Miocene man?

[Anonymous]

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The Miocene Human Fossil in Guadeloupe

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In 1812, several skeletons were found on the island of Guadeloupe. They were all pointing the same way, were not disjointed, were only partly mineralized, and a dog and implements were found with them. This implies a burial, rather than a mass death. The dog and the partial mineralization imply they are post-Columbian.

One of the skeletons, of a woman, was presented to the British Museum. It has been on and off public display ever since.

In 1983, the Australian creationist journal Ex Nihilo ran an article by W. R. Cooper. He claimed that the skeleton was found in a 25 million year old Lower Miocene deposit. He said that it showed signs of drowning in the Flood. He also claimed that it was taken off display, in Darwin's day, to conceal the evidence against Darwin's theory. The Natural History Museum curators say that they didn't move it down to the basement until 1967.

And there the matter sits. Cooper has not produced an independant opinion that his dating (to the Miocene) is correct. The skeleton has not been carbon-dated, although the Museum offered to do so for a fee.

A reference:

The case of Miocene Man, Howgate and Lewis, New Scientist 29 March 1984 pp. 44-45

Source:-
http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/guadeloupe.html


Anyone know if this one has been solved yet? I'm not a creationist myself, I'm still interersted to know more, the skeleton is housed at the British museum apparently.

 

[intaglio]

don't know what happened to the "controversy" but what's the controversy?

How can something excavated 190 years ago be dated stratigraphically? Even if it was possible burial would cut through several epochs. If Holocene layers were thin or eroded anything could have happened.

But a more likely explanation is the date. The NS edition in question was the one covering April 1. NS always put in some little teaser.

 

[Anonymous]

The controversy is over whether or not these anatomically modern human skeletons are 25 mil years old, which can be resolved by dating, by the museum, if someone puts up the money. I'd just like to know if this has been done yet.

The date of the New Scientist article is irrelevant to the case because it appears extensively in literature before this date.


BACK TO GUADELOUPE AGAIN
Just how old are those modern-looking human skeletons in those chunks of Guadeloupe limestone? (Opposing views were discussed in SFs #27 and 34.) The basic problem is the dating of the limestone in which the skeletons are embedded. If the limestone is truly of Miocene age (about 25 million years old), the presence of human skeletons represemts a major scientific anomaly, since modern man appeared on earth only about 5 million years ago. Most scientists say the limestone is only recently formed beach rock a few hundred years old, and that radiometric dating proves this. But doubters have pointed to 3-millionyear-old coral reefs apparently stratigraphically above the limestone. In a recent issue of Ex Nihilo, a few more cans of gasoline have been thrown on the fire:

(1) The radiometric date usually served up actually came from another island in the area. (2) Beach rock is not now forming at the site, rather the skeletons' limestone is being eroded. (3) The skeletons' limestone is harder than marble and not loosely consolidated beach rock. (4) True Miocene limestone does exist in the area. (5) Geologists have carefully described and mapped the rest of Guadeloupe but have omitted the skeletons' site -- presumably because of the anomalies involved.

(Tyler, David J., et al; Ex Nihilo, 7:41, no. 3, 1985.)

Source:
http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf040/sf040p12.htm

 

[rossba1]

How about if they acually dug a really deep grave for these guys that cut into the miocene strata. I assume this wouldnt be too difficult. Stratigraphic dating has always seemed slightly dunious to me because there are always ways for something to move closer to the surface or deeper into the ground.
RC dating or amino acid racemisation would solve this pretty quickly. In fact if they are as young as expected i think AA racemisation should do the trick and possibly cheaper than RC dating.

 

[Anonymous]

That should settle it - modern dating methods are more reliable. Perhaps the creationists should club together and pay for the tests, although I'm sure they'd find plenty of other evidence to support their claims.
Recent evidence suggests the Galapagos islands are lot younger than previously thought.

 

[Anonymous]

I don't get it. Creationism is not just counter-evolution, it also maintains that the entire universe is only about five thousand years old. Did the article also mean to counter geological dating methods? My grandmother is a creationist, and she thinks that god created things like dinosaur fossils and geological strata all at once--at some point in those first seven days--as a test of faith. She's a bit nutty but very dear. Are there some splinter creationist ideologies?