Here's what billions of acheulean hand axes looks like

[The rich & famous JTEM]

http://jtem.tumblr.com/private/156855868268/tumblr_okx3ikBFYG1qccpvo

This is the real thing, folks. This is what
Learned Men, in the throws of paleoanthropological
"Science" identify as man-made tools by the
billions.

Drink up that "Knowledge," folks!

[JTEM is lucky in love AND money]

What gets me is that people actually get college
degrees in this. I mean, from real colleges! No,
not just fly-by-night internet programs!

Someone paid thousands upon thousands of dollars
and studied for YEARS for the privilege of looking
at natural rocks and shouting "Tools!"






-- --

http://jtem.tumblr.com/post/182258031883

[Pandora]

On Thu, 24 Jan 2019 11:39:11 -0800 (PST), JTEM is lucky in love AND
money <jte...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> http://jtem.tumblr.com/private/156855868268/tumblr_okx3ikBFYG1qccpvo
>>
>> This is the real thing, folks. This is what
>> Learned Men, in the throws of paleoanthropological
>> "Science" identify as man-made tools by the
>> billions.
>>
>> Drink up that "Knowledge," folks!
>
>What gets me is that people actually get college
>degrees in this. I mean, from real colleges! No,
>not just fly-by-night internet programs!
>
>Someone paid thousands upon thousands of dollars
>and studied for YEARS for the privilege of looking
>at natural rocks and shouting "Tools!"

The handaxes at Kathu Townlands are easily identified, but the flakes
and cores do indeed require a somewhat more trained eye to distinguish
the artificial type and systematic pattern of flaking scars.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0103436

An untrained person like you could easily miss 'em and cast them away
as "just rocks".

[JTEM is lucky in love AND money]

Pandora wrote:

> An untrained person like you could easily miss 'em and cast them away
> as "just rocks".

They're just rocks. And there's a number of sites
just like the one I cited, each with estimates
as possibly as many as BILLIONS of "hand axes."

They're geofacts.

Get over it.

People invested years of their lives and many
thousands of dollars just so they could look
at natural rocks and call them tools.

Ah, that was money well spent...







-- --

http://jtem.tumblr.com/post/182276633948

[Pandora]

On Thu, 24 Jan 2019 13:01:28 -0800 (PST), JTEM is lucky in love AND
money <jte...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> An untrained person like you could easily miss 'em and cast them away
>> as "just rocks".
>
>They're just rocks. And there's a number of sites
>just like the one I cited, each with estimates
>as possibly as many as BILLIONS of "hand axes."
>
>They're geofacts.

And that's why you will never understand the when, where, and how of
hominin artifact evolution.

So, tell us, when did the first tools appear, what were they made of
and what was their use?

[yelw...@gmail.com]

On Thursday, January 24, 2019 at 9:17:17 PM UTC, Pandora wrote:

> On Thu, 24 Jan 2019 13:01:28 -0800 (PST), JTEM is lucky in love AND
> money <jte...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> They're just rocks. And there's a number of sites
>> just like the one I cited, each with estimates
>> as possibly as many as BILLIONS of "hand axes."
>>
>> They're geofacts.
>
> And that's why you will never understand the when, where, and how of
> hominin artifact evolution.

It is correct to assert that JTEM will never understand
a major aspect of hominin evolution as long as he
continues to deny that these 'rocks' were made by
hominins.

> And that's why you will never understand the when, where, and how of
> hominin artifact evolution.

Yet he does have some justification for his point of
view. While some PA people have set out (vaguely and
uncertainly) the when and the where these BILLIONS
of tools were deposited, not ONE of them has ever set
out the beginnings of an account of the HOW or the
WHY.

Until they do, the PA establishment will continue sunk
in a level of ignorance only marginally different from
that of JTEM.

In fact, a high proportion of those in the profession are
quite unaware of this phenomenon, let alone of its
extraordinary nature, that they will (at least initially)
deny that such tools exist in such enormous quantities.

> So, tell us, when did the first tools appear, what were they made of
> and what was their use?

Not a particularly useful or relevant question.
Better ones are:

So, tell us, (A) What these billions of tools were for?
(B) How so many of them -- usually in pristine condition --
are to be found in such enormous numbers?


Paul.

[JTEM is lucky in love AND money]

yelw...@gmail.com wrote:

> It is correct to assert that JTEM will never understand
> a major aspect of hominin evolution as long as he
> continues to deny that these 'rocks' were made by
> hominins.

This is funny. This is hysterically funny.





-- --

http://jtem.tumblr.com/post/182257581538

[Pandora]

On Thu, 24 Jan 2019 16:13:44 -0800 (PST), JTEM is lucky in love AND
money <jte...@gmail.com> wrote:

> yelw...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>> It is correct to assert that JTEM will never understand
>> a major aspect of hominin evolution as long as he
>> continues to deny that these 'rocks' were made by
>> hominins.
>
>This is funny. This is hysterically funny.

You mean you don't even recognize these objects with their typical
teardrop shape and multiple flaking scars as artifacts?
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/figure?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0103436.g006

That indeed is poor judgement.

And if these objects are just geofacts, why do they appear in the
geological record only after 2 mya and not throughout? And why only in
Eurasia? Or can you show us multiple handaxes from the Eocene of South
America?

[Pandora]

On Fri, 25 Jan 2019 09:46:35 +0100, Pandora <pan...@knoware.nl>

wrote:

>>> It is correct to assert that JTEM will never understand
>>> a major aspect of hominin evolution as long as he
>>> continues to deny that these 'rocks' were made by
>>> hominins.
>>
>>This is funny. This is hysterically funny.
>
>You mean you don't even recognize these objects with their typical
>teardrop shape and multiple flaking scars as artifacts?
>https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/figure?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0103436.g006
>
>That indeed is poor judgement.
>
>And if these objects are just geofacts, why do they appear in the
>geological record only after 2 mya and not throughout? And why only in
>Eurasia?

And Africa, of course.

[Pandora]

On Thu, 24 Jan 2019 14:45:12 -0800 (PST), yelw...@gmail.com wrote:

>>> They're just rocks. And there's a number of sites
>>> just like the one I cited, each with estimates
>>> as possibly as many as BILLIONS of "hand axes."
>>>
>>> They're geofacts.
>>
>> And that's why you will never understand the when, where, and how of
>> hominin artifact evolution.
>
>It is correct to assert that JTEM will never understand
>a major aspect of hominin evolution as long as he
>continues to deny that these 'rocks' were made by
>hominins.
>
>> And that's why you will never understand the when, where, and how of
>> hominin artifact evolution.
>
>Yet he does have some justification for his point of
>view. While some PA people have set out (vaguely and
>uncertainly) the when and the where these BILLIONS
>of tools were deposited, not ONE of them has ever set
>out the beginnings of an account of the HOW or the
>WHY.

Really?!

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047248400904664

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0118572

>Until they do, the PA establishment will continue sunk
>in a level of ignorance only marginally different from
>that of JTEM.
>
>In fact, a high proportion of those in the profession are
>quite unaware of this phenomenon, let alone of its
>extraordinary nature, that they will (at least initially)
>deny that such tools exist in such enormous quantities.
>
>> So, tell us, when did the first tools appear, what were they made of
>> and what was their use?
>
>Not a particularly useful or relevant question.
>Better ones are:
>
>So, tell us, (A) What these billions of tools were for?

Choose from any of the following categories:

-Pounding/hammering
-grinding
-cutting
-scraping
-piercing

Not for 'poisoning' the local predator population, because no predator
is stupid enough to swallow a fist-sized handaxe whole.

>(B) How so many of them -- usually in pristine condition --
>are to be found in such enormous numbers?

Prolific production.

[JTEM is lucky in love AND money]

Pandora wrote:

> You mean you don't even recognize these objects

You mean these objects:

https://66.media.tumblr.com/8c20d8c4a325fae1a4fc0bd6b1290cb1/tumblr_okx3ikBFYG1qccpvoo1_1280.png


The claim is that the cite is littered with BILLIONS of
hand axes.... BILLIONS.

That's cherry picking.

Those little points? There's no way they'd survive
extended use. The claim here is that early man made
tools, dropped them in place without using them &
walked away...

Statistically, if there's a 1-in-a-million chance for
a rock to look man made, even if it isn't, then we
should find THOUSANDS of geofacts that look exactly
like man-made tools IN THIS ONE SITE ALONE.

Thousands. But, considering how low they set the bar
here they claim to find billions.

AND IT'S NOT THE ONLY SITE!

Google: Calico Early Man Site

Using the exact same "Logic" you employ here
we have to conclude that man was in North
America hundreds of thousands of years ago.





-- --

http://jtem.tumblr.com/private/156855868268/tumblr_okx3ikBFYG1qccpvo

[JTEM is lucky in love AND money]

Pandora wrote:

> >And if these objects are just geofacts, why do they appear in the
> >geological record only after 2 mya and not throughout? And why only in
> >Eurasia?
>
> And Africa, of course.

They don't only appear in Africa, as I've made
abundantly clear more than once in different
threads, and the dating/location is part of the
selection-bias process.

...when they find them in the Americas, or
when they're way older, they ignore them as geofacts.





-- --

http://jtem.tumblr.com/private/156855868268/tumblr_okx3ikBFYG1qccpvo

[Pandora]

On Fri, 25 Jan 2019 12:45:32 -0800 (PST), JTEM is lucky in love AND
money <jte...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> You mean you don't even recognize these objects
>
>You mean these objects:
>
>https://66.media.tumblr.com/8c20d8c4a325fae1a4fc0bd6b1290cb1/tumblr_okx3ikBFYG1qccpvoo1_1280.png

That's figure 2 in the paper I mentioned earlier about the Kathu
Townlands.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0103436

Of course, most objects you see there strewn across the ground are not
artifacts, but many are, such as these from the same site (fig. 6 and
9 in said paper)

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/figure?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0103436.g006
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/figure?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0103436.g009

These are typical Acheulean handaxes.

>The claim is that the cite is littered with BILLIONS of
>hand axes.... BILLIONS.

No such claim is made, but excavation at BW1 in 2012 exposed a surface
of 36 m2 with over 1000 artefacts recovered.

>That's cherry picking.
>
>Those little points? There's no way they'd survive
>extended use. The claim here is that early man made
>tools, dropped them in place without using them &
>walked away...
>
>Statistically, if there's a 1-in-a-million chance for
>a rock to look man made, even if it isn't, then we
>should find THOUSANDS of geofacts that look exactly
>like man-made tools IN THIS ONE SITE ALONE.
>
>Thousands. But, considering how low they set the bar
>here they claim to find billions.
>
>AND IT'S NOT THE ONLY SITE!
>
>Google: Calico Early Man Site
>
>Using the exact same "Logic" you employ here
>we have to conclude that man was in North
>America hundreds of thousands of years ago.

The artifactual nature as wel as the age of the objects from the
Calico site are controversial, as there is no evidence of other human
activity and the "artifacts" do not have the symmetry and systematic
flaking pattern seen in the material from sites like Kathu Townlands
or Olorgesailie in Africa.

How about those Eocene handaxes?

[DD'eDeN aka note/nickname/alas_my_loves]

Neanderthals launched Spears 60'!!!

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/01/neanderthals-could-have-been-long-distance-killers

[JTEM is lucky in love AND money]

Pandora wrote:

> That's figure 2 in the paper I mentioned earlier about the Kathu
> Townlands.

In other words they & you cherry picked six
rocks from the BILLIONS they claim are tools.

Exactly.

They claim BILLIONS of tools and actually were capable
of cherry picking six, OUT OF THOSE BILLIONS, that
looked exactly like man-made tools.

Dude, it would be SHOCKING if you couldn't find something
that looked man made, OUT OF BILLIONS TO CHOOSE FROM.





-- --

http://jtem.tumblr.com/post/182282429538

[JTEM is lucky in love AND money]

Pandora wrote:

> yelw...@gmail.com wrote:

> >Yet he does have some justification for his point of
> >view. While some PA people have set out (vaguely and
> >uncertainly) the when and the where these BILLIONS
> >of tools were deposited, not ONE of them has ever set
> >out the beginnings of an account of the HOW or the
> >WHY.
>
> Really?!
>
> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047248400904664

This isn't related at all to the site nor the issues.

IT'S A TOTALLY DIFFERENT SITE! You might have gleamed
these facts from #1 the different name and #2 they only
claim to have found 120 artifacts, as opposed to
billions:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Peninj-mandible#ref891398

Wow, is your reading comprehension that shitty?

> https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0118572

DIFFERENT site, does NOT address the issues raised here.

Wow. You really suck at this!

Though you did a really good job of proving one point,
which is that the "Billions" of hand axes they imagine
is totally anomalous.







-- --

http://jtem.tumblr.com/post/182277457083

[Pandora]

On Fri, 25 Jan 2019 20:07:13 -0800 (PST), JTEM is lucky in love AND
money <jte...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Pandora wrote:
>
>> That's figure 2 in the paper I mentioned earlier about the Kathu
>> Townlands.
>
>In other words they & you cherry picked six
>rocks from the BILLIONS they claim are tools.
>
>Exactly.

No, they selected a few typical exemplars among a larger collection to
illustrate in a scientific paper of only a few pages, only to give an
impression of the nature of the artifacts.
If you want to illustrate an enitire collection you would need a book
series like "Olduvai Gorge" (in particular volumes III and V).

https://www.cambridge.org/nl/academic/subjects/anthropology/physical-anthropology/olduvai-gorge-volume-5?format=PB
https://www.cambridge.org/nl/academic/subjects/anthropology/physical-anthropology/olduvai-gorge-volume-3?format=PB

>They claim BILLIONS of tools and actually were capable
>of cherry picking six, OUT OF THOSE BILLIONS, that
>looked exactly like man-made tools.
>
>Dude, it would be SHOCKING if you couldn't find something
>that looked man made, OUT OF BILLIONS TO CHOOSE FROM.

And in this context, how would you distinguish between man-made and
looks man-made?

[Pandora]

On Fri, 25 Jan 2019 20:17:10 -0800 (PST), JTEM is lucky in love AND
money <jte...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> >Yet he does have some justification for his point of
>> >view. While some PA people have set out (vaguely and
>> >uncertainly) the when and the where these BILLIONS
>> >of tools were deposited, not ONE of them has ever set
>> >out the beginnings of an account of the HOW or the
>> >WHY.
>>
>> Really?!
>>
>> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047248400904664
>
>This isn't related at all to the site nor the issues.
>
>IT'S A TOTALLY DIFFERENT SITE! You might have gleamed
>these facts from #1 the different name and #2 they only
>claim to have found 120 artifacts, as opposed to
>billions:
>
>https://www.britannica.com/topic/Peninj-mandible#ref891398

And another 354 at the ST Site Complex.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030544030190768X

>Wow, is your reading comprehension that shitty?
>
>> https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0118572
>
>DIFFERENT site, does NOT address the issues raised here.
>
>Wow. You really suck at this!

One of the issues was use, and a hammer here is probably also hammer
at a site a few hunderd miles away. Kathu Townlands may have been a
production site because of abundant suitable raw material availability
and/or a near-use location repeatedly visited by hominins.

>Though you did a really good job of proving one point,
>which is that the "Billions" of hand axes they imagine
>is totally anomalous.

The issue of "billions" was brought in by you without any
justification, like fake news.

[JTEM is lucky in love AND money]

Pandora wrote:

> No, they selected a few typical exemplars

Ironically, neither of your cites pertain to the location
in question or the finds questioned.

> >They claim BILLIONS of tools and actually were capable
> >of cherry picking six, OUT OF THOSE BILLIONS, that
> >looked exactly like man-made tools.
> >
> >Dude, it would be SHOCKING if you couldn't find something
> >that looked man made, OUT OF BILLIONS TO CHOOSE FROM.

> And in this context, how would you distinguish between man-made and
> looks man-made?

What law says you have to?

Look. Science is consistent, paleoanthropology is not. We
find the exact same kind of "Tools" in the Americas and
they are rejected. Science demands that they're all either
accepted or rejected -- no cherry picking. If the means for
determine real tools from geofacts is not very good, then
don't make such determinations. Go by something else.







-- --

http://jtem.tumblr.com/post/182317085630

[littor...@gmail.com]

Op vrijdag 25 januari 2019 23:01:34 UTC+1 schreef DD'eDeN aka note/nickname/alas_my_loves:

> Neanderthals launched Spears 60'!!!
> https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/01/neanderthals-could-have-been-long-distance-killers

Unproven anthropocentrism. Very likely they did not throw spears to terrestrial prey. Nobody doubts that Hn were as intelligent as we are, but that doesn't mean they could throw spears as well as trained human javelin athletes can. Hn had a heavier & broader body build than we have, most of their bones (incl. arms) were thicker & brittler, their arms & legs were shorter, their shouder joints were somewhat less cranially directed (which hinders throwing), they stood less high on their feet (e.g. shorter tibias), they didn't have the very long & caudally directed mid-thoracal spinous processes (which stiffen our backs vertically) etc.
Even if they could throw spears as well as human javelin athletes (unlikely), different independent lines of evidence (paleo-environment, isotopes, anatomy, traces of cattails on tools, traces of waterlily roots in dental plaque etc.) suggest European Hn had diets between freshwater & coastal foods (isotopes suggest nearer to freshwater than to littoral diets), and lived in river valleys, oxbow lakes & wetlands, but seasonally followed the river to the Atlantic or Mediterranean coast, google e.g. "coastal dispersal of Pleistocene Homo 2018 Verhaegen" + refs therein. Of course they butchered carcasses they found of stranded whales or waterside herbivores, but the first known convincing evidence of hunting is from 120-ka lake-shore deposits of Hn using close-range thrusting spears (Gaudzinski-Windheuser cs 2018 Nature Ecol.Evol.2:1087-1092).
The popular idea that Hn were top predators is unproven. Their projecting mid-faces are incompatible with very cold conditions, but are typically seen in wetland dwelling mammals. Their (moderate) pachy-osteo-sclerosis, their platycephaly & their auditory exostoses all independently prove they dived regularly, probably mostly in colder freshwater.

[JTEM is lucky in love AND money]

Pandora wrote:

> >IT'S A TOTALLY DIFFERENT SITE! You might have gleamed
> >these facts from #1 the different name and #2 they only
> >claim to have found 120 artifacts, as opposed to
> >billions:
> >
> >https://www.britannica.com/topic/Peninj-mandible#ref891398

> And another 354 at the ST Site Complex.

So, again, not what we're talking about...

Wow. At least you are consistent in your "Not Getting
it."

> >Though you did a really good job of proving one point,
> >which is that the "Billions" of hand axes they imagine
> >is totally anomalous.
>
> The issue of "billions" was brought in by you without any
> justification, like fake news.

It's an old issue, you've been here for a very long time,
posting under various handles, and you know damn well what
the history is.

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/sci.anthropology.paleo/KglHmgD66V0/6C_krFYgTFUJ

...you wouldn't resort to such idiocy if you didn't
know that you're wrong.






-- --

http://jtem.tumblr.com/post/182317085630

[Pandora]

On Sat, 26 Jan 2019 11:44:50 -0800 (PST), JTEM is lucky in love AND
money <jte...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> No, they selected a few typical exemplars
>
>Ironically, neither of your cites pertain to the location
>in question or the finds questioned.

We're talking about the same cultural complexes (Oldowan, Acheulian)
all over Africa and beyond. The Olduvai Gorge book series is an
example of a thorough description of an entire collection from a
single site, not cherry picking a few geofacts that look man-made as
you say.

>> >They claim BILLIONS of tools and actually were capable
>> >of cherry picking six, OUT OF THOSE BILLIONS, that
>> >looked exactly like man-made tools.
>> >
>> >Dude, it would be SHOCKING if you couldn't find something
>> >that looked man made, OUT OF BILLIONS TO CHOOSE FROM.
>
>> And in this context, how would you distinguish between man-made and
>> looks man-made?
>
>What law says you have to?

Isn't that the whole point of figuring out human cultural evolution?
If you don't make the distinction then the whole exercise is futile.

>Look. Science is consistent, paleoanthropology is not. We
>find the exact same kind of "Tools" in the Americas and
>they are rejected. Science demands that they're all either
>accepted or rejected -- no cherry picking. If the means for
>determine real tools from geofacts is not very good, then
>don't make such determinations. Go by something else.

Actually, there is a way to make the distinction between geofact and
artifact, and it's called refitting.

At sites such as Lokalalei and Kokisalei at West Turkana, Kenya
numerous detached pieces have been refitted into the original cores,
reconstructing the reduction sequence of the flaking process,
indicating that they were made methodically within a very small area
of a few square meters and in a very short time.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/12968099

The odds of that happening with a true geofact are astronomically
small given the much larger timescale and rather erratic nature the
geological forces shaping them.

[JTEM is lucky in love AND money]

Pandora wrote:

> We're talking about the same cultural complexes (Oldowan, Acheulian)
> all over Africa and beyond.

No we're not. We're talking about one site in particular,
nothing but geofacts, and paleoanthropology thinks it's
seeing BILLIONS of hand axes.

That's what we're talking about.

Your inability to follow a conservation is not germane.

> >> >They claim BILLIONS of tools and actually were capable
> >> >of cherry picking six, OUT OF THOSE BILLIONS, that
> >> >looked exactly like man-made tools.
> >> >
> >> >Dude, it would be SHOCKING if you couldn't find something
> >> >that looked man made, OUT OF BILLIONS TO CHOOSE FROM.
> >
> >> And in this context, how would you distinguish between man-made and
> >> looks man-made?
> >
> >What law says you have to?

> Isn't that the whole point of figuring out human cultural evolution?

No. Exactly the opposite. If you want to "Figure out"
this stuff then you have to be able to tell broken
rocks from tools, and they can't do that!





-- --

http://jtem.tumblr.com/post/182317085630

[JTEM is lucky in love AND money]

littor...@gmail.com wrote:

> Unproven anthropocentrism. Very likely they did not throw spears to terrestrial prey.

Neanderthals never had to throw spears.

I was on the wrong side of the stabbing-spears argument
for a long time. The only advantage of a stabbing spear
that I could ever see was in combat with another Homo.

...a man who throws his spear disarms himself, and
arms his opponent!

I also noted that prey such as wild boar could and
would run up the length of a spear, if stabbed, to
attack the hunter. This is why a boar spear has
cross bars/etc, in order to stop them from doing this.

POINT: Stabbing prey is dangerous!

But, then I paid attention to spear hunters. Turns out
that a stabbing spear is a highly effective weapon, if
used properly. find a trail to & from a bear's den,
sit above it in a tree, wait for the bear to wander past
and drive your spear down into it.

Long blades work best.

The lever action of the spear makes for a huge wound.

The bear running away, banging the shaft against trees
(etc) exasperates the wound.

NOTE: Do this near a known watering hole and you might
have your pick of prey!

Throwing spears predate neaderthals. If they went away
it was because our ancestors found something better, not
because they were too stupid.






-- --

http://jtem.tumblr.com/post/182317085630

[yelw...@gmail.com]

On Friday, January 25, 2019 at 9:29:11 AM UTC, Pandora wrote:

>> Yet he does have some justification for his point of
>> view. While some PA people have set out (vaguely and
>> uncertainly) the when and the where these BILLIONS
>> of tools were deposited, not ONE of them has ever set
>> out the beginnings of an account of the HOW or the
>> WHY.
>
> Really?!
>
> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047248400904664
>
> https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0118572

These describe a tiny number (from the billions)
on the edges of which they claim to have found
'residue'.

It's a classic case of conceptual blindness. The
authors don't have the intellectual equipment to
notice what is in front of their eyes. Darwin
remarked on his own blindness, when he recalled
his geologising in the Clwyd valley with his
professor, Adam Sedgwick in 1831. Neither
saw the slightest sign of glaciers. Darwin said it
was like standing in a burnt-down house and
seeing no sign of fire.

The authors of those papers seem to have noticed
some tiny hairs on the floor of their room, but to
have missed the living and breathing elephant
from which they have fallen.

There appears to be NOT ONE scientific paper in
the literature of the 'discipline' that discusses the
extraordinary quantities of these artefacts.

NOT ONE.

>> So, tell us, (A) What these billions of tools were for?
>
> Choose from any of the following categories:
>
> -Pounding/hammering
> -grinding
> -cutting
> -scraping
> -piercing

You don't fashion a double-bladed knife (similar to
a sword-blade) when you need a hand-held tool to
pound, grind, cut, scrape or pierce.

> Not for 'poisoning' the local predator population, because no predator
> is stupid enough to swallow a fist-sized handaxe whole.

As you well know, 'handaxes' vary in size from
that of a hen's egg to that of a standard pillow
(the carrying of which needed two strong hominins).

Predators don't have time to chew. They swallow
lumps whole -- before others in their pack, or
predators from other species get their mouths on
the kill. They also compete with vultures, who will
gobble up the carcass if they get there first, or find
it abandoned.

>> (B) How so many of them -- usually in pristine condition --
>> are to be found in such enormous numbers?
>
> Prolific production.

Quite ridiculous. Would you bring rocks from a
quarry, five or ten miles away, and carefully
fashion them into a complex tool (before or after
the transport) when there were already billions
lying on ground, ready for instant use?

Speaking of which, would African vultures (and
those of the Old World generally) have suffered
amid the hominin onslaught on large carnivores?

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Fossil-records-of-extinct-Old-World-vultures_tbl1_233301973
" . . . Compared with the Old World, the New World has an
unexpectedly diverse and rich fossil component of Aegypiinae,
especially Neophrontops, which is represented by six species spanning
the late Miocene to the late Pleistocene, and thus was a relatively
successful group . . "

Hominins had little or no presence on the African
savannas. So they rarely set bait on the open plains
and those vultures which hunted purely by sight were
not especially troubled by the hominin activity. But
those which located their prey by scent found baited
carcasses in woodland glades and by streams and
smaller water-holes. ALL were driven into extinction.
That didn't happen in the Americas.


Paul.

[Pandora]

Foley RA, Lahr MM (2015) Lithic Landscapes: Early Human Impact from
Stone Tool Production on the Central Saharan Environment. PLoS ONE
10(3): e0116482. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0116482

>>> So, tell us, (A) What these billions of tools were for?
>>
>> Choose from any of the following categories:
>>
>> -Pounding/hammering
>> -grinding
>> -cutting
>> -scraping
>> -piercing
>
>You don't fashion a double-bladed knife (similar to
>a sword-blade) when you need a hand-held tool to
>pound, grind, cut, scrape or pierce.

The concept of knife would suggest cutting, piercing, or scraping.

>> Not for 'poisoning' the local predator population, because no predator
>> is stupid enough to swallow a fist-sized handaxe whole.
>
>As you well know, 'handaxes' vary in size from
>that of a hen's egg to that of a standard pillow
>(the carrying of which needed two strong hominins).
>
>Predators don't have time to chew. They swallow
>lumps whole -- before others in their pack, or
>predators from other species get their mouths on
>the kill. They also compete with vultures, who will
>gobble up the carcass if they get there first, or find
>it abandoned.

You need to take a closer look at predators feeding at a kill, and how
they use their carnassials (cheekteeth):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI3PgZ86q6o

No way a handaxe or other hard object would escape notice.

>>> (B) How so many of them -- usually in pristine condition --
>>> are to be found in such enormous numbers?
>>
>> Prolific production.
>
>Quite ridiculous. Would you bring rocks from a
>quarry, five or ten miles away, and carefully
>fashion them into a complex tool (before or after
>the transport) when there were already billions
>lying on ground, ready for instant use?

That's what we see after probably thousands of years of use. Caching
stone tools at strategic locations or suitable sites may have been an
early hominin strategy of landscape use.

>Speaking of which, would African vultures (and
>those of the Old World generally) have suffered
>amid the hominin onslaught on large carnivores?
>
>https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Fossil-records-of-extinct-Old-World-vultures_tbl1_233301973
>" . . . Compared with the Old World, the New World has an
>unexpectedly diverse and rich fossil component of Aegypiinae,
>especially Neophrontops, which is represented by six species spanning
>the late Miocene to the late Pleistocene, and thus was a relatively
>successful group . . "
>
>Hominins had little or no presence on the African
>savannas. So they rarely set bait on the open plains
>and those vultures which hunted purely by sight were
>not especially troubled by the hominin activity. But
>those which located their prey by scent found baited
>carcasses in woodland glades and by streams and
>smaller water-holes. ALL were driven into extinction.
>That didn't happen in the Americas.

And how would you know that the extinct taxa located their prey by
scent? The reason why one particular clade is more diverse or suffers
a higher extinction rate on one continent than another can be quite
complex. You are piling one kind of unproven assumption on another.

[Pandora]

On Sat, 26 Jan 2019 12:01:55 -0800 (PST), JTEM is lucky in love AND
money <jte...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> >IT'S A TOTALLY DIFFERENT SITE! You might have gleamed
>> >these facts from #1 the different name and #2 they only
>> >claim to have found 120 artifacts, as opposed to
>> >billions:
>> >
>> >https://www.britannica.com/topic/Peninj-mandible#ref891398
>
>> And another 354 at the ST Site Complex.
>
>So, again, not what we're talking about...
>
>Wow. At least you are consistent in your "Not Getting
>it."
>
>> >Though you did a really good job of proving one point,
>> >which is that the "Billions" of hand axes they imagine
>> >is totally anomalous.
>>
>> The issue of "billions" was brought in by you without any
>> justification, like fake news.
>
>It's an old issue, you've been here for a very long time,
>posting under various handles, and you know damn well what
>the history is.
>
>https://groups.google.com/d/msg/sci.anthropology.paleo/KglHmgD66V0/6C_krFYgTFUJ

There's an estimate of 2 billion _artefacts_ on the basis of an
extrapolation of the counts from one excavation to an estimated area
of 250 000 sqr meters, while the total extent of the deposit remains
to be determined. The vast majority of this material are flakes, while
bifaces constitute less than 1%. That does't justify the claim in the
header of this thread "billions of acheulean handaxes", because a
flake is not a handaxe.

[Pandora]

On Sat, 26 Jan 2019 14:15:59 -0800 (PST), JTEM is lucky in love AND
money <jte...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> We're talking about the same cultural complexes (Oldowan, Acheulian)
>> all over Africa and beyond.
>
>No we're not. We're talking about one site in particular,
>nothing but geofacts, and paleoanthropology thinks it's
>seeing BILLIONS of hand axes.
>
>That's what we're talking about.
>
>Your inability to follow a conservation is not germane.

A what?
Would you like a cup if preservative with that?

>> >> >They claim BILLIONS of tools and actually were capable
>> >> >of cherry picking six, OUT OF THOSE BILLIONS, that
>> >> >looked exactly like man-made tools.
>> >> >
>> >> >Dude, it would be SHOCKING if you couldn't find something
>> >> >that looked man made, OUT OF BILLIONS TO CHOOSE FROM.
>> >
>> >> And in this context, how would you distinguish between man-made and
>> >> looks man-made?
>> >
>> >What law says you have to?
>
>> Isn't that the whole point of figuring out human cultural evolution?
>
>No. Exactly the opposite. If you want to "Figure out"
>this stuff then you have to be able to tell broken
>rocks from tools, and they can't do that!

See, that's what makes a conservation with you so useless. You snip
and ignore the others' arguments.

Bye bye.

[JTEM is lucky in love AND money]

Pandora wrote:

> JTEM is lucky in love AND money <jte...@gmail.com> wrote:

> >Your inability to follow a conservation is not germane.

> A what?

Case in point.

Now do you have any more irrelevant sites, or are you
tapped out for now?






-- --

http://jtem.tumblr.com/post/182338360798

[JTEM is lucky in love AND money]

Pandora wrote:

> There's an estimate of 2 billion _artefacts_ on the basis of an
> extrapolation of the counts from one excavation to an estimated area
> of 250 000 sqr meters, while the total extent of the deposit remains
> to be determined.

So all this time and you finally arrived at
Square-1. Congratulations. But, now that you
recognize the point about the billions of
geofacts misidentified as artifact, do you have
something relevant to say?







-- --

http://jtem.tumblr.com/post/182338360798

[yelw...@gmail.com]

On Sunday, January 27, 2019 at 11:11:35 AM UTC, Pandora wrote:

>> There appears to be NOT ONE scientific paper in
>> the literature of the 'discipline' that discusses the
>> extraordinary quantities of these artefacts.

> Foley RA, Lahr MM (2015) Lithic Landscapes: Early Human Impact from
> Stone Tool Production on the Central Saharan Environment. PLoS ONE
> 10(3): e0116482. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0116482

You're right about that paper. I had forgotten it.
Yet while it does set out the enormous quantities
of hominin-crafted stone tools that are to be
found littered across vast areas of the Old World,
especially in Africa, everything is (literally) superficial.
The authors describe only what they can see on the
surface. They appear to have done no digging.
What cries out for description is how far down these
deposits go. It's impossible to make a sensible
estimate of the numbers of artefacts without that
information.

>>> -Pounding/hammering
>>> -grinding
>>> -cutting
>>> -scraping
>>> -piercing
>>
>> You don't fashion a double-bladed knife (similar to
>> a sword-blade) when you need a hand-held tool to
>> pound, grind, cut, scrape or pierce.
>
> The concept of knife would suggest cutting, piercing, or scraping.

It does, yet the fact that it is double-sided (allied
to an incontestable assumption that the hominins
using them were most unlikely to have worn thick
leather gloves while using them) immediately
destroys that suggestion.

>> Predators don't have time to chew. They swallow
>> lumps whole -- before others in their pack, or
>> predators from other species get their mouths on
>> the kill. They also compete with vultures, who will
>> gobble up the carcass if they get there first, or find
>> it abandoned.
>
> You need to take a closer look at predators feeding at a kill, and how
> they use their carnassials (cheekteeth):
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI3PgZ86q6o

Lions do not bring their small young cubs to
feed on a carcass that is likely to be contested
-- as most kills are. This mother (and her cubs)
are remarkably well fed. Presumably the wilde-
beeste herd had just gone through, and there
were plenty of pickings for the carnivores.
They could take their time.

It's also quite possible IMHO that lions began
to move into Africa (around 1.2 ma) because
(A) there was an empty niche, and
(B) they succeeded precisely because they eat
more carefully and could more often avoid the
poisoned bait.

> No way a handaxe or other hard object would escape notice.

Have you a dog? Ever seen the way it eats?
Get your dog (or borrow one). Ideally you
should get several, starve them for several
days, and then feed them all simultaneously
from the same bowl.

Wrap a lump of something hard (?an apple,
a piece of cheese?) in slices of bacon. The
lump should be big enough to tear its small
intestine -- if it did not get digested in the
stomach. Then watch the lump go straight
down.

>>>> (B) How so many of them -- usually in pristine condition --
>>>> are to be found in such enormous numbers?
>>>
>>> Prolific production.
>>
>> Quite ridiculous. Would you bring rocks from a
>> quarry, five or ten miles away, and carefully
>> fashion them into a complex tool (before or after
>> the transport) when there were already billions
>> lying on ground, ready for instant use?
>
> That's what we see after probably thousands of years of use. Caching
> stone tools at strategic locations or suitable sites may have been an
> early hominin strategy of landscape use.

Take a look at these photos -- from the paper
you recommended.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?type=supplementary&id=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0116482.s001

JTEM should examine them too. They show
a dried-out lake-bed (although the authors
don't state that explicitly). It's very easy to see
which are the natural stones and which are the
worked 'hand-axes'. The latter are (almost
invariably) as sharp on every edge as on the
day they were made -- up to a 1.5 ma. Not
one shows a sign of being used for any of the
purposes you suggest.

>> Speaking of which, would African vultures (and
>> those of the Old World generally) have suffered
>> amid the hominin onslaught on large carnivores?
>>
>> https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Fossil-records-of-extinct-Old-World-vultures_tbl1_233301973
>> " . . . Compared with the Old World, the New World has an
>> unexpectedly diverse and rich fossil component of Aegypiinae,
>> especially Neophrontops, which is represented by six species spanning
>> the late Miocene to the late Pleistocene, and thus was a relatively
>> successful group . . "
>>
>> Hominins had little or no presence on the African
>> savannas. So they rarely set bait on the open plains
>> and those vultures which hunted purely by sight were
>> not especially troubled by the hominin activity. But
>> those which located their prey by scent found baited
>> carcasses in woodland glades and by streams and
>> smaller water-holes. ALL were driven into extinction.
>> That didn't happen in the Americas.

> And how would you know that the extinct taxa located their prey by
> scent? The reason why one particular clade is more diverse or suffers
> a higher extinction rate on one continent than another can be quite
> complex. You are piling one kind of unproven assumption on another.

It's not much of an assumption to compare the
living vultures on the continents on either side
of the Atlantic, and note (A) that those in the
Americas have a good sense of smell, and those
in Africa don't; (B) that whole groups in Africa
have gone extinct -- and conclude that it's likely
that those which went extinct were those with
a good sense of smell.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_World_vulture
The "New World" vultures were widespread in both the Old World and
North America during the Neogene.
. . . New World vultures have a good sense of smell, whereas Old World
vultures find carcasses exclusively by sight.
. . . The olfactory lobe of the brains in these species, which is responsible
for processing smells, is particularly large compared to that of other animals.

The size of the olfactory lobe should leave
traces on the skull, and it should be possible
to see them on the fossils of the extinct
vultures, but I found nothing useful on a quick
search.

Paul.

[DD'eDeN aka note/nickname/alas_my_loves]

Ever scrape salt from a dried out lake bed / pan? What would be very useful? A sharp-edged tool, but not a thin flake.

[Pandora]

On Tue, 29 Jan 2019 05:11:35 -0800 (PST), yelw...@gmail.com wrote:

>>> There appears to be NOT ONE scientific paper in
>>> the literature of the 'discipline' that discusses the
>>> extraordinary quantities of these artefacts.
>
>> Foley RA, Lahr MM (2015) Lithic Landscapes: Early Human Impact from
>> Stone Tool Production on the Central Saharan Environment. PLoS ONE
>> 10(3): e0116482. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0116482
>
>You're right about that paper. I had forgotten it.
>Yet while it does set out the enormous quantities
>of hominin-crafted stone tools that are to be
>found littered across vast areas of the Old World,
>especially in Africa, everything is (literally) superficial.
>The authors describe only what they can see on the
>surface. They appear to have done no digging.
>What cries out for description is how far down these
>deposits go. It's impossible to make a sensible
>estimate of the numbers of artefacts without that
>information.

Even if we accept their conservative estimate of a minimum density of
a quarter of a million lithics per km2 then we are faced with the
problem of overkill. How many lithics would you need to poison and
wipe out large bodied carnivores with population densities of less
than 1 per square km?

>>>> -Pounding/hammering
>>>> -grinding
>>>> -cutting
>>>> -scraping
>>>> -piercing
>>>
>>> You don't fashion a double-bladed knife (similar to
>>> a sword-blade) when you need a hand-held tool to
>>> pound, grind, cut, scrape or pierce.
>>
>> The concept of knife would suggest cutting, piercing, or scraping.
>
>It does, yet the fact that it is double-sided (allied
>to an incontestable assumption that the hominins
>using them were most unlikely to have worn thick
>leather gloves while using them) immediately
>destroys that suggestion.

You can hold a razorblade between thumb and index finger with a
pad-to-side grip.

>>> Predators don't have time to chew. They swallow
>>> lumps whole -- before others in their pack, or
>>> predators from other species get their mouths on
>>> the kill. They also compete with vultures, who will
>>> gobble up the carcass if they get there first, or find
>>> it abandoned.
>>
>> You need to take a closer look at predators feeding at a kill, and how
>> they use their carnassials (cheekteeth):
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI3PgZ86q6o
>
>Lions do not bring their small young cubs to
>feed on a carcass that is likely to be contested
>-- as most kills are. This mother (and her cubs)
>are remarkably well fed. Presumably the wilde-
>beeste herd had just gone through, and there
>were plenty of pickings for the carnivores.
>They could take their time.
>
>It's also quite possible IMHO that lions began
>to move into Africa (around 1.2 ma) because
>(A) there was an empty niche, and
>(B) they succeeded precisely because they eat
>more carefully and could more often avoid the
>poisoned bait.

We have Panthera sp. aff. P. Leo from the Upper Laetolil Beds at
between 3.6-3.85 mya.

>> No way a handaxe or other hard object would escape notice.
>
>Have you a dog? Ever seen the way it eats?
>Get your dog (or borrow one). Ideally you
>should get several, starve them for several
>days, and then feed them all simultaneously
>from the same bowl.

Modern canned pet food is highly processed, bite-sized, and without
macroscopic skeletal material. You would have to feed them a sizable
piece of raw meat still firmly attached to some major piece of bone to
make a reasonable comparison.

>Wrap a lump of something hard (?an apple,
>a piece of cheese?) in slices of bacon. The
>lump should be big enough to tear its small
>intestine -- if it did not get digested in the
>stomach. Then watch the lump go straight
>down.

They would still use their carnassials to reduce the piece to a size
that can pass through the esophagus. And even when the occassional
bone fragment goes down, it doesn't harm them.

>>>>> (B) How so many of them -- usually in pristine condition --
>>>>> are to be found in such enormous numbers?
>>>>
>>>> Prolific production.
>>>
>>> Quite ridiculous. Would you bring rocks from a
>>> quarry, five or ten miles away, and carefully
>>> fashion them into a complex tool (before or after
>>> the transport) when there were already billions
>>> lying on ground, ready for instant use?
>>
>> That's what we see after probably thousands of years of use. Caching
>> stone tools at strategic locations or suitable sites may have been an
>> early hominin strategy of landscape use.
>
>Take a look at these photos -- from the paper
>you recommended.
>https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?type=supplementary&id=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0116482.s001
>
>JTEM should examine them too. They show
>a dried-out lake-bed (although the authors
>don't state that explicitly). It's very easy to see
>which are the natural stones and which are the
>worked 'hand-axes'. The latter are (almost
>invariably) as sharp on every edge as on the
>day they were made -- up to a 1.5 ma. Not
>one shows a sign of being used for any of the
>purposes you suggest.

You would need high resolution residue and microwear analysis to
determine if and what use was made of such implements.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309287885

Within Cathartidae only the three species of Cathartes locate food by
means of scent, a derived character within that clade. And since
Cathartidae and Accipitridae have been separate clades for more than
50 myr it's phylogenetically unparsimonious to conclude that any of
the Old World Vultures were ever locating food by means of scent. The
character appears to have evolved only once in the New World Vultures.

[yelw...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, January 29, 2019 at 10:48:46 PM UTC, Pandora wrote:

>>> Foley RA, Lahr MM (2015) Lithic Landscapes: Early Human Impact from
>>> Stone Tool Production on the Central Saharan Environment. PLoS ONE
>>> 10(3): e0116482. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0116482
>

> Even if we accept their conservative estimate of a minimum density of
> a quarter of a million lithics per km2 then we are faced with the
> problem of overkill. How many lithics would you need to poison and
> wipe out large bodied carnivores with population densities of less
> than 1 per square km?

Those lithics were produced for some purpose.
We are discussing two theories -- (a) their use as
knives, or cutting tools, and (b) their use for
poisoning carnivores and omnivores, likely to be
dangerous to hominins and their infants. The
former would need minimal numbers, as well as
only being discarded after extensive use; further,
they'd have been re-fashioned (with fresh edges
made) probably several times, before finally being
thrown away. There is no sign of that in the fossil
record.

The latter, the (b) use, would need much greater
numbers. The challenge of reducing the density
of local carnivores would be a near-endless task,
as every one the hominins killed would soon be
replaced from an influx of juveniles from the wider
region. Their species would have no shortage of
prey. Individuals -- up to their encounter with
baited carcasses -- would do well, producing high
numbers of offspring.

This should be observable in the fossil record,
which will indicate populations of healthy, well-
fed animals, often juvenile or young adult.

The numbers of predator animals killed in this
manner will be enormous, and generation after
generation of 'hand-axe' producing hominins
could well produce the numbers we see on the
landscape.

If you can come up with a better theory that
accounts for those huge quantities, let's see it.

>>> The concept of knife would suggest cutting, piercing, or scraping.
>>
>> It does, yet the fact that it is double-sided (allied
>> to an incontestable assumption that the hominins
>> using them were most unlikely to have worn thick
>> leather gloves while using them) immediately
>> destroys that suggestion.
>
> You can hold a razorblade between thumb and index finger with a
> pad-to-side grip.

Virtually all 'hand-axes' are too large for such a
grip. The first thing any hominin would do, if
faced with such a task, would be to blunt one
side of the tool so that it could be used as a
cutting tool. Yet those we see show that that
rarely happened.

>>> No way a handaxe or other hard object would escape notice.
>>
>> Have you a dog? Ever seen the way it eats?
>> Get your dog (or borrow one). Ideally you
>> should get several, starve them for several
>> days, and then feed them all simultaneously
>> from the same bowl.
>
> Modern canned pet food is highly processed, bite-sized, and without
> macroscopic skeletal material. You would have to feed them a sizable
> piece of raw meat still firmly attached to some major piece of bone to
> make a reasonable comparison.

I don't get your point here. The question is
whether or not they would gulp down a
lump of what seemed to be solid meat with-
out chewing on it.

The 'hand-axe' has to go down the oesophagus
without trouble, yet be big enough to cut the
small intestine.

>> https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?type=supplementary&id=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0116482.s001
>>
>> JTEM should examine them too. They show
>> a dried-out lake-bed (although the authors
>> don't state that explicitly). It's very easy to see
>> which are the natural stones and which are the
>> worked 'hand-axes'. The latter are (almost
>> invariably) as sharp on every edge as on the
>> day they were made -- up to a 1.5 ma. Not
>> one shows a sign of being used for any of the
>> purposes you suggest.
>
> You would need high resolution residue and microwear analysis to
> determine if and what use was made of such implements.

Scientism. Every adult can look at a workshop
hand tool and tell you whether it has been in
regular use or is new and unused. Likewise, it
is perfectly clear that the 'hand-axes' in those
photos have never been used for "Pounding/
hammering, -grinding, -cutting. -scraping"
nor "-piercing ".

> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309287885
>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_World_vulture

> Within Cathartidae only the three species of Cathartes locate food by
> means of scent, a derived character within that clade. And since
> Cathartidae and Accipitridae have been separate clades for more than
> 50 myr it's phylogenetically unparsimonious to conclude that any of
> the Old World Vultures were ever locating food by means of scent. The
> character appears to have evolved only once in the New World Vultures.

The similarity of New World to Old World vultures
is striking, even though everyone acknowledges that
it arises entirely from convergent evolution. Finding
carcasses by sight is effective on grassland, but is of
little use where there is good ground cover, as in
forests and woodland. Grasslands were relatively
unusual during the tens of millions of years of
vulture evolution in Africa (likewise for the Americas).
So it's hard to believe that African vultures relied
entirely on sight for all that time.

Paul.

[JTEM is lucky in love AND money]

yelw...@gmail.com wrote:

> Pandora wrote:
> > Even if we accept their conservative estimate of a minimum density of
> > a quarter of a million lithics per km2 then we are faced with the
> > problem of overkill. How many lithics would you need to poison and
> > wipe out large bodied carnivores with population densities of less
> > than 1 per square km?

> Those lithics were produced for some purpose.
> We are discussing two theories

Three. The third being the bleeding obvious fact that
they're looking at broken rocks, nothing more than
broken rocks, and claiming that the only way that all
those billions of rocks could ever be broken is if
humans ran along and broke them... which is stupid.

Consider, as I've said, that WHEN WE DO find such
"Evidence" elsewhere, like in the Americas, it's
dismissed as nothing more than broken rocks.





-- --

http://jtem.tumblr.com/post/138769786843

[yelw...@gmail.com]

On Thursday, January 31, 2019 at 12:41:52 AM UTC, JTEM is lucky in love AND money wrote:

> > Those lithics were produced for some purpose.
> > We are discussing two theories
>
> Three. The third being the bleeding obvious fact that
> they're looking at broken rocks, nothing more than
> broken rocks, and claiming that the only way that all
> those billions of rocks could ever be broken is if
> humans ran along and broke them... which is stupid.

You are being stupid. Take a look at the photographs
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?type=supplementary&id=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0116482.s001

Enlarge them in your browser and look closely.
It's easy (in most cases) to tell which are the
natural stones and which the hominin-worked
artefacts.

Scroll down to page 7 to see some of the larger
'hand-axes'. Some of them are beautifully
worked. You would as sensibly claim that
Michaelangelo's David was just another rock.

" . . S1 Figure C
The lithic landscapes of the Messak. The photographs shows that the
surface of the Messak Settafet is completely covered in stones from
gravel to large boulders, a significant portion of which consists of
prehistoric stone tools"

[JTEM is lucky in love AND money]

yelw...@gmail.com wrote:

> Enlarge them in your browser and look closely.
> It's easy (in most cases) to tell which are the
> natural stones and which the hominin-worked
> artefacts.

They tell because they're in Africa. As you keep
missing or intentionally ignoring, when they find
the exact same kind of "Evidence" in the Americas
they suddenly "Tell" something different.

Other than that, you're making a circular argument
where the pseudo science of paleoanthropology says
there's artifacts to there's artifacts.





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