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ENLARGEEvolution Cruncher Chapter 13
Ancient Man
Why there is no evidence humans evolved from anything
This chapter is based on pp. 607-663 of Origin of Life (Volume Two of our three-volume Evolution Disproved Series). Not included in this chapter are at least 137 statements by scientists. You will find them, plus much more, in the encyclopedia on this website.
In the previous chapter (Fossils and Strata), we examined the supposed evidences for the past evolution of plants and animals. In this chapter, we will view the imagined ancestry of human beings.
Following an introduction, this chapter is divided into two main sections: Hominids and Early Man.
The section on Hominids will deal with what is called prehistoric man, or what we might call "the man of evolution." In some respects it is an addition to the chapter on fossils, although it reads more like a sideshow as it tells about fakeries such as Piltdown Man, Java Man, Tuang Man, etc.
The concluding section, Early Man, will be about actual geologic or historical evidences of ancient peoples, and is about the "man of history." It is somewhat paralleled by information near the end of chapter 4, Age of the Earth.
The concept that we are just animals, only slightly removed from apes, means that there are no moral standards, no laws worth obeying, no future, and no hope. The realization of this terrible truth even penetrated the gloom of *Darwin’s mind at times.
"With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the minds of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would anyone trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?"—*Charles Darwin, quoted in Francis Darwin (ed.), Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (1903; 1971 reprint), Vol. 1, p. 285.
As adults, we frequently hear reports of fossil remains of ape-like humans that have been found. Each discovery has been hailed as a landmark proof of the theory of evolution. Scientists have given a name to these supposed half-man/half-ape remains; they call them hominids..
Is it really true that such skeletal remains have been found? Are we really related to apes? In this chapter, you will examine the evidence and find solid answers.
APES—(*#2/28 From Ape to Man*) Evolutionists teach two variant theories regarding man’s direct ancestor: (1) man and ape came from a common ancestor about 5-20 million years ago; (2) man descended from an ape.Modern man is said to have evolved until about 100,000 years ago—and then he stopped evolving! It is claimed that, since that time, man has switched over from "physical evolution" to "cultural and social evolution." This is an attempt to explain the fact that, in historical records, evolution has never been known among humans.
There is no evidence that evolution is now—or has ever—occurred among animals or plants either. Are they culturally evolving now also? In addition, it is strange that if man is essentially the same as he was a million years ago, then why did he only begin leaving writings, buildings, and artifacts during no more than the last few thousand years? Why does human history only go back less than 5,000 years?
"The search for the proverbial ‘missing link’ in man’s evolution, that holy grail of a never-dying sect of anatomists and biologists, allows speculation and myth to flourish as happily today as they did fifty years ago and more."— *Sir Solly Zukerman, "Myth and Method in Anatomy," in Journal of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (1966), Vol. 11(2), pp. 87-114.
Did man descend from the apes? Our DNA is different from that of each of the apes, monkeys, and all the rest. The number of vertebrae in our backbone is different from that in the apes. Our cranial (brain) capacity is totally different from the great apes.
Orangutans . . . . . . 275-500 cc.
Chimpanzees . . . . . 275-500 cc.
Gorillas . . . . . . . . . 340 -752 cc.
Man . . . . . . . . . . . .1100 -1700 cc.
Cranial capacity is, by itself, an important test of whether a skull is from a man or an ape.
"Since there are variations in tissues and fluids, the cranial capacity is never exactly equal to brain size, but can give an approximation. A skull’s capacity is determined by pouring seeds or buckshot into the large hole at the base of the skull (foramen magnum), then emptying the pellets into a measuring jar. The volume is usually given in cubic centimeters (cc.). Living humans have a cranial capacity ranging from about 950cc. to 1,800cc., with the average about 1,400cc."—*R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), p. 98.
COMPARING GORILLA AND MAN—*Charles Darwin said man was descended from an ape. Shown below is a typical ape, a gorilla. Carefully notice is bony structure. Notice the skulls and neck bones. Both were carefully designed by a highly-intelligent Creator, but both are very different.
Gorilla and Man
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Evolution teaches that we descended from the great apes, and they, in turn, from the gibbons and other smaller apes.
Several differences between man and ape: (1) Birth weight as a percent of maternal weight is, in man, almost twice that of the great apes (5.5 vs. 2.4-4.1), but about the same or less than that found in monkeys (5-10) and in gibbons (7.5). (2) Order of eruption of teeth is the same in man and in the Old World monkeys, but it is different than that of the great apes. (3) Walking upright is quite different. Man and the gibbon walk habitually upright; the great apes do not. As with the other teachings of evolution, scientific facts are on the side of the creationists, and the evolutionists, and their incredulous theories are outside the domain of scientific fact, discovery, and law. (4) The neck hinge is at the back on man, but at the front on the ape.
The shape and arrangement of the teeth, for example, is quite different for apes and man:, for example, is quite different for apes and man:
"Many male primates have large canine teeth, which are used in fighting and defense. Where the upper canines meet, or occlude, with the lower jaw, there are spaces, or gaps, between the opposing teeth. Canine diastemas [spaces opposite large canines] are characteristic of the jaws of baboons, gorillas and monkeys. They are used as a diagnostic feature in studying fossils because they are absent in hominids [men or near-men]. A primate jaw with canine diastemas is considered probably related to apes or monkeys, not close to the human family."—*R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), p. 69.
PRIMITIVE PEOPLES—Early civilizations were advanced; but, from time to time, groups would migrate to new areas and for a time live in "stone age cultures," until they had opportunity to build cities, plant, and engage in animal husbandry (*Science Year: 1966, p. 256).
THE THEORETICAL ANCESTRY OF MAN—Shown below are side views of the skulls, bottom views of the upper teeth, and side views of the hands—of the supposed ancestral line of mankind (Galago to Guenon, to chimpanzee, to man).
A careful comparison reveals they are each quite different from the others.
The Theoretical Ancestry of Man
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In some localities, the climate and environment have been difficult enough that groups have continued down to the present time in stone-age conditions. Such racial groups can be found in New Guinea and certain other areas.
Some of these peoples have lost a knowledge of agriculture and the making of weapons, tools, or houses. They only have a few crude stone and bamboo tools, and no weapons. They live under the trees in the open, and the men spend each day gathering worms, leaves, and fruit for the family to eat.
Many anthropologists believe that those primitive "stone age" peoples are not evidence of earlier human life-forms, but rather tribes which have slipped back from the rest of us.
"Many of the so-called ‘primitive’ peoples of the world today, most of the participants agreed, may not be so primitive after all. They suggested that certain hunting tribes in Africa, Central India, South America, and the Western Pacific are not relics of the Stone Age, as had been previously thought, but instead are the ‘wreckage’ of more highly developed societies forced through various circumstances to lead a much simpler, less developed life."—*Science Year, 1966, p. 256.
CAVEMEN—The first introduction many children have to evolution are pictures of dinosaurs and cavemen. It is true that there have been groups that have lived in caves. They wandered from warm climates to colder ones and chose to live in caves for a time before building themselves homes in a new land. But the fact that some people lived in caves for awhile does not prove evolution from one species to another.
*Diodorus Siculus, writing about 60 B.C., told of people living along the shores of the Red Sea in caves. He describes many other barbarian tribes, some of them quite primitive. Thus we see that both advanced civilizations and more backward cave cultures lived at the same time. We have no reason to conclude that the less advanced peoples were ancestors of the more advanced ones..
Archaeologists tell us that in some places in Palestine, people resembling the Neanderthal race lived in caves, while not far away in Jericho people dwelt in well-built, beautifully decorated houses.
NEANDERTHALS—(*#3/7 Neanderthal Men*) Evolutionists call the cavemen, "Neanderthals."
In 1856 workers blasted a cave in the Neander Valley near Düsseldorf, Germany. Inside they found limb bones, pelvis, ribs, and a skull cap. The bones were examined by both scientists and evolutionists, and for a number of years all agreed that these were normal human beings. Even that ardent evolutionist and defender of *Darwin, *Thomas H. Huxley, said they belonged to people and did not prove evolution. *Rudolph Virchow, a German anatomist, said the bones were those of modern men afflicted with rickets and arthritis. Many scientists today recognize that they had bowed legs due to rickets, caused by a lack of sunlight.
In 1886, two similar skulls were found at Spy, Belgium. In the early 1900s, a number of similar specimens were found in southern France. Over a hundred specimens are now in collections.
A French paleontologist named *Marcellin Boule said they belonged to ape-like creatures, but he was severely criticized for this even by other evolutionists who said this fossil was just modern man (Homo sapiens), deformed by arthritis.
A most excellent, detailed analysis of how rickets and arthritis caused the features, peculiar to Neanderthals, was written by Ivanhoe in a 1970 issue of the scientific journal, Nature. The article is entitled, "Was Virchow Right About Neanderthal?"
"Neanderthal man may have looked like he did, not because he was closely related to the great apes, but because he had rickets, an article in the British publication Nature suggests. The diet of Neanderthal man was definitely lacking in Vitamin D."—*"Neanderthals had Rickets," in Science Digest, February 1971, p. 35.
Neanderthal features include a somewhat larger brow ridge (the supra orbital torus), but it is known that arthritis can make this more prominent. Virchow noted that the thighbone (femur) was curved, a condition common to rickets. Lack of Vitamin D causes osteomalacia and rickets, producing a subtle facial change by increasing the size of the eye cavity (orbit), especially vertically.
*D.J.M. Wright, in 1973, showed that congenital syphilis could also have caused the kind of bone deformities found in Neanderthal specimens.
The Neanderthals apparently lived at a time when there was not as much sunlight. We know that the ice age came as a result of worldwide volcanic dust pollution. The weather in Europe at that time was cold enough that they may have stayed so much in their caves that they did not obtain enough sunlight, especially due to the overcast sky conditions.
They may also have lived longer than men do today. Biblical records indicate that those living just after the Flood (on down to Abraham and even Moses) had somewhat longer life spans than we do today. In 1973, *H. Israel explained that certain living individuals today begin to develop Neanderthaloid features—the heavy eyebrow ridges, elongated cranial vault, and so on—with extreme age. There is definite evidence that the Neanderthals were several hundred years old.
For much more information, see the book, Buried Alive, by Jack Cuozzo (1998). In it, he clearly shows that the Neanderthals were several hundred years old. Facial bones keep growing throughout life. He also discovered that the evolutionists had mismatched the upper and lower jaw, in order to make the Neanderthals look like apes.
Here are two facts you will not find in the textbooks: (1) In 1908 a typical Neanderthal skeleton was found in Poland. It had been buried in a suit of chain armor that was not yet fully rusted ("Neanderthal in Armour," in *Nature, April 23, 1908, p. 587). (2) A Neanderthal skeleton was found in the Philippine Islands in 1910. Due to the extreme moisture of that land, it would be impossible for the skeleton to be as much as a century old ("Living Neanderthal Man," in *Nature, December 8, 1910, p. 176).
A third interesting fact is that the Neanderthals had larger craniums than we do. They had larger brains! This indicates regression of our race from a former longer-lived, more intelligent, race rather than evolutionary progression. Brain capacity is an important indicator of whether a cranium (the part of the skull which encloses the brain) belongs to an ape or a person.
"The cranial capacity of the Neanderthal race of Homo sapiens was, on the average, equal to or even greater than that in modern man."—*Theodosius Dobzhansky, "Changing Man," in Science, January 27, 1967, p. 410.
"Normal human brain size is 1450-1500 ccs; Neanderthal’s is 1600 ccs. If his brow is low, his brain is larger than modern man’s."—Michael Pitman, Adam and Evolution (1984), p. 87.
"The [Neanderthal] brain case on the average was more than 13 percent larger than that of the average of modern man."—Erich A. von Fange, "Time Upside Down," in Creation Research Society Quarterly, June 1974, p. 23.
They also had well-developed culture, art, and religion. At the present time, most scientists agree that Neanderthals were just plain people that lived in caves for a time. Unfortunately, we are still waiting for this change in thinking to be seen in children’s textbooks.
Two Neanderthal-like skulls were found in Santa Barbara, California in 1923. Researchers recognized that they were just Indian skulls.
Neanderthals were just racial types similar to ourselves.
CRO-MAGNON MAN—(*#4/4 Cro-Magnon and Rhodesian Man*) In 1868 a cave was discovered at Les Eyzies, in the Dordogne area of France. In the local dialect, cro-magnon means "big hole." A number of skeletons have been found there, and have been hailed as the great "missing link" between man and ape.The Cro-Magnons were truly human, possibly of a noble bearing. Some were over six feet tall, with a cranial volume somewhat larger than that of men today. This means they had more brains than men have today. Not only did they have some excellent artists among them, but they also kept astronomy records. The Cro-Magnons were normal people, not monkeys, and they provide no evidence of a transition from ape to man..
2 - HOMINIDS
BASIC QUESTIONS—We will now turn our attention to part of a lengthy line of fakes. As we view them, one by one, there are a few questions we should keep in mind:
(1) Why is it that, each time, only one specimen is found? Why not hundreds or thousands of them? If these are our ancestors, there should be millions of specimens. There are so many people alive today, there should have been large numbers of half-ape people alive during that "million years" that men are said to have lived on this planet. Indeed, evolution teaches uniformitarianism, the concept that past climates and living conditions were essentially like those we have now in the world.
(2) Why are only little pieces of bone found for each specimen—never a complete skeleton? Is this not reading a lot into almost no evidence? Or is it possible that the less found, the easier it is to try to make unfounded claims for it? (Later in this chapter we learn that if only parts of bones are found, their positions can be moved about to imitate half-ape skulls and jaws.)
(3) Although bones decay in a few years in damper regions, and in a few centuries in drier regions,—why is it that these special bones did not decay even though they are supposed to be "a million years old"? The very possibility, that these "million-year-old bones" are not supposed to have decayed, makes it all the more certain that there ought to be millions of other bones lying around belonging to our ancestors! There are millions living today, if people have lived on earth for a million years,—the earth should be filled with the bones of our ancestors!
(4) How could "million-year-old bones" possibly be found in damp earth (not encased within solid rock) in Indonesia, China, and England? Yet the evolutionists claim that such bones have been found, as we shall learn below.
In an article about the grand opening of the International Louis Leakey Memorial Institute for African Prehistory (TILLMIAP) in Nairobi, Kenya, *Lewin wrote this:
"Perhaps more than any other science, human prehistory is a highly personalized pursuit, the whole atmosphere reverberating with the repeated collisions of oversized egos. The reasons are not difficult to discover. For a start, the topic under scrutiny—human origins—is highly emotional, and there are reputations to be made and public acclaim to be savoured for people who unearth ever older putative human ancestors. But the major problem has been the pitifully small number of hominid fossils on which prehistorians exercise their imaginative talents."—*Roger Lewin, "A New Focus for African Prehistory," in New Scientist, September 29, 1977, p. 793.
ONLY BONE PIECES—One problem, as indicated above, is all that these experts work with is such things as jaw fragments, broken skull pieces, and parts of other bones. No complete or even half-complete skeleton, linking man with the rest of animals has ever been found. all that these experts work with is such things as jaw fragments, broken skull pieces, and parts of other bones. No complete or even half-complete skeleton, linking man with the rest of animals has ever been found. all that these experts work with is such things as jaw fragments, broken skull pieces, and parts of other bones. No complete or even half-complete skeleton, linking man with the rest of animals has ever been found. But, working with pieces collected here and there, imagination can produce most wonderful "discoveries." In some instances, some of the pieces have been found at some distance from the rest of the fragments.
JAVA MAN—(*#5/5 Java Man*) In 1891, Java Man was found. This is a classic instance of a man searching for evidence to support a theory. This is a classic instance of a man searching for evidence to support a theory. * Eugene Dubois became a convinced evolutionist while attending a Dutch college. Dropping out of school, he began searching for fossils in Sumatra and other Dutch East Indies islands. He shipped thousands of crates of regular animal bones back to Holland, and then went to Java.
In September 1891 near the village of Trinil in a damp place by the Solo River, *Dubois found a skull cap. A year later and fifty feet from where he had found the skull cap, he found a femur. Later he found three teeth in another location in that area. *Dubois assumed that (1) all these bones were from the same individual, and (2) that they were as much as a million years old.
Nearby, in the same condition (indicating the same approximate age) he also found two human skulls (known as the Wadjak skulls), but he did not publicize this find, for they had a cranial capacity somewhat above that of modern man. Thirty-one years later, in 1922, he admitted the Wadjak skull was an ape.
Excitedly, *Dubois reported the find (the pieces of bone) as "Java Man," and spent the rest of his life promoting this great discovery. The thigh bone was a normal human upper leg bone. As might be expected, many experts questioned whether all the bones came from the same person, and even if they did, they said they were human bones, not ape bones. But *Dubois spent most of the remainder of his life lecturing and telling people about the "half-human half-ape" bones that he had found in Java in 1891-1892. He named it Pithecanthropus erectus (erect ape-man).
British zoologists thought it was human, German experts decided it was ape, and the French conjectured that it was something between the two.
Finally, in 1907 a German expedition was sent from Berlin to Java to settle the matter. But *Dubois would not show them his "bone collection" nor help them in any way. Arriving in Java, they went over the Trinil site thoroughly, removed 10,000 cubic meters of material and 43 boxfuls of bones, and then declared it all to be wasted time. Their main discovery was that *Dubois’ Java Man bones had been taken from a depth that came from a nearby volcano. It had overflowed in the recent past and spewed forth lava, which overwhelmed and buried a number of people and animals.
ARRANGING JAVA MAN—This sketch is an excellent illustration of how evolutionists prefer PIECES of bones, for they can fit them together in different ways to achieve their purposes.
About 15 years before his death, and after most evolutionists had become convinced that his find was nothing more than bones from a modern human,—*Dubois announced his conviction that the bones belonged to a gibbon!
School textbooks and popular books for the public continue to cite 500,000 years as the age of "Java Man," which, admittedly, is quite an imaginary figure.
PILTDOWN MAN—(*#6/7 Piltdown Man / #10 The Story of Piltdown Man*) In 1912, Piltdown Man was found. In 1912, Piltdown Man was found. This created a great sensation in both the newspapers and halls of science when it was announced by the British Geological Society. They gave it the scientific name, Eoanthropus dawsoni. For nearly 40 years the scientific world bowed before Piltdown Man as the great key to human evolution. Only one specimen existed, when there ought to be thousands if it was really genuine.Paintings were made of the great men who found and worked on it, and three of those men were later knighted by the king of England. Such is the stuff of glory. Ignored was the report of a dentist in 1916 who said that the teeth had been filed down by someone.
In 1953, *Joseph Weiner and *Kenneth Oakley applied a recently developed fluorine test to the bones—and found that Piltdown Man was a grand hoax! Someone had taken an ape jaw and put it with a human skull, filed the teeth somewhat, and then carefully stained it all so that the bones looked both ancient and a matching set. Imported mammalian fossils and handcrafted tools were placed nearby. It took 40 years to unravel that particular hoax. (Later in this chapter, the story is discussed in more detail.)
THE PIECES OF PILTDOWN MAN—It took several years to fabricate Piltdown Man. *Dawson and his associates carefully worked on the bones, in order to only provide certain pieces, so a half-ape, half-human appearance could be produced. The dark portions represent the pieces of bone; the white portions are plaster "reconstructions."
This illustration, like all in this book, are taken from the author’s three-volume Evolution Disproved Series.
"Careful examination of the bone pieces [in 1953] revealed the startling information that the whole thing was a fabrication, a hoax perpetrated by Dawson, probably, to achieve recognition. The skulls were collections of pieces, some human and some not. One skull had a human skull cap but an ape lower jaw. The teeth had been filed and the front of the jaw broken off to obscure the simian [ape] origin. Some fragments used had been stained to hide the fact that the bones were not fossil, but fresh. In drilling into the bones, researchers obtained shavings rather than powder, as would be expected in truly fossilized bone."—Harold G. Coffin, Creation: Accident or Design? (1961), p. 221.
RHODESIAN MAN—In 1921, Rhodesian Man was discovered in a cave. Anthropologists and artists set to work turning him into a half-ape, half-human sort of creature. But then a competent anatomist had the opportunity to examine it, and found that this was just a normal human being.
Further analysis revealed dental caries which modern diets tend to produce, and also a hole through the skull made by a bullet or crossbow. So Rhodesian Man was not so ancient after all.
TAUNG AFRICAN MAN—Taung African Man was found in 1924 by *Raymond Dart, when he came across the front face and lower jaw of an immature ape in a cave in the Taung limestone quarry of South Africa. He rushed to report it, accompanied by extravagant claims. A majority of scientists rejected this find, but the press loudly proclaimed it to be the "the missing link." Today most experts dismiss it as the skull of a young ape."Differences due to age are especially significant with reference to the structure of the skull in apes. Very pronounced changes occur during the transition from juvenile to adult in apes, but not in Man. The skull of a juvenile ape is somewhat different from that of Man. We may remember that the first specimen of Australopithecus that was discovered by Raymond Dart, the Tuang ‘child,’ was that of a juvenile [ape]. This juvenile skull should never have been compared to those of adult apes and humans."—Duane Gish, Evolution: the Challenge of the Fossil Record (1985), p. 178.
NEBRASKA MAN—(*#7/2 Nebraska Man*) Nebraska Man was found in 1922. Well, not exactly. A single molar tooth was found in 1922,—and called "Nebraska Man"! Based on that one tooth, an artist was told to make a picture. He did so and it went around the world. Nebraska Man was a key evidence at the Scopes trial in July 1925 in Dayton, Tennessee. In 1928, it was discovered that the tooth belonged to "an extinct pig"! In 1972, living specimens of the same pig were found in Paraguay. *Grafton Smith, one of those involved in publicizing "Nebraska Man" was knighted for his efforts in making known this fabulous find.
*Henry F. Osborn, a leading paleontologist, ridiculed William Jennings Bryan at the Scopes Trial, declaring that the tooth was "the herald of anthropoid apes in America," and that it "speaks volumes of truth" (*H.F. Osborn, Evolution and Religion in Education, 1926, p. 103).
At the trial, two specialists in teeth at the American Museum of Natural History, said that, after careful study, the tooth was definitely from a species closer to man than to the ape. (Science 55, May 5, 1927, p. 464).
PEKING MAN—Peking Man emerged on the international scene in the 1920s. The finances of *Davidson Black were just about running out, and he needed help, when in 1927 he found a tooth near Peking, China. The *Rockefeller Foundation stepped forward and gave him $80,000 to continue research on this colossal find. So *Black continued looking and came up with a skull, copies of which are displayed today in biology laboratories. *Black named it Sinanthropus pekinensis ("China man from Peking"), and received honors from all over the world for his discovery. After his death in 1934, the Jesuit that helped prepare Piltdown Man (*Teilhard de Chardin) took over the work at the site. Then *Franz Weidenreich led out until all work stopped in 1936, because of the Japanese invasion of China.This turned out to be some kind of town garbage dump. Although thousands of animal bones were found in this pit near Peking, only a few human skulls were found, and there was no evidence that they had evolved from anything else—even though there was 150 feet of animal bones in the pit. These human bones totaled 14 skulls in varying conditions, 11 jawbones, 147 teeth and a couple small arm bone and femur fragments, along with stone tools and carbon ash from fires.
These were human bones, but with a somewhat smaller brain capacity (1,000cc., which some people today have), and with the prominent brow ridges which we find in Neanderthals and Australopithecus.
There are races today with larger brow ridges, and some Philippine women have brow ridges,—which only men generally have. Patterns vary, but the species remains one.
"The heavy-boned [Peking] hominid skull featured prominent brow ridges and a somewhat smaller braincase (about 1,000 cc.) than modern humans (1,500 cc.)."—*R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), p. 359.
A braincase of 1,000cc. is not sub-human; people today vary between 1,000 and 2,000cc., with an occasional low of 750cc., and an average of 1,500-1 ,600cc.
All the skulls disappeared during World War II, so we cannot now examine them with modern methods to check their genuineness.
"Amidst the uncertainties of war-torn Beijing [earlier called Peking], it proved impossible to store them [Peking Man bones] safely with Chinese authorities, so Weidenreich finally packed them for military shipment to the United States. They were believed to be aboard the marine ship S.S. President Harrison, which was sunk in the Pacific in mid-November 1941. So Peking man’s bones may now be resting on the ocean’s bottom.
"However, there have been sporadic reports that the crate never made it onto that ill-fated ship, but was left behind in a railway station, where it was confiscated by the Japanese, stolen by looters or simply lost in the confusion."—*Ibid.
The evidence indicates that this may have been a dining area or garbage dump, and that both animals and people had been eaten.
"But just what had been excavated? A living site? A burial ground? A place of ritual cannibalism? . . Peking man was represented mainly by skulls—hardly any postcranial material. Not a pelvis or a rib. Just skulls. And the openings at their bases, the foramens magnums, had been widened and smashed, as if someone had wanted to scoop out the brains."—*Ibid.
Twenty years later, in the 1950s, *Ernst Mayr came up with a new name, Homo erectus, and then put a variety of bone finds (Java Man, Peking Man, and several others) into it.
It is well to keep in mind that all that remains of Peking Man are plaster casts in the United States. But plaster casts cannot be considered reliable evidence.
AUSTRALOPITHECINES—(*#8/3 Ramapithecus*; #9/17 Australopithecus*) "Australopithecus" ("southern ape") is the name given to a variety of ape bones found in Africa. After examining the bones carefully, anthropologists have gravely announced that they come from an ancient race of pre-people who lived from 4 to 1 million years ago. These bones have been found at various African sites, including Sterkfontein, Swartkrans, Koobi Fora, Olduvai, Hadar, and Orno River. The Australopithecines, like modern apes, had a wide range of varieties. But they are all apes.One of the most famous was named "Lucy," and will be mentioned later on.
Some experts believe that these apes, the Australopithecines, descended from another ape, the "Ramapithecines" ("Ramapithecus" is the singular for this word), which is supposed to have lived 12 million years ago.
"No proven ancestor is known for any early Australopithecus, nor for any early Homo [habilis]."—W. Mehlert, "The Australopithecines and (Alleged) Early Man," in Creation Research Society Quarterly, June 1980, p. 25.
Homo habilis is another ape. In the 1960s, *Louis Leakey found some teeth and skull fragments at Olduvai. He dated them at 1.8 million years ago and decided they belonged to the human family, therefore naming them Homo (people are classified as Homo Sapien. But many experts, including *Brace and *Metress have clearly shown that habilis was nothing more than a large-brained Australopithecus.
Brain sizes: Human beings have a brain size of about 1500 cc. (cubic centimeters). In contrast, habilis was 660 cc. Other brain sizes would be 800 cc. for Hadar, 900 cc. for Koobi Fora. Most other brain sizes are about 500 cc. The Taung and Sterkfontein skulls are around 430 cc. apiece, so an adult of their species would only be 550-600 cc. Thus on the score of size of brain case, these finds prove nothing.
An excellent and detailed article on this, which includes 13 charts and graphs, will be found in "Some Implications of Variant Cranial Capacities for the Best-preserved Australopithecine Skull Specimens," by Gerald Duffert (Creation Research Society Quarterly, September 1983, pp. 96-104). The article reveals that there was evidence of fraudulent measurements of those ancient African skulls. Repeatedly, when initially measured a high cubic centimeter volume was announced for the skull, but later remeasurements by other investigators disclosed much smaller measurements!
"Overall, the revisionary calculations of australopithecine skulls have led to reductions of their calculated volumes. The total percentage differences amount to—157.91."—*Op. cit., p. 100.
"The hypothesis that brain enlargement marked the beginning of man was long popular, but went out of fashion with the discovery that the endocranial volumes of the australopithecine group were not larger than those of gorillas."—*Elwin L. Simons, Primate Evolution: An Introduction to Man’s Place in Nature (1972), p. 278.
Speaking of the Australopithecines, *J.S. Weiner commented:
"The ape-like profile of Australopithecus is so pronounced that its outline can be superimposed on that of a female chimpanzee with a remarkable closeness of fit, and in this respect and others it stands in strong contrast to modern man."—*J.S. Weiner, The Natural History of Man (1973).
In 1957, *Ashley Montagu, a leading U.S. anthropologist, wrote that these extremely apelike creatures could not possibly have anything to do with man (*A. Montegu, Man’s First Million Years).
After the most careful research, *Oxnard and *Zuckerman have come to the conclusion that Australopithecus is an ape, and not human, and not a transition between the two.
"Dr. Charles Oxnard and Sir Solly Zuckerman were leaders in the development of a powerful multivariate analysis procedure. This computerized technique simultaneously performs millions of comparisons on hundreds of corresponding dimensions of the bones of living apes, humans, and the australopithecines. Their verdict, that the australopithecines are not intermediate between man and living apes, is quite different from the more subjective and less analytical visual techniques of most anthropologists. This technique, however, has not yet been applied to the most recent type of australopithecine, commonly known as ‘Lucy.’ "—Walter T. Brown, In the Beginning (1989), p. 39.
LUCY—Lucy, one of the most recent of the Australopithecus finds, was unearthed by *Donald C. Johanson at Hadar, Ethiopia in 1975. He dated it at 3 million years B.P. [Before Present]. In 1979, *Johanson and *White claimed that Lucy came under an ape/man classification (Australopithecus afarensis). But even before that startling announcement, the situation did not look too good for Lucy. In 1976, *Johanson said that "Lucy has massive V-shaped jaws in contrast to man" (*National Geographic Magazine, 150:790-810). In 1981, he said that she was "embarrassingly un-Homo like" (Science 81, 2(2):53-55). Time magazine reported in 1977 that Lucy had a tiny skull, a head like an ape, a braincase size the same as that of a chimp—450 cc. and "was surprisingly short legged" (*Time, November 7, 1979, pp. 68-69).
*Dr. Yves Coppens, appearing on BBC-TV in 1982, stated that Lucy’s skull was like that of an ape.
In 1983, *Jeremy Cherfas said that Lucy’s ankle bone (talus) tilts backward like a gorilla, instead of forward as in human beings who need it so to walk upright, and concluded that the differences between her and human beings are "unmistakable" (*J. Cherfas, New Scientist, (97:172 [1982]).
*Susman and *Stern of New York University carefully examined Lucy and said her thumb was apelike, her toes long and curved for tree climbing, and "she probably nested in the trees and lived like other monkeys" (Bible Science Newsletter, 1982, p. 4).
Several scientists have decided that the bones of Lucy come from two different sources. Commenting on this, *Peter Andrews, of the British Museum of Natural History, said this:
"To complicate matters further, some researchers believe that the afarensis sample [Lucy] is really a mixture of two separate species. The most convincing evidence for this is based on characteristics of the knee and elbow joints."—*Peter Andrews, "The Descent of Man," in New Scientist, 102:24 (1984).
Regarding those knee joints, *Owen Lovejoy, *Richard Leakey’s highly qualified associate (an anatomist), declared at a 1979 lecture in the United States that a multivariate analysis of Lucy’s knee joints revealed her to be an ape
So whether Lucy’s bones belong to one creature or two, they are both apes.
*Johanson’s theory about Lucy is based on an assumption linking two fossils 1,000 miles [1,609 km] apart:
"Although the Lucy fossils were initially dated at three million years, *Johanson had announced them as 3.5 million because he said the species was ‘the same’ as a skull found by *Mary Leakey at Laetoli, Tanzania. By proposing *Mary Leakey’s find as the ‘type specimen’ for Australopithecus afarensis, he was identifying Lucy with another fossil 1,000 miles [1,609 km] from the Afar [in northern Ethiopia] and half a million years older! *Mary thought the two not at all the same and refused to have any part of linking her specimen with [*Johanson’s] afarensis . . She announced that she strongly resented Johanson’s ‘appropriating’ her find, her reputation and the older date to lend authority to Lucy. Thus began the bitter, persistent feud between Johanson and the Leakeys."—*R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), p. 285.
*Johanson, himself, finally decided that Lucy was only an ape.
"Johanson himself originally described the fossils as Homo, a species of man, but soon after changed his mind based on the assessment of his colleague, Tim White. They now describe the bones as too ape-like in the jaws, teeth and skull to be considered Homo, yet also sufficiently distinct from other, later australopithecines to warrant their own species."—*Ibid.
Mehlert sums it up.
"The evidence . . makes it overwhelmingly likely that Lucy was no more than a variety of pigmy chimpanzee, and walked the same way (awkwardly upright on occasions, but mostly quadrupedal). The ‘evidence’ for the alleged transformation from ape to man is extremely unconvincing."—A.W. Mehlert, news note, Creation Research Society Quarterly, December 1985, p. 145.
NUTCRACKER MAN—Nutcracker Man was found in 1959 by *Louis Leakey in the Olduvai Gorge in East Africa, and is one of the Australopithecines, discussed above.
SKULL 1470—In 1972, *Richard Leakey announced what he thought to be a human-like fossil skull, and gave it an astonishing date of 2.8 million years. The official name of this find is KNM-ER 1470, but it is commonly known as "Skull 1470." If this is a human skull, then it would pre-date all the man/ape bones said to be its ancestors.Both Leakey and other hominid experts think it looks essentially like a modern small-brained person. It was pieced together from several fragments.
"In 1972, Bernard Ngeneo, of Richard Leakey’s ‘Hominid Gang,’ found a similar but much more complete skull at East Turkana. It is generally known as the ‘1470’ skull, from its accession number at the Kenya National Museum.
"The 1470 skull was pieced together by Richard Leakey’s wife Meave and several anatomists from dozens of fragments—a jig jaw puzzle that took six weeks to assemble. Dated at 1.89 million years old, with a cranial capacity of 750cc., Leakey believes it is the oldest fossil of a true human ancestor. In his view, the australopithecines and other hominid fossils were sidebranches
"Leakey fought hard to win a place for his 1470 (along with the previous habiline fragments found at Olduvai) because most anthropologists thought the skull was simply ‘too modern-looking’ to be as ancient as he at first claimed."—*R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), p. 217.
Here was *Leakey’s original announcement in regard to this skull:
"Either we toss out this skull or we toss out our theories of early man . . [It] leaves in ruins the notion that all early fossils can be arranged in an orderly sequence of evolutionary change."—*Richard E. Leakey, "Skull 1470," National Geographic, June 1973, p. 819.
But it should be understood that modern, living, small-brained (750cc.) human beings have existed, so the finding of a 750cc. Skull 1470 is no reason to think it is an "ancestor" of mankind.
"Human qualities of mind, Keith proclaimed, can only appear when brain volume is at least 750 cubic centimeters, a point nicknamed ‘Keith’s rubicon’ (dividing line) . . How did he arrive at the ‘magic’ number of 750cc.? It was the smallest functioning modern human brain anatomists had seen at the time [when *Sir Arthur Keith, one of those involved in the Piltdown hoax, was alive earlier in this century]."—*R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), p. 249.
Early comments on Skull 1470 included these:
"The finding of ‘Skull 1470,’ which Richard Leakey says is nearly three million years old and really human, will shatter the whole evolutionary story built upon so-called hominoids, if anthropologists accept Leakey’s pronouncements. An artist for the National Geographic Magazine obligingly painted a reconstruction which is very human indeed. The only thing peculiar is the overly flat nose—and the shape of the nose cannot be ascertained from a skull."—News note, Creation Research Society Quarterly, September 1974, p. 131.
"The latest reports of Richard Leakey are startling, and, if verified, will reduce to a shambles the presently held schemes of evolutionists concerning man’s origins."—Duane T. Gish, Evolution: The Fossils Say No! (1973), p. 105.
After considering the implications of the situation, the skull was carefully redated, lest it be thought that human beings had lived 2.8 million years ago. The experts did not want it to predate its ancestors!
"The 1470 Skull discovered by Richard Leakey in 1972 was originally ‘dated’ at 2.6 million years. However, many anthropologists objected because then the more modern 1470 Skull would predate all its supposed ancestors. Thus 1470 was ‘redated’ until a more ‘acceptable’ estimate of 1.8 million years was adopted."—John N. Moore, "Teaching About Origin Questions: Origin of Human Beings," in Creation Research Society Quarterly, March 1986, p. 185.
This skull may have been that of a microcephalic human, a teenage human, or an ape..
It lacks the prominent eyebrow ridges common to Homo erectus (Java Man, etc.), many Neanderthals, and Australopithecus. Some fossil apes had brow ridges; others lacked them.
The brow ridge slopes back abruptly as does that of simians (apes), but it is somewhat more rounded.
The size of the braincase is equivalent to that of a teenager, or a microcephalic, and somewhat larger than an ape: 775 cc. A gorilla averages 500 cc., and an australopithecus only 422 to 530 cc. The average brain size for modern man is 1450 cc. But there are exceptions to this:
Microcephalics are human beings which have brains as small as 775 cc. This condition is a birth defect which, though unfortunate, occurs from time to time.
"Humans with microcephaly are quite subnormal in intelligence, but they still show specifically human behavioral patterns."—Marvin Lubenow, "Evolutionary Reversals: the Latest Problem Facing Stratigraphy and Evolutionary Phylogeny," in Bible-Science Newsletter, 14(1 1):1-4 (1976).
"None of these early hominids had brains approaching the size of modern human ones. The indices of encephalization show that australopithecines were only slightly above the great apes in relative brain size and even the largest cranium [Skull 1470] is about as close to apes as it is to humans."—*Henry M. McHenry, "Fossils and the Mosaic Nature of Human Evolution," in Science 190(4213):425-431.
It is significant that the lower jaw was not found. This would have told a lot. The face of the skull, below the eyes, protrudes forward in the manner of apes. The jaw and molars are somewhat larger than the average modern human’s, but not larger than those of some people. There appears to be a lack of bony support beneath the nostrils, such as is found in gorillas. Facial skeletons are relatively larger in apes than the braincase size. Skull 1470 is about midway in this category, and thus not like that of humans. It also has a long upper lip area, such as apes have.
Viewing three skulls from the rear (an adult human, Skull 1470, and Australopithecus) we find that Skull 1470 has similarities to that of Australopithecus.
John Cuozzo, in a 4-page report complete with two drawings and seven photographs (Creation Research Society Quarterly, December 1977, pp. 173-176), provides intriguing evidence for his contention that Skull 1470 may have been that of an early teenage human being, and that damage to the skull after death caused the ape-like characteristics in the nasal opening, etc.
Frankly, there is not enough data available to say much more. There is no doubt that the special human qualities of speech, etc., would not reveal themselves in a skull.
It is also a fact that evolutionists eagerly desire evidence that man descended from an ape-like ancestor. Yet over a hundred years of searching has not disclosed this, even though, as we learned in the chapter on Fossils and Strata, millions of fossils have been dug out of the ground and examined. If mankind had indeed descended from another creature, there should be abundant fossil evidence. But it is not there.
BONE INVENTORY—(*#12 Major Hominid Discoveries*) Most all of these supposed ancestral bones of man have been catalogued in a *Time-Life book, The Missing Link, Volume 2 in the "Emergence of Man Series," published in 1972. It has a complete listing of all the Australopithecine finds up to the end of 1971.Although over 1400 specimens are given, most are little more than scraps of bone or isolated teeth. Not one complete skeleton of one individual exists. All that anthropologists have in their ancestral closet are bits and pieces.
"The fossils that decorate our family tree are so scarce that there are still more scientists than specimens. The remarkable fact is that all the physical evidence we have for human evolution can still be placed, with room to spare, inside a single coffin!"—*Science Digest 90, May 1982, p. 44.
As listed in the Ancient Man appendix on our website (*#12*), the number of bone pieces which have been found worldwide is incredibly small! You will want to turn to the appendix and look over the listing for yourself. There is little wonder that each new piece of bone receives so many newspaper stories!
"The entire hominid collection known today would barely cover a billiard table . . The collection is so tantalisingly incomplete, and the specimens themselves often so fragmentary and inconclusive, that more can be said about what is missing than about what is present."—*John Reader, New Scientist 89, March 26, 1981, p. 802.
"I don’t want to pour too much scorn on paleontologists, but if you were to spend your life picking up bones and finding little fragments of head and little fragments of jaw, there’s a very strong desire there to exaggerate the importance of those fragments."—*Greg Kirby, address at meeting of Biology Teachers’ Association, South Australia, 1976 [Flinders University professor].
"The problem with a lot of anthropologists is that they want so much to find a hominid that any scrap of bone becomes a hominid bone."—*Timothy White, quoted in New Scientist 98, April 28, 1983, p. 199 [University of California anthropologist].
WHAT IT ALL MEANS—All the evidence from bones and fossils gives only one report: Mankind did not evolve from any lower form of life. Evolutionists have found no support anywhere for their theory that man came from apes, monkeys, mollusks, germs, or anything else.
Here are five special reasons why mankind did not descend from apes. We cover several of these in detail in other chapters:
"1. Abrupt appearance of fossil forms separated by systematic gaps between fossil forms. 2. Distinctness of DNA, chemical components, and pattern (design) of morphological similarities. 3. Laws of Mendel: combination, recombination always results in easily recognized plant, animal forms; conclusive evidence of fixed reproductive patterns (designs). 4. Distinctness of human self-conscious awareness, and metaphysical concerns. 5. Distinctness of human personality involving moral and ethical concern; reflective, symbolic, abstract, conceptual thought."—John N. Moore, "Teaching about Origin Questions: Origin of Human Beings," in Creation Research Society Quarterly, March 1986, p. 184 (emphasis his).
Anthropologists maintain that man descended from an unknown ancestor, and *Darwin said it was an ape. If we descended from an ape, why do we have a different number of vertebrae in our backbones than apes have? Why is our cranial capacity totally different? And, most important, why is our DNA distinctly different than apes, monkeys, and all species of wildlife?
They say that they have found the bones of our hominid ancestors. Why then have only a table-top full of bones been found? There ought to be millions of bones, if they lived for hundreds of thousands of years before us. And why do all those bones look only like ape bones or human bones—and never like both?
They say that modern evolutionary anthropology is
based on the pioneering discoveries of six men: * Eugene Dubois and
his Java Man, *Charles Dawson’s Piltdown Man, the 1921 Rhodesian Man, the 1922
Nebraska Man, *Raymond *Dart’s Taung African Man, and *Davidson Black’s Peking
Man. But the finds of *Dubois and *Dawson were later discovered to be
outright fakes. Rhodesian and Taung Man were found to be apes. Nebraska Man
turned out to be a pig tooth, and Peking Man was just human bones.
And are not very old after all.
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