[_ Old Earth _] The Laetoli Footprints

[Asyncritus]

Before Barbarian jumps on me, I'd like to state that at present, I am an Old Earth Creationist. I say 'at present' because I'm beginning to wobble, and the following extract is part of the cause of the wobble.

THE LAETOLI TRACKS Human tracks from Laetoli in East Africa are described in the April 1979 issue of National Geographic, and the February 9, 1980 issue of Science News. The prints look just like yours and mine. Evolutionists refuse to accept these as human prints, because to do so would destroy all their strata dating theories. One desperate scientist rented a trained bear and had him dance around in wet mud, in the hope the print would look like the human prints found in solid shale. His conclusion was that the Laetoli prints were identical to those of regular people.

"Mary Leakey has found at Laetoli in Africa, footprints which are considered to date from nearly 4 million years ago, and are indentical with the footprints of modern humans except that they are somewhat smaller. (Mary D. Leakey, "Footprints Frozen in Time," National Geographic, 155 (4): 446-457 [1979].) They might, in fact, be identical with the footprints of a modern female, of an age in the teens. Moreover, Mary Leakey and Dr. Johanson have found teeth and jawbones which, except that they are again a little smaller, are of virtually identical appearance with those of modern humans. These remains, found at Laetoli and Hadar, date from about 3.75 million years ago. Johanson found also at Hadar the bones of a hand, 'uncannily like our own' dated to about 3.5 million years ago." W. Mehlert, "The Australopithecines and (Alleged) Early Man, " in Creation Research Society Quarterly, June 1980, p. 24.

"[In 1982, Richard Leakey] was also convinced from the famous foot prints at Laetoli that the genus Homo existed 3.75 million years B.C. (700,000 years before Lucy)." A. W. Mehlert, News note, Creation Research Society Quarterly, December 1985, p. 145 [emphasis his].

"At a site called Laetoli in Kenya, 30 miles south of Olduvai Gage, in 1976-1978, she [Mary Leakey] made what she considers the most exciting discovery of her career: preserved footprints of three hominid individuals who had left their tracks in soft volcanic ash more than three million years ago. It is a remarkable record of `fossilized' behavior, establishing that very ancient man-like creatures walked exactly as we do. " *R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), p. 270.

Here are some comments from the National Geographic article:

" 'They looked so human, so modern, to be found in tuffs so old,' says footprint expert Dr. Louise Bobbins of the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. The best-preserved print shows the raised arch, rounded heel, pronounced ball, and forward-pointing big toe necessary for walking erect. Pressures exerted along the foot attest to a striding gait. Scuff marks appear in the toe area, and a fossilized burrow seams the footprint." (page 452)

"The footsteps come from the south, progress northward in a fairly straight line." (page 453)

"The crispness of definition and sharp outlines convince me that they were left on a damp surface that retained the form of the foot." (page 453)

"The form of his foot was exactly the same as ours." (page 453)

"[On the same level with the footprints and close to them] Trackers identified gazelles and other creatures almost indistinguishable from present-day inhabitants, but the saber-toothed cat and the clawed chalico--there, both now extinct, roamed with them." (page 454)

"Dr. Louise Robbins of the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, an anthropologist who specializes in the analysis of footprints, visited Laetoli and concluded: . .'Weight bearing pressure patterns in the prints resemble human ones' " (page 456) *Mary D. Leakey, "Footprints in the Ashes of Time, " National Geographic, April 1979, pp. 452-458.

If this, and other facts brought forward here (http://evolutionfacts.com/Ev-V2/2evlch18b.htm): are correct, then the whole business of zillions of years in the geological column are quite simply nonsense.

But I haven't made my mind up yet, so convince me Barbarian.

 

[Barbarian]

Before Barbarian jumps on me, I'd like to state that at present, I am an Old Earth Creationist. I say 'at present' because I'm beginning to wobble, and the following extract is part of the cause of the wobble.

THE LAETOLI TRACKS Human tracks from Laetoli in East Africa are described in the April 1979 issue of National Geographic, and the February 9, 1980 issue of Science News. The prints look just like yours and mine. Evolutionists refuse to accept these as human prints, because to do so would destroy all their strata dating theories. One desperate scientist rented a trained bear and had him dance around in wet mud, in the hope the print would look like the human prints found in solid shale. His conclusion was that the Laetoli prints were identical to those of regular people.

Probably would be. The only notable difference between Australopithecine feet and human feet is, the toes are very slightly more curved in Australopithecines. I don't see, given the nature of the imprints, that this can be determined from them.

Fossil foot bones from A. afarensis add detail to what we've learned from the Laetoli footprint trails. For example, Carol Ward, Bill Kimbel and Don Johanson Ward:metatarsal:2011 described one of the bones of the midfoot from Hadar, Ethiopia, that represents A. afarensis. This bone, the fourth metatarsal, is the one that connects the fourth toe to the bones of the ankle. In humans, these ankle bones are higher, and transfer the body's weight downward into the arching midfoot. So the fourth metatarsal has to be slightly twisted as it arches down toward the lateral (outside) side of the foot. A chimpanzee's foot is much flatter, so the bone doesn't twist. Ward and colleagues found that the A. afarensis bone was twisted in a humanlike way.
http://johnhawks.net/explainer/early-hominins/feet-australopithecus-afarensis/

The postcranial skeletons of hominins are remarkably like those of anatomically modern humans. How exactly, do you think their feet were different? Turns out that like human feet, the feet of Australopithecines varied a lot:

Hadar is the place where one of the most famous skeletons in the world was found: the "Lucy" skeleton, discovered by Don Johanson in 1974. Lucy presents evidence across much of her skeleton for a humanlike manner of walking. Jeremy DeSilva and Zach Throckmorton DeSilva:Throckmorton:2011 looked at the tibia (shin bone) of this skeleton, along with other fossil tibiae of A. afarensis, to try to determine whether their ankle bones were structured to create a rearfoot arch like humans. What they found was interesting: Most A. afarensis tibiae met the ankle in a humanlike orientation, but they varied. Lucy's ankle in particular looked like her feet were relatively flatter. Just as human feet vary in their shape, this early species of hominins varied as well.
(same source)

"Mary Leakey has found at Laetoli in Africa, footprints which are considered to date from nearly 4 million years ago, and are indentical with the footprints of modern humans except that they are somewhat smaller. (Mary D. Leakey, "Footprints Frozen in Time," National Geographic, 155 (4): 446-457 [1979].) They might, in fact, be identical with the footprints of a modern female, of an age in the teens. Moreover, Mary Leakey and Dr. Johanson have found teeth and jawbones which, except that they are again a little smaller, are of virtually identical appearance with those of modern humans. These remains, found at Laetoli and Hadar, date from about 3.75 million years ago. Johanson found also at Hadar the bones of a hand, 'uncannily like our own' dated to about 3.5 million years ago." W. Mehlert, "The Australopithecines and (Alleged) Early Man, " in Creation Research Society Quarterly, June 1980, p. 24.

I'd like a cite from the literature about jaws being exactly like ours. That sounds more creationist than science. Do us a favor and show us some evidence for that. Here, BTW, are the jaws in question:

Again, they are remarkably like humans, but not identical. Pretty much what you'd expect for a transitional. Note pongids have a U-shaped dental arcade in the upper jaw, with australopithecines and humans getting progressively smaller, and converging on a parabolic form. And the jawbone is quite different in Australopithecines and humans. We have the mental eminence (chin), while Australopithecines retain the pongid "simian shelf" inside the mandible instead. Perhaps your source was confusing Australopithecines with a species of Homo.

"At a site called Laetoli in Kenya, 30 miles south of Olduvai Gage, in 1976-1978, she [Mary Leakey] made what she considers the most exciting discovery of her career: preserved footprints of three hominid individuals who had left their tracks in soft volcanic ash more than three million years ago. It is a remarkable record of `fossilized' behavior, establishing that very ancient man-like creatures walked exactly as we do. " *R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), p. 270.

It is indeed exciting to note that they did. It was, as you might remember, one of the reasons why Piltdown Man was a bigger embarrassment for biology before it was found to be a fraud. Theoretically, a human-like skull should have been the last thing to evolve, not the first. So a modern-looking cranium and an apelike jaw was exactly backwards. The Laetoli find confirms the theory.

Here are some comments from the National Geographic article:

Would that be the same National Geographic that ignored requests by scientists to wait for peer review before announcing the latest feathered dinosaur, and then got embarrassed when it turned out to be two different animals? Yep. The same.

"Dr. Louise Robbins of the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, an anthropologist who specializes in the analysis of footprints, visited Laetoli and concluded: . .'Weight bearing pressure patterns in the prints resemble human ones' " (page 456) *Mary D. Leakey, "Footprints in the Ashes of Time, " National Geographic, April 1979, pp. 452-458.

The bones we have from Australopithecines are very, very much like those of humans. Mostly smaller, with slightly more curvature in the phalanges. Not outside of the normal human range, though.

If this, and other facts brought forward here (http://evolutionfacts.com/Ev-V2/2evlch18b.htm): are correct, then the whole business of zillions of years in the geological column are quite simply nonsense.

Again, there's a surprise for you. It would be nearly impossible to distinguish the foot of A. afarensis from a small H. sapiens, by imprints in wet ash. Remember, these bones would have covering of flesh and subcutaneous tissue that would further blur the distinction. There's just no way to find such fine distinctions of bone anatomy that way.

But I haven't made my mind up yet, so convince me Barbarian.

I think physics has decisively shown that radioisotope data is accurate and reliable, so long as you don't do something stupid like take a sample with xenocrysts.

Take a look here; widely different methods come up with very close results for the same rocks.
http://gondwanaresearch.com/radiomet.htm

And the recent revelation that Argon-Argon dating of the pyroclastic flow that buried Pompeii was quite accurate puts a finer point on it.

 

[Barbarian]

The supposed "identical" jawbones...

 

[Free]

Before Barbarian jumps on me, I'd like to state that at present, I am an Old Earth Creationist. I say 'at present' because I'm beginning to wobble, and the following extract is part of the cause of the wobble.


If this, and other facts brought forward here (http://evolutionfacts.com/Ev-V2/2evlch18b.htm): are correct, then the whole business of zillions of years in the geological column are quite simply nonsense.

But I haven't made my mind up yet, so convince me Barbarian.

Just remember that the age of the earth is a separate question from that of evolution and the creation of life, which means that one could believe in an old earth and a literal six day creation.

 

[AirDancer]

Well presented, Barbarian . An enjoyable read.