Homo Sapiens, Creation, & Atlantis

AS always, do your research:

 

Edgar Cayce (Credit: Edgar Cayce’s Association for Research and Enlightenment, Author provided)

Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), founder of Steiner School system of education

Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), founder of Steiner School system of education

( Public Domain )

On Creator Gods

As intriguing as all this was however, my investigative mind kept drawing me back to the mystery of androgynous creator gods – the first beings, who were considered the architects of humanity, who inhabited genderless androgynous forms back in deep antiquity. Let’s turn to Edgar Cayce scholar W. H. Church to help us understand what is meant by this.

“In what we may term it’s primitive or pre-Atlantean phase, before the emergence of its first mighty rulers, in the days of Poseidon and Atlas, or the enlightened reign of Amilius, at what was to become the all-time zenith of Atlantean civilization, the new continent was being busily colonized. Already it promised to become what Cayce would call the “Eden of the world”, and home to a most unusual race of androgynous soul beings…In Hindu mythology, the seed of our present human race were sons of God, who, during the root race associated with the Atlantean epoch, had devolved into semi-divine, androgynous beings, self-imprisoned in bodies, that had physiologically changed, becoming human in appearance. In this form, they began taking unto themselves wives who were indeed fully human in appearance and fair to gaze upon.” (3)

This description is very reminiscent of the Biblical story of the Nephilim who took on human wives. Indeed, the Bible clearly speaks of Giants, six fingers and toes, androgynous creator gods and a great flood.

Church continues,

 “In the early days of Amilius rule, the separation of the sexes had not yet begun to take place. Though male in their outward aspect, the androgynous sons of God embodied within themselves the nature of both male and female in one person. By turning to the creative forces, they could become channels to bring into being androgynous progeny after their own kind imbued with a double soul and a double sexed body. In this way, sexual intercourse was unnecessary as a means of propagation.”( 4)

While life without sex doesn’t seem like much fun, it points to a supernatural origin for humanity, an idea shared by many ancient cultures worldwide. The “miraculous birth theme” or humans being made from clay or on a potter’s wheel recurs throughout world religions and mythologies. Examples are to be found in Genesis, the Qur’an, and Egyptian, Greek, Sumerian, Inca, Chinese and some Native American mythologies.

Androgynous beings Khnum and Thoth create humans on a potter’s wheel

Androgynous beings Khnum and Thoth create humans on a potter’s wheel ( CC BY-SA 3.0

Many of these creators are described as androgynous like the Egyptian god Khnum. Khnum is depicted on a relief at Esna creating humans on a potter’s wheel while the androgynous Thoth writes the years the humans will live behind him. Interestingly the Temple of Esna was dedicated to an anonymous androgynous creator god and androgynous Khnum is depicted with six fingers.

Six Fingered androgynous Khnum, Temple of Esna, Egypt. (Author provided)

Several professionals have been exploring this strange case as well. In the Israel Exploration Journal, Volume 57, 2007, Irit Ziffer explores the idea of androgynous creator deities in his thought-provoking paper, “The first Adam, Androgyny and the Ain Ghazal two-headed busts.” Ain Ghazal is an ancient site in Jordan dated to roughly 8250 BC where some of the world’s most ancient statues were unearthed several decades ago.

Androgynous two-headed statues from Ain Ghazal.

Androgynous two-headed statues from Ain Ghazal. ( CC BY-SA 4.0 )

 Ziffer makes a strong case that the two-headed statues represent androgynous creator deities. Another curious twist is that some of the statues have six fingers and toes, famously associated with the Biblical giant of Gath.

Six toed foot from Ain Ghazal Statue. Source Richard D. Barnett, Polydactylism in the Ancient World, Biblical Archaeology Review May/June 1990.

Six toed foot from Ain Ghazal Statue. Source Richard D. Barnett, Polydactylism in the Ancient World, Biblical Archaeology Review May/June 1990.  (Author provided)

Ziffer explains, “Schmandt-Besserat  proposed that the Ain Ghazal statues represented deities, She accounted for the polydactilism (a rare genetic syndrome) of the statues as a divine attribute, and, based on cuneiform literature, identifies the two-headed busts as the likes of the gods Marduk (according to the Epic of Creation, ‘four were his eyes, four were his ears’; Dalley 1991: 236) and Ishtar (‘Ishtar of Nineveh is Tiamat… she has [4 eyes] and 4 ears’; Livingstone 1986: 223; Schmandt-Besserat 1998a: 10–15).

The four eyes and four ears may stand for a doubled face. Barnett WHO (1986: 116; 1986–87; 1990) explained the polydactilism of the ªAin Ghazal statues as a mark of supernatural entities, such as the biblical Rephaim, a race of giants: ‘There was a giant of a man, who had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, twenty-four in all; he too was descended from the Rapha (single form of Rephaim). When he taunted Israel, Jonathan, the son of David’s brother Shimei, killed him’ (2 Sam. 21:20–21).”

Thus, the prototype androgynous human, containing both sexes, was defined through the two-headed person, claims Ziffer. What we have here is quite stunning, some of the oldest statues ever discovered represent a worship cult of deities who were androgynous and possessed six fingers and toes. Remember, the statues of Ain Ghazal are over 8000 years older than the Bible.

Top image: Edgar Cayce (Credit: Edgar Cayce’s Association for Research and Enlightenment, Author provided)

By Jim Vieira

from:    https://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/edgar-cayce-six-fingered-giants-and-supernatural-creation-gods-atlantis-part-1-008859

New Look at Human Origins

What We Learned About Human Origins in 2013

Charles Q. Choi, LiveScience Contributor   |   December 28, 2013
The 1.8-million-year-old skull unearthed in Dmanisi, Georgia, suggests the earliest members of the <em>Homo</em> genus belonged to the same species, say scientists in a paper published Oct. 18, 2013 in the journal Science.
 The 1.8-million-year-old skull unearthed in Dmanisi, Georgia, suggests the earliest members of the Homo genus belonged to the same species, say scientists in a paper published Oct. 18, 2013 in the journal Science.
Credit: Photo courtesy of Georgian National Museum

The existence of a mysterious ancient human lineage and the possibility that the earliest humans were actually all one species were among the human-evolution-related discoveries of 2013. Other breakthroughs include the sequencing of the oldest human DNA yet.

Here’s a look at what scientists learned about humanity and human origins this year:

Mystery lineage

Recent analyses of fossil DNA have revealed that modern humans occasionally had sex and produced offspring not only with Neanderthals but also with Denisovans, a relatively newfound lineage whose genetic signature apparently extended from Siberia to the Pacific islands of Oceania.

This year, hints began emerging that another mystery human lineage was part of this genetic mix as well. Now, the first high-quality genome sequence from a Neanderthal has confirmed those suspicions.

These findings come from Denisova Cave in southern Siberia, where the first evidence of Denisovans was discovered in 2008. To learn more about the Denisovans, scientists examined DNA from a toe bone unearthed there in 2010.

The researchers found that the fossil belonged to a Neanderthal woman. Her DNA helped refine the human family tree, as it revealed that about 1.5 to 2.1 percent of the DNA of modern people outside Africa is Neanderthal in origin, whereas about 0.2 percent of DNA of mainland Asians and Native Americans is Denisovan in origin.

The scientists also discovered that the Denisovans interbred with an unknown human lineage, getting as much as 2.7 to 5.8 percent of their genomes from it. This newfound relative apparently split from the ancestors of all modern humans, Neanderthals and Denisovans between 4 million and 900,000 years ago, before these latter groups started diverging from each other. It’s possible that this mysterious lineage could even be Homo erectus, the earliest known undisputed predecessor of modern humans. However, there are no signs that this unknown group interbred with modern humans or Neanderthals.

Genetic analysis also revealed that the parents of this Neanderthal woman were closely related — possibly half-siblings, or another close relative. (Inbreeding may have been common among early humans — it remains uncertain as to whether it was some kind of cultural practice or whether it was unavoidable due to small community populations at the time.)

Researchers have discovered a 1.42-million-year-old hand fossil that possesses the styloid process, a vital anatomical feature that allows the hand to lock into the wrist bones, giving humans the ability to make and use complex tools. Researchers have discovered a 1.42-million-year-old hand fossil that possesses the styloid process, a vital anatomical feature that allows the hand to lock into the wrist bones, giving humans the ability to make and use complex tools.
Credit: University of Missouri

Were earliest humans all one species?

Modern humans, Homo sapiens, are the only living member of the human lineage, Homo, which is thought to have arisen in Africa about 2 million years ago at the beginning of the Ice Age. Many now-extinct human species were thought to once roam the planet, such as Homo habilis, which is suspected to be among the first stone-tool makers; the relatively larger-brained Homo rudolfensis; the relatively slender Homo ergaster; and Homo erectus, the first to regularly keep the tools it made.

The level of variation seen in Homo fossils is typically used to define separate species. However, analysis of 1.8-million-year-old skulls excavated from the Republic of Georgia revealed the level of variation seen among those skulls was about the same as that seen among ancient African Homo fossils. As such, researchers suggest the earliest Homo fossils may not be multiple human species, but rather variants of a single lineage that emerged from Africa. In other words, instead of Africa once being home to multiple human species such as Homo erectus, Homo habilis, Homo ergaster and Homo rudolfensis, all of these specimens may actually simply be Homo erectus.

Oldest human DNA

The testing of the oldest known human DNA added more evidence that human evolution was complex.

The genetic material, some 400,000 years old, came from a human thighbone unearthed in the Sima de los Huesos, or “Pit of Bones,” an underground cave in northern Spain. Until now, the previous oldest known human DNA had come from a 100,000-year-old Neanderthal from a Belgian cave.

The fossils unearthed at the site resembled those of Neanderthals, so researchers expected the ancient DNA they analyzed to be Neanderthal as well. Surprisingly, the DNA revealed that this fossil’s closest known relatives were not Neanderthals but Denisovans. This finding is strange, scientists said, because studies to date currently suggest the Denisovans lived in eastern Asia, not in western Europe, where this fossil was uncovered. One possible explanation is that a currently unknown human lineage brought Denisovan-like DNA into the Pit of Bones region, and possibly also to the Denisovans in Asia.

Neanderthal burial pit
 A pit in a French cave that may have been an intentional grave dug by Neanderthals to bury one of their number.
Credit: C. Beauval, Archéosphère company

Evolution of tool use

The capability to make and use complex tools is a critical trait distinguishing modern humans from all other species alive today. Now, scientists have found an ancient hand-bone fossil that reveals that the modern human ability to make and use complex tools may have originated far earlier than previously thought.

A key anatomical feature of the modern human hand is the third metacarpal, a bone in the palm that connects the middle finger to the wrist. A little projection of bone known as a styloid process in this bone helps the thumb and fingers apply greater amounts of pressure to the wrist and palm. Researchers had thought the styloid process was a relatively recent feature, perhaps evolving close to the origin of modern humans. However, scientists have discovered a 1.4-million-year-old fossil that possesses this vital anatomical feature, meaning it existed more than 500,000 years earlier than it was previously known to have existed and was perhaps fundamental to the evolution of the whole genus Homo, not just modern humans.

This hand bone may not be the only key trait for tool use that evolved near the origin of the human lineage. Humans are the only species that can throw with great speed and precision, and scientists found this ability first evolved nearly 2 million years ago with anatomical changes to the shoulder, arm and torso. This advance likely boosted the hunting prowess of now-extinct human ancestors, helping them effectively and safely kill big game.

Neanderthal discoveries

In 2013, researchers also made important discoveries about Neanderthals, modern humans’ closest extinct relatives. For instance, analysis of a Neanderthal tomb in France suggests that, like modern humans, Neanderthals may have intentionally buried their dead. The new findings are further evidence that Neanderthals might have possessed complex forms of thought, enough for special treatment of the dead.

In addition, a cache of Neanderthal fossils discovered in a cave in Greece suggests the area may have been a key crossroad for ancient humans. The age of these fossils suggests Neanderthals and other humans may have had the opportunity to cross paths there, and even interact, the researchers added.

from:    http://www.livescience.com/42218-2013-human-origins-discoveries.html

New Light On Human Origins

(These kinds of things just add more questions to the whole question of origins)

African fossils put new spin on human origins story

By Jonathan AmosScience correspondent, BBC News

Professor Chris Stringer, with the help of a cast of a fossil skull, describes the similarities that this species has with modern humans

The ancient remains of two human-like creatures found in South Africa could change the way we view our origins.

The 1.9-million-year-old fossils were first described in 2010, and given the species nameAustralopithecus sediba.

But the team behind the discovery has now come back with a deeper analysis.

It tells Science magazine that features seen in the brain, feet, hands and pelvis of A. sediba all suggest this species was on the direct evolutionary line to us – Homo sapiens.

“We have examined the critical areas of anatomy that have been used consistently for identifying the uniqueness of human beings,” said Professor Lee Berger from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg

“Any one of these features could have evolved separately, but it is highly unlikely that all of them would have evolved together if A. sediba was not related to our lineage,” the team leader informed BBC News.

A. sediba hand (L.Berger/Uni of Witwatersrand)The female’s right hand is missing only a few bones

It is a big claim and, if correct, would sideline other candidates in the fossil record for which similar assertions have been made in the past.

Theory holds that modern humans can trace a line back to a creature known as Homo erectus which lived more than a million years ago. This animal, according to many palaeoanthropologists, may in turn have had its origins in more primitive hominins, as they are known, such asHomo habilis or Homo rudolfensis.

The contention now made for A. sediba is that, although older than its “rivals”, some of its anatomy and capabilities were more advanced than these younger forms. Put simply, it is a more credible ancestor for H. erectus, Berger’s team claims.

The sediba specimens were unearthed at Malapa in the famous Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site, just to the northwest of Jo’burg.

to read more, go to:    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14824435