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Humans Walked On Modern Feet 1.5 Million Years Ago, Fossil Footprints Show Date: February 27, 2009. To ensure that comparisons made with modern human and other fossil hominid footprints were. The party had already discovered several fossils of trilobites when Meister split open a two-inch-thick slab of rock with his hammer and discovered the outrageous print. The rock fell open “like a book,” revealing on one side the footprint of a human with trilobites right in the footprint itself.
June 17, 1986, Page 00003 The New York Times Archives IN a new analysis of giant fossil footprints in a Texas riverbed, paleontologists have concluded that there is no evidence of human prints mingled with those of dinosaurs. The finding, they said, undermines a key argument advanced by religious fundamentalists who have cited the 'man tracks' as scientific evidence of a relatively recent, divine creation of life on earth, in keeping with a literal interpretation of the Bible. But the discovery has left paleontologists mystified anew about an important aspect of dinosaur behavior: the way they walked. Scientists called the discovery an 'exciting development' in their running dispute with those fundamentalists, known as scientific creationists, who argue that the biblical account of creation should be taught in schools on an equal basis with the Darwinian theory of evolution. Confronted with these findings, a leader of the scientific creationists conceded that the tracks could no longer be 'regarded as unquestionably human.' ' A movie incorporating the disputed tracks, 'Footprints in Stone,' produced by the Films for Christ Association, has been withdrawn from circulation as a document in support of divine creation. 5-Year Investigation What specialists in dinosaur studies have reported finding are clear traces of dinosaur toes associated with the so-called 'man tracks' along the Paluxy River near Glen Rose, Tex., southwest of Fort Worth.
The discovery was described by scientists who visited the site early this month and reviewed the results of a five-year investigation of the tracks by Glen J. Kuban, an expert on dinosaur footprints. An accumulation of fossil and geologic evidence has led scientists to conclude that the earth is 4.5 billion years old and that dinosaurs inhabited the world for some 160 million years, becoming extinct 65 million years ago. Fossil discoveries in Africa indicate that early human ancestors appeared about three million years ago. But the Paluxy River tracks, which were known of for decades, had posed a problem for scientists.
The tracks were indeed humanlike. Each print is elongated, about 15 to 20 inches in length, and ends with an apparent round heel. The toes are missing or indistinct, however, and this made it impossible to reach any satisfactory identification. The identified dinosaur prints in the same sediments have the distinctive three long digits, resembling the feet of huge birds.
Toe Impressions Unnoticed Then along came Mr. Kuban, a computer programmer from Brunswick, Ohio, who majored in biology in college and has become an experienced student of dinosaur tracks. In 1980 he began to re-examine the Paluxy tracks in question, finding some faint impressions of toes that had gone largely unnoticed. Two summers ago, pursuing the investigation, Mr. Kuban said he found evidence that 'practically jumped out at you.' Hastings, a high school science teacher from Waxahachie, Tex., made a similar discovery at about the same time.
Almost every one of the alleged human tracks, they found, was accompanied by distinct colorations in the rock that, upon detailed analysis, revealed the pattern of dinosaurian digits. The colorations ranged from blue-gray to rust, in contrast to the ivory to tan color of the surrounding limestone bearing the rest of the fossil footprint. Kuban and scientists who had a look, this suggested that the digit impressions were somehow filled in with sediments different from those in the rest of the track. These sediments later hardened to rock. This phenomenon presumably went undetected until exposure to air and flood waters from the river eroded the surface and contributed to oxidation processes. Kuban said a careful re-examination of color pictures taken by creationist investigators and used as a basis for their arguments revealed that some traces of the coloration and some actual impressions had been detectable all along. He said this tended to rule out the possibility of some kind of hoax.
In an article in the current issue of Creation/Evolution, a publication of the American Humanist Association, Mr. Kuban wrote, 'I have concluded that no genuine human tracks have been found in the Paluxy riverbed.'
Kuban also presented his findings to scientists two weeks ago at the First International Conference on Dinosaur Tracks, held at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History in Albuquerque. Bakker, a paleontologist at the University of Colorado Museum at Boulder, said scientists are now agreeing with Mr. Kuban's interpretations. David Gillette of the New Mexico Museum reported finding similar tracks with an almost identical coloration phenomenon at a site near Clayton, N.M.
Advertisement 'This strengthens our confidence that Kuban has correctly interpreted these footprints,' said James O. Farlow, a paleontologist at Fort Wayne campus of Indiana University. 'This is an exciting development.' ' Locomotion Is Debated For some time, paleontologists had withheld an endorsement of Mr. Kuban's interpretation because it went against the traditional view of how bipedal dinosaurs walked. It was assumed, based on the preponderance of footprint evidence, that they almost always walked in the digitigrade fashion - on their toes.
Many of the Paluxy tracks were, indeed, the more familiar three-toed birdlike prints. But many of those that resembled human prints, Mr. Kuban decided, must have been made by dinosaurs that on occasion placed the full weight of the soles of their feet on the ground, creating the elongated impressions.
Kuban nor the paleontologists could determine what species of dinosaurs were responsible for the disputed Paluxy tracks. They could not be sure whether the more flat-footed tracks represent a regular type of locomotion for some dinosaurs or merely occasional or aberrant behavior. Some other alleged human footprints, Mr. Kuban said, appeared to be the result of erosional distortions, natural irregularities in the rock or perhaps the impressions left by dinosaurs dragging their tails or pressing their snouts to the ground while feeding. Creationists Accept Report After several creationist leaders visited the site, at the invitation of Mr.
Kuban and Dr. Hastings, John D.
Morris of the Institute for Creation Research at El Cajon, Calif., acknowledged in an article that none of the tracks 'can be today regarded as unquestionably human.' ' He also wrote, 'It would now be improper for creationists to use the Paluxy data as evidence against evolution.'
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' Several scientists who discussed the discovery emphasized that their work should not be viewed as an attack on religion. 'A majority of the people at the dinosaur track conference are devout Christians,' said Dr. In an 'afterword' to his article in the Creation/Evolution magazine, Mr. Kuban wrote: 'I am a Christian and believe in the Creator but have not yet formed definite conclusions about some aspects of the origins controversy, such as the exact age of the earth or the limits to biological change. I chose to publish my research in Creation/Evolution not to attack creationism but to help set the record straight on the true nature of the Paluxy evidence.'