tools like those discovered at the Lake Fezzan and River Awash sites have all been used by homo sapiens sapiens in modern and near-modern times, as well as the tendency to settlement. Why attribute them to H.E.? Have H.E. skeletal remains been found in association with the tool industries? Just what goes for H.E. remains these days, since "Java Man" turned out to be bogus?

richard dullum, Springfield, USA/ Missouri

Most animals have a favourite place or two to which they like to return. If HE liked a particular place, common sense would dictate that it would be made as comfortable and protected as possible. Rocks and stones are plentiful, why not use them? Over the years, they would accumulate and resemble permanent settlements but in reality were only seasonal stops along food trails. Let's face it, the less work you have to do, the longer you can rest so why not use these favourite places time and time again?

Jess, Gold Coast, Australia

Basing evidence of culture on artifacts and assuming that sedentary populations imply progress over nomadic culures is ethnocentic in the extreme. Nomadic cultures of the recent past have certainly possesed very high culture without leaving much in the way of artifacts that would withstand 400,000 years. The Masai, Australian Aborigini, Nomadic Central American Indians, plains indians, etc, all have high culture, yet leave little in the may of durable artifacts beyond cliff art. More significant is their impact on the environment. It is also presumtuous to assume that a nomadic lifestyle is a hard one. In most regions of the world, intact eco-systems afforded abundant food - particularly if your following a few million migratory animals. Does it surprise me that H. E. was intelligent - no. Does it surprise me that if life was good by a big lake, people stayed a while - no. Does it surprise me that when the lake dried up - they moved on and adopted a nomadic life style again - No.

San Diego, San diego, CA

What is evidence of intelligence? What makes us different from animals such as shimps. Building stone settlements surely is. Crafting tools surely is. Art and ritual surely is. Well it is proven that HE was already very interested in ochre long before this documentation of settlements of 400.000 years ago. The active mining of ochre for the past 80,000 years is highly indicative of a religious or spiritual sense for that entire time. The occurrence of ochre in Homo erectus sites as far back as 1.5 million years ago, would also argue for ritual among them. Red ochre mines are highly indicative of the ritual and spiritual lives of those who lived between 50 and 100 thousand years ago.
So to me it is clear that 400.000 is acceptable and that over 1 million years ago the species homo started developing intellect greater then our fellow mammals.

Philip, Leuven, Belgium

So simple, a caveman can do it.

Caveman, ,

They enjoyed the Roast Duck with Mango Salsa.

Doug, Bluefield, WV

What's a dictionary?

Fenton S. Lo, Toronto, Canada

The idea that ancient man was little more than a naked ape is obviously about to change. Man was man- intellectually, artistically and culturally from the outset. Mr. Edgar Cayce spoke of the "record in the rocks" , a method by which hamanity has chronicled its human-ness for over a million years. That record is still clearly evident on every stone, tool and mountainside that ancient man touched. Only the arrogance that cultural amnesia induces prevents us from seeing the truth about the sophistication of our most remote ancestors. Look closely at what remains- the simple brilliance of a chert scraper puts our clumsy "modern" tools to shame- not to mention the portraiture, the writing, the scenes of daily life and love, and, yes, of cities and settlements which are inscribed beautifully on the stones with which we pave our streets. Check it for yourself, if you have eyes that see.

B. Ash, Springtown, USA, Texas

Keep in mind that there has been proof that we sometimes find more advanced cultures underneath primitive ones. These great civilizations can break down sending the inhabitance back to a more primitive way of life. So you can find evidence of irrigation, sophisticated tool etc. in more ancient settlements.

Elwood, Steling, Virginia USA

What's a palimpsest?

ed, London,

Science has yet to really take a serious look at Homo Erectus. They accomplished many things, such as spears, travel across large bodies of water, etc. Now we find them settling down to live. And they did all this hundreds of thousands of years ago; long before homo sapiens ever came along.

Wake up people, they were a lot smarter than you thought.

Tom, Cedar City, Utah, USA

Clearly, evidence of a settled life is countered as being evidence of a nomadic life. It is a generalisation to say that all 'ancestors' were nomadic but how can it be proved otherwise? You would need to find a daily diary of someone writing, "Can it really be a whole year that I've been hanging around here?" [hmm..]; or find the bones of a long-lived cripple who could not have lived a nomadic life. Besides that are the semantics of what being 'settled' means.

Mike Curtis, London, UK

It always seemed logical to me that for civilization to have begun 10,000 years ago there would have to be an evolutionary process involved. Groups don't change their way of life radically overnight. One idea begets another, etc. So I have always expected that there would have to be attempts or experiments with permanent settlements long before 8k b.c.e. For archaeologists to say this is a quantum leap in their thinking makes me wonder if they've been thinking at all...

doo, Newhon,

"Rise of man theory ‘out by 400,000 years’"

Thats pretty accurate, considering the difference in distances of planets and gallaxies in our universe are gizzilion light years apart. Which has nothing to do with this story, however, it does make archaeologist look good.

Confused, Sand, ____istan

Perhaps the creationists you think are up in arms are actually enjoying this. It likely supports dating system errors, rather than changing our view of when humans began to walk the earth.

Richard, Atlanta,

It far from disproves any "loony" creationist theories. It is just another example of conclusions being jumped on by the scientific commuity and theories which were supposed to be settled yet again being shifted when new things come to light. The point is that noone knows for sure what happened, as it is all about extrapolating the data. Unfortunately, the majority of scientists have a pre-existing paradigm to fit this in, namely that man evolved millions of years ago, and they interpret the data accordingly, regardless of other facts. As for the issue of dating and time, radiometric dating has been shown to be so flawed (see rocks from Mt. Helena) that the time frames being suggested are irrelevant, and are merely based on dates already assumed for so-called homo erectus. Its already old news.

David Filmer, Lytham,

Cheer up, Edo!

Keith Harding, Perth, Western Australia, Australia

Its quite possible that H.E. adopted a sedentary lifestyle in an area of abundant resources. Why not? We have plenty of evidence for that among the h/g peoples of the Northwest coast of North America so why not in other places at other times? I've always thought that the hardline split between H.E. and H.S. was more true in theory than fact. Gradual evolution of humans would seem to argue for a time when H.E. began exhibiting characteristics later florescing in H.S.S. I'm excited by this new take on human evolution- its what keeps the field fun!

Dr. Anthony Crow, Ellensburg, USA

Simply more of the prolific evidence of the complete in-breeding cycle of educators. So deeply engrossed in matters quite trivial to the realities of our day.

DR Hartman, Wichita, Kansas

I am a lawyer, not a scientist. However, I have been perplexed by the idea that early man stopped being nomadic 10,000 years ago. It seems to fast.

I have assumed that early nomads came across environments that provided for their needs. They remained in those areas because of the comparative comfort of a fixed abode ( versus travelling). A dwelling would allow them to accumulate possessions and, over time, non-nomadic skills. These skills come from observations, trial and error and insights. They require lots of time. Look how l

My supposition is that nomads settled down, learnt much about their area, observed different types of vegetation and gradually developed farming skills.

It is only in recent times (250 years) that there has been a rapid accumulation of widely held knowledge and skills. The Industrial Revolution only began 250 years ago. Thus, I conclude that the earliest skills and knowledge were developed very slowly over centuries.

400,000 years sounds credible

Robert James, Sydney, Australia

New data, new theories, unresolved clarity.

When will the grave robbers (archaeologists) stop and wait for advanced exploration techniques and a better knowledge framework? By the time we get the technology that can do non-invasive and pin-point perfection on the data there will be nothing left to look at because it will have been violated by the Schliermans of modern archaeology who consider themselves erudite academicians.

Professors, in forum, in books and in classroom are all about self-promotion and primacy of ideas. Not surprising they disagree. Their entire rasion d'etat is based on it.

Juancho Panza, Orlando, FL

@ Edo
Blah, Blah, Blah. Every time there is an interesting article about some historical or social construct of mankind there is inevitably some off topic post-teen angst/emo garbage posting by someone like you. If our race is so terrible and without redemption to you, kindly remove yourself from it.

Jeremy, Upstate, New York

Keeping your eye on the ball can be difficult when succesive generations of would-be PhD's contrive the 'look at me' event. Remember grade school, always Jonny something waving his hand and capturing our collective admiration, it still goes on.

wpo, warsaw, n.y.

Yes Salazar, he is suggesting agriculture. With agriculture in place, they would no longer be hunter-gatherers entirely. Hunter-gatherers followed their prey as the season changes.

Ralph, Miami, FL

I dont know if I believe "constant harvest" to represent agriculture ... its also possible that the "harvest" being referred to was the harvest of fish and other marine creatures ... although I could be mistaken.

I would also have difficulty believing "agricultural harvest."

Colin Doody, Lynnfield, MA

Rather good that this is even more evidence to screw up the loony creationist theorists - I wonder what they'll have to say?

Groucheaux, toulouse, france

it is entirely feasible for a hunter-gatherer community to have a fixed base in an area of plentiful basic needs. It is not necessarily commensurate with nomadic. It is also feasible that small pockets of social evolution preceded the general explosion.

I am surprised our 10,000 year creationist brethren are not already taking up arms about this.

Chris Brandon, Welwyn, uk

When are intelligent humans finally going to appear?

A million years of internecine war, and little real change.

Our gullibility appeasr to be our fatal flaw.

Only the weapons change.

Not us.

Edo Van Ede, Dordrecht, The Netherlands

With the finding of other artifacts of an artistic nature, stones with some crude designs scratched on them, I'm not surprised that the intellectual capabilities of Homo erectus has been upgraded.
That they lived in permanent or seasonal dwellings is not a surprise either, if a location is abundant in food and drinking water year round why move? And if there are seasonal periods that require a move to winter hunting grounds then why not return to the same proven location in the spring?
Still the phrase "constant harvest", is he suggesting agriculture? I don't buy that.
There is enough evidence to suggest that a hunter gather life if in an abundant area could provide enough leisure time for creative or social pursuits. I speak of a temple recently found in turkey that pre-dated agriculture and seemed to be dedicated to a hunting life style.

Ray Salazar, Seattle,