The Human Story Beginning with Adam

 

Mary Leakey and her husband Louis Leakey

Dr. Alice C. Linsley

Mary Leakey’s 1979 discoveries in Tanzania added to the evidence that humans walked the earth 3 million years ago. At Laetoli, about 25 miles south of Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, Leakey discovered footprints of a man, woman and child created about 3.6 million years ago and preserved under falling ash from the nearby Sadiman volcano. The raised arch and rounded heel of the footprints showed that whoever left these footprints walked as humans today. Unfortunately, Donald C. Johanson had already announced to the world that the finds were apes, though Mary Leakey would have classified her Laetoli finds as Homo/human. She expressed her regret that “the Laetoli fellow is now doomed to be called Australopithecus afarensis.”

Footprints left by archaic humans at site S in Laetoli.

Johanson and Mary Leakey were scheduled to speak at a Nobel Symposium in Sweden in May 1978. The conference honored Mary Leakey, who received a medal from the King of Sweden for her scientific investigations. Mary Leakey received the Golden Linnaean Medal but was embarrassed when Johanson announced the new name - Australopithecus afarensis - for his Afar Triangle finds and included Mary Leakey's 4-million-year-old Laetoli specimen (jawbone LH4) from Tanzania as an exhibit. 

Johanson, who was scheduled to speak before Mary Leakey, scooped Mary's speech. She was miffed that Johanson had given her discoveries a designation that did not align with what she believed to be the evidence. However, Johanson's label stuck. Today, based on more recent discoveries, he has reconsidered the ape designation. He admits in a paper published in February 2011, that the discovery of a complete fourth metatarsal of A. afarensis at Hadar shows the deep, flat base and tarsal facets that "imply that its midfoot had no ape-like midtarsal break. These features show that the A. afarensis foot was functionally like that of modern humans." (See the report: Carol Ward, William H. Kimbel, Donald C. Johanson) 

Evolutionary nomenclature often causes confusion. Humans labeled "Neanderthal" fit the morphology of the human fossils found in the Neander Valley in Germany. In August 1856, the area became famous for the discovery of Neanderthal 1, one of the first specimens of Homo neanderthalensis to be found. Classification of human fossils must be based on morphology, not ideology or an individual's ego. Human fossils can be classified into two groups: archaic and modern. Most paleoanthropologists agree that the term "modern" pertains to fossils dating to c. 300,000 and later.

Christians should try to understand what the data indicates about humans. To simply criticize anything that may be considered "evolution" exposes us to criticism by even fair-minded scientists. Consider this statement by Sabine Hossenfelder: "...scientists who claim, as Stephen Hawking did, that 'there is no possibility of a creator,' or as Victor Stenger has, that God is a 'falsified hypothesis,' demonstrate that they don’t understand the limits of their knowledge. When prominent scientists make such overconfident proclamations, they make me cringe." (An excerpt from Hossenfelder's Existential Physics, page 218.)

Further, ignorant statements about evolution reinforce the notion that the sciences and the Bible are in conflict. The sciences have a story to tell. The Messianic Faith expressed in Scripture also has a story to tell. Some are listening to the harmony and others are deaf.

A commonly circulated lie especially needs to be exposed. Cranial capacity is not an indicator of complexity of thought. The bicameral brain is designed to explore complex patterns. The binary feature triggers complexity of thought and innovation, just as the immense complexity of computers is based on binary language. Further, the binary reasoning of the early Hebrew is evident throughout the Hebrew Bible.

It is evident that the historical Adam and Eve did not live among archaic humans 3 million years ago. The Biblical writers recognized that the people among them with red skin tone were of an ancestral line of extreme antiquity. Some of these people were rulers in Edom. Some, like Kind David, came to rule in Israel. Esau is specifically described as being red in Genesis 26. David is described in the Bible as red/ruddy. Samuel, the son of a Horite Hebrew priest from Ramah, anointed him ruler. It is likely that Sameul also had a reddish skin tone.

And Samuel said to Jesse, "Are these all the children?" And he said, "There remains yet the youngest, and behold, he is tending the sheep." Then Samuel said to Jesse, "Send and bring him; for we will not sit down until he comes here." So he sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, with beautiful eyes and a handsome appearance. And the LORD said, "Arise, anoint him; for this is he." Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers; and the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon David from that day forward. And Samuel arose and went to Ramah. (1 Samuel 16:11- 13)

The words edom, adam, and odum (Hausa) refer to red, the color of blood. The root of these words is DM because there were no vowels in the early Semitic languages. The word dam refers to blood. The name Adam suggests that he was a red man. The red skin tone was characteristic of populations of the Lower Nile Valley such as the Horite and Sethite Hebrew.

Jeff A. Benner, who teaches the Hebrew, language, explains:

We are all familiar with the name "Adam" as found in the book of Genesis, but what does it really mean? Let us begin by looking at its roots. This word/name is a child root derived from the parent דם meaning, "blood". By placing the letter א in front of the parent root, the child rootאדם is formed and is related in meaning to דם (blood).

By examining a few other words derived from the child root אדם we can see a common meaning in them all. The Hebrew word אדמה (adamah) is the feminine form of אדם meaning "ground" (see Genesis 2:7). The word/name אדום (Edom) means "red". Each of these words have the common meaning of "red". Dam is the "red" blood, adamah is the "red" ground, edom is the color "red" and adam is the "red" man. There is one other connection between "adam" and "adamah" as seen in Genesis 2:7 which states that "the adam" was formed out of the "adamah". much later writers). In Genesis Adam and Eve are presented as the first of Abraham's royal ancestors. If we miss this, we will fail to understand what Genesis is telling us.

 

Adam is one of the founding fathers of the Hebrew ruler-priest caste. His wife Eve apparently expected her firstborn son to rule after Adam. This explains why Eve declares "Kaniti (Qaniti); I have gotten a man, as has YHWH" (Gen. 4:1). This is not Hebrew. Hebrew did not yet exist. This is ancient Akkadian, the language known to Nimrod, a son of Kush (Gen. 10).

Kaniti refers to king which suggests that Eve's words are a Messianic reference. The Akkadian itti, as in itti šarrim, means "with the king" or "for the king." It is attached to the names of royalty. Even today, the Oromo and the Luo of East Africa attach itti to names: Onditi, Kaartuumitti, Finfinneetti and Dimashqitti. 

That itti is associated with Nilotic rulers is evident in the name of the great Egyptian queen Nefertitti. This is the second time in the Bible that a woman of Abraham's ancestral bloodline is connected to the Messiah. The first is Genesis 3:15, which refers to the Seed of the "Woman" - not Eve, as Eve is not named until Genesis 3:20.

The name Kain/Cain has many linguistic equivalents: Qayan, Cain, and Kahn, as in Genghis Kahn, and the female variant Candace or Kandake, meaning queen. All these words refer to a ruler. The first rulers named in the Genesis king lists are Adam, Kain and Seth. They were rulers at the dawn of important technological advances (c. 6000–3150 BC) as indicated by the technologies mentioned in Genesis 4-6. They were not the first humans on earth. However, they are among the early Hebrew who leave the world a great legacy of innovation, inspiration, and religious practices that endure to this day.

Related reading: Adam was a Red Man; The Hebrew were a Caste; Horite and Sethite Hebrew Mounds; Orthodoxy Requires Binary Reasoning; Three Portraits of Adam; BIBLICAL ANTHROPOLOGY: The Edomites and the Color Red; What Paleoanthropologists Want to Discover; Facts About Evolution

Meet Kamoya Kimeu, Fossil Hunter

Kimeu with journalist Heeren

Finding Hominids with Kamoya Kimeu

Journalist Fred Heeren with Kimoya Kimeu

-by Fred Heeren

Kamoya Kimeu is not known for his religious views. Many know him for his narrow escapes from lions, crocodiles, and cobras—and many more as East Africa’s preeminent fossil hunter, perhaps the most successful discoverer of hominid bones in the world.

Paleoanthropologists have a running argument about whether fossil prospectors are better prepared for the job from textbooks in academia or from expert collectors in the field, where they learn skeletal anatomy by handling bones and fragments. Kimeu makes a strong case for the latter.

In addition to finding hominids with Louis and Mary Leakey (starting in 1959) and their son Richard (becoming his right-hand man in 1963 and taking control of field operations in Richard’s absence in 1967) and his more recent field work with daughter-in-law Meave Leakey, Kimeu found now-famous hominid specimens while prospecting with Tim White, Alan Walker, Kay Behrensmeyer, and Andrew Hill. In 1977, the National Museums of Kenya appointed him curator for all of Kenya’s prehistoric sites.

Kimeu’s field-trained eyes were the first to spot the bits of fossils leading to the discovery of the earliest Homo sapiens skull (Omo I), now dated to 195,000 years ago. He discovered the 1.5-million-year old Turkana Boy, the most complete skeleton of the small-brained-but-tall-bodied Homo erectus.

Read it all at God and Nature Magazine.

Was Lucy Human?

Donald Johanson and Maurice Taieb (with camera) in 1974, studying the bones of an Australopithecus afarensis specimen later named "Lucy".

Alice C. Linsley

Dr. Jeremy De Silva's research has shown that Australopithecus lacked the large grasping toe typical of tree climbers, and its spine, pelvis, knees, and ankles were made for walking on two legs and not designed for tree climbing.

A recent discovery of a complete fourth metatarsal of A. afarensis at Hadar shows the deep, flat base and tarsal facets that "imply that its midfoot had no ape-like midtarsal break. These features show that the A. afarensis foot was functionally like that of modern humans." (Carol Ward, William H. Kimbel, Donald C. Johanson, Feb. 2011) Read the report here.

Additionally, A. afarensis apparently used polished bone tools, had communal meals, and controlled fire. Some of the earliest evidence of controlled use of fire by humans was found at Swartkrans in South Africa. Other sites that indicate fire use include Chesowanja near Lake Baringo, Koobi Fora and Olorgesailie in Kenya.

A. Afarensis also had human dentition which is quite easily distinguished from that of apes. In humans, the back teeth are larger than the front teeth (not so with apes), and the canines are not pointed. Humans also lack the characteristic diastema or tooth gap found in apes.

Mary Leakey’s 1979 discoveries in Tanzania added to the evidence that humans walked the earth about over 3 million years ago. At Laetoli, about 25 miles south of Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, Leakey discovered footprints of a man, woman and child created about 3.6 million years ago and preserved under falling ash from the nearby Sadiman volcano. The raised arch and rounded heel of the footprints showed that whoever left these footprints walked as humans today.

However, Donald C. Johanson (co-author of the Feb. 2011 report cited above) had already declared to the term Australopithecus meaning "ape of the south" or "southern ape". Mary Leakey might have objected. She later expressed her regret that “the Laetoli fellow is now doomed to be called Australopithecus afarensis.”

Johanson and Mary Leakey were scheduled to speak at a Nobel Symposium in Sweden in May 1978. The conference honored Mary Leakey, who received the Golden Linnaean Medal from the King of Sweden for her scientific investigations. Mary Leakey was embarrassed when Johanson announced the name - Australopithecus afarensis - for his Afar Triangle finds and included Mary Leakey's 4-million-year Laetoli specimen (jawbone LH4) from Tanzania as an exhibit.

Johanson, who was scheduled to speak before Mary Leakey, scooped her speech. She was upset because Johanson's designation of "ape" was at odds with what she believed to be the evidence. Johanson's label for Lucy and her community stuck though he clearly has doubts based on more recent discoveries as to the accuracy of the ape designation.

The designation of ape is contradicted by the evidence that these archaic humans had oppositional thumbs, short fingers, human dentition, walked upright, and controlled fire. Discoveries in Dikika, Ethiopia indicate that they used flints to scrap, saw, and chop. Two fossilized bones have been found that appear to be marked by stone tools. On the basis of low-power microscopic and environmental scanning electron microscope observations, these bones show unambiguous stone-tool cut marks for flesh removal and to access bone marrow.

The evidence suggests commensality: sharing a meal around a fire. That is a human practice, not one of apes.

Muscle reconstruction provides further evidence that Lucy walked as modern humans do. 

The evidence taken together indicates that Lucy and her community were human, though anatomically archaic humans. What do you think?


Related reading: Maurice Taieb, the Geologist who Discovered the Site Where Lucy was Found; Genesis and Genetics; Biblical Anthropologists Discuss Darwin; The Evolution of Darwinian Evolution; Getting the Facts About Human Origins; Is Genesis Really About Human Origins?