Take the dates with a grain of salt. Nobody ever got a grant or a paper published for revising towards a younger date. No discovery in that.
I was wondering if there are any problems with uranium dating
210k-year-old skull in Greece is earliest sign of modern humans in Europe, Asia
21–30 of 91 posts
Re: 210k-year-old skull in Greece is earliest sign of modern humans in Europe, Asia
#22Does it strike anyone else as odd that the two skulls found practically "nose-to-nose" are 40,000 years apart in age? How do two humanoid skulls coincidentally end up right next to each other with 40,000 years gap between them?
Neanderthal had rituals of some kind, maybe they just buried one of theirs with a skull s/he had found laying around?
Although I imagine the likely explanation is just that sometimes things fall next to each other.
Re: 210k-year-old skull in Greece is earliest sign of modern humans in Europe, Asia
#23Does it strike anyone else as odd that the two skulls found practically "nose-to-nose" are 40,000 years apart in age? How do two humanoid skulls coincidentally end up right next to each other with 40,000 years gap between them?
It was an ancient museum.
Re: 210k-year-old skull in Greece is earliest sign of modern humans in Europe, Asia
#24To have a feel of long period of time, I always use one metric: my grand father. He's lived 93 years, so almost 100. 2000 years ago was then 20 grandad away. Not so long ago after all. 200K ago is 2000 grandad away. Quite some time but nothing astronomical yet.
If I recall correctly this is one measure used in one of "the science of discworld" books.
Re: 210k-year-old skull in Greece is earliest sign of modern humans in Europe, Asia
#25Does it strike anyone else as odd that the two skulls found practically "nose-to-nose" are 40,000 years apart in age? How do two humanoid skulls coincidentally end up right next to each other with 40,000 years gap between them?
One of the articles I read stated they suspected the skulls were originally in different caves but had been caught in a flood that washed them into a common area.
Re: 210k-year-old skull in Greece is earliest sign of modern humans in Europe, Asia
#26Does it strike anyone else as odd that the two skulls found practically "nose-to-nose" are 40,000 years apart in age? How do two humanoid skulls coincidentally end up right next to each other with 40,000 years gap between them?
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Re: 210k-year-old skull in Greece is earliest sign of modern humans in Europe, Asia
#27> When it comes to figuring out how old something is, archaeologists are interested in one element in particular: uranium. I though fossils were dated with Carbon-14. Did that change?
Carbon dating is merely one technique in the field of radioisotope dating.
Re: 210k-year-old skull in Greece is earliest sign of modern humans in Europe, Asia
#28Nice try, Satan. First dinosaur bones are planted to trick us, and now this?!
Re: 210k-year-old skull in Greece is earliest sign of modern humans in Europe, Asia
#29Does it strike anyone else as odd that the two skulls found practically "nose-to-nose" are 40,000 years apart in age? How do two humanoid skulls coincidentally end up right next to each other with 40,000 years gap between them?
Sea mines placed miles apart during the second world war sometimes end up settling right next to each other, several miles away. Sometimes tens of miles away. Sometimes next to a leftover mine from the first world war that arrived the same way.
The environment in which they exist subjects them to varying pressures and forces, making them move. When do they stop moving? When they reach a point at which those pressures and forces cease. That point is the same for all items that get swept there. Wait long enough, and if another one is part of the same system of forces that directs towards the same null point, it'll turn up. Happens with sea mines over the course of a few decades. Could it happen with skulls over tens of thousands of years? Sure could. Happens with lots of objects.
Re: 210k-year-old skull in Greece is earliest sign of modern humans in Europe, Asia
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can also think in terms of generations. If everyone has a kid at 20 then you can draw 100 stick figures in a line to go 2000 years back. Not so long when you look at it.
So this person 200k years ago was roughly 10000 generations ago. That's long in human terms and very short in the history of the earth.
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