The Oldest Skull Yet Found Causes Controversy

   The oldest skull of possible human history has been found in the deep reaches of the Sahara Desert in Africa. Termed Toumai (offically Sahelanthropus tchadensis), it has caused a disturbance in the anthropolgical community. Aged at around 6 - 7 million years old, it predates all other finds. The problem with the skull is that it has several traits of the much later hominid line such as small canines, upright walking, and thicker enamals. Those traits are not seen again in the fossil record for several more millions of years. Therefore, where exactly to place this find in the human tree is unknown and it also calls to question the previous notions from which we came.

The Original Language?

As reported in Discovery.com News April 21, 2000:

   Researchers are now theorizing that the remnants of Human's first words can be found by listening to babies learning to talk. They found that they make several sounds universally reguardless of race or ethnicity, such as  "baba" "gaga" and "tata". These sound combinations are also present in every major language in the modern world.
     The researchers theorize that since these sounds are so universal to all languages and so natural to someone learning to speak, that they must have been the root for a common language for all humanity. Previous theory holds that a sudden genetic mutation gave almost instant rise to speech, but now it appears that speech was a simple case of humans tinkering around with the natural sounds of the mouth..
       Peter MacNeilage of the University of Texas at Austin says, "These findings show you don’t need a genetic change for language to develop."
       If you do not need a genetic change, then you do not need evolution right?
      Therefore, science is now telling us that there was at one time, one Human lannguage before splintering off. Is this not what the Bible says happened after Noah's Flood? Then for humanity's arrogance and disobedience, he split the one language up and sent the people across the world.
 

A  Fossilized Dinosaur Heart
 

       It is common practice for scientists to discard the rock surrounding dinosaur bones since it generally makes things too heavy and bulky for transport. However, scientists noticed a red circle in the rock surrounding a dinosaur find and decided to check it out. After a CAT scan, it was found that it was a perfect little dinosaur heart. There is a problem however with this discovery. The heart most closely resembles the heart of warm-blooded mammals and not the cold-blooded reptiles that dinosaurs have been classified as. This would make at least some of the dinosaurs warm-blooded reptiles.
      This was totally unexpected and shows that there is still a lot of learning to be done about the dinosaurs.

Public Opinion

      It is intresting to note that on March 11, 2000, a public opinion poll of 1500 people, done by the People for the American Way Foundation reported in The Tennessean newspaper, found that 83% support the teaching of Evolution in schools. However, also 79% support the teaching of Creationism as well, with 68% believing the two theories to be compatable.

Unexplained Tools

     The Archaeology Magazine of March/April 1997  reported that in the Afar region of Ethipoia in Africa, over 2500 stone flakes and stone cores have been dated to between 2.52 and 2.60 million years ago. This places the tool flakes over 150,000 years older than any known homo species. Since what defines the homo species is tool making, the question of who made these is still up in the air.

Early Exit from Africa Discovered

    Discovery.com News reported on May 11, 2000 that the earliest species of apemen have been found outside of Africa, long considered the origin of humanity. In the Republic of Georgia along the southern Russian border, the remains of early apemen were found dated to around 1.7 million years ago. These skulls closely resemble contemporary skulls of those found in Africa. Also with the skulls were an assortment of tools similar to those found in Africa at the same time.
    Some scientists consider these fossils to belong to that of Homo Ergaster, a possible ancestor of Homo Erectus - the ones long considered to be the first out of Africa. Other scientists simply consider this to be a local variation on the Homo Erectus species.
     There is a question surrounding this find. That is, why are these fossils found so far out of Africa so soon after developing? This find gives them a long distance to migrate in a relatively short amount of time.

A Possible Transitional Species from Water to Land

from the Associated Press May 1, 2000 :
     A 375 million years old fossilized jawbone found in Estonia on the Baltic Sea, could show a transition from fish to land animal. The most developed fish found is around 385 million years old while the oldest definite land animal is 365 million years old. This leaves a gap of 20 million years between fish and land animals. Despite such a long period of time in conditions ripe for fossilization, no fossils of transitional species from this period of time have been found.
     That is where this fossil, named Livonia multidentata, comes to play. Jawbones have distinctive features which allow scientists to compare them to modern species to decide what the million some odd year animal looked like. Scientists think that this jawbone belonged to a crocodile looking animal with gills and a swishing tail.

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