Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Oldest continuous human habitation pegged at Wonderwerk, 1.8 million years ago

Share
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Flipboard
Print
Email

Human habitation of the Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa has now been pushed back to 1.8 million years ago:

While tool artifacts at other sites have been backdated as far as 3.3 million years ago, the new findings are now thought to be the earliest sign of continuous prehistoric human living inside a cave – with the use of fire and tools in one fixed location indoors.

David Nield, “Scientists Find Oldest Evidence of Ancient Human Activity Deep Inside a Desert Cave” at ScienceAlert

Probably won’t be the last though.

While ancient evidence of wildfires and human fires might get mixed up in open-air sites, that’s not the case in the Wonderwerk Cave. What’s more, other indicators of humans making fires were found: burnt bones and ash, for example, as well as the tools.

David Nield, “Scientists Find Oldest Evidence of Ancient Human Activity Deep Inside a Desert Cave” at ScienceAlert

Funny how our ancestors get smarter every time we look at them:

The paper is closed access.

See also: Timing Of Human Use Of Fire Pushed Back By 300,000 Years “ Microscopic traces of wood ash, alongside animal bones and stone tools, were found in a layer dated to one million years ago at the Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa.” (2012)

Comments
The cave was formed during The Mabul impacts year *assuming not wash in and from during The ice ages. So starts AFTER 29% of human history. Still pretty early. I would not be surprised if the relative dating is wrong, and this was used AFTER the initial founding of Gobekli Tepe (GBT), I find Early The ice ages (1657-1886) that spanned 340, and not millions of years. Keep in Mind the 1656 anno-mundi Mabul impacts year, aka global flood by Noach began during the original single continent, so (just) prior to the mass dino extinction/s. No one is claiming this cave was inhabited during the dino era, that cane to an abrupt end during The Mabul. Once one understands all the science what was considered a long span may have been a very short time. So too w/ this cave. For example radio-metric dating of strata deposited in one year has a variation of tens of thousands of years. Did the dinos erroneously thought o have died due to an impact 66M YA die 20M YA or over 60k? it had to be under 60k. The soft tissue in that same strata may cap at under 10k. GBT being founded just off the boat. reference the Pearlman YeC series for Torah and science alignment.Pearlman
May 2, 2021
May
05
May
2
02
2021
08:37 PM
8
08
37
PM
PDT

Leave a Reply