Humans in England May Go Back 700,000 Years

By THOMAS WAGNER, Associated Press Writer
Wed Dec 14, 2:04 PM ET

LONDON - Ancient tools found in Britain show that humans lived in northern Europe 200,000 years earlier than previously thought, at a time when the climate was warm enough for lions, elephants and saber tooth tigers to also roam what is now England.


Scientists said Wednesday that 32 black flint artifacts, found in river sediments in Pakefield in eastern England, date back 700,000 years and represent the earliest unequivocal evidence of human presence north of the Alps.

Scientists had long held that humans had not migrated north from the relatively warm climates of the Mediterranean region until half a million years ago.

"The discovery that early humans could have existed this far north this long ago was startling," said Prof. Chris Stringer, a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum, one of four British scientists involved in the study who announced the finding at a news conference in London. Their discovery is detailed in the scientific journal Nature

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051214/ap_on_sc/europe_early_humans

because god only created man 6000 years ago. Do these scientists think they are smarter than the g-man?

- 'cause you know god don't want no people dumb enuff to fall for something as evil as carbon dating.

OR it could be SATAN planting falsehoods to lead men astray.

Carbon dating - is that some kinda weird sex thing?

It isn't good for anything more than a few thousand years old. They mostly use it to date things within the the historical period. They use other dating systems for stuff that goes this far back.

to test your faith. Dang lying anti-FSM scientists!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4335160.stm


stone-age humans worshipped the FSM

it's on their page. Besides the noodles are only 4000 years old. But older noodles will soon be found...

ramen

Periodically we find something totally unexpected like this that just shocks everyone. I love it when that happens. ;-)

Because wouldn't that just show that the rock was that old, and it could've been carved out more recently than 700,000 years ago? :shrug:

unless it contains organic material, which is rare. But you can carbon-date the soil around the rock.

there are other dating methods

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_dating

what the fundies don't understand is that all this is based on modern physics, that is an understanding of radioactive decay. If these theories were wrong, atomic bombs couldn't exist.

...again and again. I wouldn't be surprised if they found evidence of humans being they're not supposed to be a million years ago.

only about how long humans have been present in northern Europe. As nearly as I can tell, the discovery is quite interesting, but doesn't fundamentally alter our understanding of humanity's evolutionary history.

Some of the things I've read (see examples below) have said anywhere from 300,000-100,000 years ago. Also, what species are we talking about here? I generally only consider Homo Sapiens human, though I've heard some refer to other homind species as human.


Lists age of humanity as 200,000 years
http://www.mnh.si.edu/anthro/humanorigins/ha/sap.htm

"First anatomically modern humans" 100,000 years ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_human_evolution

The classifications are really kind of arbitrary, but I guess distinctive bipedal hominids originated several million years ago, members of the genus Homo, with enlarged brains and associated with primitive stone tools, around 2.5 million years ago. It's my understanding that they now date anatomically modern humans to around 200,000 years ago, though that line is somewhat arbitrary as well.

I don't have the impression that there is any claim that these 700,000 year old humans were modern humans. Probably some archaic precurser, either to Neanderthals or moderns or both.

Caveat, I'm not a scientist, I just like to keep as informed as possible.

They're using the term "human" to describe other hominds like Heidelbergensis or the Neanderthals. I don't really think of anything other than Homo Sapiens as human, but I guess some anthropologists do.

but I've always thought of other species of the genus Homo as being human, especially ones that clearly made stone tools and engaged in other forms of relatively sophisticated cultural behavior. Somehow, I can't imagine that if Neanderthals were discovered living today in some remote corner of the Earth, that they would be regarded non-human.

I admit that's a philosophical position on my part and not a scientific one (not being a scientist).

if they were discovered still living today. But like you said its just a matter of philosophy I guess. The term human hasn't really been nailed down to encompass only certain groups of individuals (unless we're talking about people like the Nazis).

I don't think considering other hominids non-human would assume that they're not capable of sophisticated behavior, even more sophisticated than our own. To be honest, I just like the idea that there were several sentient, non-human species living on the planet at the same time we were. ;-)

Technically, even. Homo(Human) is the genus. Habilus, neanderthalensis, sapiens and all in between are species of humanity.

Homo meaning Human.
With that in mind, isn't it amazing to realize that Neanderthal man died out only 30,000 years ago?

All of this origins confusion stems from the world view altering discoveries of paleontology 100 years ago in contrast with the then accepted wisdom of one particular 10,000 year old culture that those paleontologists operated within.

Given our respect of the intelligence and even possible personhood of dolphins and chimpanzees, why not easily consider Homo habilus worthy of being one of the oh-so-special us? ;)

I'm sticking with 3 million years at least.

I love stuff like this .... what we used to think and teach as facts sometimes turn out to
be flat wrong and we have to look at all kinds of things in a new light.

Just like the idea all man migrated to N. America across a land bridge from asia .....
but native people have always said that some came across on boats and landed in S. America.
Archeologists have now confirmed that.

But you would think after 700,000 years the brits would have had time to learn how to cook.

And you seem to have acquired an extra fork. :)

this is why those who believe the rw stuff are so stupid - they start on the evolution laddar later

And that may help explain their difficulty with critical thinking skills.

to have all of a sudden appeared and not evolved

maybe they were a mosquito - they still have such an annoying bite and everyone always has to swat them away

They are just people. I can't explain it. I usually just chalk it up to a very sad commentary on human nature.

We drag...bump...drag...bump..and take them along. This tests my patience.

I wish Skinner would provide us with a toe tapping cross armed smilie. tap...tap...tap...

I'm not kidding.