Out of curiosity, what is the creationist view on earlier hominids, like homo erectus, etc.?
There remains the prominent issue of whether there has ever existed a species of animal that was decidedly sub-human and super-ape (the so-called "hominids.")
Homo erectus / Africa
"Along with the Australophithecenes, Louis Leakey found a skull cap, part of a femur, and a hip bone, and attributed them to Homo erectus. In 1975, Richard Leakey found a relatively complete cranium and parts of the rest of a skull. More finds continued. In 1984, an almost complete skeleton was found. Limited information is available regarding these latter finds. They appear to be similar to Neanderthal man in some respects and bear some resemblance also to some skeletons dug up in the Kow Swamp area in Victoria, Australia, which have been dated on the order of 10,000 years. Based upon where the bones were dug up in Africa, it must be concluded that Australopithecus, Homo Habilis, and Homo Erectus lived contemporaneously. Underneath all these bones has been dug up the remains of a circular stone habitation hut which could only have been attributed to Homo sapiens. Thus, none of them could be man's ancestor, evolutionarily speaking, and one evolutionist, Geoffrey Bourne, has gone so far as to seriously suggest that apes evolved from men."
Homo erectus / Java Man (Pithecanthropus erectus)
"A Dutch physician by the name of Dubois found a skullcap (1891), a femur and two teeth (1892), and a third tooth (1898) near Trinil, Java. The leg bone appeared human, while the skull resembled that of an ape. These fossils were found 45 feet apart at a level in the rock which also contained two human skulls, which Dubois concealed for 30 years (until 1922). Dubois announced at the end of his life that the fossils did not belong to an ape-man, but that in fact the skull belonged to a giant gibbon. Further study by anthropologists ascribed the first two teeth to an orang and the third tooth to a human. "
Homo erectus / Peking Man (Sinanthropus pekinensis)
"In 1921, Davidson Black found a couple of teeth and, on the basis of this find, immediately declared that this established evidence for a hominid. In 1928-1929, 30 skulls and 11 mandibles (lower jaws) and 147 teeth were found at Choukoutien (near Peking, China). The skulls were all bashed in at the rear, evidence that they were all killed by hunters for food. The question was, who was the hunter? All the bones mysteriously disappeared sometime during the period of 1941-1945. A major limestone quarrying industry existed in ancient Choukoutien, and the skulls were all allegedly found in heaps of debris from a collapsed limestone hill. Without tangible evidence we are left with the skeletal reconstructions and work of a man who would declare that he found a hominid based on a couple of teeth. It has been suggested that Sinanthropus was either a large macaque or baboon, and that the workers at the quarry killed them and ate their brains for food."
Basically I believe that the common belief among creationists is that true, substantial evidence of the hominid does not exist. If you'd like me to continue this through the Neanderthal man as well, I can do that. I just didn't want this post being TOO long...
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