Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal: African skull found in Africa: Israel

Thursday, January 29, 2015

African skull found in Africa: Israel

Pat Mapcherson, Pfc. Sandoval, Sheldon S., Wisdom Quaterly; Malcolm Ritter (Associated Press and The Washington Post contributed to this report, Jan. 29, 2015, via Denver Post)

Dr. Omry Barzilai holds a skull named Manot. It was found inside a cave in northern Israel, which is in Africa but which is not called Africa by propagandists who prefer to call it "the geopolitical Middle East" (Dan Balilty/AP).

We don't want Africans in our homeland.

NEW YORK - Long ago, humans left their evolutionary cradle in Africa and passed through [Northern Africa and] the Middle East [toward] Europe. Now scientists have found the first fossil remains that appear to document that journey, a partial skull from an Israeli cave [in Palestine].

Satellite shows that Israel/Palestine are part of Africa.

The skull, named Manot, dates from about 55,000 years ago, fitting into the period when scientists had thought the [southern or central African] migrants inhabited the area. Details of its anatomy resemble ancient skulls from Europe, wrote Israel Hershkovitz of Tel Aviv University in an e-mail.

[Why "Manot"? Is it the first Man? No, Manot (Hebrew, מָנוֹת, literally "Portions") is a moshav in northern Israel/Palestine. It is located near Shlomi and it falls under the jurisdiction of Ma'ale Yosef Regional Council. In 2006 it had a population of 360 occupiers. It was "established" in 1980 by residents of other local moshavim with assistance from the Jewish Agency (aka the "Palestine Zionist Executive"). It was named after the ruins of a settlement in the area, also called Manot.]

He and others presented the finding in a paper released Wednesday by the journal Nature. The skull, which lacks facial features and its base, was found in Manot Cave in the Galilee region of northern Israel [upper Palestine near Lebanon and Syria].

Israel's lines in the sand: African borders

The migrants are called modern humans because of their anatomy. The earliest remains of modern humans in Europe date to about 45,000 years ago.

Experts not connected with the work were impressed. "This is the first evidence we have of the humans who made this journey," apart from some ancient tools, said Eric Delson of Lehman College and the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Although finding a fossil that fits so well with what was thought about the ancient migration might be expected, "we didn't have it before," he said.

"We could predict theoretically what we would find. They've found it....Up until now, that was a ghost."

Katerina Harvati of the University of Tuebingin in Germany said the skull gives clues about the anatomy of the migrants. Because Neanderthals were known to inhabit the area, the skull also documents that they and modern humans co-existed there, as suspected, Harvati said.

Political map of N. Africa

That supports the idea that Neanderthals and modern humans interbred there, experts said. Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in London wrote in an e-mail that the skull is the first fossil of a modern human from western Asia [Afro-Asiatic] that is well-dated to the estimated time of the interbreeding, about 50,000 to 60,000 years ago.

If the researchers can analyze the skull's DNA, they could determine whether Manot was actually a hybrid -- the result of interbreeding -- or just lived in close proximity to these extinct relatives of ours. More