Debunk The Debunking

[ShadowBorn]

42 minutes ago, WSA said:

Rising Star cave is that they were deliberately placed there after their death

How do we know that they were deliberately placed there? when there are two crawl places that cannot fit two people. To be able to drag a dead person is a lot of work for a single person with no rope. But like you said " hominids are sneaky".

 

If we ever do find any of these creatures bones it will be by accident and it will be in some remote area that has not been explored yet. But then again who knows since they have found a mammoth in Michigan : http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/nature/mammoth-discovery-could-revise-earliest-date-of-humans-in-the-americas/ So the possibilities of finding these creatures bones is not impossible.

 

Maybe when they die they go to a place where they hide their bodies and die rather then the group getting rid of the body. This could be the reason why it is difficult to find evidence of their death. That when they are at that stage of dying they make the trip of going deep into the mountains of only where they choose to die. I say this since they might be close to us and if they are we have to think of how we might act in the wild. If we had no understanding of what we know now how would we act as humans in a animal state. We do not know since we live with all the luxury and the intelligence that has been given us. They live wild we do not so they live in a savage world where we live in a civilized world. Again this is my opinion .

[WSA]

ShadowBorn:  Well, logical question, but the answer is simply, "Because that is what the evidence (so far) tells us." 

 

Berger didn't want to come to that conclusion, but after ruling out all other possibilities, he was forced to make that is working hypothesis. As for ropes? It might be possible. No artifacts have been discovered in proximity to naledi remains, and cordage would not have survived, but you can't rule it out. It is also one of the major behavioral attributes of the genus Homo, and along with the morphologic markers, it was one of the stated reasons for classifying it as they did. 

 

All you can really say for sure is neither animals or floods brought those remains to where they were, nor is their evidence the individuals died naturally there in those chambers, or were killed violently by others after walking there  (at least not so as to leave a telltale mark on the bones).  

 

Voluntary human sacrifice, with slow death by starvation/thirst? I suppose that might be still a possible explanation, but would be truly astounding if that were really the case.  

 

The individuals were identified as some very young, and at least one very old (late 30's). This seems to indicate these were individuals in a population you might expect to succumb to death from natural causes, or be vulnerable to  mishap.  Again though, no signs of trauma found so far.

 

The lack of tool marks or predator trauma makes it highly unlikely the flesh was removed first or that predators stripped the flesh before just the bones were later collected and deposited.  So, you are left with just this one conclusion. For now.

[SWWASAS]

Related to WSA post on the fossils and finds of early humans what most people do not realize is that Africa is a very old and pretty much intact continent.      It has had the other continents bouncing off of it several times in earth history and been joined all together in one massive continent but it has remained pretty much stable and the same shape for much of earths history.     There is not a lot of volcanic history in Africa and what there is localized leaving large areas of ancient rock and sediment intact to accumulate fossils without subsequent disturbance.    On the other hand,   the North American continent is slammed on one side by the Pacific Subduction zone,   mountains are new and volcanic along the West Coast and the Rocky Mountains are still growing in height.       The central plains have been inland oceans for much of the history of the continent and the Appalachian Mountains are a small remnant of the mighty mountain range they used to be.     So most of the North American fossil records are found in areas which used to be inland lakes and extensions of the inland sea that is now the Gulf of Mexico.     What there is to find has to erode out of sediment in the areas which encouraged fossilization.      Those areas were good habitat for dinosaurs,  plains animals like camels,  etc but hardly places where BF is likely to have preferred to live, died and been fossilized. .    Most likely BF did not enter the continent much earlier than humans and human fossils are not found either.        The earliest human remains found so far are much younger than evidence of  human presence on the continent.       So even that does not have a good track record of found skeletons supporting evidence of human habitation.     Throw in specialized habitat for BF (forested area at or near the snow line),   fewer numbers to begin with,  West Coast volcanism  and it is little wonder that nothing has been found yet.    Much of what is there is probably under basalt layers and ash deposits.    I see the ash as having potential.     As those that have seen the human remains in Pompeii know, hot ash does a pretty good job of preserving remains.   You really do not need fossilization processes.     It comes down to boots on the ground looking.   We have found so many dinosaur fossils because we hundreds of professionals and amateurs looking for them where they are likely to be found.      The same is not true for BF.  

[WSA]

Good points Randy. Plussed.

[Patterson-Gimlin]

I agree and that was a well written thought out post. Gets my plus as well