If creation is true, then humans have always been humans, complete with sophisticated speech,1 upright posture,2 and an amazing intellect thanks to our three-pound brain. It’s only 2% of our weight but uses 25% of our energy.
For many years, evidence has been found showing that humans were surprisingly intelligent in times that were only supposed to reveal simple, “primitive” man in his brute, evolving condition. This amazed and confounded evolutionists. Such discoveries include the amazing Antikythera mechanism discovered in 1901.3 This is the first known analogue computer and was dated somewhere between 100-200 BC. Other discoveries include…
a scientific study showing “40,000-year-old” cave paintings [that] indicate the use of complex astronomy. Scientists suggest that ancient peoples perfectly understood the effect caused by the gradual change in the Earth’s axis of rotation. The discovery of this phenomenon, called the precession of the equinoxes, was previously credited to the ancient Greeks.4
Additionally, ancient humans understood lunar timekeeping.
“It’s an obvious timepiece,” Anthony Aveni says of the moon. Aveni is a professor emeritus of astronomy and anthropology at Colgate University in Hamilton, N.Y., and a founder of the field of archaeoastronomy. “There is good evidence that [lunar timekeeping] was around as early as 25,000, 30,000, 35,000 years before the present.”5
It was recently reported that the skeletal remains of a person who had an obvious amputation was found in a limestone cave in Borneo. Prior to this discovery, the oldest evidence for amputation surgery was a 7,000-year-old skeleton of a male “Stone Age” farmer from France.
This current discovery is unique because the individual was a patient of a complicated medical procedure conducted many thousands of years earlier (according to evolutionary dating). It is “the earliest known evidence for a complex medical act, pre-dating other instances of stone age ‘operations’ found at sites across Eurasia by tens of thousands of years.”6
Scientists from the University of Sydney examined the healing of the legbone and determined that the surgical amputation was conducted when the patient was a child. Dr. Vlok of the University of Sydney said,
In fact, it was a huge surprise that this ancient forager survived a very serious and life-threatening childhood operation, that the wound healed to form a stump, and that they then lived for years in mountainous terrain with altered mobility—suggesting a high degree of community care...6
The article stated, “Scholars had assumed that humans lacked the expertise and technology to perform difficult procedures like surgical amputation, until tens of thousands of years later….”6 But creationists shouldn’t be surprised at this report. Humans have always been humans, blessed with an intellect and cognitive ability to conduct various procedures and technological feats. This is not due to any random evolutionary progression, but the innate, God-given ability given to mankind in Genesis.
References
1. Sherwin, F. God’s Gift of Speech. Creation Science Update. Posted on ICR.org September 8, 2022, accessed September 12, 2022.
2. Sherwin, F. Walking the Walk. Creation Science Update. Posted on ICR.org November, 1, 2006, accessed September 11, 2022.
3. Thomas, B. Ancient Computers? Creation Science Update. Posted on ICR.org August 12, 2008, accessed September 11, 2022.
4. Chris. Humans understood astronomy 40000 years ago, European caves provide proof. AncientArcheology. Posted on ancient-archeology.com March 25, 2021, accessed September 6, 2022. 5. Boyle, R. Ancient humans used the moon as a calendar in the sky. ScienceNews. Posted on sciencenews.org July 9, 2019, accessed September 8, 2022.
6. Staff Writer. Researchers find Earliest known Stone-Age Surgery From 31,000 Years Ago. HeritageDaily. Posted on heritagedaily.com September 8, 2019, accessed September 12, 2022.
*Dr. Sherwin is Research Scientist at the Institute for Creation Research. He earned an M.A. in invertebrate zoology from the University of Northern Colorado and received an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Pensacola Christian College.
