Recent Man

Jim Bell (70672.1241@CompuServe.COM)
05 Jan 97 16:57:30 EST

Last month _The New York Times_ reported that scientists had re-examined
two major fossil sites in Java, and found that Homo erectus may have lived
there as recently as "27,000 years ago" (Dec. 13, P. A1). This dating
analysis, conducted at McMaster University in Hamilton, will serve to cast
further doubt on the so-called evidence for human evolution. Why? If it can
be shown that Homo erectus lived at the same time as modern man, Homo
erectus may be no more than racial variants of Homo sapiens.

>That would place him [Java Man] in the era of modern humans---and argue
>against >an ancestral relationship."If these dates are right," said Philip
>Rightmire, an >anthropologist at the State University of New York at
>Binghamton, "the >multiregionalists will have to do some fast thinking."
>...
>
>The new findings also challenge the rival Out of Africa theory. That view
>holds >that modern humans emerged in Africa as recently as 150,000 years
>ago and >spread around the globe, driving Homo erectus into
>extinction---well before the >era pointed to by the new finding.
>(Maclean's, science section,"The origins of man", Dec. 23, p. 69)

Jim