Is This Your ANCESTOR?
Java Man?
Neanderthal
Piltdown Man?
Zinjanthropus?
Cro-Magnon Man?
In 1912 Charles Dawson, together with Sir Arthur Keith, found a skull and later a
jawbone. When this expedition was joined by Teilhard de Chardin of France, he
announced discovery of a tooth. From these pieces they constructed what they
called an ape-man and named him Piltdown man because the fragments had
been picked up in a shallow quarry near Piltdown in England. For 41 years the
scientific community, almost without exception, accepted this reconstruction as a
genuine missing link. In 1953 John Winer and Samuel Oakley conducted tests
on the reconstruction and discovered it was a hoax. The jaw which belonged to a
chimpanzee had been stained and the teeth filed. It is not known who was to
blame for the hoax, but Dawson, the only non-expert in the group, received the
blame. More recent investigation points to Chardin as the real culprit. Although
acknowledged as a hoax since 1953, many textbooks still picture Piltdown man as
a genuine missing link.
JAVA MAN
About 1800 E. Dubois, a surgeon from Holland, went to Sumatra for the express
purpose of finding a missing link because he thought this was a likely area. He
found a skullcap and later, a few feet distant, a femur. He reconstructed this
into what he claimed was a missing link and named it Pithecanthropus which
means ape-man. Two human skulls discovered in the area were not reported
and he kept these hidden in his home for nearly 20 years. In 1907 a group of
German paleontologists, wishing to confirm this discovery, conducted the Selenka-
Trinil expedition. They discovered Pithecanthropus was a hoax and in 1936 Dubois
himself admitted it was not an ape-man. In spite of this confession, many people
today accept Pithecanthropus as genuine, and in most science textbooks you
will find Java man listed as a missing link between ape and man.
PEKING MAN
In the 1930’s Franz Weidenreich and Teilhard de Chardin claimed to have found a
missing link near Peking in China. Supposedly they found it near a limestone kiln.
A Catholic priest in China who visited this kiln, claims Peking man is also a hoax.
The skulls with holes through which the brains had been extracted were aid to be
those of cannibals, but Msgr. O’ Connell learned they really belonged to monkeys.
The humans who operated the kiln had killed the monkeys and eaten their brains.
These bones were supposedly lost during World War II, but recent reports claim
their whereabouts are known. Many textbooks depict Peking man as a link in
man’s evolution.
NEANDERTHAL MAN
In Europe numerous skeletons were found in caves. Because of their stooped
posture, Neanderthals were considered to be an intermediary from – half ape and
half man, with stooped posture. Neanderthal skeletons have been found in
various parts of the world, even in Palestine, in a cave at Mt. Carmel. Many of
them indicted an erect posture which led to a study of the stooped skeletons.
It was learned their owners had suffered from arthritis, not an uncommon ailment
of people who must live in damp caves. Neanderthal is truly human, possessing a
larger brain than modern man. Dressed in modern clothing, Neanderthal could
pass unnoticed in any American city.
CRO-MAGNON MAN
Other cave people possessing intelligence were the Cro-Magnon people. On the
average, their brain size was larger than that of modern man. His skill extended
to drawing artistic line pictures. Both Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon may have
lived either prior to the Noahic flood or following the flood.
ZINJANTHROPUS
In 1959 Dr. Louis B. Leaky, son of an Anglican clergyman in Africa, claimed he had found a new skull. Its 400 fragments were constructed to represent an ape-man. Carbon-14 dating revealed an age of only about 10,000 years. Dating the rocks in which the fragments had been found, using the Potassium-Argon method, an age of 1,750,000 years was achieved. Later Dr. Leakey found a child’s skeleton nearby and 10 inches below the level of Zinjanthropus, which seemed to be more advanced. Before he died in September of 1972, Dr. Leakey said the Zinjanthropus skullcap he had found in 1959 was altogether ape.
DEGENERATION
These so-called prehistoric, missing link skulls do not indicate an upward
development, but rather a degeneration. They confirm that civilizations in Africa
and China were degeneration from a previous Mid-East civilization, the home or
original man.
SIN
This emerging picture is in harmony with the creation account as recorded in
Scripture. God created man and woman in perfection, and all of nature in
perfection, and expected His creation to remain perfect. When Adam and Eve
disobeyed God and ate of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, the process
of degeneration began and has continued to this day. Adam’s lifespan was 930
years and today the average is only about 70 years.
SOLUTION
Nothing or no one in this universe can permanently reverse this trend toward
degeneration or remove the basic cause, which is human sin. Only Jesus Christ
who can offer His perfection as God and His life as a man, can redeem the fallen
race of mankind and thereby also benefit nature.
CHALLENGE
Do you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior from sin? Or do you prefer to believe
in a gradual improvement of the human race despite hoaxes and frauds which
cannot be confirmed? Would you not rather accept the Word of One who can give
you hope in this world and offer you a blissful life in eternity? You have the choice
– you may reject the salvation which Jesus Christ offers, but we hope that you
will not reject your only hope for eternal salvation.
BIBLE – SCIENCE ASSOCIATION, INC.