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Module 8 Practice Examination
Answer for essay question 21
A complete answer includes all of these points.
A minimal answer has the numbered points but not the details of the sub-points:
1. The Java Solo (Ngandong Beds) are Homo erectus fossil skulls.
2. Homo erectus is an alleged evolutionary ancestor of modern humans, so the Java Solo fossil skulls were assumed to be old.Various methods have been used to date the Java Solo fossil skulls: | | a. | "morphological dating" by computing regression estimates of brain size on time dated the Solo people between 463,000 and 790,000 Years Before Present (YBP). | | | b.
| magnetic polarity indicated a Middle Pleistocene date of between 350,000 and 700,000 YBP. | | | c. | fauna from newer (1976 to 1980) excavations produced estimates of possibly one million years. |
3. Recent re-dating of the Java Solo fossil skulls give a maximum of 46,000 years before the present with a probable date of 27,000 YBP.
4. Since evolutionists believe that modern humans arrived on the scene by 100,000 YBP, transitional fossils at 27,000 YBP will not fit. This strongly suggests that Homo erectus coexisted with anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) long after Homo erectus was supposed to have become extinct. | | a. | There is evidence the Solo (Ngandong) people were the victims of cannibalism. |
5. Java Solo fossil skulls can not be reclassified as Homo sapiens because most paleoanthropologists had already agreed upon their Homo erectus status before the very recent date was determined.
6. The condition of the human skulls and the vertebrate fauna argues that the fossils were found in their original location, not that they were washed in from upstream. | |
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