Re: Do fossils lie?

Peter Jason <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Has anyone considered that fossils in the ground may deform over time so
>leading to erroneous conclusions.  The human fossil record depends heavily
>on the subtle shapes of crania etc and this record may be all wrong if
>ground water and earth shifts leach and deform shapes.

Deformations tend to apply to the whole fossil and have a
pattern that, in computer simulation, can be subtracted
from the whole fossil.  The subtle shapes that paleo-
anthropologists argue about are not typical deformations.

Researchers' conclusions about human fossils may be wrong,
but not because the researchers have failed to consider
deformation.

        Una Smith

Los Alamos National Laboratory, MS K-710, Los Alamos, NM  87545
-- 
        Una Smith

Los Alamos National Laboratory, MS K-710, Los Alamos, NM  87545