Creationism in Crisis - Neanderthals invented String 40,000 Years Before God Invented Earth!

Creationism in Crisis

Neanderthals invented String 40,000 Years Before God Invented Earth!

(a) SEM photo of cord fragment.

Hardy, B.L., Moncel, MH., Kerfant, C. et al. (2020)

Creationism in Crisis

Neanderthals invented String 40,000 Years Before God Invented Earth!

(b) 3D Hirox photo of cord fragment.

Hardy, B.L., Moncel, MH., Kerfant, C. et al. (2020)

Creationism in Crisis

Neanderthals invented String 40,000 Years Before God Invented Earth!

(c) schematic drawing illustrating s and Z twist.

Hardy, B.L., Moncel, MH., Kerfant, C. et al. (2020)

Creationism in Crisis

Neanderthals invented String 40,000 Years Before God Invented Earth!

(d) enlarged Hirox photo with cord structure highlighted, arrows indicate location of photos e and f.

Hardy, B.L., Moncel, MH., Kerfant, C. et al. (2020)

Creationism in Crisis

Neanderthals invented String 40,000 Years Before God Invented Earth!

(e) SEM photo of bordered pits (circled in red).

Hardy, B.L., Moncel, MH., Kerfant, C. et al. (2020)

Creationism in Crisis

Neanderthals invented String 40,000 Years Before God Invented Earth!

(f) SEM photo of bordered pits.

Hardy, B.L., Moncel, MH., Kerfant, C. et al. (2020)

Oldest ever piece of string was made by Neanderthals 50,000 years ago | New Scientist

Figure 3
(a) SEM photo of cord fragment, (b) 3D Hirox photo of cord fragment, (c) schematic drawing illustrating s and Z twist; (d) enlarged Hirox photo with cord structure highlighted, arrows indicate location of photos e and f; (e) SEM photo of bordered pits (circled in red); (f) SEM photo of bordered pits.

Drawing by C. Kerfant; Hirox: C2RMF, N. Mélard.
Hardy, B.L., Moncel, MH., Kerfant, C. et al. (2020)

Here's some of that scientific evidence stuff that creationists must dismiss somehow to remain a member of their anti-science, counter-factual cult. It's the news that Neanderthals were making string 40,000 years before they believe the Universe was created. The cult exists despite the overwhelming evidence that it is wrong by many orders of magnitude, and that magic was not involved, so one little piece of ancient string is hardly likely to change their minds.

As a piece of archaeology, however, the fact that Neanderthals had the technology to make string - one of the foundational technologies of human technology - is surprising and unexpected. Making string, which involves extracting long fibres from plants (in this case, the bast fibres from the bark of a conifer), twisting them together to make longer strands, then twisting those strands together with the opposite twist to lock the fibres in place, is a complicated and labour-intensive process.

String, or cord, can be used for many things such as sewing clothes, nets, attaching spear-points to shafts, fishing line, tethering, etc., so its invention must have been a significant advance in Neanderthal culture.

The discovery was made at the Abri du Maras caves in south-east France where Neanderthals lived for long periods. At about 50,000 years old, this means about 10,000 years before anatomically modern humans were present, so the string must have been made by Upper Paleolithic Neanderthals. The thread was fine so was probably not used for heavy-duty tasks and was probably some kind of thread - sewing clothes, maybe?

Neanderthals at home - New Scientist.

The piece of string was found underneath a stone scraper in debris in the cave floor, at a level previously dated to between 52,000 and 41,000 years old. Previous to this find, the earliest known string was from 19,000 years ago, found at the Ohalo II site near the Sea of Galilee, Israel, a site associated with modern humans.

Copyright: © 2020 The authors.
Published by Springer Nature Ltd. Open access. (CC BY 4.0)

The find is described in an open access paper in Scientific Reports:

Abstract

Neanderthals are often considered as less technologically advanced than modern humans. However, we typically only find faunal remains or stone tools at Paleolithic sites. Perishable materials, comprising the vast majority of material culture items, are typically missing. Individual twisted fibres on stone tools from the Abri du Maras led to the hypothesis of Neanderthal string production in the past, but conclusive evidence was lacking. Here we show direct evidence of fibre technology in the form of a 3-ply cord fragment made from inner bark fibres on a stone tool recovered in situ from the same site. Twisted fibres provide the basis for clothing, rope, bags, nets, mats, boats, etc. which, once discovered, would have become an indispensable part of daily life. Understanding and use of twisted fibres implies the use of complex multi-component technology as well as a mathematical understanding of pairs, sets, and numbers. Added to recent evidence of birch bark tar, art, and shell beads, the idea that Neanderthals were cognitively inferior to modern humans is becoming increasingly untenable.

Hardy, B. L.; Moncel, M.-H.; Kerfant, C.; Lebon, M.; Bellot-Gurlet, L.; Mélard, N.
Direct evidence of Neanderthal fibre technology and its cognitive and behavioral implications
Scientific Reports, 10(1) 4889 (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-61839-w

Copyright: © 2020 The authors.
Published by Springer Nature Ltd. Open access
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

I wonder which stock method for dismissing inconvenient scientific facts creationists will use for this discovery. The usual ones are: the dating methods are wrong; the scientists are lying; Satan planted the evidence; it can't be true because faith trumps evidence, etc., etc.

One thing they can't afford to do is to accept it, because that would expose them to the existential threat of their faith being open to doubt, and doubt, like facts, is toxic to the creationist cult.

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Thank you for sharing!

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