Refuting Creationism - Migration Into Iberia When Creationists Think Earth Was Under A Genocidal Flood

AI generated depiction of Yamnaya life in Central Asia

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AI-gerated depiction of a Yamnaya migration caravan.
(Spot the errors!)

Theory of a violent invasion of the Iberian Peninsula in Late Prehistory now questioned - Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona - UAB Barcelona

Had the ancient inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula contrived to get their oral history and origin myths written down in the same way that the Bronze Age Canaanite pastoralists did, we might have had a slightly more accurate and less implausible history. It certainly wouldn't have had daft tales about a global genocidal flood just at the time newcomers with new ideas, a new language and new techniques of animal husbandry were migrating into the area having traversed Western Europe from the Steppes of Central Asia.

Unlike the parochial Canaanite nonsense, it might well have had people, places and animals from more than a day or two's walk from the Canaanite Hills.

Archaeological evidence shows that, at the time when creationist superstition says everyone had been drowned in a genocidal, global flood several thousand feet deep, by a vindictive god, people originating on the Steppes of Central Asia were migrating across western Europe and into the Iberian Peninsula, as though nothing unusual was happening.

Malevolent Designer News - What Was The Divine Malevolence Doing With Plague Bacteria 5000 years ago?

Spread of Yersinia pestis (Black Death)

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In the study, scientists performed a genetic analysis on the bones of 133 human individuals from late Neolithic megalithic graves near Warburg in North Rhine-Westphalia. The team discovered the genome of the bacterium Yersinia pestis in the bone samples of two independent individuals. Additionally, previously published genomic data from a bone sample of a Neolithic dog found in Ajvide (Sweden) suggested a potential infection route.

© Carsten Reckweg, CRC 1266/Uni Kiel

Neolithic plague bacterium did not cause mass mortality

What was creationism's divine malevolence up to with one of its most successful pathogens with which if killed hundreds of millions and changes society - the Yersinia pestis bacterium which caused the waves of black death and plague that regularly spread across the world?

It seems to have been experimenting, possibly trying to either perfect its virulence or work out the best delivery system to ensure it got to and killed as many people as possible. Sometimes, entire villages were wiped out. Not far from where I currently live are a couple of former villages that disappeared during the black death - the village of Woodperry near Oxford is an example, surviving now only in the name 'Woodperry Road' and a farmhouse later built on the site.

But 5000 years ago, Y. pestis doesn't seem to have been anything like a virulent as it became in the 12th Century. According to a recent discovery, it was capable of killing the occasional neolithic farmer but not of becoming a major pandemic able to kill hundreds of thousands and depopulate vast areas.

So, what changed, and more to the point, which explanation would a creationist prefer; the one which blames their god or the one which attributes it to evolution, climate change and cultural changes in human society? One thing we can be sure of though is the Michael J. Behe's biologically nonsensical religious apologetic of 'genetic entropy', causing the bacterium to 'devolve' away from an assumed created perfection (as though that were remotely possible), can be ruled out, because whatever the changes were, it led to a massive increase in the number of Y. pestis organisms, so was indisputably beneficial to it - in other words, in classical terms, it evolved.

Refuting Creationism - How Modern Humans Spread Across Europe Thousands Of Years Before 'Creation Week'

Imaginative reconstruction of a European scene in the Aurignacian

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The distributions of density in (P 100 km−2) for a 43, b 42, c 41, d 40, e 39 and f 38 ka are shown. The symbols represent the AUR archaeological sites for different phases (full black dots: Phase 1; open circle: Phase 2; and red triangles: Core sites).

New population model identifies phases of human dispersal across Europe

There are of course, very many things Bible-literalist creationists need to ignore, lie about and/or misrepresent to maintain the delusion of Earth being just a few thousand years old, not the least of which is the abundant geological and archaeological evidence of human activity long before they believe Earth was created by magic out of nothing in the so-called 'Creation Week'.

Their handicap is in trying to compress the entire 13.8 billion year history of the Universe, the 3.8 billion year history of planet Earth and the 2-3 million year history of human evolution, into 10,000 or fewer years, and then trying to ignore the evidence of continuous, unbroken cultural history extending from way before a global genocidal flood, right through it and continuing to modern times, as though such a flood never happened.

And, as is normal with science, a paper just published in Nature Communications, gives them more evidence to ignore, lie about and/or misrepresent. It shows the history of early modern human migration across Europe during the Aurignacian (43,000 -32,000 years ago). The research comes from a team from the University of Cologne, Germany, led by Professor Dr Yaping Shao. It is explained in a University of Cologne press release:

Refuting Creationism - The Fossil Record Shows Climate Change - 59-51 Million Years Before 'Creation Week'

Microscopic fossil foraminifera shells

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What microscopic fossilized shells tell us about ancient climate change – @theU

The bad news for creationists continues unabated as science discovers more facts, as we would expect of a counter-factual superstition.

This time it's news that new research led by University of Utah geoscientists has shown how there is a record of climate change in the fossil record in the form of traces of boron isotopes in the fossilised shells of microscopic foraminifera.

The record, 59-51 million years before creationists think Earth was created, is just another record of events in that 99.9975% of Earth's history that creationists try to shoe-horn into 10,000 to make it seem like their childish creation myth has some merit.

The record of change itself depends not on radioactive decay rates but on the ratios of stable isotopes of boron that get incorporated in the shells of microscopic foraminifera during their growth and then remain locked up as their bodies fossilise in marine sediment.

Dating of this marine sediment is done using several strands of evidence, one of which is U-Pb dating of zircon crystals, and all of which converge on the same dates (see the AI panel on the right).
What changes is the ratio of ¹¹B (δ¹¹B) incorporated in the shells of foraminifera during their lifetime, and this is related to the pH of the seawater. pH of sea water is in turn determined by the level of atmospheric CO₂ - the higher the level of CO₂, the lower the pH due to dissolved carbonic acid H₃CO₄.

Refuting Creationism - What Neanderthals Were Doing In The Pyrenees 90,000 To 55,000 Years Before 'Creation Week'

Abric Pizarro

Artist's impression: Iberian Neanderthals taste wild mushrooms, pine nuts and forest moss.

Image: Abel Grau, CSIC Communication.

Rare archaeological site reveals ‘surprising’ Neanderthal behaviour at Pyrenees foothills

The flood of science papers that casually and unintentionally refute creationism shows no signs of slackening; if anything, it's reaching the status of a tsunami. This is of course a function of the fact that with 99.9975% of the history of Earth occurred before creationists believe Earth was magically created out of nothing, which gives a very high probability that anything about the geological or biological history of Earth will have occurred in that long pre-'Creation Week' period.

So, it shouldn't surprise anyone that a Team Led by researchers from the Australian National University and the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Catalunya, Spain, have uncovered evidence of Neanderthal habitation of a rock shelter known as the Abric Pizarro in the Pyrenean foothills, in south-western France. The discovery challenges the belief that Neanderthals lived by hunting large animals. The evidence is that that community of Neanderthals consumed a wide variety of small animals and plants.

What can you tell me about the Abric Pizarro in the Pyrenean foothills, and the Neanderthal community who lived there between 100,000 and 65,000 years ago? The Abric Pizarro is an archaeological site located in the Pyrenean foothills of southwestern France. This site has gained significant attention for its well-preserved evidence of Neanderthal habitation, particularly during the Middle Paleolithic period, between roughly 100,000 and 65,000 years ago. The site provides crucial insights into the lives of the Neanderthals who occupied this region, offering a window into their daily activities, environmental adaptation, and survival strategies.

Geographic and Environmental Context
The Abric Pizarro site is a rock shelter situated within a broader landscape that would have been rich in resources for the Neanderthals. The Pyrenean foothills offered a diverse environment with access to water sources, varied vegetation, and an abundance of game. This location would have been ideal for the seasonal movement of hunter-gatherer groups, providing shelter from the elements and proximity to essential resources. Neanderthal Habitation and Activities
The archaeological evidence at Abric Pizarro indicates that Neanderthals used this site repeatedly over thousands of years. The layers of sediment found in the rock shelter contain numerous artifacts, including stone tools, animal bones, and other material remains that suggest a range of activities took place here.

1. Stone Tools: The lithic assemblage from Abric Pizarro is characteristic of the Mousterian tradition, which is associated with Neanderthals across Europe. These tools were primarily made from locally available stone and include hand axes, scrapers, and points. These implements were used for various purposes, including hunting, butchering animals, and processing plant materials.
2. Hunting and Subsistence: The faunal remains discovered at the site provide evidence of the Neanderthal diet, which was heavily reliant on large game such as deer, horses, and possibly even smaller mammals. The presence of cut marks on bones suggests that the Neanderthals at Abric Pizarro were proficient hunters and that they butchered animals on-site for food.
3. Seasonal Occupation: Some researchers believe that the site was likely used seasonally, with Neanderthals returning to the shelter at certain times of the year when game was more plentiful or when the weather made other areas less hospitable. This seasonal occupation would have been part of a broader pattern of movement across the landscape, typical of Neanderthal groups who adapted to changing environments over time.
4. Social Organization: While direct evidence of social structure is difficult to ascertain from a single site, the repeated use of Abric Pizarro over many millennia suggests that it may have been a significant location for the Neanderthal community. The organization of space within the shelter, as inferred from the distribution of artifacts, indicates that different areas may have been designated for specific activities, reflecting a level of social organization.

Significance of Abric Pizarro
The importance of Abric Pizarro lies in its contribution to the broader understanding of Neanderthal life in Europe. The site provides a snapshot of how these early humans adapted to the challenging environments of the Pyrenean foothills. It also highlights the technological skills of Neanderthals, particularly in stone tool production and hunting.

Moreover, the long duration of occupation at Abric Pizarro offers valuable data for understanding the changes in Neanderthal behavior over time, including how they responded to climatic shifts and environmental changes during the Middle Paleolithic. This site is a key part of the mosaic of Neanderthal archaeology in Europe, helping to build a more complete picture of their way of life.

In summary, Abric Pizarro is a significant archaeological site that sheds light on the lives of Neanderthals in the Pyrenean foothills, revealing aspects of their subsistence strategies, technological abilities, and social organization during a crucial period in prehistory.

The Australian National University and Autonomous University of Barcelona team, led by Dr. Sofia C. Samper Carro, have just published their findings in the Journal of Archaeological Science. It is also explained in an Australian National University Press release:

Rare archaeological site reveals ‘surprising’ Neanderthal behaviour at Pyrenees foothills

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An unchartered area in the foothills of the Southern Pyrenees in Spain is providing insights into a poorly known period of Neanderthal history, offering clues that could help archaeologists uncover the mystery of their downfall, according to new research from The Australian National University (ANU) and the Autonomous University of Barcelona (CEPAP-UAB).

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Abric Pizarro is one of only a few sites worldwide dating from 100,000 to 65,000 years ago during a period called MIS 4. The researchers have gathered hundreds of thousands of artefacts, including stone tools, animal bones and other evidence, providing significant data about the Neanderthal way of life during that time — largely unknown in human history until now.

The findings reveal Neanderthals were able to adapt to their environment, challenging the archaic humans’ reputation as slow-footed cavemen and shedding light on their survival and hunting skills.

Lead author and ANU archaeologist, Dr Sofia Samper Carro, said that the findings show that Neanderthals knew the best ways to exploit the area and territory and were resilient through harsh climate conditions.

Our surprising findings at Abric Pizarro show how adaptable Neanderthals were. The animal bones we have recovered indicate that they were successfully exploiting the surrounding fauna, hunting red deer, horses and bison, but also eating freshwater turtles and rabbits, which imply a degree of planning rarely considered for Neanderthals.

Dr Sofia C. Samper Carro, lead author
School of Culture, History and Language
College of Asia and the Pacific
Australian National University, Australia.

According to the researchers, these new insights challenge widespread beliefs that Neanderthals only hunted large animals, such as horses and rhinoceros.

Through the bones that we are finding, which display cut marks, we have direct proof that Neanderthals were capable of hunting small animals. The bones on this site are very well preserved, and we can see marks of how Neanderthals processed and butchered these animals. Our analysis of the stone artefacts also demonstrates variability in the type of tools produced, indicating Neanderthals’ capability to exploit the available resources in the area.

Dr Sofia C. Samper Carro.

Shedding light on this crucial transitional period helps archaeologists edge closer to solving a mystery that has plagued researchers for decades: what drove the Neanderthals to extinction? According to the researchers, finding sites like Abric Pizarro, from this specific and not well-recorded period, gives information about how Neanderthals lived when modern humans were not in the area yet and shows that they were thriving.

ANU archaeologist Dr Sofia Samper Carro says the insights found at Abric Pizarro challenge widespread beliefs that Neanderthals only hunted large animals.

Photo: Dr Sofia Samper Carro.

The unique site at Abric Pizarro gives a glimpse of Neanderthal behaviour in a landscape they had been roaming for hundreds of thousands of years. Neanderthals disappeared around 40,000 years ago. Suddenly, we modern humans appear in this region of the Pyrenees, and the Neanderthals disappear. But before that, Neanderthals had been living in Europe for almost 300,000 years. They clearly knew what they were doing. They knew the area and how to survive for a long time.

This is one of the most interesting things about this site, to have this unique information about when Neanderthals were alone and living in harsh conditions and how they thrived before modern humans appeared.

Dr Sofia C. Samper Carro.

Thanks to modern excavation techniques, Abric Pizarro and other nearby Neanderthal sites provide fine-grain data to understand Neanderthal behaviour.

We 3D plot every single remain found larger than one to two centimetres. This makes our work slow, and we have been excavating some of these sites for over 20 years, but it turns into a uniquely precise recording of the sites. We are interested in how the different data relates to each other, from stone tools to bones and hearths. This more thorough excavation gives archaeologists information on how Neanderthals lived and how long they were in an area. It’s not only the individual materials that give us clues, but also where exactly they are found in relation to other materials on the site that helps us understand how and when Neanderthals were visiting these sites. Were they settled there or just passing through?

Dr Sofia C. Samper Carro.

Excavation and research in Abric Pizarro are part of Dr Samper Carro’s DECRA project. It also consists of one of the field schools offered by the ANU School of Culture, History and Language. Research in the Catalan Pre-Pyrenees is supported by local collaborators from CEPAP-UAB, The Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and the Culture Department of the Catalan Government. The research is published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

Highlights

• New archaeological site in the Pre-Pyrenees to study Neanderthal lifeways.
• Chronometric ages from Abric Pizarro confirm its MIS 4 chronology.
• Palaeoenvironmental data contribute to MIS 4 climatic interpretations.
• Faunal and lithic assemblages indicate Neanderthal adaptability and resilience.

Abstract
Extensive research carried out during the last 30 years in the lowermost foothills of the Southern Pyrenees has revealed the significance of this area for studying Neanderthal lifestyle and settlement histories in the Iberian Peninsula. With a large number of cave and rock shelter sites, broad-ranging chronologies, and relatively well-known sedimentation rates and environmental conditions, this enclave continues to improve our knowledge about Neanderthal behaviour in Western Europe.

Here we present the chronostratigraphic, technological, faunal, and palaeoenvironmental results from Abric Pizarro, a recently discovered site from the region. Its archaeological sequence is centred on MIS 4, a poorly known period in Neanderthal history. The application of three different dating methods (newly obtained single-grain optically stimulated luminescence and U-series fossil teeth ages, in addition to previously published thermoluminescence ages) provides an accurate chronology for a site where the exceptional preservation of faunal remains leads to significant interpretations of Neanderthal hunting abilities and adaptability. Moreover, analysis of the lithic assemblage, as well as preliminary palaeoenvironmental data, are used to provide insights into the degree to which chronocultural or palaeoenvironmental factors were responsible for some of the significant differences observed among the four archaeological units explored in Abric Pizarro to date. Our results contribute to discussion about Neanderthal resilience and their livelihood before their disappearance from the archaeological record.

1. Introduction
Since the discovery of the first Neanderthal fossils in the 19th century, these hominins have been a sustained focus of study. Researchers have strived to identify anatomical and physiological similarities and differences between our closest relatives and anatomically modern humans (AMHs), their phylogenetic position, as well as suggesting factors that contributed to their demise around 40ka years ago (e.g. Bailey and Lynch, 2005; Bocherens and Drucker, 2006; Banks et al., 2008; Churchill, 2014; Villa and Roebroeks, 2014.1; Agustí and Rubio-Campillo, 2017; Banks et al., 2021; Romagnoli et al., 2022; Gonzalez et al., 2023). This information has been mainly gained from archaeological deposits dated to the Last Interglacial cycles during the Late Pleistocene -MIS 5 (ca. 130-71ka) and MIS 3 (57-30ka)-. However, to fully understand Neanderthal ways of life in the millennia before their extinction, further research is needed to characterize the preceding glacial maxima (MIS 4; 71-57ka), at both regional and local scales.

MIS 4 is generally characterized as a sub-continental scale glaciation over northern Europe, coupled with dry conditions in continental eastern Europe (Helmens, 2014.2). The ice volume maximum, centred at 65 ka, was preceded by a progressive increase in ice volume through MIS 5 and a decrease in summer insolation (e.g. Sánchez-Goñi, 2022.1). Although these global environmental conditions are relatively well-known from environmental records in central and northern Europe and the Levant, there are few site-specific palaeoclimatic proxies in the Iberian Peninsula and western Europe, with scarce data available to understand local environmental conditions in these regions during MIS 4 (Fig. 1). Nonetheless, research on glacial and fluvioglacial deposits in river valleys in NE Spain provide data to interpret glacial-interglacial cycles in this region from ca. 70ka onwards. In the Aragon Valley glacier, evidence from moraine M2 dated the Last Maximum Ice Extent (LMIE) around 68 ± 7 ka (García-Ruiz et al., 2013), also identified in the Cinca and Gállego Rivers and associated to a strong increase in fluvial discharge and sediments availability related to the transition to deglaciation (Peña et al., 2004; Lewis et al., 2009). Other nearby moraines also confirm evidence for a LMIE event in the central Pre-Pyrenees during the MIS 4 (Sancho et al., 2003, 2018; Turu et al., 2023.1).

Fig. 1. Map of the Iberian Peninsula with location of the sites mentioned in the text. 1) Abric Pizarro; 2) Estret de Tragó; 3) Cova Gran de Santa Linya; 4) Roca dels Bous; 5) Abric Romaní; 6) Arlampe; 7) Padul; 8) Villarquemado; 9) Lezetxiki; 10) Atxagakoa; 11) Covalejos; 12) Roca San Miguel; 13) Fuente del Trucho; 14) Fuente de San Cristóbal; 15) Moros de Gabasa; 16) Abric del Pastor, 17) Teixoneres; 18) Cova del Toll.

Moreover, some recent reviews of palaeobotanical data from archaeological sites in the Iberian Peninsula include sites with records dating to MIS 4 located in mediterranean (Abric Romani and Abric Pastor) and Atlantic/Euro-siberian (Axlor) bioregions (Ochando et al., 2022.2; Revelles et al., 2022.3). In Abric Romaní (Capellades, Barcelona), there is a dominance of Pinus throughout the sequence, with a phase of climate warming identified around 70–67 ka, characterized by higher percentages of arboreal pollen and thermophilic taxa (evergreen Quercus and Olea-Phillyrea), This phase was interrupted by a period of cooling between 66 and 59ka characterized by an increase in steppic taxa (Poaceae and Artemisia), followed by an increase in meso and thermophilic taxa (e.g. Burjachs et al., 2012; Revelles et al., 2022.3). Multiproxy analyses conducted from the MIS 4 occupations at Abric del Pastor (Alcoy, Alicante) indicate a mosaic of biotopes, with predominantly cold conditions (Connolly et al., 2019). In the site of Axlor (Biscay) in northern Spain, pollen studies indicate that during MIS 4, the landscape surrounding the site was dominated by grasses and heather, with patchy evergreen-boreal forest (Demuro et al., 2023.2).

In addition to pollen data from archaeological sites, the pollen cores extracted from the Padul wetland (Granada) and the Villarquemado palaeolake (Teruel) provide significant pollen reference sequences from mediterranean bioregions. The Padul 15-05 sediment core contains a continuous sedimentary and palaeoenvironmental record of the last ca. 200,000 ka, with two pollen zones attributed to MIS 4 (Zones 3a and 2c) (Camuera et al., 2019.1; Ochando et al., 2022.2). Zone 3a shows a decline in arboreal pollen relative to the previous zone, with an average of ca. 10% in Quercus total, with some peaks for Alnus, Abies and Cedrus (1.5%) and Pinus averaging 57%. There is a significant pollen change in Zone 2c (60-43ka), with relatively high Mediterranean forest values until ca. 51ka BP, when the last occurrence of Abies is recorded and Pinus show a similar average percentage as the previous zone (ca. 53%). An interesting ecological change from zone 3a to 2c at Padul is the loss of heathland taxa (Ericacea and Cistaceae) and their replacement with xerophytes (Artemisia and Amaranthaceae) (Camuera et al., 2019.1).

The Villarquemado core is an interesting case study to address palaeoenvironmental conditions in continental areas influenced by climatic extremes, similar to those observed in the southeastern Pre-Pyrenees. In Villarquemado, the pollen zone VIL-10 (71–57.5 ka) is characterized by the absence of Mediterranean taxa, with evergreen Quercus and Juniperus disappearing from the record, while aquatics and hygrophytes fluctuate, likely indicating intense environmental changes (González-Sampériz et al., 2020). This replacement of Mediterranean woody elements with mesophytic ones is similar to that observed in sites like Abric Romani, coupled with an abrupt contraction in Juniperus and an expansion of Pinus (Burjachs et al., 2012). Other persistent trees are deciduous Quercus at the beginning of the MIS 4 and cold-tolerant species such as Betula and Alnus. In general, the MIS 4 assemblage from Villarquemado suggests cold and relatively humid conditions (González-Sampériz et al., 2020). These local analyses remark the complexity of environmental responses to climatic changes observed in these sites, while highlighting gaps in our current knowledge about regional palaeoenvironmental conditions during MIS 4 in the Iberian Peninsula.

Focusing on Neanderthal subsistence, the few faunal assemblages documented in Iberian sites dated to the MIS 4 display a relatively wide range of species, with variations in the taxonomic representation likely to be related to the orographic location of the sites as well as biogeographic conditions (Fig. 1). In the north of the Iberian Peninsula, the fauna assemblages from levels B, C and D (50.7 ± 3.5–70.4 ± 5.3ka) of Axlor (Biscay) show a diversified fauna, with a progressive decrease of cervids, stability in the number of caprids (wild goat), and an increase in the number of large animals, especially equids (González et al., 2005.1; Demuro et al., 2023.2). In Arlampe (Biscay), faunal assemblages dated to the MIS 5/4 transition (70.6ka) are dominated by caprines (Capra pyrenaica and Rupicapra pyrenaica), low number of cervid remains, and no equids (Arceredillo et al., 2013.1; Rios-Garaizar et al., 2015). The faunal assemblage for level V from Lezetxiki (Gipuzkoa; 57 ± 2–70±9ka), disregarding the large number of ursids likely related to natural accumulations, yielded large numbers of Cervus elaphus remains, followed by Bos/Bison (Falguères et al., 2005.2; Lazuén and Altuna, 2012.1). In Atxagakoa (Biscay), deposits dated to MIS 4 show deer as the main taxon (Castaños et al., 2004.1; Yravedra and Cobo-Sánchez, 2015.1). In Covalejos cave (Cantabria), the faunal assemblage throughout the sequence is equally dominated by cervids (ca. 90%), with indicators of a specialisation for hunting juvenile individuals (Castaños, 2021.1). In the central plateau, chamois and ibex are represented from MIS 5 to MIS 3, with an increase in their representation after 70ka, although the presence of large bovids (Bos/Bison) and cervids is also recorded (e.g. Díez, 2007; Arceredillo and Díez, 2009.1; Yravedra and Cobo-Sánchez, 2015.1).

One of the reasons for the gaps in our knowledge about Neanderthal behaviour during MIS 4 is the scarcity of sites across the European continent dated to this period, which contrasts with the remarkable number of sites dated to MIS 5 and MIS 3. The limited number of MIS 4 sites has been attributed to population shrinkage, as well as a contraction and shift in the range of suitable habitats exploited by Western European Neanderthal populations (Stewart, 2005.3; Banks et al., 2021), although other factors, such as poor preservation of sites from this period should not be disregarded.

During the last few decades, research on several sites located in the Southern Pre-Pyrenees have revealed the significance of this region for studying Neanderthal lifestyles (Fig. 1). In the Pre-Pyrenees of Huesca, the oldest Neanderthal site yet identified consists of Roca San Miguel, with a chronology ranging from MIS6d to MIS5a, and evidence of site abandonment during the MIS 4 (Montes et al., 2021.2; Peña-Monné et al., 2021.3). In the same region, the younger sites of Fuente del Trucho (Mir and Salas, 2000; Montes et al., 2006.1), Fuentes de San Cristóbal (Rosell et al., 2000.1; Menéndez et al., 2009.2) and Gabasa (Montes et al., 2006.1 Santamaría et al., 2010) provide evidence of Neanderthal presence during MIS 3 (Fig. 1). In the Noguera county (Lleida), the earliest Neanderthal occupations documented comprise the lower units from Estret de Tragó, dated to the MIS 5 (130-90ka), followed by MIS 3 occupations documented in Tragó upper units, Roca dels Bous and Cova Gran de Santa Linya (Casanova et al., 2009.3; Martínez Moreno et al., 2010.1; Mora et al., 2011, 2018.1; de la Torre et al., 2012.2). Since 2007, field prospection programs have identified several other prehistoric and historical settlements in the eastern Pre-Pyrenees region (Pizarro et al., 2013.2). Among the new prehistoric sites identified, Abric Pizarro has yielded Middle Palaeolithic techno-complexes that indicate this site could contain occupations predating MIS 3, thereby representing a unique site for understanding the chronostratigraphy of Neanderthal presence in the southeastern Pre-Pyrenees.

An introduction to the geochronology and a preliminary analysis of the fauna and stone artefacts documented in the more recent archaeological units from Abric Pizarro was recently published (Vega Bolivar et al., 2018.2). However, validation of the site geochronology, as well as the development of new research lines, comprising palaeoenvironmental and biomolecular data, triggered new excavation seasons and analyses. Here we present the results from the new chrononometric and palaeoenvironmental data obtained from Abric Pizarro, as well as the preliminary analysis of the complete fauna and lithic assemblage from the site.

Fig. 2. A) General view Abric Pizarro rockshelter; B) Map of the area of study with nearby archaeological sites; C) Lithostratigraphic column of Abric Pizarro with approximated location of samples taken for OSL and U-Th new ages. Ground surface refers to the original surface of the deposit before excavation began. A description of the profile is provided in section 2.1. D) Photograph of the west section of the deposit, with vertical distribution of the archaeological units identified superimposed.

Samper Carro, Sofia C.; Vega Bolivar, Susana; Pizarro Barbera, Jezabel; Westbury, Eboni; Connor, Simon; Allué, Ethel; Benito-Calvo, Alfonso; Arnold, Lee J.; Demuro, Martina; Price, Gilbert J.; Martinez-Moreno, Jorge; Mora, Rafael
Living on the edge: Abric Pizarro, a MIS 4 Neanderthal site in the lowermost foothills of the southeastern Pre-Pyrenees (Lleida, Iberian Peninsula)
Journal of Archaeological Science (2024) 169 106038 DOI: 10.1016/j.jas.2024.106038

Copyright: © 2024 The authors.
Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

Creationists might like to ignore the fact that the archaeological evidence shows how Neanderthals adapted to climate changes and resulting changes in local flora and fauna over the 35,000 or so years that they inhabited the site, and how well this evidence meshes with other evidence of climate change. These multiple strands of converging evidence are of course commonplace in Archaeology and are exactly as we would expect of a record of actual events.

Creationists might also like to ignore the fact that the site shows no evidence of submergence under thousands of feet of water either during or after the Neanderthal occupation. In fact, the evidence shows that there never was such an inundation, which, had it happened, would have swept away much of the evidence now being revealed and covered the rest of it in a thick layer of silt containing the jumbled remains of animals and plants from disconnected land masses that would inevitably result from a global genocidal flood and which is conspicuous by its complete absence, not just in the foothill of the Pyrenees, but everywhere else on Earth.

Christian Mythology - The Earliest (And only) Evidence of Christian Persecution By Rome... Probably Isn't

The “Christian building” in Dura-Europos.

Photo courtesy of Yale University Art Gallery

Tile (c. AD 200–256) from a ceiling in Dura-Europos with image of Heliodoros, an actuarius.

House call: A new study rethinks early Christian landmark | YaleNews

There is something in Christianity that makes the idea of the persecuted Christian so attractive, as though persecution and martyrdom somehow validates the belief. A cynic might conclude that there is so much that doesn't make rational sense in the religion that it needs this constant reinforcement and reassurance.

American Christians in particular are notorious for seeing a 'war on Christianity' or a 'war on Christmas' at every turn. Even measures to protect society and save lives by mitigating the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic were claimed to be a plot to prevent people from going to church - a conspiracy theory swallowed by enough people for churches full of people 'defending their right to pray' to become major super-spreader events every Sunday.

In the UK, the far right has had some success recently by appealing to Christian persecution paranoia by presenting an influx of asylum-seeking refugees from wars in Syria and Afghanistan as part of a sinister plot to impose 'Sharia law' on British society and replace the national religion by Islam.

The need for martyrs has meant Christian churches across Europe are full of the body-parts of various early Christian 'martyred saints' who contrived to die in a manner that provided a plentiful supply of these body-parts. No European Catholic cathedral would be complete without it's reliquary, and bits of dead saint that, if they were to be reassembled into a single corpse, would often be that of a monstrous being with multiple legs, dozens of fingers, a couple of heads, and more teeth than a crocodile and multiple bodies so that several churches can each have a whole one.

Early Christianity traces its origins back, not so much to the persecution of Jesus but to the alleged arch-persecutor, who later became a persecutee, Saul of Tarsus, and of course everyone knows how the early Roman Christians were fed to the lions in the colosseum by Nero, don't they? Er... well, the Romans at the time didn't seem to know about it as they left no record of it. The one single reference to it was written by Tacitus in about 117 CE.

Refuting Creationism - Humans Were Moving Into The Pacific Between 40,000 and 45,000 Years Before 'Creation Week'

Rock art at Raja Ampat Island, Western Papua, Indonesia

Rock art at Raja Ampat Island, Western Papua, Indonesia

New evidence from West Papua offers fresh clues about how and when humans first moved into the Pacific

I realise I'm always writing about things that happened in the long pre-'Creation' period before creationists claim their god magicked the Universe up out of nothing, but there is so much of it. For Earth alone, 99.9975% of its history happened before it existed , if you believe what creationists claim.

The entire history of human evolution in Africa and dispersion into Eurasia, the Americas and the Pacific islands for example, happened before 'Creation Week', as did the transition from hunter-gatherer to settled agriculture and urbanisation.

In fact, it wasn't until humans began to form proto-nation states in the form of waring petty kingdoms led by violent warlords once they had established agriculture and needed to defend their land against other tribes, that they started to invent origin myths to both explain how they got there and to justify their ownership, and probably genocides against former occupiers.

When these tales got written down and bound up into a book decreed by priests to be the inerrant word of their creator god, we got the beginnings of the holy books that some uneducated people today still believe are real science and real history.

But of course, we now know those who made up the origin myths knew nothing outside their tiny fragment of the planet and tiny fragment of time. They would have had no inkling that there were people moving into far away islands in oceans of which they knew nothing, like those in the Pacific, the evidence for which is being revealed by archaeologists and anthropologists using modern scientific methods.

For example, a team led by Dylan Gaffney, an associate professor of Palaeolithic Archaeology at the University of Oxford and Daud Aris Tanudirjo of the Departemen Arkeologi, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia have just published evidence that early Homo sapiens were populating the Pacific islands between 50,000 and 55,000 years ago. This evidence was found in Western Papua.

Their findings are published today in the Cambridge University Press journal Antiquity and is the subject of an article in The Conversation. Their article is reprinted here under a Creative Commons license, reformatted for stylistic consistency:

Refuting Creationism - A strange Sea Slug - From 500 Million Years Before 'Creation Week'.

Dorsal view of a complete Shishania aculeata

Image credit: G Zhang/L Parry.

Spines covering the body of Shishania aculeata

Image credit: G Zhang/L Parry

August: Mollusc discovery | News and features | University of Bristol

Palaeontology has a habit of throwing up surprises.

Sadly for creationists, these surprises never show us that science is fundamentally wrong and creationism is fundamentally right. It invariably shows us exactly the opposite.

The surprise today is that an early mollusc resembled a slug with a spiky armour, not the smooth shell we normally associate with snails which were believed to have evolved in the Early Cambrian when this species lived.

The confirmation that creationism is fundamentally wrong comes from the fact that this strange slug lived in that very long pre-'Creation' period of Earth history, 500 million years before creationists think the Universe was magicked up out of nothing by some magic words spoken in a language that no-one else spoke because, so the story goes, there was no-one else for the magician to speak to.

The mollusc, named Shishania aculeata, was probably an early evolutionary dead-end; an early response to the threat to soft-bodies creatures from the emerging predators that gave the impetus for the rapid radiation of forms that characterised the Cambrian.

Refuting Creationism - A Calendar Carved On A Monument in Turkey - 3,000 Years Before 'Creation Week'

Carvings on a pillar at Göbekli Tepe, Turkey

Carvings at ancient monument may be world’s oldest calendar | School of Engineering

Figure 1. Left: Plan of Enclosures A–D at Göbekli Tepe. Right: Pillar 43 at Göbekli Tepe, Enclosure D.

Image courtesy of Alistair Coombs.

One of the more obvious blunders in the opening verses of the Bible is the use of the term 'day', supposedly before the sun was created. But the measure of time called 'a day' is the rotation period of Earth, as it orbits the sun.

Why would a god choose that measure of time, of all the planets and suns in the Universe, and before it had allegedly created either the sun or Earth? Or more specifically, why would the people who made up the creation myth assume it would when the stories they made up and the Universe they described have no concept of a rotating Earth or of Earth orbiting the sun, which they described as fixed to a dome over a flat, 'fixed, immobile' Earth?

Of course, the answer is that the story tellers had inherited their concept of time and how the passage of time could be measured over the course of 365 days and be found to follow a repeating pattern, and simply assumed any god would use the measure they were familiar with - they were imbuing their god with human characteristics.

One of those cultural ancestors live not a million miles from where the Bronze Age Canaanite Pastoralists who made up the origin myths later incorporated in a book decreed to be holy, but they predated them by many millennia.

Refuting Creationism - More Evidence Of A Dwarfed Hominin On Flores Island - 690,000 Years Before 'Creation Week'

Mata Menge, Flores Island, Indonesia

Image: Gerrit van den Bergh/SWNS.com

Homo floresiensis and dwarf elephants went extinct at about the same time.

Image: GETTY.

Tiny fossil arm bone sheds light on evolution of ancient Indonesian ‘hobbits’

Science is a continuous process of reconciling new discoveries and existing theories, and revising those theories as necessary. It's a process that often takes time, sometimes a long time, involving reassessing the new discovery, formulating new hypotheses and then waiting for more discoveries to provide enough evidence to falsify some hypothese and add weight to remaining ones, until a consensus is reached that one hypothesis has emerged the winner by failing to be falsified and as having the best fit with the known facts.

Creationists, who base their beliefs not on evidence, but on dogma and 'faith', i.e., believing what someone told them to believe without any evidence, find this process baffling because it looks like scientists can't agree and keep changing their minds. But one thing scientists don't do, unlike theologians, especially in the past before basic human decency got incorporated into religion, is kill one another and have campaigns of persecution and ostracism, while dividing into warring factions with neither side havign any evidence with which to resolve disputes.

Good News For Creationists - Evidence That The Bible Is Hopelessly Wrong Has Been Destroyed

The first published results from Juukan Gorge show 47,000 years of Aboriginal heritage was destroyed in mining blast

On of the first pieces of good news for the creation cult emerged from Australia a couple of days ago. It was that one of the best pieces of evidence of continuous human occupation with no signs of ever being submerged in a flood, has been destroyed by mining activities.

It was an ancient rock shelter at Juukan Gorge in Puutu Kunti Kurrama Country in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, which had evidence of human occupation going back 47,000 years, i.e. 37,000 years before Bible literalist creationists believe the Universe was magicked up out of nothing, and 43,000 before it was supposedly submerged in deep flood water that would have obliterated any trace of human habitation.

It was the kind of solid, incontrovertible evidence of biblical errancy that keeps creationist cult leaders awake at night trying to make up lies to tell about it or discredit it in some way that a creationist will believe (not hard; just say the scientists hate God and make up lies, that'll make a creationist feel special).

How the site came to be destroyed and the attempts to recover the artifacts it contained is the subject of an article in The Conversation by Michael Slack, Director, Scarp Archaeology and Adjunct Associate Professor of Archaeology, James Cook University; Jordan Ralph, Adjunct Lecturer, Archaeology, Flinders University and Wallace Boone Law, Postdoctoral Researcher, Geospatial Science and Archaeology, University of Adelaide. Their article is reprinted here under a Creative Commons license, reformatted for stylistic consistency:

Refuting Creationism - Humans Were Butchering A Giant Armadillo in Argentina - 11,000 Years Before 'Creation Week'

21,000-year-old Neoesclerocalyptus fossils with man-made cut marks

UNLP scientists discover the oldest record of human presence in South America » UNLP

It's one of those moments that creationists like to pretend is a weakness of science - time to reconsider what we thought we knew and to update our understanding in the light of new evidence.

In short, time to do what a dogmatic, intellectually bankrupt creationist can never do - consider being wrong and changing our mind because the evidence has changed.

The reason for this reassessment is that the fossilised remains of a species of glyptodont or giant armadillo, a Neoesclerocalyptus, has been discovered on the bank of the Reconquista River, in Argentina that have been dated to 21,000 years ago, that bears the unmistakable cut marks of butchery by humans. Previously, the earliest incontrovertible evidence of humans in South America put it at about 16,000 years ago. The fossils were discovered and analysed by a team of palaeontologists led by scientists from the National University of La Plata, Argentina.

This is a clear 11,000 years before creationists believe the Universe was magicked into existence, and so puts this event in the 99.9975% of Earth's history that occurred before creationists believe it existed, based on the best guesses of parochial Middle-eastern pastoralists who believe the entire universe consisted of a small flat planet with a dome over it that contained nothing that wasn't known to the people who filled the gap in their knowledge with childish guesses.

Creationism Refuted - Evidence of Hominin Activity in Southern Spain - 1.4 Million Years Before 'Creation Week'

Partial skeleton of an elephant (Mammuthus meridionalis) unearthed from layer 5 of the upper archaeological level of the late Early Pleistocene site of Fuente Nueva-3.

Credit: Palmqvist et al., Journal of Iberian Geology (2024)

Entrapment of an elephant in the quicksand of layer 5 of the upper archaeological level of the late Early Pleistocene site of Fuente Nueva-3.

Credit: Palmqvist et al., Journal of Iberian Geology (2024)

Prehistoric quicksand trap in Spain reveals doomed elephants and early scavenging behavior | Archaeology News Online Magazine

A team of archaeologists from Malaga University have uncovered the earliest evidence of ancient hominin activity in Europe - at 1.4 million years ago.

The evidence from the Fuente Nueva-3 archaeological site in Orce, southeastern Spain shows that hominins scavenged alongside giant hyenas for animals which became stuck in a quicksand trap in what is now the Guadix-Baza Depression.

The team included Professor of Paleontology Paul Palmqvist and Professor of Stratigraphy and Paleontology María Patrocinio Espigares. They showed that the site consisted of two distinct archaeological levels, an upper (UAL) and a lower (LAL) level, the latter of which contains a high density of manuports, while the UAL contains remains of megafauna such as mammoths, Mammuthus meridionalis, and many hyena coprolites, showing significant scavenging activity

Refuting Creationism - No Ancestral Couple, Not Even An Ancestral Species - All Modern Humans Are Hybrids

Reconstruction of a Neanderthal woman.

‘A history of contact’: Princeton geneticists are rewriting the narrative of Neanderthals and other ancient humans

Our understanding of our relationship with contemporaneous archaic hominins such as Neanderthals has changed over the past 25 years or so. It was once believed that, as separate species, there would have been no successful interbreeding, despite a few fossils suggesting a mixture of both Neanderthal and Homo sapiens feature, then Nobel Prize-winning Svante Pääbo's group at the Max Plank Institute analysed a Neanderthal genome and showed that modern Eurasia Homo sapiens have 2-3% Neanderthal DNA, so interbreeding must have taken place.

Since then, the same team has discovered a second extinct hominin, the Denisovans, and shown that they too interbred with Neanderthals in Eurasia and Homo sapiens in East and Southeast Asia, especially.

And now we know that Africans' too carry evidence of Neanderthal genetic ingression.

In other words, ever since Homo sapiens left Africa and moved into the territory of at least two archaic hominins, the descendants of an earlier migration out of Africa, probably Homo erectus, have behaved much like a ring species of incompletely speciated geographical subspecies where barriers to hybridization had not fully evolved.

Refuting Creationism - Evidence Of Species Selection In The Pyrenees - Untouched By The Legendary Global Flood

The location of Coro Trasito is indicated by the orange dot.

Map created using USGS ArcGIS Online Map Viewer.

The location of Coro Trasito is indicated by the orange dot.

Map created using USGS ArcGIS Online Map Viewer.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0306448.g001

Early Pyrenean Neolithic groups applied species selection strategies to produce bone artefacts - Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona - UAB Barcelona

Because the Bronze Age mythmakers made up a tale about it, creationists believe their all-loving god committed a global genocide against all living species by flooding the world to a depth sufficient to cover the highest mountain (i.e. at least 29,000 feet, the height of Everest) about 4,000 years ago or less. Such a flood would have obliterated all signs of human civilisation on the planet and covered it with a thick layer of sediment containing the fossils of all the animals and plants jumbled together, from disconnected land-masses.

The problem with that belief is that there is evidence of human activity from long before that time, even in places like the Pyrenees between Spain and France, where archaeologists are uncovering evidence of human habitation and domestication of animals 7,000 years ago, in caves such as the Coro Trasito, located 1,548 metres above sea level, in Huesca, Spain.

Refuting Creationism - Extinct Giant Kangaroo Walked on All Fours - 2.5 Million Years Before 'CreationWeek'

Imaginative AI reconstruction of a Protemnodon.

Illustration by Superinnovators x AI

July: Ancient large kangaroo moved mainly on four legs | News and features | University of Bristol

Science works because scientists, unlike religious fundamentalists, don't have fixed dogmas and doctrines they must adhere to and so are free to re-examine the evidence, reassess their conclusions and change their minds.

Unlike creationists, scientists are free to question, reassess and rethink without fear of a terrible fate awaiting them for having the temerity to question the cult dogma, or the social stigma, ostracism and in some cases threats of physical violence, that would be heaped upon a fundamentalist who questioned the basic tenets of the cult.

So, scientists are free from the sophophobia that charcterises creationism and which the cult leaders go to great lengths to inflict on their followers, and, unlike with creationism, the standing of a scientists who changes his or her mind with good reason goes up, while the social standing in creationist circles of a creationists who shows intellectual integrity and changes his or her mind will actually go down, in the prevailing anti-intellectual culture of the creationist cult!

Refuting Creationism - What The Bible's Authors Forgot About

Aerial photograph of “funerary avenues” (foreground) and the Khaybar Oasis (background), facing south‐west.

© AAKSAK and the Royal Commission for AlUla

Location of the AlUla and Khaybar Counties, with details of the Khaybar Oasis and Volcano cores zones under the remit of RCU.

© AAKSAK and the Royal Commission for AlUla.

A struggling people languishing across barren lands? No, evidence shows life in ancient Saudi Arabia was complex and thriving

Living not a stone's throw from the Canaanite Hills where the authors of genesis made up their origin myths and filled the gaps in their knowledge and understanding with magical tales of invisible sky gods made of nothing creating things out of nothing with a few magic words, there was a thriving community of semi-nomadic farmers. These neolithic people traded extensively in the area and may even have been ancestral to the Middle Eastern pastoralists, or at least had a strong cultural influence on them.

Contrary to the Bible's authors' tales of a Universe consisting of a small, flat planet with a dome over it, being magicked up out of nothing between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago, and a global genocidal flood 4000 years ago, there were people building circular buildings in what is now North West Saudi Arabia between 6,500 and 8,000 years ago, and the remains of their dwellings show no signs of ever having been inundated.

That the Bible's authors, who had only oral traditions to go on, failed to acknowledge these near neighbours, speaks to their culturally chauvinistic parochialism and their intention to create the belief that they, and they alone, were the descendants of a magically-created first couple, created without ancestors, although they show some signs of awareness of other people in their tale of the sons of that first couple managing to find wives.

So, how do we know about these neolithic people from North West Arabia? From the artifacts and remains of buildings which would have been destroyed and swept away, or at least covered in a deep layer of fossil-bearing silt, by a global flood deep enough to cover the highest mountains in which almost every living thing perished, had it been a real event.

How these were discovered is the subject of an article in The Conversation by Jane McMahon, Research Associate, Discipline of Archaeology, University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Her article is reprinted here under a Creative Commons license, reformatted for stylistic consistency:

Refuting Creationism - More On The Oldest Cave Art From 41,200 Years Before Creation Week

The oldest known cave art

Leang Karampuang in the Maros-Pangkep karst,
South Sulawesi, Indonesia

Found in a cave in Indonesia, we can now show the world’s oldest figurative art is 51,200 years old

Just a couple of days ago I wrote about the oldest known cave art, in Indonesia from 41,200 years before Creationists believe the Universe existed. As expected, this news has been completely ignored by creationists, presumably through fear of having to consider the terrifying prospect of being wrong and so not as important as they like to think they are.

Here then is an article about the discovery from The Conversation by four of the authors of the paper in Nature from Australian Universities - Adhi Oktaviana, PhD Candidate in Archaeology, Griffith University; Adam Brumm, Professor of Archaeology, Griffith University; Maxime Aubert, Professor of Archaeological Science, Griffith University and Renaud Joannes-Boyau, Professor in Geochronology and Geochemistry, Southern Cross University.

Their article is reprinted under a Creative Commons license, reformatted for stylistic consistency:

Refuting Creationism - The Swamp Monster from 300 Million BCE

Fossil Gaiasia jennyae skull and spine

Credit: C. Marsicano.

Gaiasia jennyae (artist's impression)

Credit: Gabriel Lio

Giant salamander-like creature was a top predator in the ice age before the dinosaurs - Field Museum

Way back in the 99.9975% of Earth's history that occurred before creationism's legendary 'Creation Week' with its small, flat planet with a dome over it that Creationists think was the entire universe, there was something nasty lurking in the southern swamps.

It was some 300 million years before 'Creation Week' to be approximately precise and had already made it to the apex predator of its time, strongly suggesting there were other edible things roaming the same ancient swamps.

The creature, known to science as Gaiasia jennyae was a giant amphibian, a descendant of amphibians that had been extinct for 40 million years from a phylum that was to give rise to the reptiles and eventually the dinosaurs some 40 million years later.

As an amphibian, it would have been tied to water for reproduction as its eggs were fertilised externally in water and its larval form would have lived in water, probably breathing with gills, like the tadpoles of frogs, newts, toads and salamanders of today.

It's modus operandum appears to have been a slow ambush predator, laying in a swamp with its huge mouth open ready to snap up anything that came within range with interlocking jaws and the front of its mouth bristling with large, sharp teeth that gave its prey little chance of surviving. It's skull alone was over 2 feet long and the whole creature was larger than an adult human being.

Gaiasia was a stem tetrapod, in other words it was close to creatures that had evolved from Tiktaalik, the lobe-finned fish that first crawled onto land and would later evolve into the terrestrial tetrapod vertebrates, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals that comprise the world's larger land animals and several aquatic species that have returned to the water.

Refuting Creationism - Denisovans Survived In Tibet For 160,000 Years - 150,000 Of Them Before 'Creation Week'

Entrance to Baishiya Karst Cave.

Credit: Dongju Zhang’s group (Lanzhou University).

Excavations at Baishiya Karst Cave.

Credit: Dongju Zhang’s group (Lanzhou University).

Extinct humans survived on the Tibetan plateau for 160000 years - University of Reading

The problem with trying to cling to the daft notion that Earth is only 10,000 years old and that Homo sapiens didn't evolve but were magicked out of dirt without ancestors or biological relatives, is that science keeps on proving that idea wrong, by discovering other hominins and a history that occurred in that 99.9975% of Earth's history that happened before 10,000 years ago.

So, here is some more evidence for creationists to ignore, lie about or misrepresent. It concerns a population of archaic Eurasian hominin know to science as the Denisovans, which are yet to be given a definitive species name because too few remains have been discovered, other than their DNA.

Their DNA has been isolated from a finger bone discovered in the Denisova Cave in the Altai mountains of Siberia and it shows that they interbred both with Neanderthals and with early Homo sapiens as the latter spread across Asia into their range.