Anthropology

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Are there any "human" artifacts dating back "before" 11,003 years b.c.?

Artifacts meaning things humans produced or actual human remains? I looked for "oldest modern human" and found a date of 195000 years (link). Modern humans arrived in Australia about 40000 years ago. In Europe, I think there is evidence for modern humans from about 40000 - 50000 years ago. Neanderthals were here earlier, and disappeared about 30000 years ago. I found a date for Homo heidelbergensis up to 1.3 million years old. You'll find earlier dates still for Homo erectus and Homo habilis.

Why the scare quotes around human and before? And why such a precise date? Did anything special happen then?

Paintings in the caves of Lascaux (sp?) in France have been dated back about 30-40,000 years, if'n I remember correctly.

Are you kidding?

Thats like asking if "there was human civilization before Television was invented?"

Most of the history of human technology pre-dated 11000 BC!

As someone pointed out - the great cave paintings were all already tens of thousands of years old by that date.

Anthropology texts are replete with lists of "stone tool traditions" - not just tools- but cultures of stone tools which had flourished and died out in turn for millions of years before 11000.

The solutrian, the mousterian, the artic small blade tradition, folson, Oldowan, etc etc.- just to name random sample of stone tool traditions from around the World from the three million years of stone tool technology that predated 11000 BC.

Where did you get this 11003 BC date from?

That was late in prehistory- about the time of the end of the last ice age- and little before they invented agriculture.

Ya, i thought i've heard as long as 50,000 years ago?
I also know here in the states, arrowheads and other native american tools date back to around 15,000bc, was believed that is when they came over the siberian bridge from russia.

I believe plenty of man made tools date back even farther than 50,000 years, though since we've learned of so many other species of animals that use and fashion tools it's not really considered such a big stepping stone anymore. But those paintings in the caves are, from what i know, big milestones as they represent the earliest forms of 'modern' human interaction so widely considered the earliest non-fossil record of modern man.


I'm also ridiculously curious as to where the 11,003 date came from?.

50 thousand!?

Try two million years old!

Thats the age of the, albiet, crude stone tools found in Olduvai Gorge in Africa by louis leaky.

If you count foot prints as "artifacts"- Leaky's widow found sets of hominid foot prints about 3 million years old.

At first the human body evolved faster than did our technology- but gradually tools got more sophisticated - homo erectus left us million year old tools, and Neanderthals left us the more sophisticated Mousterian toll culture- 200 thousand to 35 thousand years ago. Finaly the anatomically modern folks show up with radically momre sophiticated tools- and musical instruments- and art work etc- around 35 thousand years ago.

In the Americas the question is not when did people start making tools, but when did people arrive. Some scientist say nothing is older the Folsom tools- 15K years old- but a growing minority say there are older tools at sites found (oddly enough) in South America dating to 40k years ago.

But again- where did you get this "eleven thousand, and three", years figure from?

The 50k was refering to the cave paintings. I thought i heard/read somewhere they dated as far back as 55,000 years ago. I know tools go back real far, but since we know species of apes and birds dont just use tools but make them, the cave drawings are a better measuring tool for a big step in our modern evolution.


But again, I googled 11,003 BC and all i could find was a refence to a native american themed painting by the title 'The Storyteller -11,003 bc'
So where the heck is that number coming from lol.

More like 25,000 to 30,000 ybp.

ruveyn

The settlement of Australia by people traveling down through the Indonesian islands occurred at least 70,000 years ago probably earlier. Australia has the worlds oldest rock art, worlds oldest evidence of cremation in burials, and is the oldest practical demonstration of sophisticated verbal language ie. conveying the intention of traveling to a place over the horizon that cannot be seen and pointed at. Before Homo sapiens, sapiens (modern man) we had Homo sapiens, Homo neandertalensis, Homo erectus, Homo ergaster, Homo habilis, And then the Australopithecines found only in Africa at this stage. There have been several excursions out of Africa by these various species.

Thanks to all who have replied! I'm familiar with all this but I need specific ammo to argue with a gentleman called Howard Camping on Family Radio.com who is claiming the end of the world to be ending October 2011 and who also claims it began only in 11,003!! Who knows when it will end but only a jackass would ACTUALLY believe all this began in .....11,003 LOL!! !

We have rocks that are of the order of 4 billion years old as determined by potassium-argon dating.

Apparently this fellow knows nothing about physics. Don't bother arguing with him. I have learned never to argue with Creationists or Flat Earthers. You can't win. You can't even break even.


ruveyn

As ruveyn said, don't waste your time. This man has his beliefs, and no amount of contradictory facts will undo them. It's called the confirmation bias in psychology: people look for facts that support their beliefs, and ignore or reject all other facts. Just wait until Nov. 2011 to watch cognitive dissonance in action. This man will likely strengthen his beliefs as a result of the world not ending, and come up with one of several highly predictable explanations as to why it did not end when he said it would.