in the field of paleoanthropology (the study of fossil man). In an article written for Human Nature magazine in June 1978, entitled, "Rearranging our Family Tree," he reported that discoveries since 1976 had changed his view of human origins and marl's early ancestors. Pilbeam ranked so high in the field, that he was the advisor to the government of Kenya in regard to the establishment of an international institute for the study of human origins. Kenya has for decades been the center of hominid research, because of the efforts of *Richard Leakey and his mother, 'Dr. Mary Leakey to dig ancient half-man, half-ape bones out of the ground. The Leakeys have their headquarters in Nairobi.
In later articles, such as the one in Annual Reviews of Anthropology, , *Pilbeam has amplified on his changed position. In the 1970s, while working in Kenya and personally examining the skimpy bone fragments of "ancient man," he was forced to the conclusion there was no real evidence of any kind--anywhere--of man's supposed ape ancestors!
For years, *Richard Leakey has tried to prove that man's half-ape ancestors were the Australopithecines of East Africa. But of these bones, Pilbeam said, "There is no way of knowing whether they are the ancestors to anything or not."
Shortly afterward, Richard Leakey himself summed up the problem on a Walter Cronkite Universe program, when he said that if he were to draw a family tree for man, he would just draw a large question mark. And he added that, not only was the fossil evidence far too scanty for any real certainty about anything related to man's evolutionary origins, but there was little likelihood that we were ever going to know.
It should be mentioned that it has been the use of the notoriously unreliable potassium-argon dating technique that has enabled Leakey and others to come up with these immensely ancient dates for bones which are probably only a few hundred years old.
"It was the early use of the potassium-argon technique in 1961 to date the lowest level at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania that radically lengthened the known time span of hominid evolution and ignited the explosion of knowledge about early man." *Kenneth F. Weaver, "The Search for Our Ancestors" in National Geographic Magazine, November 1985, p. 589.
(For information on potassium-argon dating, see chapter 7, Dating Methods.)
More recently, *William Fix, another expert in the field of early man, wrote a scathing book, The bone peddlers, in which he examined in detail the subject of paleoanthropology, and showed that, not only do the anthropologists themselves doubt the validity of the "bone" evidence, but research and new discoveries have eliminated each of man's supposed apelike ancestors from his family tree.
"The fossil record pertaining to man is still so sparsely known that those who insist on positive declarations can do nothing more than jump from one hazardous surmise to another and hope that the next dramatic discovery does not make them utter fools. . Clearly, some people refuse m learn from this. As we have seen, there are numerous scientists and popularizers today who have temerity to tell us that there is 'no doubt' how man originated. If only they had the evidence . ."I have gone to some trouble to show that there are formidable objections to all the subhuman and near-human species that have been proposed as ancestors." *William R. Fix, The Bone Peddlers (1984), pp. 150-153.
On May 14, 1984 the *Daily Telegraph, an Australian newspaper, carried the story of the latest hoax: "ASS TAKEN FOR MAN," was the headline.
A skull found in Spain and promoted as the oldest example of man in Eurasia, was later identified as that of a young donkey!
The bone had been found in the Andalusia region of Spain, and a three-day scientific symposium had been scheduled so that the experts could examine and discuss the bone, which had already been named, Orce Man, for the southern Spanish town near which it had been found. The French caused problems, however. Scientists from Paris showed that Orce Man was a skull fragment of a four-month-old donkey. The embarrassed Spanish officials sent out 500 letters canceling the symposium.
"In view of many paleoanthropologists, the story of human evolution has been fictionalized to suit needs other than scientific rigor." *B. Rensberger, "Facing the Past" in Science, October 1981, Vol. 81, pp. 41, 49.
"Compared to other sciences, the mythic element is greatest in paleoanthropology. Hypotheses and stories of human evolution frequently arise unprompted by data and contain a large measure of general preconceptions, and the data which do exist are often insufficient to falsify or even substantiate them. Many interpretations are possible. These books all provide new alternatives, some refining the subject with new information; all, in varying degrees, supplant the old myths with new ones." *W. Hill, "Book Review, " in American Scientist (1984), Vol. 72, pp: 188-189.
"The unscientific and doctrinaire character of the whole of this field of study is well epitomized. So much glamour still attaches to the theme of the missing link, and to man's relationships with the animal world, that it may always be difficult to exorcise from the comparative study of Primates, living and fossil, the kind of myths which the unaided eye is able to conjure out of a well of wishful thinking." *S. Zuckerman, Beyond the Ivory Tower, (1970), p. 64.
In the concluding portion of this chapter, we have dealt somewhat with ancient civilizations. Much more information relating to the age of those ancient civilizations will be found near the end of chapter 6, Age of the Earth, in the section entitled Evidences from Civilization. You will want to refer to that section for information on an ancient dates, including those of Egypt. Some additional material will also be found in the section, Ancient Historical Records, in that chapter.
Additional data on human and man-made remains in coal is found earlier in this present chapter.
Still further information will be found in the section, Dating Early Man, in the appendix.
For additional information see the appendix topics, "17 - Identifying Human Bones," and "18 - From Beginning to Man."
You have just completed
Chapter 18
ANCIENT MAN Part 2
APPENDIX 18