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2008
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What about the ‘Stone Age’?
This week’s feedback from TA of Delhi, India, came through our affiliated
website BiblicalGeology.net and is used with permission. TA’s inquiry was
about anthropology, archaeology and dating methods, and Dr Tas Walker replied by
email. Below is TA’s enquiry, an expanded version of Dr Walker’s reply,
and a very encouraging further email from TA in response to Dr Walker’s original
email reply.
Sir,
Thanks for all your articles; I really enjoyed them. I am an anthropology student.
May I ask how a creationist pre-historic archaeologist would date their findings,
within the stone ages, for example? As for the radiometric dating, you say it’s
invalid. I agree with your arguments. My question is when a creationist makes a
model how would we date it? I’ve read the creationist articles about the better
model for the Stone Age Part
1 &
Part 2 from the CMI website. It was insightful even though I don’t
seem to agree with everything in it.
TA
Sir,
Thanks for all your articles; I really enjoyed them.
Thank you, TA. Feel free to send links of articles you enjoy to friends who might
benefit from them. Feel free also to post links to relevant articles on any web
forums you are involved in.
I am an anthropology student.
Anthropology is an incredibly significant field of study for our understanding of man
and it has consequences on such issues as the value of human life, government, law,
ethics, etc. creation.com has many articles about
anthropology, archaeology,
and other relevant topics.
May I ask how a creationist pre-historic archaeologist would date their findings,
within the stone ages, for example?
The terms ‘creationist’ and ‘pre-historic’ do not go well
together. In some ways there is no such thing as ‘pre-history’ because
the Bible is a historical record that goes right back to Creation (see
‘colophons’). On the other hand, there have been places and
periods (e.g. Australia before Europeans came) when historical events were not recorded
in writing.
The key thing to realize is that the whole of science operates within a paradigm
and the paradigm is basically held together with the story about how everything
came to be. That story is essentially assumed to be true.
For the naturalistic paradigm the story begins with the big bang, and then there
is astronomical evolution, the formation of the earth 4.6 billion years ago, then
geological evolution, chemical evolution, biological evolution, human evolution,
cultural evolution etc. That is the story.
Basically the paradigm is a concept, a big idea. All the scientific
evidence is interpreted within that view. The paradigm is not proven; it is merely
assumed. It is like a huge network of ropes and wires with thousands of people working
on it, adding new wires, removing old ones, lengthening others, shortening some,
etc. Each researcher works on just their individual bit of the whole network and
what they do is constrained by what everyone else is doing.
Realize that there are other ways of looking at the same evidence. The biblical
paradigm is held together with the history recorded in the Bible. From the
chronogenealogies and other data in the Bible we can build a framework of
world history, starting with Creation in six days about 6,000 years ago, followed
by the Fall, pre-Flood civilization, the global Flood about 4,500 years ago,
the tower of Babel, the post-Flood dispersion, and other post-Flood history. Creationist
scientists assume the biblical paradigm as their way of understanding the evidence,
assuming this history is accurate.
Here are a few other articles about the effect of a persons’ paradigm on the
way they look at the world:
My amazing paradigm change,
Timing is everything, and
The walls of Jericho.
As for the radiometric dating, you say it’s invalid. I agree with your arguments.
Yes. Articles we have published demonstrating the problems with it can be found
listed under the topic Radiometric
Dating in our Frequently Asked Questions
index.
My question is when a creationist makes a model how would we date it?
Reliable historical records are indispensable to working out accurate timelines
of history, and the Bible is
supremely reliable in this regard.
In some ways there is no such thing as ‘pre-history’ because the Bible
is a historical record that goes right back to Creation.
There are many events that are recorded both in the Bible and in secular sources.
Such events are known as ‘synchronisms’, and synchronisms are used to
correlate biblical and secular chronological information (such as king lists etc.).
For examples of synchronisms, see Matching dates. More can be found by entering ‘synchronisms‘
in our search field. Archaeological evidence can thus be interpreted within a biblical
framework.
Unfortunately, historians long ago adopted an inaccurate framework of ancient history,
based on misinterpretation of Manetho’s king list. This has led to great difficulty
in reconciling much archaeological data. Over the last two decades several leading
secular scholars including David Rohl and Sir Colin Renfrew, have realised that
the accepted timeline of ancient history is over-extended by several hundred years,
and have begun calling for revision—see
Egyptian history and the biblical record: a perfect match? and
Carbon dating into the future. For a practical application of this to
Egyptian chronology, see Timing
is everything.
I’ve read the creationist articles about the better model for the Stone Age
Part 1 & Part 2
from the CMI website. It was insightful even though I don’t seem to agree
with everything in it.
TA
The idea of the Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age is an attempt to describe the
archaeological data within an evolutionary framework. It’s just an evolutionary
story about what they call pre-history, but it doesn’t really work because
it is not true.
If you read Genesis you will see that from the beginning people were familiar with
hunting, agriculture, nomadic life, cities, music, bronze and iron (Genesis 4:3–4, 17–22). That was before the Flood, and those
who built the Ark and survived the Flood, from whom we are all descended, were capable
of a high standard of culture and development.
Photo Wikipedia
We more or less reject the whole secular system of ‘Ages’ (Stone Age,
Bronze Age, etc.), and generally try to avoid using such terms, which we consider
misleading. Use of these terms subtly promotes the view that man evolved upwards
from apes to humans, and from cave-dwelling hunter-gatherers to farmers to modern
urbanites. The latest Creation magazine has an article about ‘The
people that forgot time’ (Creation 30(3):34–37,
2008). It shows that, contrary to the evolutionary scenario, people with a so-called
‘primitive’ lifestyle arrived there because they lost their shared knowledge
of culture and technology.
Some ancient peoples have been denigrated as ‘primitive’ because they
lived in caves and lacked advanced technology. In the aftermath of Babel, many groups
may have suffered material hardships, and been forced by circumstances to resort
to living in caves and using stone tools, as they separated from speakers of other
languages and spread out around the globe. Job may be describing some such people
in Job 30:3–8. But cave dwellers can be still be found
today, and with lifestyles that are far from ‘primitive’—consider
for example The amazing cave
people of Malta.
Learn all you can from your lecturers, tutors and text books. I’d encourage
you to start using the biblical paradigm for interpreting the information you are
learning. Begin with the big
picture and work out how your particular situation fits into it.
Do you subscribe to
Creation magazine and the
Journal of Creation? I would certainly recommend both of these.
All the best,
Tas Walker
Photo by José–Manuel Benito, Wikipedia
Microlith
Sir,
Thank you so much for your reply. Yes, you are right; framework really does matter.
This morning I read your message and thought about it the whole afternoon. Then
I read my archaeology text book. Before it has always passed my eyes it seems but
today I got it. In fact, the text book says that in the western part of India, Mesolithic
microliths co-exist together with copper and iron at more than two sites. Thank
you so much. I’m encouraged to think deeper and read more about it.
Sincerely,
TA
Related articles
Further reading
Recommended Resources
Published: 31 May 2008(GMT+10)
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