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Welcome to Defenders, the teaching class of Dr. William Lane Craig. Today the Doctrine of Man Part 15. For more information and resources from Dr. Craig, go to reasonablefaith.org
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welcome to Defenders class. Coming to you from my home office during this time of quarantine, I almost feel as though we should rename the class Defenders in Exile. But we're all doing well. Jan and I are well. In the midst of this time of sequestration, though, the COVID 19 virus has touched the Reasonable Faith family, One of our staff members in Oklahoma who is involved in this live stream of the Defender's class came down with the virus and has been feeling pretty crummy, but he's soldiering through and is actually helping with the livestream. This morning as we go out, I received a question on Facebook concerning last week's lesson that I thought worth addressing this morning. Before we move to the lesson today, someone said, why do you associate absolute brain size with increased cognitive capacity or intelligence? Aren't there other mammals, for example, elephants, that have much larger brains than human beings and yet they're not more intelligent than human beings? Well, the answer is that in hominins in particular, brain size is positively correlated with increased cognitive capacity and intelligence. With respect to other mammals who have larger brains than human beings like whales or or elephants, what is crucial here is to also consider not simply the absolute size, but what's called the encephalization quotient, which is a sort of ratio between brain size and body mass. And when you calculate that, you find that the encephalization quotient for whales and elephants is the very small, whereas for human beings it's somewhere around seven. So when you look at the so called EQ as well as the absolute brain size, this confirms that the increased brain size in hominins is positively correlated with an increase in cognitive capacity and intelligence. Now in our lesson last time, we saw that human beings, in the full sense of that word, originated on this planet somewhere between 1 million years ago at the earliest and 50,000 years ago at the very latest. By pushing these boundaries inward, if we can, we can try to determine more exactly the point of human origins. Now the key question to be answered here with respect to the top time of human origins is whether Neanderthals were human. Neanderthals lived in the Middle east and Europe between about 350,000 years ago down to 30,000 years ago. They lived in both warmer climates and then later through the Ice ages, they were shorter and wider than modern Homo sapiens. More like modern peoples who are adapted to the cold climate, such as the Inuit Indians. Here you see a slide that exhibits the anatomical similarities between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. And I think you can see that although there are certainly differences, these differences are not major. According to Stringer and Andrews in their book the Complete World of Human Evolution, and I quote, in response to their demanding and at times dangerous lives, the Neanderthal skeleton was strongly reinforced with thick bone, particularly in the shape and strength of the leg bones. Their physique has been described as combining that of a powerful wrestler with the endurance of a marathon runner. As we've seen, Neanderthals had a brain capacity equal to that of modern man. In the year 2010, scientists were able to reconstruct the complete Neanderthal genome from fossil remains and then to compare Neanderthal DNA with that of modern Homo sapiens. What they discovered is that Homo sapiens had interbred with Neanderthals over a very considerable time, and also with another ancient hominin called Denisovans. As a consequence, around 2% of the DNA from people today outside Africa is derived from Neanderthals. And oceanic populations have an additional 2 to 4% of their DNA from ancient Denisovans. The simple fact of interbreeding carries implications for the humanity of Neanderthals and Denisovans. They interacted repeatedly with anatomically modern human beings over tens of thousands of years. Such social and sexual intercourse plausibly requires communication and hence language. Kai Whiting comments, and I quote, it seems quite unreasonable to assume that all sexual encounters between the different Homo species were of the non consensual variety. It is much more likely that at least some of the instances of interbreeding between coexisting Homo species, including anatomically modern humans, were the result of communication and a degree of affection or appreciation. Regardless of the exact dynamics of sexual relations. We know for certain that some resulted in offspring that could claim kinship to more than one set of human species. And and we are descended from these people today. There is thus a strong presumption, I think, in favor of Neanderthals humanity. Let me home in now on just three archaeological discoveries that confirm this conclusion. Number one, the constructions in Brunekel cave in in France. In 2016, French archaeologists reported on strange circular constructions found deep inside Brunicel Cave in southwestern France. No humans had entered the cave since its natural closing in the Pleistocene epoch and its reopening in 1999, guaranteeing that the structures inside are undisturbed. The cave itself is a long snaking corridor 10 to 15 meters wide and 482 meters long. The structures are found in a room at the astonishing depth of of 336 meters from the cave entrance, which places them in complete darkness. They consist of about 400 whole or partial stalagmites with lengths of 34 cm for the long ones and 29 cm for the small ones. The pieces are arranged in two large rings and four smaller heaps. The two rings are composed of one to four stacked layers of aligned stalagmites. Traces of fire are to be found on all six structures. Uranium Ceres dating gives a reliable age of 176,000 years to these structures, making them among the oldest constructions made by man ever discovered. Neanderthals were the only humans living in Europe at that time. Jacques Joubert, the lead archaeologist at the site, comments on the significance of these constructions and I quote this type of construction implies the beginnings of a social organization. This organization could consist of a project that was designed and discussed by one or several individuals, a distribution of the tasks of choosing, collecting and calibrating the speleofacts or the stalagmites, followed by their transport and placement according to a predetermined plan. This work would also require adequate lighting. The complexity of the structure, combined with its difficult access 335 meters from the cave entrance are signs of a collective project and therefore suggest the existence of of an organized society that was already on the path to modernity. No one knows what would prompt these early humans to penetrate deep into the interior of a cave, torches in hand, to build such structures. Such activity may be token ritualistic or symbolic behavior, thus underlining the human status of the individuals involved. This is but one piece of evidence that we and Neanderthals are both members of the human family descended from Adam 2. The discovery of Neanderthal Art up until very recently, all of the prehistoric art discovered seemed to belong to Homo sapiens. Now, hand stencils have been identified at Maltrevisio Cave in Spain, along with other instances of non figurative paintings in La Pasillega Cave and Ardales Cave. Uranium thorium testing of calcium carbonate crusts overlying the hand stencil dated it to at least 66.7 thousand years ago and dated the paintings collectively at a minimum of 64.8 thousand years ago, predating the arrival of Homo sapiens in Europe by some 20,000 years. The implication therefore, is that the artists were Neanderthals. Reflecting on the significance of this finding, Hoffman and his colleagues, the lead excavators state, and I quote, this cave painting activity constitutes a symbolic behavior by definition and one that is deeply rooted at Adales. Distinct episodes over a period of more than 25,000 years corroborate that we are not dealing with a one off burst, but with a long tradition that may well stretch back to the time of the construction. Found in Brunical Cave, France, dated 176,000 years ago. Dating results for the excavation site at Cueva de los Aviones, Spain, which placed symbolic use of marine shells and mineral pigments by Neanderthals at more than 115,000 years ago, further support the antiquity of Neanderthal symbolism. Given that the use of imagery and representation in art is a signature of modern human behavior among Homo sapiens, it would be prejudicial to deny the humanity of the Neanderthal artists. The contemporaneous presence of similar cave art in both Spain and Indonesia, half the world away, implies an origin of symbolic behavior and hence humanity, which is vastly older still. 3 the Schrodingen Spears excavations during the 1990s at the site of an open pit coal mine near Groningen, Germany, unearthed eight remarkable wooden spears. The coal mine from which the spears were excavated has six sequences of multiple layers of sedimentary deposits. The spears were found in the fourth layer of the second sequence, the dated to the third interglacial period between 400,000 and 300,000 years ago. These spears aren't anything like the sticks that chimpanzees sharpen with their teeth and use to stick things. Rather, these are over six or seven foot long sculpted spears designed for throwing. And here you see some photographs of these spears. They've suffered severe deformations from the weight of the sedimentary layers overlying them over hundreds of thousands of years. The circumference of the first third of the sphere is greater than so that it tapers off toward the butt. As a result, most of the weight is forward to assist in throwing like a javelin. In fact, wooden reproductions of these spears have been made and tested for accuracy, distance and penetration by Olympic athletes and and these spears were found to be on a par with modern Olympic javelins. Hatmut Timme, the lead excavator at Schonagen, says, and I quote, found in association with stone tools and the butchered remains of more than 10 horses, the Spears strongly suggest that systematic hunting involving foresight, planning, and the use of appropriate technology was part of the behavioral repertoire of pre modern hominins. The mention of foresight and planning is especially significant since these are commonly thought to be indicative of of a truly human consciousness which is freed from the immediate here and now and can therefore imagine possibilities. Big game hunting, such as the hunters at Schonagan were engaged in, is a risky business which would have required cooperation and perhaps even language ability with which is uniquely human possible. Big game hunting has also been suggested at sites such as Box Grove and Clacton, England, the first 500,000 years ago and the latter 300,000 years ago. Clacton, a fragment of such a wooden spear was found. I'm persuaded that the Schoningen spears, along with the remains of Homo heidelbergensis, or Heidelberg man, at Box Grove, England, are enormously significant in demonstrating incredibly early modern cognitive behavior. The remains of Boxgrove from several rhinoceros and horse skeletons bear butchery marks from stone tools and microscopic analysis of the wear on stone scrapers from sites such as Clacton indicate that a number of these tools were used for hide scraping. Hides could then have been used for blankets, simple clothing cords for stitching or tying things together or carrying items. Homo heidelbergensis Heidelberg man, widely regarded as the ancestor of both Homo sapiens and Neanderthals, already then exhibits human behavior and modern cognitive capacity. In sum, humanity should not be thought to comprise only Homo sapiens. Rather, Neanderthals, too, exhibit the cognitive signs of human behavior and so should be regarded as part of the human family. Next time we'll see what implications this has for locating the historical atom. Until then, stay safe.
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The copyright for the preceding material is held by Dr. William Lane Craig. For more, go to reasonablefaith.org.