Re: AAT

Andrew W. Robinson (awrobinson@amoco.com)
Thu, 28 Apr 1994 08:07:38 CDT

In article <60.849.7295.0N19BA7A@canrem.com>, j#d#.moore@canrem.com (J. Moore) writes:
>Aw> (6) After twenty or so years, there is still no hard evidence for the
>Aw> AAT. Though the environment would not be conducive to fossilization,
>Aw> surely something would have turned up.
>Aw> How'd I do?
>Aw> Andrew Robinson
>
>Well, not too well on this one item. It's actually the most damaging
>for the AAT, since wandering around at water's edge would not only be
>"conducive to fossilization", it would make for IDEAL conditions for
>fossilization. With those IDEAL conditions, the lack of evidence is
>damning.
>
>Jim Moore

Having had some training in geology, that's a point I had wondered
about. It does seem that shorelines provide the best conditions for
fossilization. For an organism to become fossilized, it needs to be
covered with sediments before it decays or is destoyed by scavengers.
While an ocean or large lake shoreline might not be ideal, it should be
a whole bunch more condusive than open savannah.

Yet I remember this as an argument used by AAT supporters. The only two
possible reasons that come to mind are that those ancient shorelines
are now offshore and inaccessible, or that anthropologists have not
looked for hominid fossils along the ancient shorelines. Did I just
remember this wrong?

Andrew Robinson

---
The events depicted herein are fictional. Any similarity to persons
living or dead is entirely coincidental...oops, wrong disclaimer