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Re: ABORIGINES?
Dan Barnes (dbarnes@liv.ac.uk)
Wed, 2 Oct 1996 16:08:08 GMT
In article <52o8vh$i31@news.jhu.edu>, ritesh@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu says...
>
>Hi all. New to this group, but not usenet. Anyways, I was wondering
>something.
>
>On the discovery of ~170,000 year old art in Australia (somthing they're
>making a huge deal of down here):
>
>I'm not particularly interested in whehter or not the claims are
>legitimate (for this thread's sake) but instead have this question-- why
>is everyone assuming that men/Aborigines/homo sapiens sapiens created the
>rock art? Could not have a hominid slightly "lower" than (and
>subsequently supplanted by) mankind have created the art?
>
>This would not throw a monkey wrench into current paleoanthropological
>thought, and I'm surprised it hasn't been forwarded as an explanation by
>the more skeptical members of the anthropological world.
>
The art does not date to 176 ka a stone tool does. The date of the art (58 to 76
ka - 67 +/- 9 ka) is consistent with other dates for an early occupation of
Australia.
If the date for the tool stands it only means that an earlier hominid was there first.
Check out my article (and especially the link to the Sydney Morning Herald - the
paper that broke the story) at:
http://www.dealsonline.com/origins/news/article8.htm
I think in the end this will turn out to be more a moral about realising information
before the public has a chance to read the evidence.
Dan
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