Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion General Science Discussion Forum What is a fossil?

On the news and also on the covering page for this forum there is news of the lately discovered Red Deer people of China, a seemingly unknown branch of human development- perhaps even a new species of hominid. What I find puzzling is that these remains are referred to as fossils. They are also said to date from 10,000-15,000 years ago.

How came these new discoveries are fossils? Discoveries of settlements etc, from this period are usually referred to as being archeology not palaeontology I thought.

Would discoveries even 15,000 years old have had time to truly fossilise? That is to turn to stone?

A long time ago I read that an object had to be more than 40,000 years old to me considered a fossil. I don't know how widely accepted that is, and I wouldn't know now where to look for the quote.

Turning to stone is not necessary. For example, insects in amber are fossils, as is the amber itself. Footprints, burrows etc are also fossils, and the fossils in our local Red Crag (Pleistocene) deposits are almost entirely calcite, which would have been the original material of the shells.

I think we are probably seeing an example of changing usage of language.

BTW, I've been referred to as a fossil, and I'm quite a long way short of 40,000.

Thanks for that explanation. I agree with the 40,000 reference. This grumpy old fossil thinks there is too much semantic shifting going on today!

Maybe I should have used the descriptor 'petrified' instead of 'turned to stone'. Those Red Creek bones would still be bone-like, as in the original substance, wouldn't they? Is there a discipline called palaeo-archeology, as that is what this seems like? Actually there should be if there isn't, it sounds impressive.

I am inclined to agree about the semantic shifting, it probably goes with the age. I find myself objecting to things such as "A person may do that if they wish", on the grounds that "a person" is singular, but "they" is plural. Then I have to acknowledge that I regularly use "you" as the 2nd person singular.

Getting back on track; I believe "petrified" and "turned to stone" have the same meaning.

Palaeo-archeology has a great ring to it, but I suspect that when Rev re-appears, as hopefully he will, he might complain that it is tautologous. Anyway, it sounds better than archeo-palaeontology.

I did toy with A--P, but decided P---A sounded better- perhaps because the reversal of alphabetical order adds an element of gravitas! After all the P in this case pre-dates the A!

I must argue with your idea that 'petrifies' means 'turned to stone'. Thanks to a sort of semantic shift the meaning of 'petrified' can also now include 'inaction due to terror'. On the other hand maybe that is indeed what happened to the Red Deer people! And- I still wonder if these bones are in fact fossils.

I too have been wondering about Rev and hope he is merely on holiday again, perhaps somewhere warm.

I agree about 'they'. It drives me mad. (However typing he/she every time is annoying.) Mainly though my biggest gibbering is induced by the misused apostrophe. I am really beginning to think that the red fruits in the salad really are tomatoe's. (The spell-check has gone OFF).

The Penguin Dictionary of Geology (1972, back in the days when I was dabbling) says: “Human artefacts are not regarded as fossils.” However, it does not seem to exclude human remains. It includes a section headed: “Fossil man”. No indication is given of an age limit.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Earth Sciences (1991) says: “….fossils are older than 10,000 years. I guess that definition includes the Red Deer Cave people.

Wiki agrees with the 10,000 age. It seems the 40,000 years has shrunk to 10,000. Time seems to go faster as one gets older, but that’s a bit extreme.

Certainly, all the fossils I have ever found were inactive, but I could not say with any conviction that this inactivity was brought about by terror.

BTW, Ellis, I see there is more palaeontological excitement in your part of the world. It seems the earliest discovered animal with skeletal parts was an Australian.

An interseting extract from New Scientist:

"Exactly where the Red Deer Cave people belong in our family tree is unclear. Curnoe says they could be related to some of the earliest members of our species (Homo sapiens), which evolved in Africa around 200,000 years ago and then spread across Asia to reach China. He prefers the idea that they represent a new evolutionary line that evolved in East Asia in parallel with our species, just as Neanderthals did – primarily because they look very different to early African members of our species.

There are other possible interpretations. Chris Stringer at the Natural History Museum in London, says their distinctive primitive features might suggest they are related to the enigmatic Denisovan people, known from a 30,000 to 50,000-year-old finger bone and tooth found in a Siberian cave.

We know that the Denisovans were living in East Asia, and from a DNA analysis, that they mated with our direct ancestors. The Red Deer Cave people, says Stringer, could even be the product of that mating."

I guess speculation will run wild, at least until they can successfully extract some viable DNA from the RDC remains.