Chapter 3 – Osteometrics of the Past - The Right Tools for the Job

You cannot pick up a book on anthropology that does not discuss tool manufacturing by early hominids and those tools’ relation to the cultural makeup of the group. Tools, burials, cooking hearths and other social activities are critical clues in the process of understanding ancient human beings. There are recorded finds of such materials long before the recorded skeletal finds of Neandertal. These tools when understood provided tremendous insight into the behavior and complexity of the groups and into the questions about origins. Entire manuscripts have been given to review an early hominid labeled Homo Habilis. Literally translated this term means handy human. Here is the juncture in the anthropological record where bipedal hominids begin to get the naming convention of Homo. Prior to this creature, the naming convention starts with Australopithecus. Homo Habilis maintained a cranial volume on the order of 30 percent larger than Australopithecus Africanus. Again the sheer size of the cranium is a key factor in separating the two species. Habilis versus Africanus presents some problems in the understanding of the origins of humanity. Roughly 2 million years ago Homo Habilis is known to have walked the African landscape making and using tools to his benefit. At roughly the same time it is well recorded in the bone finds that another creature, Australopithecus Rubustus (as well as Homo Erectus and Australopithecus Africanus) also walked the earth. Anyone looking at the two skulls can in most cases see a significant difference. Australopithecus Rubustus has a large sarengial crest along the top of his skullcap. Rubustus, as the name suggests also has a significantly thicker jaw and larger teeth. Coupled with the formation of center wear on the teeth, it is surmised that these physical adaptations are associated with diet differences. It is theorized that Rubustus subsisted on a diet of mainly tubers and roots. Whereas, it is assumed Habilis maintained a diet high in protein. There are multiple problems with our understandings of origins from our discussion. Adding to that additional information on sexual dimorphism only further complicates the topic.

Let us consider crossing over points first. If Erectus, Habilis, Rubustus and Africanus all lived within roughly the same time period then it is clear there was no individual crossover point at all. Rather there was a migration from one group to another. This assumes that there is relation to each other. The gradation of fossil finds indicates that there were osteomorphological transitions from one group to the next and the transitions occurred slowly over years. Assuming nature has constantly demonstrated relatively slow migration changes in phenotype it becomes impossible to define a discreet crossover point from one species to another. Therefore, as scientist, there is no discreet day, week, month, year, decade or even century that we can declare the transition complete. The transition from Australopithecus to Homo occurred over a period of at least 500,000 years. Certainly there are groups that claim that evolution never took place. Those old guards of the creationist theory dispute that these finds show any relation to present day human beings. It is easy to believe that this group would declare that present day humans have no relation to these ancient finds. This group is not the only group though. Present day researchers suggest that the transition of these forms led to evolutionary dead ends that never again contributed to the Homo sapien sapiens classification.

The last paragraph suggests that the gradation is clear enough that skulls removed from the ground can always be declared Australopithecus or Homo. The problem is this too is not true. There is a thesis within anthropological theory that suggests that Habilis should never have been given its own taxonomic assignment. The ambiguity arises due to a biological process called sexual dimorphism. Lions, Gorillas, Elephants and many other species have this trait. Typically however, not always, the male gender of the species is significantly larger than the female gender. Silverback gorillas are a classic example of the phenotypic difference that can occur across genders within the same species. It is proposed that Habilis and Rubustus are the same species and the sexual dimorphism coupled with standard hominid gradation can account for the differences in the osteomorphology. The differences noted in the sexual dimorphism even gives rise to suggested cultural understanding of these hominids. Perhaps, like other sexually dimorphic animals, the larger males lived in isolation while the females lived in groups. The males would then join with the females during times of procreation. The level of support provided to this theory is immaterial to our debate. What is important here is the fact that there is confusion over our origins and cultural practices. Throw into the debate the finds by Mary Leakey in 1959 of Australopithecus Boisei and other finds of a creature named Homo Rudolfensis found in 1993 the picture of evolution throughout the African continent was more complex than one might image between 2 to 1 million years ago.

Like with the Bible, the bone record provides us anecdotal evidence of the culture and intellectual ability of those that came before us. What we do know as fact is that between the period of 4 million and 1 million years ago there was a tremendous variance of human like creatures that walked the continent of Africa. Those that have evaluated the bone record of these locations have classified these bones into groups ranging from the small cranial structure of Australopithecus Afarensis, Africanus, Robustus and Boisei to the larger skulls of Homo habilis and Rudolfensis. The complexity of the variation over this time period makes it difficult for us to discern our origin from skeletal information. Again, remembering that the OMB places emphasis on culture perhaps that phenotypic review can be avoided anyway. Perhaps the tools that were left behind by the groups are really the keys to understanding their cultural identity. Perhaps we can understand our own beginnings from the stone tools left behind.

I will have to admit this section of the manuscript has provided me with the greatest impediment to the overall development of my thoughts. My knowledge of tools in ancient humans tremendously slows my progression. I must remind the reader, and myself this book is only intended to provide potential framework for understanding the current racial classification process. This document was never designed nor intended to be considered a reference manual on the individual topics that created the process. The lack of detail regarding our current understanding of tools is removed intentionally. There are many texts one may read associated with this matter and I highly encourage the reader to engage in them. However, for the purpose of brevity within this writing, I must ask the reader to certainly question my logic, but not to find fault in my lack of details.

To this point within this section we have demonstrated that a distinct crossover from ape to upright hominid is at best limited to 500,000 years and at worst impossible to derive from the bone record itself. But the OMB has given us a direct requirement to determine the origin of ourselves, and they have placed geographic conditions on those origins. This suggests to me that isolated groups crossed over and gave rise to what we consider present day humans. These isolated groups are not to be defined phenotypically but rather culturally. Homo Habilis is the oldest recorded osteo find in which we can find collocated tools. As stated before hence the name means handy man. However, certainly these crudely crafted stones in no way compare to our present day tool set. Even the least educated school children are vividly aware of the Pyramids of Ancient Egypt and perhaps even the Stonehenge of England and other great societies. A blade crafted from a rock for the purpose of cleaning skins, cutting meat and killing and scavenging game are in no way comparable to the complexity of the levers and fulcrums of these people 6000 years ago. Recent studies with chimpanzees show these animals are for virtual means as well adapted to crafting tools as Homo habilis. There are clearly anthropological arguments provided that these crafted tools are far superior to any tool since crafted by apes, but a rapid return to Socratic evaluations of the tools provides more insight into why Ussher may have been correct and the OMB has a valid case for its position on origins.

A tool is built with intention. At least that is how we see it today. When Bob Villa comes on your television to advertise Craftsman’s newest device, he presents a clear picture of the Socratic concept. Villa allows another home worker like you repair several different objects around the house while his voice is overlaid on the action. His process provides you intent for the tool. He provides ideas of the many ways the tool can be used. Villa always addresses the versatility of the tool and the ease of use. Ancient tool evaluation addresses what we will term for ease the “Villa process”. Looking at flaked rocks becomes a difficult endeavor. Has the rock been broken by weather and time? Or was it purposely worn down from retooling and reshaping. If the tools were actually recycled into newer tools, perhaps the acumen of the toolmaker was greater than we may be led to believe initially. But the story does not end there. The critical part comes from a Homo erectus find by Alan Walker.

If we are to assume there was a “Villa” process occurring with the tools, it is worth to conjecture how the Socratic intention was transferred from hominid to hominid. We know that chimps today can demonstrate the creation and function of a tool with the express intention of obtaining food for immediate need. The young chimps learn that immediate needs can be addressed by using a stick or a box to master a difficult situation that prevents them from obtaining food. But the chimps lack the forethought and communication skills to improve on the tool in a fashion that is experienced by modern humans. If only Bob Villa were around for the chimps, he could demonstrate how they would build an electric sifter to farm termites instead of licking them off the twig stripped of its leaves. In order for Villa to present this new tool he first needs a complex method to represent abstractions and thoughts. Villa presents in his commercial; value propositions such as timesavings, safety and abstract ideas. Villa talks about spending time with the family and how satisfied you will be when the job is completed. Villa does not address the more primal issues of hunger or shelter. There is an important distinction to be made here. Chimps are concerned with the more primal satisfactions when constructing their tools. Chimps lack the ornate abstractions seen in actions forethought and language.

This returns our thoughts to origins and crossing over. If we are to consider our origins, perhaps we can define that point when upright hominids became human. This humanization is an artifact of speech and advanced abstraction. Alan Walker argues that his find in Ethiopia shows complex language and ultimately advanced thought could not have come from Homo Erectus at all. Walker spends a tremendous amount of time in his book “The Wisdom of the Bones” discussing the relationship between the phenotype of the skeletal remains and the social understanding they would provide. In this compelling book, he elaborates on the relationship between cranial volume and humanness, and a small area called the Broca’s spot. The Broca’s spot is considered a critical component in osteo studies that indicates the ability of hominids to speak. Walker assumes through must of the book that these skeletal remains must have certainly belonged to an upright hominid similar to himself. Then in the book something sets the Homo erectus skeleton apart. The inner diameters of the vertebrae are not large enough to have accommodated the nerves for fine control of intercostals muscular control. To the average reader this may mean little. To those who understand speech the information is startling. Homo Erectus could not have spoken as we do. Homo Erectus lacked the fine muscle control needed to express complex sounds. Our origins have been moved forward. Maybe Ussher is right. Perhaps speech provides for a crossing point; a time when people could speak and express abstract thought. Perhaps that is what Genesis means about Adam and Eve. Could it be that simple that the “Planet of the Apes” movies have had the analogy right all along? It is not the tool. It is when the head monkey is able to say no. It is the expression of abstractions. The crossing point can be defined as the point when physically; hominids could begin to express themselves in complex mannerisms. Thus enters stage left a return to where we began in the bone search – Neandertal. Perhaps the entire conjecture of the book is wrong because Neandertal has origins of Europe. Perhaps we are white and not black. If this is the case then did black skinned people originate from Neandertal? Or is it more complex than this? Do white skin people descend from Neandertal and Black skinned creatures descend from another form of beast. Is there a distinct time that two different but very similar species evolved from similar but different upright Hominids? Does this information conclude that we are not all black and not all white but that Blumenbach was more correct than he knew when he separated the races by phenotype?

Chapter 3 – Osteometrics of the Past - How to Get a Date

How to Get a Date

Prior to 1856 there is documented evidence of ancient bone and artifact finds. Westerners who were doing much if not all of the documentation were biased by religious beliefs and lacked methods to accurately date the material they were reviewing. Given these conditions I will remind the reader once again of Ussher’s dating process. Ussher used ambiguous information from the Bible, a suspect source for accurate scientific information and astronomical conditions. Ussher had reduced all of evolution to roughly 4000 years. Darwin who used things such as geological stratification had placed the date roughly 6 orders of magnitude greater. However, Kelvin the noted physicist showed with science of the time that Darwin was wrong. Dubois became a noted recluse over the dating of his fossils and perhaps what we find is the Biblical myth and Ussher are the most accurate of them all.

Certainly I do not believe that evolutionary origins began 4000 years ago. Significant scientific evidence exists to support a planet that has been around for more than 40 billion years. Furthermore, good scientific data demonstrates that animals have been on the Earth for eons far before the dinosaur. Man is only a recent addition to that evolutionary process. At best we have skeletal remains of Lucy. She has been well dated to 3.4 million years. But we have to ask the question is she human at all. The old model of evolution was based on limited understanding of human physiology and anatomy. Blumenbach as far back as the late 1700’s had done a wonderful job noting the differences in those on the planet at the time. It took a Darwin supporter like Huxley to realize the importance of the Neandertal find and he referred to him as an archaic form of human. So what is the origin? Osteomorphologically there are some differences between Lucy and present day Homo Sapien Sapiens.

Lucy is getting too far ahead of the story. Let us return for a moment to Genesis. God gave man domination over all other animals and invoked him to speak. With sin God made man unable to understand the speech of all other animals. Here is where the ancient Biblical myth meets Classical Greek Philosophy. Having dominion over other animals came because man was the favorite of all Gods creations. Clearly, the myth here is placing emphasis on the ability to represent abstraction with language. Language provides us the ability to reflect on past deeds, represent notions of the present and suggest thoughts on the future. This temporal understanding allows present day hominids to store food for bad times. It allows us to alter our environment for better living conditions. Our language enhances our life. Is that what makes us human?

If language makes us human, then it stands to reason that cranial capacity is the process that enables it to occur. Therefore it stands to reason the greater the intellectual ability or the ability to represent abstractions with words, the greater the dominion the individual will have over his environment. But language is more than the representation of thought with uttered sounds. Repeated studies have demonstrated apes and other animals communicate. The communications of these lesser order animals is more than location, and security. These communications are as complex as tool construction and problem solving. Apes transmit information such as emotions and social structure. More over research also suggests that these language processes are not limited to humans and primates but extend to animals such as Elephants, whales and even Horses and to varying degrees alligators. Science is even demonstrated that we can interpret the language and communicate with these animals to some degree. Walker makes the issue in his text that language by itself does not create humanness. More over the complexity of the language does not necessarily represent the level of the order of the animal. Reminding you of the section in this book the Right to Kill, we have in the past claimed our right by articulation. So we still must question what makes us human. The answer to this question explains why I think Ussher may have been the most correct of all.

The conundrum of determining humanness ranges from distinguishing humans from other classes of animals as well as stratification of human beings even within the Homo Sapien Sapiens classification. I believe recorded history has repeatedly demonstrated that racial classification has been the litmus test for this degree of humanness in the past. Keep in mind racial taxonomy has not always been limited to skin coloration and gross phenotypic differences. In the period that ranges from the pre-Middle Ages up to the American migration and economic ascendance of people from Ireland, the Celts were referred to as a race. Unlike the classification of matter which as continually grown into a more granulated specification process, racial classification has been reduced to a collective origin process. People from Ireland are in America grouped indistinguishably with people from England. Despite knowing through clearly recorded history that the people of England maintain Anglo-Saxon origins while the people of Ireland maintain origins of Celtic classification, we now group these two sets as both being white. An anthropological evaluation of these two groups through language studies demonstrates tremendous differences of the people. To the trained eye, the osteomorpholgy of these people is significantly different. Without a formal education in forensics even I can see the increased triangulation of an Anglo-Saxon face when compared to the rounder Celtic face. Furthermore, the mental eminence (chin bone) of the Anglo-Saxon is much more outwardly visible than reduced chin of Celts from Ireland, Scotland or even France. Interestingly enough the ostemorpholigical terminology alone – mental eminence – suggests a level of humanness based on intellectual abilities. As we see from this term alone, past ostemorphology correlated intellect, subsequently the articulation of abstraction, with phenotype. From a biochemical standpoint, if the research of Charles Murray is correct, this phenotypic classification has merit. Murry claims in his book The Bell Curve, that roughly 85 percent of intellectual ability is inherited. The Intellectual Quotient of an individual can only be modified by 15 percent based on environment. If in fact, the genome that creates an extended pointed chin is the same as the genome of the more intellectually gifted individual, then one could infer from the size and shape of the mental eminence the biochemical make up of the brain encased in that skull. Oddly enough the person responsible for creating intellectual testing (IQ and the Spearman g-factor) maintains the same sir name as myself – Spearman. Ironically Spearman was from Ireland not England.

Documentation prior to Blumenbach used the word race to discuss phenotypic differences based on much more subtle nuances than we use today. Seemingly if we review the OMB definition of race we see the classification process really has not changed since the ancient tribes of pre-recorded history. Recorded history from before the first century AD clearly demonstrates that people delineated races using phenotype. They used phenotype because the phenotype was indicative of relatively recent origins of isolation of those groups. This concept returns us the Center Edge Theory of the earlier discussion. The question still at hand is when did the isolated group have its origins. Is it the origin of the isolation of the group? Or is it the extended origins of the founders of the group before the isolation.

So what is the date of our origins? Perhaps Ussher is more correct than Dubois and other anthropologists after him. Perhaps the date of origins is roughly 4000 years ago. This position may seem counter intuitive to my discussions on Neandertal and Homo erectus but the thought is more complex. We must first define origin before we can determine the value of that origin. Following the fossil record back to the prosimian cross over point does not ensure that we have returned to our origins. We have recorded within this book that ancient understandings of origins were based on phenotype because phenotype was associated with isolation. However, there is another element that results from isolation. That element is culture. Since the OMB specifically stated (I believe technically incorrectly) that race is not associated with phenotype, then we should place our understanding of origins on culture. The culture has long been understood as a level of humanness, an extension of the intellectual ability of the group. As we will continue to see obtaining proper dates of our origins is more than the superficial obfuscations of radioactive, and thermal luminescent dating of the physical objects and bones. We must first understand the profundity of the word origins when it comes to understanding humanity.

Chapter 3 – Osteometrics of the Past - The Genesis of the Problem

“The difficult one has in understanding him comes not from his superficial obfuscations but rather his genuine profundity”

– Thomas Cahill, How the Irish Saved Western Civilization

The Genesis of the Problem

Understanding racial taxonomic typeation is more difficult than even the Office and Management and Budget attempted to do in their 1997 process of evaluation. It is a question that literally and figuratively has been documented to haunt us since the beginning of our consciousness as human beings. Consider the thought question based on the OMB 1997 declaration,

White refers to people having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa. It includes people who indicated their race or races as White or wrote in entries such as Irish, German, Italian, Lebanese, Near Easterner, Arab, or Polish
-- OMB 1997

Where do those origins begin? How do I know my origins are from Europe? Within this manuscript we have briefly explored the anthropological research that has been presented from as far back as 1856 until the 1970’s only to find no real answer in our origins. We have tantalizing ideas of our origins. But the anthropological records that we have reviewed have only led us as far back as maybe 3.4 million years with “Lucy”. But how did it do that? How do we know that we are not Neandertal, or are we from Homo Erectus and how does this fit with our understanding of our beginnings? More importantly, I would argue to attempt to understand our beginnings as Humans we have to look further back than 1856.

I have never been known to be the most politically correct individual at a dinner party or even in Sunday School at Church. So in kind with my previous behavior I will state what may or may not seem to be the obvious. I am writing this material in English. Those that are reading this most likely read English as a first language. If English is the second language then the chances are the individual has studied enough of Western culture to understand the position that I will embark. The predominate religion of those that have English as a first language are either Christian or are well aware of the Christian traditions. With these suppositions in kind I make the assumption that if you are reading this manuscript, you are well aware of the Christian thoughts in Genesis. But how well have we evaluated the Genesis theory? If your faith in Christianity is weak or you are strongly offended by thoughts that may challenge your understanding close the book now. If you have a view that the understanding of Christianity may be greater than the specific words in a book, I hope you find these next sections enlightening.

Genesis is a book of the Old Testament that conveys that God created the world in 7 days. In this creation theory there seem to be several items of intrigue. First God – suggested by later scripture but never specifically stated in Genesis – takes the form of an elderly man. Although this may seem trivial point to make when discussing racial taxonomy I assure you this complete understanding of origins from a scientific standpoint is critical. I will address both this topic and Noah’s story in the section entitled Allele Differences. Second – the number of days is not clearly stated. There is no clarity that the word “days” represent what we know in science to be a diurnal day. Diurnal expresses the complete rotation of the earth with regard to the sun. The period of 24 hours is never expressly stated. Further from a temporal standpoint there is some ambiguity as to if the days followed one another sequentially to create a total composite of 168 diurnal hours. Finally from a temporal standpoint the entire Bible addresses days and nights and other orders of mathematics much in the same way that the other classical writers did at that time in history. A quick read of Thomas Cahill’s How the Irish Saved Western Civilization will provide numerous examples of how the Irish Moncks provided numbers as a generic sense of volume as opposed to a specific discreetness of understanding. This embellishment of numbers was a means to express the representation of tremendous deeds or torturous circumstances. Third one passage in Genesis has until recently caused me great consternation until I came to see what I believe to be a greater scope of understanding. In Genesis verse 4:16 4:17

And Cain was cast out of Eden to the land of Nod east of Eden to lay with the daughter of man
-King James Version

On the surface this is a relatively innocuous statement. A man commits murder of a brother and for that he is banished from the society. But the question arises where was he cast out. The “Garden of Eden” had already become unavailable to him because of the sins of Adam and Eve. Moreover, when he was cast out he married the “daughter of man”. Who was the “daughter of man”?

For many years growing up in the rural south it was suggested that perhaps this “daughter of man” were blacks. Adam and Eve, they were the whites. There was and is no more evidence for any of these statements other than they are popular believes. Hence we use the word faith to describe our understanding of the Bible. Religion is a wonderful method to provide societal structure but it does little good for helping with us to understand physical science. Here is what we know as fact. The earth is much older than the suggested 3000 years of recorded history. There seems to be a fossil record that demonstrates evolution from lower order animals to higher order animals. The Hominid record show an ever closer representation of modern day skeletal form. This information differs significantly from the literal interpretation of Genesis.

This does not mean we should cast out the proverbial “baby with bath water.” The Western Christian understanding of our genesis has provided interesting clues to what has happened in the past, however, the dogmatic literal interpretations has slowed the advance of our understanding of our origins. Furthermore, I would contend it has in the past and continues to provide the basis to our quagmire on racial taxonomy. This topic alone could consume volumes of writing. Our issue of discussion is limited to racial classification. I will attempt to condense this thought as much as possible.

The daughter of man question suggests there were multiple groups of people. No, it more than suggests it; Genesis clearly states it. Cain left to marry the daughter of man. We know from the text that there were only two individuals - Adam and Eve. They had children. Can we infer that the “daughter of man” were children of Adam and Eve that had themselves already been cast out. And why were they termed the “daughter of men”? What significance does the word ‘men’ hold? If the “daughter of men” are descendants of Adam and Eve what egregious act had they committed to already be cast out. Why are there no discussions of this malice behavior? There is another alternative answer. The Bible is a wonderful creation myth that provides insightful stories of philosophy. Moreover, its construction provides a look at our human psyche. Even in the creation myth of Genesis the writer could not reduce the understanding of man to a single point. Within our human consciousness we are saddled with the fact that other humans have always been there. Even for the most remote people, their have always been tribes on the other side of the mountain. When we look at alternative creation myths we deduce either a great deal of plagiarism, a. collective human psyche of incomplete creation mythos or a combination of the two.

Interestingly enough the Norse people have an ancient belief that God walked along a beach one day and desired company. He saw two pieces of wood; one a branch of Elm, the other Ash. He breathed life into the branch of Ash and called him Ashte. He then breathed life in the stick of Elm and called her Elba. The myth is nearly identical to the Christian story of creation down to the naming conventions. It should be similar. According to Thomas Cahill, it was the Monks of Ireland that transcribed the newly emerging Christian religion, and Norse and Druid beliefs heavily influenced them. To maintain form they maintained many of the same Druidic and Norse traditions within the Christian religion. This is but one example. In different cultures the names of the first beings are different, the conditions of their creation are modifications of the same theme, but nonetheless, it all begins with two people. We see here Darwin’s theory of Evolution was a tremendous leap.

With all this talk about Genesis, the adroit reader may ask what about Noah. I would also suggest a review of the Tower of Babel. In any case these stories of the Bible attempt to explain language differences, human origins and other such evolutionary, physical and historical processes as acts of God. Perhaps the evolutionary themes are better explained with a theory often invoked by Milford Wolpoff termed Center Edge. Although the story of Noah fits into this concept to a degree, his myth better fits in the section on microbiology more than in osteomorphology and dating processes. The myth of Noah is not a true Origins question of humans or segregation of groups. However, the Tower Babel is a classic example of the Bible attempting to demonstrate that God separated people. A good friend of mine (who happens to have very dark black skin) and I were discussing my thoughts on being black. He had no problem sighting the Tower of Babel theory as the separation point for blacks and whites. It explained it all to him. An act of God just happened and then it was how it was. I cannot accept this for the same reason I cannot accept Genesis nor the story of Noah’s ark as being anything more than metaphor. These myths are just that. They are embellished at best and factually inaccurate at worst.

The myths mentioned so far herein have provided our starting points for our theories. We have assumed for a long time that there were clear and distinct differences between the races, and our justification for that was that God made it so. When we take a critical look at the source of the information, what we find is factual inaccuracies. Furthermore, as we research more we find that perhaps the Center Edge Theory of Evolution and other science is actually expressed in the myth. For the more industrious reader perhaps even the myth can be reconciled directly with science. As an example, consider this: Einstein’s theory of relativity tells us that time is a function of our space. This space-time fabric is a function of our distribution of mass. Perhaps if we can define the time of our origins to a sufficient degree of accuracy, we can provide compelling physical evidence of the abstraction of God. Specifically, consider the specific time of seven diurnal human days. God is recorded within the Bible as being omnipresent and thus throughout the Universe. Assuming possibly a more Native American abstraction, perhaps God does exist in all matter. That proposed, we might be able to use the General Theory of Relativity to calculate the elapsed time frame of an omnipresent being. Using the seven days as a correlation to the geological time frame of the Universe, it may be possible to calculate the mass of God. Comparing this mass to the expected mass of the Universe would provide scientific insight to the existence of God and the associative time frame put forth in Genesis. Until this information is reconciled, I would suggest human abstractions such as racial taxonomy should be based in scientific theories such as Center Edge and not in non-testable faith based mythos.

Center Edge tells us that animals (which include hominids) become isolated. This isolation creates a limited genome set in a specific environment. From the limited selection certain attributes arise as dominate. We will address this in more detail in Allele Differences. Suffice it to say; eventually members on the edge of these groups (like Cain) are cast out to marry the daughter of man. When they are, they carry with them the genome from the group. When they don’t the genome becomes isolated and is changed to a degree that the isolated group will eventually become its own species. The Genesis myth holds critical clues to our understanding of our origins. The downfall is that for years it made us view the Candelabra theory like the tines of a fork as opposed to the grating of a trellis. Thank goodness the bone record has left us the evidence sort out the facts.

Will the Real Missing Link Please Stand Upright

To understand Dubois and the exposure of the Piltdown man, I think we have to look in depth at the information in the section “Where We Came From”.

Consider for a moment in the time of Darwin and more importantly of Wallace, orangutans, gorillas, and chimpanzees were just becoming known to western anatomists. Wallace was doing his research in Southeast Asia during the 1850’s. Late in the 19th century around 1890, a Dutch anatomist and medical doctor named Eugene Dubois was stationed in the East Indies (now known as Indonesia). His assigned role was that as a medical doctor for the military. However, his primary love was to search for human fossils. Much of the literature that discusses Dubois’ research centers on his research for early man in Asia. Little discussion is devoted to why the research was conducted in Asia. Dubois is now credited with finding the first fossilized remains of a sub category of bipedal hominid termed Homo Erectus. His find occurred on the island of Java in 1891. Just as the Neandertal finds had created trouble for the established understanding of humanity the new Erectus find would set the world on edge. Add to the mixture the circumstances of the find and eventually, Dubois would die a recluse no longer respected in his field. Probing into the circumstances that drove Dubois to reclusion provides some insight to our own understanding of race. By the beginning of the 20th Century evolutionary theory was just gaining tepid acceptance from the scientific community. The concept that man had evolved from a lower order animal was not the most popular idea within society as a whole.

Given the state of expansion of the British Empire, the influence of the European Cultures and the power of the Christian Church during the time, there was only one way the proverbial visitor at the door was going to be accepted into the castle of assigned dominance of the western culture. The Garden of Eden had to be located somewhere in the East or Europe. Be that Middle or Far East, it was clear the first man and woman had come from possibly Asia but hopefully Europe. The age of Chinese culture was well documented and it artifacts such as the Pyramids located in Egypt provided further suggestion that ancient man must have come from the Asian continent. Likewise more information was known about Orangutan than was known about Gorillas and Chimpanzees. Add to this that the research done by Owen indicated superficial physical attributes of Caucasians more similar to Orangutans than Gorillas.

Returning to our thoughts in the introduction of this book, we see that at this point the field research being conducted in anthropology was being led by thoughts established through political, popular and religious understandings. Although Dubois was willing to call the emperor naked to some degree, he lacked the complete ability to reach beyond many common misconceptions of human evolution. Dubois, like many other scientists at the time saw the evolution of the human races in what is now called the Candelabra Theory. In this theory, there is a clear line of evolution from primate to human. The Candelabra Theory early on suggested that anthropologist would find an animal that was clearly not human at the same time it was not ape either. The concept led to the term missing link.

The hardcore racist Candelabra theory takes this simplistic idea of evolution to extreme. The concept is presented in the following manner. At a early time there was a non-bipedal animal. This animal was some form of tree dwelling prosimian. Whites evolved from this prosimian a long time prior to blacks and some time shorter than Asians. With this method of understanding, the evidence of evolutionary theory could be not only acceptable to those that wanted to maintain the Western influence of dominance, but it also supplied “scientific” evidence that whites were superior to the other races. The problem is the Candelabra theory is not that simple. When we arose from the tree dwelling prosimian to our present understanding of humanness is still a complex story.

Even Dubois as early as 1890 new the Candelabra Theory was more difficult to understand than that which is presented by whites attempting to create scientific methods for their opinions. However, Dubois and other scientist at the time maintained that this crossing over had occurred as a distinct event that could be traced through the fossil record through osteomorphology. Dubois was a gifted anatomist that understood the physical dimensions of the human body. So in 1892 when he returned to the Netherlands with a skull cap, some molars and a femur he was sure that these items were neither from ape nor from human, but were from something that had resided in between. Dubois called the creature, Pithecanthropus erectus – literally translated the name means ape-human which stood upright. Here is where the whole story gets to be a bit sticky. Good science is never easy. Using prison labor on forced digs, and justification of dating determined by geological stratification matching simply were not enough for the scientist of the day. The bones were located almost a mile apart in a riverbank. The retrieval method was suspect. There was no way to insure the femur came from the same animal as the skull cap and molars and the diminutive size of a skull cap did not mean the animal was anything more than a diseased human. Even the scientist at the turn of the century recognized a tremendous gradation in human ostemetrics. Add to these complications the fact that there was already a sort of missing link called Neanderthal. With all these complications it is fair to say that Dubois received a less than enthusiastic support for his find. Those that received his work favorably seized the first opportunity to present their own view of the material. It was Dubois that fought the heat and humidity of the Java environment and it was Dubois that received the heat for the fossil finds. Those that inspected the fossils and wrote about the find enjoyed popular reviews.

Arguably Dubois was the first man to record in modern history the find of the missing link to evolution – Homo Erectus. His find and his interpretations would set off a firestorm of research and debate. But as all too often with science his propensity to stand ardently on the edge of a shale cliff resulted in his own personal demise. Dubois eventually became resistant to the idea of allowing others to review his find. The Dutch government had to insist that he release the material to other scientist and even then he was reticent to comply. Finally Dubois retired to his home in the Netherlands and became a recluse reportedly hiding the fossil finds in a china cabinet with newspaper over the glass. But the contribution to racial classification understanding does not end there with Dubois. Dubois made an even greater contribution than his missing link. The skullcap that Dubois identified was significantly smaller than a skullcap of a modern day human. To the average individual it is easy to respond that perhaps the skullcap was that of an adolescent or a young child and hence the size. However, there are several means to show this is not the case. The molars found near the skullcap provided insight into the age of the individual. Given the find occurred along the riverbank and the molars were not attached to the skullcap, one might claim there was no association of the two. At the time this was one of the arguments against the validity of Dubois’ find.

Let us consider for a moment Dubois’ finds and the critiques. Eugene Dubois had gathered using inmates a skullcap that was inferior in size to today’s modern human. At least the cap was inferior in size to an adult human. Near this skullcap he found several molars. The molars were clearly human in design, and presented typical wear of an adult. The first argument is that these molars were in no way associated with the skullcap. To further justify his claim Dubois had found a femur a year later located over a kilometer away from the skull. The debate still contends that neither the skullcap, nor the molars nor the femur are related. Given the forced labor of the excavations as opposed to more diligent paid labor, the limited quality of the record keeping process and coupled with the ramifications of the find, it is easy to cast the data aside as spurious bones washed along the river over time. Some argue to this day that each specimen could very well have come from different samples. Subsequently there was suggestably no reason to classify the skull as small for the age of the composite sample. Furthermore, now known but unrevealed by Dubois at the time, Dubois and his team of forced labor had unearthed several other more complete specimens that were quite modern in form. Despite these criticisms Dubois was convinced of his find and he maintained two reasons for his opinion.

The Java specimens were all located in the same geographical layer on the riverbank. This layer suggested the deposits were all made at the same time in the river’s history. Geographical stratification has long been a method of dating material. Although in the case of deposit layers it is clear that stratification layers can sometimes be confusing, the riverbank demonstrated none of these oddities (In future chapters we will discuss the ramifications of geographical dating at place called Klaises caves in South Africa.). But Dubois had more proof than the geographic stratification. The evidence that he held simply was not evident to the casual observer. This more convincing piece of scientific evidence came from Dubois’ own anecdotic and insightful observations. And perhaps this is where Dubois failed. Unlike Darwin who kept his critical thoughts quiet for 20 years and came perilously close to not being recognized for his work, Dubois revealed the most grandiose piece of his knowledge first. His most controversial component came before gaining critical acceptance of this lesser information first.

Dubois had recognized a critical piece of information that he would not share until late in his life. Dubois had noticed early in his career as an anatomist that there seemed to be a correlation between cranial volume and animal social ability. At the time of Dubois’s first find his data on cranial volume was little more than anecdotic. Given that his return to the Netherlands resulted in criticisms and questions of his scientific research ability when he thought it would bring unprecedented laude, he was certainly wise enough not to release his thoughts on yet another controversial thesis until he was sure of his position. In his efforts to support his find Dubois spent countless hours of his time researching this topic. Dubois in his lifetime found a direct correlation to cranial size and social ability in animals when cranial volume was normalized for body mass. Although Dubois was bitter with the scientific community when he completed his research, his theory of normalized brain to body mass became a well-accepted theory in the time to come.

This second piece of evidence could to the casual reader of this text still be explained through the idea that the skullcap was that of a child. However, to the clever anatomist trained in cranial volume there exsists a well-known fact about Humans. As any educated adult is well aware humans are part of the classification known as mammals. When we are young we learn some of the simple qualities that make a mammal a mammal. For instance we learn as a child that mammals have hair. We learn that mammals are warm-blooded and that they feed as infants from their mother’s milk. What we do not learn typically as children is that there are two primary classifications of mammals. Why I use the word primary will become clear soon enough. At birth a mammal is considered either precoital or atriotocial. precocial mammals are born ready to run within minutes. Their senses are fully developed, eyes are open and the body is ready to make them a functioning part of the herd (typically). Cows, antelopes, and other herbivorous herd animals are precocial. Altricial mammals are born with their eyes closed. They cannot walk. They cannot see. Canines and felines are classic examples of an accoital mammal. Within a few weeks of birth these less developed mammals are ready to walk about eyes wide open and senses beginning to grow. Human babies fall into neither of these categories or perhaps more correctly both. A human child cannot walk at birth but its senses are developed and ready for intake. Although an entire book could be dedicated to the ramifications and reasons for this oddity of Homo Sapiens, we will leave the discussion here and suffice it to say it seems to be an evolutionary adaptation associated with the large cranial to birth canal ratio associated with humans. Evolution has provided a method to allow for the development of the human brain. The evolutionary state does not stop with the end of the gestation period and the fact that humans are both precocial and altricial at the same time. This attribute gives rise to yet another unique feature of humans in that our cranial growth during our first year in life far exceeds that of any other animal. By one year of age a humans head will be 90 percent or better of its adult size. Although unknown by Dubois with the exactness extracted recently by Walker et al. a critical size of 850cc dictates the mere value of normal gradation for a human skull. The skullcap found by Dubois fell within the range of 850 to 1000cc measurement associated with the size of a Homo Erectus skull.

Unlike his missing link theory, his normalized brain to body mass volume theory fit well into the expanding Western culture. Statistically speaking, the races - as defined by the Blumenbach breakdown – fall into the following order: Mongoloid, Caucasoid, and finally Negroid. It is critical to note here the sense of Western expansion. The critical area of expansion at the time was Africa and the difference between Asian and Western Cranial volume was so close it was - and for those cranialoligist is still - contentionous. What is clear is that Negroid cranial volumes are on average significantly lesser in volume to both Mongoloid and Caucasoid volumes. Subsequently, the migration and cultural purging was limited in the Far East but significant in on the African Continent. If only the fossil record could be shown to match the clear “superiority” of the Western culture then Western culture expansion would be justified throughout the world. Other cultures and racial groups could be viewed as an order of animal perhaps less than human and certainly less than that of modern Homo Sapiens of Northern Europe and Eastern Asia.

The tale only gets more complex with the completion of Dubois’ work. The Western world and its understanding of humans arrival on the planet was now on notice. Skeletal remains had been located in Europe and more were being revealed with passing time. The bones of the Neandertal Valley were not a single event find that could be explained away as an aberration of over zealous Darwinist. Add to that Dubois was purporting yet another variation of humanity that could be found in Java and closer resembled half ape and half man than the remains of the Neandertal man. This time the cranial capacity was a clear value between ape and man and it was beginning to appear that the Candelabra theory of evolution had substantial factual backing in the bone record. Dubois and his Pithecanthropus erectus was not an isolated case of confusion addressing the Western cultural expansion. At the time it appeared there was a never-ending flow of new information. Even amateurs were making ground-breaking discoveries. Or at least it seemed. Thus enters screen left perhaps the greatest hoax in recorded modern science – The Piltdown Man. On December 18th 1912 newspapers throughout the Western World reported what the Westerners had long desired to hear. The solution to race, evolution, and the need to justify Western Superiority had been accomplished. The problem was the game was not over and it appears the scientific referees were about to be challenged on their call.

The Piltdown man was clearly a cross of some ape similar to an Orangutan and today’s present Homo Sapiens. This was the evidence the world needed to bring all things back into kilter. Yes, today’s humans had evolved from apes. In the case of the Piltdown man a skull fragment from what appeared to be a modern human and the jaw of what appeared to be an orangutan was discovered by an amateur archaeologist named Charles Dawson. The Candelabra theory was correct and the division of the races was clear and steadfast. Negroids had evolved from African Apes and Caucasians from this new beast that was found in the new cradle of civilization – Sussex England. The decision was complete. Blacks were inferior animals and the fossil record proved it. The sordid part of the tale is that the Piltdown Man was an elaborate hoax. For some 40 years it was assumed to be fact. In 1953, the news broke the skull was not a million years old but rather a 500 year old skull fragment and a well stained jaw of an orangutan. Although there is no fast evidence as to who perpetrated the anthropological forgery, it is highly speculated that either Dawson the discoverer, Hinton a volunteer of the Natural Museum where the bones were kept or interestingly enough Conan Doyle, the author of the famed Sherlock Holmes books were involved. Interestingly enough Doyle was a member of the same archaeology society as the other two men. Doyle was a strong spiritualist that believed it was possible to speak to the dead. Doyle received much criticism for this belief. Combining this knowledge of criticism with some of his published statements gives credence to the idea that Doyle wanted to show how easy it was to deceive the infantile science of Anthropology.

As we discussed in our earlier section on discreet measurements of Science, there is a never-ending research process to obtain all the information regarding a topic. So has been the case in anthropology, providing ever better understanding to our origins. In South Africa another English man named Raymond Dart continued looking even after the Piltdown discovery. Dart discovered yet another missing link. Although his discovery techniques were not as well honed as today’s modern anthropologist, Dart clearly had skeletal remains in sufficient volume and character to indicate yet another step in the fossil record review of the ascension of mankind from some tree or savannah dwelling prosimian. Again the record showed that the prosimian crossover to humanity heralded a continent other than Europe. Certainly if Europeans were to be considered the more powerful race, then humanity must have begun in Europe maybe Asia but not Africa. By the 1950’s the hope for a European genesis of the human race began to fade. Asia had taken the lead but Africa was still considered little more than tidal backwater.

By the 1940s Sinanthropus Pekinensis had been discovered in the Zhoukoudian cave near Beijing, researched for 20 years by the German/American anthropologist Werner and then lost during the Japanese invasion. Despite the loss of these fossils the concept was beginning to emerge. Earlier forms of upright hominids had walked the earth long before the time frame of the genesis offered by Arch Bishop Ussher. By 1974 with the discovery of “Lucy” a 3.4 million year old hominid found in North Eastern Africa and named for the song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” playing on the camp tape player, the last bastions of defense were torn down from Ussher’s idea of 3500 years since the genesis. Not only was Ussher slightly wrong, but, his time frame was off by 3 orders of magnitude.

The period, from Darwin’s publication of the Origins of the Species in the mid 1850’s, until the mid 1970’s saw a concerted effort by Western Society to find a missing link that placed Europe or even eastern Asia as the Garden of Eden. So desperate was the research that the scientific community was more willing to accept a find stumbled upon in a gravel pit by an amateur rather then years of searching and research by a noted anatomist. The Piltdown man experience provides us significant evidence that political processes and popular opinion often drive us to failed scientific understanding. Meanwhile those that are willing to call the “emperor naked” are placed on notice of their fringe level of acceptance to society. With years of following research it seems Dubois was right all along. His Pithecanthropus Erectus finally became part of a greater classification known as Homo erectus. We will explore the significance of this in the next two chapters. For now let us reflect on what we know. Hominids appear to have evolved over more than the last 3.4 million years and the path they have taken is a labyrinth of anthropological complexity that when reviewed in detail demonstrates a tremendous gradation of humanity.

More to Come

Fighting through the recent problems and the detai linformation on Dubois made this latest section the most difficult that I have written. However, I think you will find the time worth the wait. Although I am not done editing what I have placed into the text, the content makes up for the errors that may be there. The bottom line in the missing link section has more to do with how we acceted and reject science based on popular opinion than it does on anthropology. This may not be evident as you read the text. Like a good joke the punch line is not revealed until the end. Bear with the detail, the point will be clear in the end.