>Diamond says the have been known since 1929:
Thank you for correcting me on this Stephen. You are correct and I was wrong.
>But before you jump in with your usual "Homo erectus could use tools
>and therefore he was human" routine, remember that Jared is a
>*materialist*. He does not even consider (indeed he *cannot*
>consider -- 1Cor 2:14) the possibility that what makes Homo sapiens
>really unique from animals and hominids is something not material,
>something that does not fossilize, namely an indwelling spirit:
Well Stephen, if I can agree with you (see above) when you are right, I must
also agree with Diamond when he is correct. Truth is not a oneway street as
you seem to think. And you forget that I AM able to consider the
possibility which you deny Jared. I see evidence of spirituality and
religious beliefs going way back to at least 800,000 years ago. The
Berekhat Ram figurine which you so causually reject is the earliest in a
long series of female religious statues spanning from the Roman Empire back
to more than 300,000 years ago. Burial with grave offerings is evidence of
a belief in a life beyond the grave, otherwise why give the grave offering?
Such occurrences are found back to the Neanderthal days, with some minor
hints prior to that.
You, by advocating that spirituality is only associated with anatomically
modern man, actually become a materialist. If spirituality is only
associated with our modern genome, then you are implying that material
genomes determine the spirit. I would advocate that the genome is
irrelevant to who is spiritual.
>Diamond writes in materialist puzzlement at what he calls "The Great
>Leap Forward". He asks:
>
>"What happened at that magic moment in evolution around 40,000 years
>ago, when we suddenly became human? As we saw in Chapter One, our
>lineage diverged from that of apes millions of years ago. For most
>of the time since then, we have remained little more than glorified
>chimpanzees in the ways we have made our living. As recently as
>40,000 years ago, Western Europe was still occupied by Neanderthals,
>primitive beings for whom art and progress scarcely existed. Then
>there was an abrupt change, as anatomically modern people appeared in
>Europe, bringing with them art, musical instruments, lamps, trade,
>and progress. [rest of quote snipped]"(Diamond J., "The Rise and Fall of
the Third
>Chimpanzee", 1992, p27)
>
Let me interrupt Diamond here. Remember that the earliest musical
instruments were found with Neanderthal not modern men. and the fact that
the earliest Upper paleolithic is not demonstrably associated with modern
man, raises definite doubts about the nature of this revolution.
Let me note of Patel's statement,
>
>"... but Mithen and others point out that
>some wall engravings in Australia may date back around 40,000 years
>and painted slabs found in southern Africa date to about 27 500 years
>ago...
Those Australian engravings were carried out long before modern man reached
Australia! And new dating of some of them places them at 116,000+ years old
which means they were carried out prior to the advent of modern man on
earth. The earliest cave painging is at Carpenter's Gap Australia dating
39,000 years ago. This also was carried out long before anatomically modern
man had reached Australia.
glenn
Foundation, Fall and Flood
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm