Re: When Burial Begins

"Lee Olsen" <paleocity@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1162132466.364334.145670@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Several things germane to discussions here. Because human graveyards
are found in close proximity to home bases, more than one skeleton can
be expected to be found in the same area as has happened at Krems. This
is not so with Pliocene or early Pleistocene, with the First Family
being a rare exception and was more parsimonious with a flooding event.
This is strong evidence against any idea that early hominids utilized
home bases or buried their dead.

Not so. Try to get the basic facts right about
the theory you are seeking to undermine.
If hominid home bases were readily found, and
if hominids had been burying their dead for a
few million years, then hominid graves would
exist by the million. They don't -- since their
habitat was close to the coast, and constant
rise and fall in sea-levels wipe out such sites.
Most of the fossils that have been found
are those of individuals from small groups
wandering around the uplands; they were
strangers on alien ground. We have good
evidence for that with KNM-ER 1808 who
died from eating many meals of carnivore
liver, much like Mawson's party in the
Antarctic.

the First Family being a rare exception

The location is one of the few where the
ground has been rising for the last few million
years, and some of its 'graveyards' escaped
the usual fate.

and was more parsimonious with a flooding event.

There is nothing parsimonious in such a
scenario.

Nearly all hominid fossils at such locations
are not found in their original position.
They would usually be buried in soft sand
in a river course, and be moved by the river
within a relatively short time (e.g. 5 to 50
kyr -- when the great bulk would be
destroyed). In any case, when they are
found, the fossils often emerge from eroding
rocks (as in the case of the First Family)
scattered over a hillside, and little idea of
their original location is obtainable.


Paul.


.

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