The Skull That Rocked the Evolutionary World

In Darwinian Evolution, there is no distinction between micro evolution (change to species over time) and macro evolution (change in a higher taxa over time).  To a Darwinist, macro evolution is simply micro evolution over a very long period of time.  When it comes to human evolution, Darwinian Evolution does not say that humans evolved from monkeys or apes; the theory says that humans share a common ancestor with chimpanzees. There’s no need to ask why there are still monkeys around or why we don’t have any duck-gator fossils; these are misconceptions about the theory.  The “missing links” everyone talks about are the fossils that get from homo sapiens to the common ancestor we share, including the common ancestor itself.  Those who oppose Darwinian Evolution have been quick to point out the gaps in the fossil records and filling those gaps with “God did it”, which is where the “God of the Gaps” label comes from.  Over time, scientists have found more and more fossils to close that gap….or have they?

 

In Dmanisi, Georgia (by Russia), anthropologists discovered a new hominid fossil that has rocked the evolutionary world…ok, that’s a slight exaggeration.  Estimated to be 1.8 million years old, this skull is the most intact hominid skull found from its time period and is the earliest hominid fossil found outside of Africa.  In Africa, paleontologists have labeled several unique hominid species due to the separate geographical locations and time periods they believed these hominids lived.  Big deal, eh?  Here’s where it gets interesting.  In Dmanisi, this new skull (the one on the right) is very different from the other fossils found in that same area and from the same time period.  It prompted scientists to examine the variations between the fossils found in Dmanisi and compare them to the variations found in modern humans and also in modern chimpanzees.  The variations in the Dmanisi fossils are within the same range.  This is causing scientists to realize that what they thought were several different hominid species might be part of one species, homo erectus, a predecessor to homo sapiens.  The human evolutionary chain may have shrunk by 5-6 species!

Click here for the article at The Guardian

“David Lordkipanidze at the Georgian National Museum, who leads the Dmanisi excavations, said: "If you found the Dmanisi skulls at isolated sites in Africa, some people would give them different species names. But one population can have all this variation. We are using five or six names, but they could all be from one lineage."”
 
 
Click here for the video

If Fezzik (Andre the Giant) and Princess Buttercup were found in separate locations and from separate time periods, wouldn’t they also be interpreted as different species?  Is it possible that some of these ancestor fossils are not as different from us as some believe?  As time goes on and more fossils are found, I wonder how much more will the human evolutionary history compress.