Dinosaurs and Man May Have Co-Existed

It has been a constant debate between creationists and evolutionists on how old the world is. Evolutionists believe that earth was created over 4. 5 billion years ago while, creationists believe in a young earth created only about 6,000 years old. With that debate is the argument on when the dinosaurs walked the earth. Evolutionism teaches that humans and dinosaurs lived millions of years apart from each other.

What many people are not aware of is that there exists a considerable body of evidence that supports the Biblical account of humans and dinosaurs living at the same time and even interacting with each other. Some of this evidence suggests that this may still be happening today in certain parts of the world like the African Congo. (1) Dinosaurs are often portrayed as having lived in a time before man. However, the available evidence shows that man and dinosaur coexisted. Legends of dragons are found among most people groups.

For example, there are the stories of Bel and the dragon, the Kulta of Australian aborigines, St. George and the dragon, and of course many Chinese legends. Often, the anatomical descriptions given are consistent, even though they come from separate continents and various times. (2) These depictions match what we know from the fossil evidence of certain dinosaurs. Thus, dinosaurs are known directly from their fossils, and indirectly from cave drawings, tapestries, textiles, figurines, carvings, bas reliefs, and many oral and written eyewitness accounts, most of which are quite old. 2) Pick up just about any book on dinosaurs, and it will say that dinosaurs lived from 230 million to 65 million years ago. That’s always stated as a fact, but how do they know? The ages of dinosaur fossils are determined by the layer of rock in which they are found. How do they know how old the rock layer is? It is usually the case that when layers of rock are piled up upon each other, the bottom one is the oldest, and the top one is the youngest, because the bottom one had to be there before the other ones formed on top of it.

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So, one can make a cross-sectional cut through a rock formation, examine the layers, and be reasonably confident that the lower layers formed before the upper layers (3). The questions are, “How long did it take for each layer to form? ” and, “How much time elapsed between layers? ” Traditionally, geologists have used the “geologic column” to answer these questions. Although the rapid formation of rock layers is an obvious fact, it makes evolutionists uncomfortable because it isn’t compatible with a neat uniformitarian explanation.

If rock layers form rapidly in short periods of time, separated by longer time intervals of undetermined length, which makes it impossible to tell how long ago the rock layers were formed. Geologists are coming to the consensus that fossil-bearing rock layers were produced rapidly, and that there were unknown periods of time between the rock layers (3). Therefore, most of “geologic time” is represented by the rocks that aren’t there. Geologists have given traditional dates to sedimentary rock layers.

They do that based upon the kind of fossils found in the rocks, and the evolutionary assumptions of the stages through which life evolved, and how long it took to evolve through each stage. The fossils in a sedimentary rock layer tell you what kinds of critters were living in that area at the time they were buried by a flood, landslide, or sandstorm (3). The dating and correlation of the geologic column is based on the assumption that all the wildlife living all over the world is the same at any given time.

Therefore, floods, landslides, and sandstorms that occur in North America, South America, Africa, Europe, and Asia, will all bury the same kind of critter in any given year. (3) Believe it or not, dinosaur footprints, and the footprints of man, are found in the same strata, in the very same formation, in some cases only 18 inches apart, at a geological dig in Glen Rose, Texas, called the Paluxy River Bed. The ancient footprints of "man" at the site are found to be evenly spaced, and go under overhanging shale formations, continuing under the formations, and have been excavated. 4) Dinosaurs were said to have lived 250 million to 65 million years ago because their bones are found in rocks that are said to be Triassic, Jurassic, or Cretaceous. Rocks are classified as Triassic, Jurassic, or Cretaceous because they contain fossils that evolutionists presume were alive all over the Earth only during those periods of time. If you found a rock with a dinosaur bone in it, you would not be able to convince an evolutionary geologist that it was anything other than a Triassic, Jurassic, or Cretaceous rock.

If radioisotope dating indicated the rock was less than 65 million years old, or more than 250 million year old, the evolutionist would flatly reject the radioisotope date. It is a fundamental article of faith that dinosaurs lived 250 to 65 million years ago. (3) New evidence from the Paluxy river bed in Glen Rose, Texas, as well as from South America, Mexico, and California, demonstrates beyond any doubt that dinosaurs and mankind co-existed, and walked the planet earth at the very same time -- during the age of man.

Believe it or not, dinosaur footprints, and the footprints of man, are found in the same strata, in the very same formation, in some cases only 18 inches apart, at a geological dig in Glen Rose, Texas, called the Paluxy River Bed. The ancient footprints of "man" at the site are found to be evenly spaced, and go under overhanging shale formations, continuing under the formations, and have been excavated (4). How is it possible that human footprints found in Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Illinois, New Mexico, Kentucky, and other states, are in rocks supposedly 250,000,000 years old" (4) Winkie Pratney in Creation or Evolution?

Part III, the Fossil Record: discusses the mysterious dinosaur tracks and human footprints found close together at the Paluxy River Bed: "Though the dino tracks (in the Paluxy River Bed in Glen Rose, Texas, for instance) are real, perhaps the human prints were later 'clever carvings' by Indians. Recent research, however, has shown that they continue under shale bulldozed away, and paleontologists like Dr. Camp of the University of California and Dr. G. Wescott of Ypsilanti, Michigan, have pronounced them genuine.

Scores of other similar finds have come in: human skulls in the Pliocene strata; pollen and anthropods in Pre-Cambrian layers; even pictographs of a dinosaur among other animals on ancient canyon walls, which would knock some 70 million years out of the geologic column" (Acts, p. 15, June 1996). (4) Since dinosaurs supposedly died out 65 million years ago, it is not possible that anyone in historic times has ever seen a living dinosaur. But what if people have seen living dinosaurs? Wouldn’t that completely refute the assumptions upon which the dating of the geologic column rests?

For that reason, it is worth evaluating the evidence that man and dinosaurs might have lived together. If dinosaurs and man lived together, don’t you think they would be mentioned in ancient books? Certainly they would. They would not be called “dinosaurs” because that word wasn’t coined until 1841. If they were mentioned, you would expect them to be called something else, but would expect their descriptions to match dinosaurs (3). You would expect to read things like this, written by Philostratus (200 - 230 AD) wrote in the Life of Apollonius of Tyana, Northern "India is girt with dragons of enormous size; not only are the arshes full of them but the mountains as well and not a single ridge is without one. … The dragons of the foothills have crests, of moderate height when young but they grow with them and extend to a great height when they reach full size. " The bodies of the plains dragons are sometimes found with elephants, a great reward for hunters. Their tusks resemble those of swine, but more twisted and sharp. "They say that in the skulls of the mountain dragons are stored stones of flowery colors that flash out all kinds of hues. " They tell us that "a great many dragons' skulls are enshrined" in the center of the great city of Paraka (Peshawar? close by the mountain. (3)For over 2 hundred years there have been reports of a living dinosaur in Africa. This creature, which the natives call "Mokele-Mbembe" is believed to be a sauropod type of dinosaur (5). Sauropod means "Lizard-Footed" dinosaur. Sauropods are four-legged, herbivorous dinosaurs. These incidents were reported long before the word "dinosaur" was coined, and long before anyone (in this century) knew they existed. If Mokele-Mbembe is a living dinosaur, then it makes the claim of total dinosaur extinction unfounded.

The Congolese people are very familiar with the aquatic dinosaur living in the Likoula swamp region. They call this Apatosaurus-like creature "Mokele-Mbembe" which means: "one who stops the flow of rivers" (5). From the size of this awesome beast this name is sure fitting! They believe this animal (which they greatly fear) is sacred. This belief is due to the illness and death of many in the pygmy tribe after one was killed with a spear and eaten by the people. Of course, the deaths and illness were probably more likely due to spoilage of its meat.

An animal this large could have been eaten for several weeks. (5) "Persistent reports of strange creatures in remote, swampy jungles of western Africa have led two scientists to believe that dinosaurs still may walk the Earth. Both historical reports from Westerners and firsthand accounts from natives indicate dinosaur-like creatures may exist today in a virtually unexplored jungle in the People’s Republic of the Congo, the researchers said yesterday. Dr. Roy Mackal, a research associate at the University of Chicago, said he believes the animals may be elephant-sized dinosaurs (5). In an article in Science magazine, published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the researchers say natives call the creature 'Mokele-Mbembe. ' “The researchers say they believe it actually may be a dinosaur that looks like a smaller version of the brontosaurus, a giant plant-eater that died out 70 million years ago. Natives shown pictures of many kinds of animals picked illustrations of the brontosaurus as most closely resembling the creatures they say they saw, Mackal said. "  Source: Warren E. Leary "Dinosaurs May Inhabit Remote Jungle. " San Diego Union Tribune, Oct 18, 1980 (Washington date Line). as quoted in "That their words may be used against them" by Henry Morris, pg. 258) Roy Mackal, an American Biochemist (and evolutionist) has headed several expeditions since 1980 to the Likouala swamp. Mackal has collected numerous eyewitness accounts from the Congo natives. Many live in different locations, yet their descriptions of the creature are the same despite lack of communication with each other. Descriptions of the dinosaurs physical appearance and behavioral traits are consistent with each other. (5)| "I am not at all convinced it has been proven that the dinosaurs became extinct prior to the advent of man.

I believe there is much evidence, ancient and modern, to indicate that dinosaurs and human kind existed on earth contemporaneously, and that human beings, while they probably lived in different regions than dinosaurs for the most part, did on many occasions encounter the sometimes huge and fearsome creatures. The memories of these encounters were so vivid and deep that they were passed down in a multitude of cultures as legends, painted on cave walls, represented in pottery, and written of in literature" (Quote from Francis Schaeffer (a well known Christian Historian) .

Though most are now gone, I believe that some small species of dinosaurs may still alive today in remote parts of the world.

Works cited

1. Swift, Dennis. "More Evidence That Dinosaurs and Man Co-existed ! " Angelfire: Welcome to Angelfire. 2011. Web. 13 Apr. 2011. <http://www. angelfire. com/mi/dinosaurs/dinoscoexist. html>.
2.  "Men and Dinosaurs Coexisted. " Www. icr. org. Web. 13 Apr. 2011. <http://www. icr. org/men-dinosaurs/>.
3.  Jones, Do-While. "The Age of Dinosaurs. " Ridgecrest, California - Your Community Portal. June 2004. Web. 13 Apr. 2011. lt;http://www. ridgecrest. ca. us/~do_while/sage/v8i9f. htm>.
4.  Keyser, John D. "Dinosaurs and Man? " Hope of Israel Ministries. Web. 13 Apr. 2011. <http://www. hope-of-israel. org/dinosaur. htm>.
5.  "Mokele-Mbembe Search Living Dinosaurs Dinosaur Embryos Uncovered. " Angelfire: Welcome to Angelfire. Web. 13 Apr. 2011. <http://www. angelfire. com/mi/dinosaurs/mokele. html>.
6.  Warren E. Leary "Dinosaurs May Inhabit Remote Jungle. " San Diego Union Tribune, Oct 18, 1980 (Washington date Line) Griffin Bearicks Spring semester 2011 April 13, 2011 Geology 1304 Roger Sigler

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