BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

Manot Cave Skull Links Modern Humans to Neanderthals

55,000-year-old skull discovered in Israel’s Manot Cave

manot-skull

A 55,000-year-old skull discovered in Israel’s Manot Cave could point to where modern humans and Neanderthals interbred. Image: From Hershkovitz et al., Nature, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature14134 (2015).

Between 40,000–60,000 years ago, Homo sapiens—modern humans—traveled from Africa through the Middle East to Eurasia, gradually replacing all other human groups during this pivotal period in human evolution. A 55,000-year-old skull discovered in northern Israel could point to where modern humans interbred with Neanderthals, filling in a gap in the fossil record for this critical evolutionary event.

The results of the study on the skull were recently published in the scientific journal Nature. Uranium-thorium dating conducted on the skull confirms that it’s about 55,000 years old, and the shape of the skull indicates that it belonged to a modern human.

“The southern Levant is the only place where anatomically modern humans and Neanderthals were living side by side for thousands and thousands of years,” Tel Aviv University physical anthropologist Israel Hershkovitz, who led the study, told Nature News & Comment.

“The Manot people are probably the forefathers of the early Palaeolithic populations of Europe,” Hershkovitz added.


As the point where three of the world’s major religions converge, Israel’s history is one of the richest and most complex in the world. Sift through the archaeology and history of this ancient land in the free eBook Israel: An Archaeological Journey, and get a view of these significant Biblical sites through an archaeologist’s lens.


Amateur speleologists exploring Manot Cave in the western Galilee in 2008 discovered the skull. Soon afterward, the Israel Antiquities Authority began archaeological excavations in the cave, uncovering evidence of human occupation that seem to date to a period later than the skull. Further excavations may reveal artifacts associated with the period to which the skull is dated.

“This specimen is really important and exciting, as—assuming the dating is correct—it shows for the first time that modern humans existed in the Near East at the same time as Neanderthals,” University of Tübingen palaeoanthropologist Katerina Harvati explained to Nature News & Comment. “Until now we had no evidence that the two even coexisted in this region during this time period. So this is a crucial piece of the puzzle.”

Read more in Nature News & Comment.


 

Related reading in Bible History Daily:

Why Study Prehistoric Israel?
12,000-Year-Old Shaman Funeral Reflects Natufian-Period Changes
“Lay Some Flowers on My Grave”: Oldest grave flowers discovered in Israel
Going Paleo: Prehistoric site in Israel offers menu for a Paleolithic diet
The Ancient Bean Diet: Fava Beans Favored in Prehistoric Israel


 

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30 Responses

  1. Brillante debate. Mucha altura. Gracias.

  2. Bob da Man says:

    The intellectual capacity of mainstream Christians is mind-boggling simplistic.

    Of course God created evolution, and used it to shape his world. We see that the way God changes his coast-lines is with the power of the tide, the way that God weathers his rocks is through the wind and rain, the way that God creates his soil is through the decomposition of organic material. Of course these are the tools that God uses to manifest and maintain his creation! To deny any of them is to deny Gods creation and to live in your own fabricated world of idolistic imagination.

  3. Ed Morse says:

    Sure, just pick one discipline, radio-carbon dating, which is corroborated by many different kinds of tests, and say “It doesn’t work.” Of course, I’ll accept that (wink).
    Ignore geology, astronomy, biology, physics, anthropology because they’re all wrong, well, just because. The easiest way to denigrate scientific evidence is to remain ignorant of it.
    I spent a long time pursuing faith, and finally came to realize that things happen on a random basis. Why would I worship a god who acts in random ways, killing people by the hundreds of thousands in seconds (by tsunami and earthquake, for instance)? If you want to be worshipped, make things better for your creatures, don’t just pick on the poorest for the worst.
    So, why are you concerned with the rest of the universe? What matters beyond what happened here in the 6,000 years you think we’ve been here?
    (BTW, look into “dark matter” and “dark energy” Science will admit it doesn’t have all the answers, but it is at least pursuing them.)

  4. KiwiChristian says:

    A portion of a skull proves interbreeding between humans and some ‘thing’ that never existed? Interesting.

    You’d think a site called Biblical Archaeology would compare things to the Bible before publishing. Nowhere does the Bible suggest there was some human-esque being created before Adam. There are possible hints at a corrupted humanity afterwards, the Nephilim, but not before. So on what basis are you publishing this ‘find’?

    Just on the whole ‘caveman’ theory too. I’ve been to various caves in France where early humans are supposed to have drawn pictures of various animals in a charcoal-type substance. They look impressive. But on the way out of one, I noticed something else drawn or written in a similar looking charcoal substance. It was a French name (Jacques or some such) with ‘1867’ written after it.Call me cynical, but the word “SCAM” immediately sprang to mind.

  5. Kiwi Christian says:

    David – I think you’ll find true science corroborates the Bible without fail. Scientists are not infallible, they are just as human as the rest of us. Prone to error, prone to pride and wanting to be proven right.
    Nowhere has anything been proven to be 40,000 years old. There are theories based on carbon dating, but it’s flaws are well publicised (if you’d care to read them rather than just reading things that fit your own beliefs…). The main one being the entire premise is based on carbon decaying at the same rate. How can that be the case? Big bang, God creating, whatever your theory is, the universe wasn’t and then it was. It’s been expanding, it’s been cooling, it’s planets have been colliding, stars dying, since the beginning. You cannot say carbon has been decaying at the same rate since the start. What started it decaying?

    I really struggle with people like yourself. You appear to place your faith in science. Fair enough, but science itself admits it can’t account for around 95% of the matter that must be present in the universe. How can you take a few ‘experiments’ on our little rock and extrapolate them to be true across the vastness of this universe? Not even the most foolish scientist would do that.
    To put it another way, I assume you’ve had an education involving exams? We only have 5% of the universe to examine (and aren’t even sure how that wee bit works) so would you attend a few bits of 5% of your classes and expect to pass the exam? No, that would be sheer stupidity. Yet you’re prepared to do that with the entire existence our world. Fascinating.

    So please, provide us with some unassailable proof of anything existing 40,000 years ago.

  6. Ed Morse says:

    I’m sorry, those who buy this magazine based on the word “Biblical” in the name, and ignores the “Archaelogy” part have not done their research. You would be better off looking for something with the word “Christianity” in the title, since it would more likely validate the views you already clearly have.
    I’m sure you would be far happier ignoring science and sticking to religion, since science has no interesting in corroborating your beliefs.
    “No proof of anything existing 40,000 years ago” gave me the best laugh of the day.

  7. Kathy says:

    You all seem to miss the point here, this site is called BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY. We read the info on this site to discover what is found and being searched for that confirms with the Bible, NOT what the world wants us to believe. the bible tells us that God created man in his image.. FULL STOP.

  8. Paul Ballotta says:

    Looking at my last statement (that I crammed before work) it appears that I’ve made an assumption that the expulsion from Spain and the belief-system of Isaac Luria are somehow linked (and they are) though they’re separated by a century and a sea. Again this is another subconscious connection that was based on my realization that Luria’s belief in the emanation of the potency of God out of the constriction that was likened to a black hole where no light could escape and out of which a ray of light shines was the moment after Jesus was betrayed while they were remembering the deliverance from bondage in Egypt and he said, “Now the Son of man is glorified, and God is glorified in connection with him” (John 13:31), and he goes on to say. “In the house of my Father there are many abodes” (John 14:2). In the Kabbalah the Father is the source of emanation at the beginning, primordial Wisdom (Hokmah), represented as a point at the big bang (the holy grail that physicists seek by smashing subatomic particles together in massive supercolliders), and the abodes are the galaxies in the house which is the celestial palace, known as Understanding (Binah), the expanding universe. Jesus was reconnecting to the source and this tradition apparently continued because in the 2nd century while Jewish mystics were laying the foundation of what would become the Kabbalah, gnostic Christians composed works such as the Gospel of Truth:
    ‘This is the knowledge of the living book which he revealed to the aeons, at the end, as [his letters], revealing how they are not vowels nor are they consonants, so that one might read them and think of something foolish, but they are letters of the truth which they alone speak who knew them. Each letter is a complete (thought) like a complete book, since they are letters written by the Unity, the Father having written them for the aeons in order that by means of his letters they should know the Father” (“The Nag Hammadi Library” by James M. Robinson, p.43).

  9. Paul Ballotta says:

    My how I get carried away by neglecting to add a quotation mark where this passage of Zohar ends after the “vitality of the worlds” which according to the footnote, “channels the entire flow of emanation to shekinah” which is the divine presence dwelling in the world invisibly and is characterized by the seventh day when God “rested from all His work.” Like the heavenly Muses of the Greeks which were 9 in number, the 10 sayings of God known as “middot” were sometimes explained as the hands of God or the celestial spheres connected like rungs on a ladder (the top rung is beyond comprehension so there are only 9) and represented as 9 planetary orbits in Alighieri Dante’s “Paradise.” You can search the web and still find a reference to this phenomenon when folks would watch the “Wizard of Oz” while playing the Pink Floyd album, “The Dark Side of the Moon” which are mysteriously synchronized. The 10 times that God spoke in Genesis 1 are connected like a line, or “the line of measure” (qav ha-middah) and this system was developed further after the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492 by the kabbalist Isaac Luria (not unlike Moses after the exodus from Egypt) and this tradition goes back to the 2nd rabbinical writing Bereshith Rabba 5:1:
    “Rabbi Berkhiah said in the name of Rabbi Abba son of Yama; ‘Let a measure (middah) be made for the waters, as it is said (Ve-qav), ‘And a line, will be stretched out over Jerusalem (Zechariah 1:16)” (The Zohar, p. 137, ftn. 228),

  10. Kurt says:

    It is the theory which evolutionists believe, it is not what the Bible says.
    Quote from the article above.
    “The word is most commonly used, though, to describe the THEORY that life arose from inanimate chemicals, formed into self-replicating cells, and slowly developed into more and more complex creatures, with man being the most intelligent of its productions. This third notion is what is meant by the term “evolution” as used in this article”.end of quote.

    THE BIBLE’S VIEWPOINT

    Creation

    Did God create the earth in just six 24-hour days, as some creationists claim?
    “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”—Genesis 1:1.
    WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS God created the universe, including the earth, in the indefinite past—“in the beginning,” as Genesis 1:1 says. Modern science agrees that the universe had a beginning. A recent scientific model suggests it to be almost 14 billion years old.
    The Bible also describes six “days” of creation. However, it does not say that these were 24-hour days. (Genesis 1:31) In fact, the Bible uses the word “day” to refer to various lengths of time. For example, it calls the entire period of creation “the day that Jehovah God made earth and heaven.” (Genesis 2:4) Evidently, these “days” of creation lasted many thousands of years.—Psalm 90:4.
    WHY IT MATTERS The false ideas of creationists could lead you to dismiss the Bible altogether. On the other hand, if the Bible actually contains a credible account of creation, you stand to benefit from its storehouse of “practical wisdom.”—Proverbs 3:21.
    Did God use evolution to create life on earth?
    “God said: ‘Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds.’”—Genesis 1:24.
    WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS God did not make life in a simple form and allow it to evolve into more complex forms. Instead, he created basic “kinds” of complex plants and animals, which then reproduced “according to their kinds.” (Genesis 1:11, 21, 24) This process, which continues today, has resulted in the earth being filled with the same “kinds” of life that God originally created.—Psalm 89:11.
    The Bible does not specify how much variation can occur within a kind, as might result when animals within a kind interbreed and adapt to their environment. While some view such adaptations as a form of evolution, no new kind of life is produced. Modern research supports the idea that the basic categories of plants and animals have changed little over vast periods of time.
    WHY IT MATTERS The Bible’s scientific accuracy in describing basic “kinds” of life strengthens its credibility in other areas, including history and prophecy.
    http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1200271451

  11. Paul Ballotta says:

    Fascinating how when I goofed in my previous comment by saying that “God saw that it was good” occurred twice on the third day when it actually occurs twice in the sixth day I was subconsciously explaining the transmission of the emanation from the source of all creation from day one through day six. It’s here on the same page of the Zohar quoted above:
    “For out the mystery of the primordial point (big bang), all emerges secretly (the first generation of lifeforms soon after the big bang when the universe had not yet cooled), till reaching (microorganism seeds that survive and hitchike on comets), clustering in the supernal palace ((a galaxy in the womb of creation). From there it radiates in a straight line to the other rungs (planetary orbits around a star), until reaching that one place (where the waters were gathered on the third day), which gathers all in the totality of male and female (like floating pollen that seeds creation and impregnates the planet). Who is that? Vitality of the worlds (the attribute of the sixth day of creation, when “God saw everything that He made and behold, it was very good” in Genesis 1:31). This after mentioning “every green herb” which originated on the third day, that may have been the inner reflective inducement that inspired the author(s) of Genesis chapter 1, as if the collective living soul that is the “image of God,” being a composite of all creation, was written into this priestly writing. Even the creepy serpent who knew how to manipulate the first parent’s curiosity had to first eat of the awareness tree so as to shed the skin of his own natural form, lest the couple become suspicious of his obvious intentions. The serpent steals the herb as Gilgamesh is taking a ritual bath which brings to mind the Jewish ritual bath known as the “mikvah” and the term derives from “the gathering (mikveh) of the waters He called seas” (Genesis 1:10). In “Rivers of Eden,” Aryeh Kaplan describes how the required amount of water for a ritual bath is 40 seahs, commensurate with the 40 days of the flood and the years of Israel wandering in the desert and the days of Moses on Mount Sinai and 40 is the measure of man (who ultimately originated from water) and the numerical value of the letter “mem” which represents water (Hebrew ‘mayim’) which symbolizes transition, or rebirth, as in “unless anyone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).

  12. Paul Ballotta says:

    It’s interesting that the link provided by commentator Kurt included a definition of evolution as a “process of change in a certain direction” and that this definition usually refers to “the theory that life arose from inanimate chemicals.” In the 13th century Book of Zohar (1:18a), Rabbis analyzing the verse from Genesis 1:9 in which God says, “Let the waters under the heaven be gathered to one place” had concluded the the Hebrew word for “gathered,” or “yiqqavu,” contained the word for “line,” or “qav.” So the verse is amended to read, “Let [the waters] be gathered in a line, following a straight path” (“The Zohar,” by Daniel Matt, vol. 1, p.137).
    Before vegetation appeared on dry land on the third day of creation, the seas were inhabited by a primitive form of algae that over aeons produced the oxygen atmosphere that enabled the heavenly lights to become visible on the fourth day of creation. Currently there are life-forms at the bottom of the sea that survive near thermal vents connected to the earth’s molten core and these micro-organisms represent what the first living organisms were like. That is why the book of Genesis doesn’t say that “God saw that it was good” concerning the second day of creation, when the earth was in a state of flux (symbolized by the waters) in it’s early period of formation out of molten lava. But on the third day it states that “God saw that it was good” twice, since the second day reached its completion only when “the waters which were under the expanse” (Genesis 1:7) in the earth’s molten core provided the necessary heat for the first undersea life-forms.

  13. Kurt says:

    Did God Use Evolution to Create Life?

    “You are worthy, Jehovah, even our God, to receive the glory and the honor and the power, because you created all things, and because of your will they existed and were created.”—REVELATION 4:11.

    SHORTLY after Charles Darwin made the theory of evolution popular, many so-called Christian denominations started looking for ways to marry their belief in God to their acceptance of the theory of evolution.
    Today, most prominent “Christian” religious groups seem willing to accept that God must have used evolution in some way to create life. Some teach that God preprogrammed the universe to develop in such a way that living things inevitably evolved from lifeless chemicals and eventually produced mankind. Those who subscribe to this teaching, known as theistic evolution, do not feel that God interfered with the process once it started. Others think that, in general, God allowed evolution to produce most families of plants and animals but occasionally stepped in to move the process along.
    The Marriage of Teachings—Does It Work?
    Is the theory of evolution really compatible with the teachings of the Bible? If evolution were true, then the Bible’s account of the creation of the first man, Adam, would be, at best, a story meant to teach a moral lesson but not intended to be taken literally. (Genesis 1:26, 27; 2:18-24) Is that how Jesus viewed this Bible account? “Did you not read,” said Jesus, “that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother and will stick to his wife, and the two will be one flesh’? So that they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has yoked together let no man put apart.”—Matthew 19:4-6.
    Jesus was here quoting from the creation account recorded in Genesis chapter 2. If Jesus believed the first marriage to be a fictional story, would he have made reference to it to support his teaching on the sanctity of marriage? No. Jesus pointed to the Genesis account because he knew it to be true history.—John 17:17.
    Jesus believed the Genesis account of creation. Was he mistaken?
    http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/102006323#h=0-1&selpar=0

  14. KEW says:

    Is this Biblical archaeology? Doesn’t sound too Biblical to me.

  15. Paul Ballotta says:

    I also would like to apologize for the quotation of Isaiah 45:9 in my previous comment which I will correct in this rare instance when the King James Version seems more accurate:
    “Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, ‘What makest thou? or thy work, ‘He hath no hands?'”
    Here it reminds us that we are not the complete product but fragments like shards broken off from a pot, like pieces of a puzzle, or, as the song goes, like “Dust in the Wind,” as in “Remember, please, that out of clay you have made me and to dust you will make me return” (Job 10:9).
    http://www.creatiomoments.com/content/adam-man-clay

  16. Kurt says:

    The Origin of Life—Five Questions Worth Asking

    Question
    1 How Did Life Begin? [page 4]
    2 Is Any Form of Life Really Simple? [page 8]
    3 Where Did the Instructions Come From? [page 13]
    4 Has All Life Descended From a Common Ancestor? [page 22]
    5 Is It Reasonable to Believe the Bible? [page 30]
    Bibliography [page 31]

    More recently, noted philosopher Antony Flew, who advocated atheism for 50 years, did an about-face of sorts. At 81 years of age, he began to express a belief that some intelligence must have been at work in the creation of life. Why the change? A study of DNA. When asked if his new line of thought might prove unpopular among scientists, Flew reportedly answered: “That’s too bad. My whole life has been guided by the principle . . . [to] follow the evidence, wherever it leads.”
    Source:Associated Press Newswires, ”Famous Atheist Now Believes in God”,Richard N. Ostling, 9 december 2004.
    http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1102010342

  17. Adam says:

    I apologize for anyone I offended, but am still disappointed.

  18. Arie Uittenbogaard (Abarim Publications) says:

    Thanks for this article, people. Respect for facts is always more important than adherence to some theological theory (… a fool hates correction, said Solomon).

  19. Doubting Jack says:

    The issue of Neanderthal-Human interbreeding keeps being brought up, yet everyone who does skips over three crucial points that really do need to be addressed before I can accept the theory as anything more than a joke.

    1) were they physically compatible? That is, did the male and female parts fit together well enough for them to *want* to have sex.

    2) did they look and smell similar enough to each other to appear attractive enough? Modern cottontail and European rabbits look remarkably similar, yet they do not try to reproduce with each other–and couldn’t if they tried, because they have different numbers of chromosomes. Which brings me to….

    3) Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes. Neanderthals had 24 pairs. How do the zygotes match those up?

  20. Paul Ballotta says:

    In response to Adam’s comment I disagree that if you believe in evolution you don’t really believe in God and the story of Daniel is an example since he and his companions were given an education in preparation for service in the Babylonian king’s court. They were taught “the writing and the language of the Kasdim” (Daniel 1:4) which could include astrology since the term “kasdim” also designates astrologers (Daniel 2:2). But what Daniel has an issue with is the meat and wine:
    “The problem was twofold. First, the food provided did not meet the requirements of the Mosaic law in that it was not prepared according to regulations and may have included meat from forbidden animals. Second, there was no complete prohibition in the matter of drinking wine in the Law; but here the problem was that the wine, as well as the meat, had been dedicated to idols as was customary in Babylon. To partake thereof would be to recognize the idols as deities” (“Daniel; The Key To Prophetic Revelation,” by John F. Walvoord, p.37).
    We can learn through scientific study without making it an idol to substitute for God. “Does the clay say to its fashioner, ‘What are you making?’ Does the thing he shaped say, ‘What are you making?'” (Isaiah 45:9).

  21. Charlie says:

    Chill folks! You sound like atheists and evolutionists when they mock those who disagree with their pet theory. I applaud the inclusion of an article such as this. Learn to understand their findings without agreeing with them. Know the opposing point of view, its methodology (with its inherent problems) and thus sharpen your knowledge of the stand you take. Show that you can think critically and not merely hurl insults and stomp away with hurt feelings. “Study to show thyself approved”. http://evolutionfacts.com/Evolution-handbook/E-H-6a.htm

  22. Diane says:

    I’m new to this subscription and am very disappointed to find evolution accepted as fact. This undermines the authority of God’s Word, not supports it. Very disappointed.

  23. Adam says:

    Why do I even check your site every day, if I can just check National Geographic? 40-60 thousand years ago? This is so frustrating. No one has ANY proof of anything existing 40 thousand years ago. How is this science?? You’re lucky there is someone with a higher PAY grade than you that believes this stuff.

  24. Adam says:

    If you believe in evolution you don’t believe in the God of Genesis, who created man in His image. Wake up “biblical”archeology.com.

  25. Rita says:

    That is all a bunch of crap to me, I know better.

  26. Paul Ballotta says:

    It has everything to do with the Bible, Bob, since it was God who told Abram to migrate from Haran to a land he had never seen (Genesis 12:1), lying at the crossroads of civilizations. God works in mysterious ways and this prehistoric human specimen who was of the genus Homo Sapiens had settled in the land after possibly migrating (like Abram) from Africa and may have interbred with the local genus of Neanderthals. The Neanderthals had adapted to the cold climate of Europe and Asia for a couple of hundred-thousand years prior to the arrival of Homo Sapiens and the latest theory suggests that certain traits of Neanderthals survive in the skin and hair of people of European heritage.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/30/science/neanderthals-leave-their-mark-on-us.html

  27. Bob Thomas says:

    This article sounds like a bunch of atheists scratching around the dirt, trying hard to verify links of humanistic evolutionary theory. I thought (and subscribe to) this magazine to read about Biblically-rooted findings and not more “evolutionary guesswork”. Please stick to archaeology articles based on Bible-based findings. If this is not your goal and practice, then notify me so I can cancel my subscription to BAR.

  28. Wiseoldlady says:

    Do not believe this….next they will say the Sumerian Tablets are factual data….when said data is about the fallen angels.

  29. Kurt says:

    Evolution:
    Definition: Organic evolution is the theory that the first living organism developed from lifeless matter. Then, as it reproduced, it is said, it changed into different kinds of living things, ultimately producing all forms of plant and animal life that have ever existed on this earth. All of this is said to have been accomplished without the supernatural intervention of a Creator. Some persons endeavor to blend belief in God with evolution, saying that God created by means of evolution, that he brought into existence the first primitive life forms and that then higher life forms, including man, were produced by means of evolution. Not a Bible teaching.

    What about those “ape-men” depicted in schoolbooks, encyclopedias and museums?
    “The flesh and hair on such reconstructions have to be filled in by resorting to the imagination. . . . Skin color; the color, form, and distribution of the hair; the form of the features; and the aspect of the face—of these characters we know absolutely nothing for any prehistoric men.”—The Biology of Race (New York, 1971), James C. King, pp. 135, 151.
    “The vast majority of artists’ conceptions are based more on imagination than on evidence. . . . Artists must create something between an ape and a human being; the older the specimen is said to be, the more apelike they make it.”—Science Digest, April 1981, p. 41.
    “Just as we are slowly learning that primitive men are not necessarily savages, so we must learn to realize that the early men of the Ice Age were neither brute beasts nor semi-apes nor cretins. Hence the ineffable stupidity of all attempts to reconstruct Neanderthal or even Peking man.”—Man, God and Magic (New York, 1961), Ivar Lissner, p. 304.
    http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1101989226

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30 Responses

  1. Brillante debate. Mucha altura. Gracias.

  2. Bob da Man says:

    The intellectual capacity of mainstream Christians is mind-boggling simplistic.

    Of course God created evolution, and used it to shape his world. We see that the way God changes his coast-lines is with the power of the tide, the way that God weathers his rocks is through the wind and rain, the way that God creates his soil is through the decomposition of organic material. Of course these are the tools that God uses to manifest and maintain his creation! To deny any of them is to deny Gods creation and to live in your own fabricated world of idolistic imagination.

  3. Ed Morse says:

    Sure, just pick one discipline, radio-carbon dating, which is corroborated by many different kinds of tests, and say “It doesn’t work.” Of course, I’ll accept that (wink).
    Ignore geology, astronomy, biology, physics, anthropology because they’re all wrong, well, just because. The easiest way to denigrate scientific evidence is to remain ignorant of it.
    I spent a long time pursuing faith, and finally came to realize that things happen on a random basis. Why would I worship a god who acts in random ways, killing people by the hundreds of thousands in seconds (by tsunami and earthquake, for instance)? If you want to be worshipped, make things better for your creatures, don’t just pick on the poorest for the worst.
    So, why are you concerned with the rest of the universe? What matters beyond what happened here in the 6,000 years you think we’ve been here?
    (BTW, look into “dark matter” and “dark energy” Science will admit it doesn’t have all the answers, but it is at least pursuing them.)

  4. KiwiChristian says:

    A portion of a skull proves interbreeding between humans and some ‘thing’ that never existed? Interesting.

    You’d think a site called Biblical Archaeology would compare things to the Bible before publishing. Nowhere does the Bible suggest there was some human-esque being created before Adam. There are possible hints at a corrupted humanity afterwards, the Nephilim, but not before. So on what basis are you publishing this ‘find’?

    Just on the whole ‘caveman’ theory too. I’ve been to various caves in France where early humans are supposed to have drawn pictures of various animals in a charcoal-type substance. They look impressive. But on the way out of one, I noticed something else drawn or written in a similar looking charcoal substance. It was a French name (Jacques or some such) with ‘1867’ written after it.Call me cynical, but the word “SCAM” immediately sprang to mind.

  5. Kiwi Christian says:

    David – I think you’ll find true science corroborates the Bible without fail. Scientists are not infallible, they are just as human as the rest of us. Prone to error, prone to pride and wanting to be proven right.
    Nowhere has anything been proven to be 40,000 years old. There are theories based on carbon dating, but it’s flaws are well publicised (if you’d care to read them rather than just reading things that fit your own beliefs…). The main one being the entire premise is based on carbon decaying at the same rate. How can that be the case? Big bang, God creating, whatever your theory is, the universe wasn’t and then it was. It’s been expanding, it’s been cooling, it’s planets have been colliding, stars dying, since the beginning. You cannot say carbon has been decaying at the same rate since the start. What started it decaying?

    I really struggle with people like yourself. You appear to place your faith in science. Fair enough, but science itself admits it can’t account for around 95% of the matter that must be present in the universe. How can you take a few ‘experiments’ on our little rock and extrapolate them to be true across the vastness of this universe? Not even the most foolish scientist would do that.
    To put it another way, I assume you’ve had an education involving exams? We only have 5% of the universe to examine (and aren’t even sure how that wee bit works) so would you attend a few bits of 5% of your classes and expect to pass the exam? No, that would be sheer stupidity. Yet you’re prepared to do that with the entire existence our world. Fascinating.

    So please, provide us with some unassailable proof of anything existing 40,000 years ago.

  6. Ed Morse says:

    I’m sorry, those who buy this magazine based on the word “Biblical” in the name, and ignores the “Archaelogy” part have not done their research. You would be better off looking for something with the word “Christianity” in the title, since it would more likely validate the views you already clearly have.
    I’m sure you would be far happier ignoring science and sticking to religion, since science has no interesting in corroborating your beliefs.
    “No proof of anything existing 40,000 years ago” gave me the best laugh of the day.

  7. Kathy says:

    You all seem to miss the point here, this site is called BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY. We read the info on this site to discover what is found and being searched for that confirms with the Bible, NOT what the world wants us to believe. the bible tells us that God created man in his image.. FULL STOP.

  8. Paul Ballotta says:

    Looking at my last statement (that I crammed before work) it appears that I’ve made an assumption that the expulsion from Spain and the belief-system of Isaac Luria are somehow linked (and they are) though they’re separated by a century and a sea. Again this is another subconscious connection that was based on my realization that Luria’s belief in the emanation of the potency of God out of the constriction that was likened to a black hole where no light could escape and out of which a ray of light shines was the moment after Jesus was betrayed while they were remembering the deliverance from bondage in Egypt and he said, “Now the Son of man is glorified, and God is glorified in connection with him” (John 13:31), and he goes on to say. “In the house of my Father there are many abodes” (John 14:2). In the Kabbalah the Father is the source of emanation at the beginning, primordial Wisdom (Hokmah), represented as a point at the big bang (the holy grail that physicists seek by smashing subatomic particles together in massive supercolliders), and the abodes are the galaxies in the house which is the celestial palace, known as Understanding (Binah), the expanding universe. Jesus was reconnecting to the source and this tradition apparently continued because in the 2nd century while Jewish mystics were laying the foundation of what would become the Kabbalah, gnostic Christians composed works such as the Gospel of Truth:
    ‘This is the knowledge of the living book which he revealed to the aeons, at the end, as [his letters], revealing how they are not vowels nor are they consonants, so that one might read them and think of something foolish, but they are letters of the truth which they alone speak who knew them. Each letter is a complete (thought) like a complete book, since they are letters written by the Unity, the Father having written them for the aeons in order that by means of his letters they should know the Father” (“The Nag Hammadi Library” by James M. Robinson, p.43).

  9. Paul Ballotta says:

    My how I get carried away by neglecting to add a quotation mark where this passage of Zohar ends after the “vitality of the worlds” which according to the footnote, “channels the entire flow of emanation to shekinah” which is the divine presence dwelling in the world invisibly and is characterized by the seventh day when God “rested from all His work.” Like the heavenly Muses of the Greeks which were 9 in number, the 10 sayings of God known as “middot” were sometimes explained as the hands of God or the celestial spheres connected like rungs on a ladder (the top rung is beyond comprehension so there are only 9) and represented as 9 planetary orbits in Alighieri Dante’s “Paradise.” You can search the web and still find a reference to this phenomenon when folks would watch the “Wizard of Oz” while playing the Pink Floyd album, “The Dark Side of the Moon” which are mysteriously synchronized. The 10 times that God spoke in Genesis 1 are connected like a line, or “the line of measure” (qav ha-middah) and this system was developed further after the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492 by the kabbalist Isaac Luria (not unlike Moses after the exodus from Egypt) and this tradition goes back to the 2nd rabbinical writing Bereshith Rabba 5:1:
    “Rabbi Berkhiah said in the name of Rabbi Abba son of Yama; ‘Let a measure (middah) be made for the waters, as it is said (Ve-qav), ‘And a line, will be stretched out over Jerusalem (Zechariah 1:16)” (The Zohar, p. 137, ftn. 228),

  10. Kurt says:

    It is the theory which evolutionists believe, it is not what the Bible says.
    Quote from the article above.
    “The word is most commonly used, though, to describe the THEORY that life arose from inanimate chemicals, formed into self-replicating cells, and slowly developed into more and more complex creatures, with man being the most intelligent of its productions. This third notion is what is meant by the term “evolution” as used in this article”.end of quote.

    THE BIBLE’S VIEWPOINT

    Creation

    Did God create the earth in just six 24-hour days, as some creationists claim?
    “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”—Genesis 1:1.
    WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS God created the universe, including the earth, in the indefinite past—“in the beginning,” as Genesis 1:1 says. Modern science agrees that the universe had a beginning. A recent scientific model suggests it to be almost 14 billion years old.
    The Bible also describes six “days” of creation. However, it does not say that these were 24-hour days. (Genesis 1:31) In fact, the Bible uses the word “day” to refer to various lengths of time. For example, it calls the entire period of creation “the day that Jehovah God made earth and heaven.” (Genesis 2:4) Evidently, these “days” of creation lasted many thousands of years.—Psalm 90:4.
    WHY IT MATTERS The false ideas of creationists could lead you to dismiss the Bible altogether. On the other hand, if the Bible actually contains a credible account of creation, you stand to benefit from its storehouse of “practical wisdom.”—Proverbs 3:21.
    Did God use evolution to create life on earth?
    “God said: ‘Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds.’”—Genesis 1:24.
    WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS God did not make life in a simple form and allow it to evolve into more complex forms. Instead, he created basic “kinds” of complex plants and animals, which then reproduced “according to their kinds.” (Genesis 1:11, 21, 24) This process, which continues today, has resulted in the earth being filled with the same “kinds” of life that God originally created.—Psalm 89:11.
    The Bible does not specify how much variation can occur within a kind, as might result when animals within a kind interbreed and adapt to their environment. While some view such adaptations as a form of evolution, no new kind of life is produced. Modern research supports the idea that the basic categories of plants and animals have changed little over vast periods of time.
    WHY IT MATTERS The Bible’s scientific accuracy in describing basic “kinds” of life strengthens its credibility in other areas, including history and prophecy.
    http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1200271451

  11. Paul Ballotta says:

    Fascinating how when I goofed in my previous comment by saying that “God saw that it was good” occurred twice on the third day when it actually occurs twice in the sixth day I was subconsciously explaining the transmission of the emanation from the source of all creation from day one through day six. It’s here on the same page of the Zohar quoted above:
    “For out the mystery of the primordial point (big bang), all emerges secretly (the first generation of lifeforms soon after the big bang when the universe had not yet cooled), till reaching (microorganism seeds that survive and hitchike on comets), clustering in the supernal palace ((a galaxy in the womb of creation). From there it radiates in a straight line to the other rungs (planetary orbits around a star), until reaching that one place (where the waters were gathered on the third day), which gathers all in the totality of male and female (like floating pollen that seeds creation and impregnates the planet). Who is that? Vitality of the worlds (the attribute of the sixth day of creation, when “God saw everything that He made and behold, it was very good” in Genesis 1:31). This after mentioning “every green herb” which originated on the third day, that may have been the inner reflective inducement that inspired the author(s) of Genesis chapter 1, as if the collective living soul that is the “image of God,” being a composite of all creation, was written into this priestly writing. Even the creepy serpent who knew how to manipulate the first parent’s curiosity had to first eat of the awareness tree so as to shed the skin of his own natural form, lest the couple become suspicious of his obvious intentions. The serpent steals the herb as Gilgamesh is taking a ritual bath which brings to mind the Jewish ritual bath known as the “mikvah” and the term derives from “the gathering (mikveh) of the waters He called seas” (Genesis 1:10). In “Rivers of Eden,” Aryeh Kaplan describes how the required amount of water for a ritual bath is 40 seahs, commensurate with the 40 days of the flood and the years of Israel wandering in the desert and the days of Moses on Mount Sinai and 40 is the measure of man (who ultimately originated from water) and the numerical value of the letter “mem” which represents water (Hebrew ‘mayim’) which symbolizes transition, or rebirth, as in “unless anyone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).

  12. Paul Ballotta says:

    It’s interesting that the link provided by commentator Kurt included a definition of evolution as a “process of change in a certain direction” and that this definition usually refers to “the theory that life arose from inanimate chemicals.” In the 13th century Book of Zohar (1:18a), Rabbis analyzing the verse from Genesis 1:9 in which God says, “Let the waters under the heaven be gathered to one place” had concluded the the Hebrew word for “gathered,” or “yiqqavu,” contained the word for “line,” or “qav.” So the verse is amended to read, “Let [the waters] be gathered in a line, following a straight path” (“The Zohar,” by Daniel Matt, vol. 1, p.137).
    Before vegetation appeared on dry land on the third day of creation, the seas were inhabited by a primitive form of algae that over aeons produced the oxygen atmosphere that enabled the heavenly lights to become visible on the fourth day of creation. Currently there are life-forms at the bottom of the sea that survive near thermal vents connected to the earth’s molten core and these micro-organisms represent what the first living organisms were like. That is why the book of Genesis doesn’t say that “God saw that it was good” concerning the second day of creation, when the earth was in a state of flux (symbolized by the waters) in it’s early period of formation out of molten lava. But on the third day it states that “God saw that it was good” twice, since the second day reached its completion only when “the waters which were under the expanse” (Genesis 1:7) in the earth’s molten core provided the necessary heat for the first undersea life-forms.

  13. Kurt says:

    Did God Use Evolution to Create Life?

    “You are worthy, Jehovah, even our God, to receive the glory and the honor and the power, because you created all things, and because of your will they existed and were created.”—REVELATION 4:11.

    SHORTLY after Charles Darwin made the theory of evolution popular, many so-called Christian denominations started looking for ways to marry their belief in God to their acceptance of the theory of evolution.
    Today, most prominent “Christian” religious groups seem willing to accept that God must have used evolution in some way to create life. Some teach that God preprogrammed the universe to develop in such a way that living things inevitably evolved from lifeless chemicals and eventually produced mankind. Those who subscribe to this teaching, known as theistic evolution, do not feel that God interfered with the process once it started. Others think that, in general, God allowed evolution to produce most families of plants and animals but occasionally stepped in to move the process along.
    The Marriage of Teachings—Does It Work?
    Is the theory of evolution really compatible with the teachings of the Bible? If evolution were true, then the Bible’s account of the creation of the first man, Adam, would be, at best, a story meant to teach a moral lesson but not intended to be taken literally. (Genesis 1:26, 27; 2:18-24) Is that how Jesus viewed this Bible account? “Did you not read,” said Jesus, “that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother and will stick to his wife, and the two will be one flesh’? So that they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has yoked together let no man put apart.”—Matthew 19:4-6.
    Jesus was here quoting from the creation account recorded in Genesis chapter 2. If Jesus believed the first marriage to be a fictional story, would he have made reference to it to support his teaching on the sanctity of marriage? No. Jesus pointed to the Genesis account because he knew it to be true history.—John 17:17.
    Jesus believed the Genesis account of creation. Was he mistaken?
    http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/102006323#h=0-1&selpar=0

  14. KEW says:

    Is this Biblical archaeology? Doesn’t sound too Biblical to me.

  15. Paul Ballotta says:

    I also would like to apologize for the quotation of Isaiah 45:9 in my previous comment which I will correct in this rare instance when the King James Version seems more accurate:
    “Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, ‘What makest thou? or thy work, ‘He hath no hands?'”
    Here it reminds us that we are not the complete product but fragments like shards broken off from a pot, like pieces of a puzzle, or, as the song goes, like “Dust in the Wind,” as in “Remember, please, that out of clay you have made me and to dust you will make me return” (Job 10:9).
    http://www.creatiomoments.com/content/adam-man-clay

  16. Kurt says:

    The Origin of Life—Five Questions Worth Asking

    Question
    1 How Did Life Begin? [page 4]
    2 Is Any Form of Life Really Simple? [page 8]
    3 Where Did the Instructions Come From? [page 13]
    4 Has All Life Descended From a Common Ancestor? [page 22]
    5 Is It Reasonable to Believe the Bible? [page 30]
    Bibliography [page 31]

    More recently, noted philosopher Antony Flew, who advocated atheism for 50 years, did an about-face of sorts. At 81 years of age, he began to express a belief that some intelligence must have been at work in the creation of life. Why the change? A study of DNA. When asked if his new line of thought might prove unpopular among scientists, Flew reportedly answered: “That’s too bad. My whole life has been guided by the principle . . . [to] follow the evidence, wherever it leads.”
    Source:Associated Press Newswires, ”Famous Atheist Now Believes in God”,Richard N. Ostling, 9 december 2004.
    http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1102010342

  17. Adam says:

    I apologize for anyone I offended, but am still disappointed.

  18. Arie Uittenbogaard (Abarim Publications) says:

    Thanks for this article, people. Respect for facts is always more important than adherence to some theological theory (… a fool hates correction, said Solomon).

  19. Doubting Jack says:

    The issue of Neanderthal-Human interbreeding keeps being brought up, yet everyone who does skips over three crucial points that really do need to be addressed before I can accept the theory as anything more than a joke.

    1) were they physically compatible? That is, did the male and female parts fit together well enough for them to *want* to have sex.

    2) did they look and smell similar enough to each other to appear attractive enough? Modern cottontail and European rabbits look remarkably similar, yet they do not try to reproduce with each other–and couldn’t if they tried, because they have different numbers of chromosomes. Which brings me to….

    3) Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes. Neanderthals had 24 pairs. How do the zygotes match those up?

  20. Paul Ballotta says:

    In response to Adam’s comment I disagree that if you believe in evolution you don’t really believe in God and the story of Daniel is an example since he and his companions were given an education in preparation for service in the Babylonian king’s court. They were taught “the writing and the language of the Kasdim” (Daniel 1:4) which could include astrology since the term “kasdim” also designates astrologers (Daniel 2:2). But what Daniel has an issue with is the meat and wine:
    “The problem was twofold. First, the food provided did not meet the requirements of the Mosaic law in that it was not prepared according to regulations and may have included meat from forbidden animals. Second, there was no complete prohibition in the matter of drinking wine in the Law; but here the problem was that the wine, as well as the meat, had been dedicated to idols as was customary in Babylon. To partake thereof would be to recognize the idols as deities” (“Daniel; The Key To Prophetic Revelation,” by John F. Walvoord, p.37).
    We can learn through scientific study without making it an idol to substitute for God. “Does the clay say to its fashioner, ‘What are you making?’ Does the thing he shaped say, ‘What are you making?'” (Isaiah 45:9).

  21. Charlie says:

    Chill folks! You sound like atheists and evolutionists when they mock those who disagree with their pet theory. I applaud the inclusion of an article such as this. Learn to understand their findings without agreeing with them. Know the opposing point of view, its methodology (with its inherent problems) and thus sharpen your knowledge of the stand you take. Show that you can think critically and not merely hurl insults and stomp away with hurt feelings. “Study to show thyself approved”. http://evolutionfacts.com/Evolution-handbook/E-H-6a.htm

  22. Diane says:

    I’m new to this subscription and am very disappointed to find evolution accepted as fact. This undermines the authority of God’s Word, not supports it. Very disappointed.

  23. Adam says:

    Why do I even check your site every day, if I can just check National Geographic? 40-60 thousand years ago? This is so frustrating. No one has ANY proof of anything existing 40 thousand years ago. How is this science?? You’re lucky there is someone with a higher PAY grade than you that believes this stuff.

  24. Adam says:

    If you believe in evolution you don’t believe in the God of Genesis, who created man in His image. Wake up “biblical”archeology.com.

  25. Rita says:

    That is all a bunch of crap to me, I know better.

  26. Paul Ballotta says:

    It has everything to do with the Bible, Bob, since it was God who told Abram to migrate from Haran to a land he had never seen (Genesis 12:1), lying at the crossroads of civilizations. God works in mysterious ways and this prehistoric human specimen who was of the genus Homo Sapiens had settled in the land after possibly migrating (like Abram) from Africa and may have interbred with the local genus of Neanderthals. The Neanderthals had adapted to the cold climate of Europe and Asia for a couple of hundred-thousand years prior to the arrival of Homo Sapiens and the latest theory suggests that certain traits of Neanderthals survive in the skin and hair of people of European heritage.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/30/science/neanderthals-leave-their-mark-on-us.html

  27. Bob Thomas says:

    This article sounds like a bunch of atheists scratching around the dirt, trying hard to verify links of humanistic evolutionary theory. I thought (and subscribe to) this magazine to read about Biblically-rooted findings and not more “evolutionary guesswork”. Please stick to archaeology articles based on Bible-based findings. If this is not your goal and practice, then notify me so I can cancel my subscription to BAR.

  28. Wiseoldlady says:

    Do not believe this….next they will say the Sumerian Tablets are factual data….when said data is about the fallen angels.

  29. Kurt says:

    Evolution:
    Definition: Organic evolution is the theory that the first living organism developed from lifeless matter. Then, as it reproduced, it is said, it changed into different kinds of living things, ultimately producing all forms of plant and animal life that have ever existed on this earth. All of this is said to have been accomplished without the supernatural intervention of a Creator. Some persons endeavor to blend belief in God with evolution, saying that God created by means of evolution, that he brought into existence the first primitive life forms and that then higher life forms, including man, were produced by means of evolution. Not a Bible teaching.

    What about those “ape-men” depicted in schoolbooks, encyclopedias and museums?
    “The flesh and hair on such reconstructions have to be filled in by resorting to the imagination. . . . Skin color; the color, form, and distribution of the hair; the form of the features; and the aspect of the face—of these characters we know absolutely nothing for any prehistoric men.”—The Biology of Race (New York, 1971), James C. King, pp. 135, 151.
    “The vast majority of artists’ conceptions are based more on imagination than on evidence. . . . Artists must create something between an ape and a human being; the older the specimen is said to be, the more apelike they make it.”—Science Digest, April 1981, p. 41.
    “Just as we are slowly learning that primitive men are not necessarily savages, so we must learn to realize that the early men of the Ice Age were neither brute beasts nor semi-apes nor cretins. Hence the ineffable stupidity of all attempts to reconstruct Neanderthal or even Peking man.”—Man, God and Magic (New York, 1961), Ivar Lissner, p. 304.
    http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1101989226

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