Posted by Al; on March 14, 1999 at 05:59:34 {MWbp7CDcBo4Qg}:
Get the latest Archaeological reference you can find. Here are some of the interesting facts you will see.
The Dead Sea Scrolls revealed that Exodus and Samuel (including first and second)had been substantially changed, including in content. Analysis of the Scrolls caused scholars to conclude that the canon of the Hebrew scriptures was not determined until 100 C.E.. Prior to the Scrolls the oldest manuscripts dated to 1000 C.E.
There are several types of absolute dating methods besides Radiocarbon, Potassium-Argon, Uranium-Lead, Rubidium-Strontium, Thermoluminescence and Tree-ring dating. There is also Archaeopaleomagneic Dating, Obsidian Hydration dating, and Fission Tracking. At this point in time they have developed specialized instruments to perform these tests. Many of the procedures are very inexpensive.
Thermoluminescence can can man type of object but can also date sediment of many types. It extends from a century or two to 100,000 years or so.
Tree-ring dating not only counts the rings, but measures intra-annual growth bands, density,trace element content, and stable isotope composition. Each area of the world builds up sort of a library of local tree- ring measurements. The western United States alone has over 50,000 measurements on record. In Northern Europe tree ring chronology alone can go back 10,000 years.
If you saw photographs, not drawings of the many skull finds, with people holding them, people in the scene, you would recognize that there are many primates that were neither modern man nor ape. There are many largely complet skulls. Tools have been found in abundance even with those with smaller brain casings. Massive fireplaces have been found with others, obviously used for long periods of time.
The ability to cross-check dating methods takes beyond random error or coincidence. The number of finds are in the hundreds of thousands now.
There are many unknowns in science. The above data is not among them. These are not guesses. If you were looking for a restaurant and couldn't find it, finally giving up and going home, would that prove that the restaurant is
actually located on the moon, and that is why you couldn't find it? Oh, maybe! It's all a matter of opinion, right?
Al