Fossil human hair found, according to reports in Daily Telegraph 9 May 2009 and Live Science 11 May 2009. Palaeontologists have found forty human hairs fossilised within a coprolite (fossilised dung) found in a cave in South Africa. The coprolite is from a hyena and is dated as being between 257,000 and 195,000 years old. This makes the hairs the oldest preserved human hair ever found. Because of this age the researchers suggest “the hair may have belonged to an early human species known as Homo heidelbergensis, which was living in Africa around 200,000 years ago, or could be from one of the first Homo sapiens, who are thought to have evolved around 195,000 years ago.” Hyenas are scavengers, so it is assumed that the hair became embedded in the dung when the hyena scavenged a dead human body.
Editorial Comment: These hairs are identical to human hairs, so on the basis of the observed facts rather than preconceived beliefs, there is no need to speculate they belonged to a different species. When you see it through Biblical glasses this gruesome find, indicating a person had died and was left to scavengers is a tragic reminder of the degeneration of the world since it was originally created. In the beginning there was no death and no scavenging. Humans and animals only ate plants. Death came into the world as punishment for man’s rebellion against his Creator. By the time of Noah the world had become overwhelmingly corrupt and animals were classified as clean and unclean – or vegetarian and scavengers. As scavengers, Hyenas are in the unclean class. It was only later than Noah that carnivores commenced their activities. (Ref. corruption, anthropology, hominids)
Evidence News 27 May 2009