ARCHAEOLOGY: Glimpse into Pre-Flood animal kingdom

All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. Genesis 7:22

"For more than 15 years, an international group of paleontologists has been uncovering and analyzing fossils in Africa to better understand the Permian, a geologic period that....ended with the most catastrophic mass extinction in Earth’s history.

“This mass extinction was nothing short of a cataclysm for life on Earth,...,” said Christian Sidor, a UW professor of biology and

curator of vertebrate paleontology at the UW Burke Museum of Natural History & Culture.

The series highlights recent findings about the wide variety of animals that once inhabited Permian Africa, including saber-toothed predators, burrowing herbivores, and a large amphibian resembling a salamander.

All these finds were excavated in three basins across southern Africa: the Ruhuhu Basin in southern Tanzania, the Luangwa Basin in eastern Zambia, and the Mid-Zambezi Basin in southern Zambia.

For decades, scientists’ best understanding of the Permian, the Great Dying and the start of the Mesozoic came from the Karoo Basin in South Africa, which contains a near-complete fossil record of periods before and after the mass extinction.

"The number of specimens we’ve found in Zambia and Tanzania is so high and their condition is so exquisite that we can make species-level comparisons to what paleontologists have found in South Africa,” said Sidor." 

SciTechDaily

IN the NEWS - Another Week... What is up?

For nation shall rise against nation,

and kingdom against kingdom:

and there shall be famines,

and pestilences,

and earthquakes,

in divers places.

All these are the beginning of sorrows.

Matthew 24:7,8

We should be careful NOT to do Prophecy by Headline---but it would seem the last 3 weeks of worldwide calamities may be a taste of what is to come in the near future. The Question is: Is it beginning? Or just a Taste of the Future?

THIS WEEK:

U.S.A: Massive Flooding in Texas washing away people at night while sleeping and a children's summer camp. Massive Flooding in

New Jersey, Virginia and Pennsylvania. Massive wind and sand storm severely damaging Las Vegas. Red Alert issued in Hawaii due to a volcano "rising, shifting and cracking."

Italy: Of those more than 15,000 quakes in southern Italy over the last 2 months now the largest yet to rattle Naples hit along with a piece of Italy's coast breaking off and slipping under the waves. In the north multiple landslides and mudslides filling city streets.

Greece: The Island of Crete rattled by multiple quakes surrounding the island. Tourists evacuated.

Austria: Massive Landslides and military sent in to evacuate.

China: Several more Massive Flood outbreaks. Severe wind and

rain storms near Shanghai and Beijing closing the airports. Out of control Wild Fires still raging. Parts of China from the air looks like an ocean.

South Africa: Cape Town flooded by rains and a tidal wave.

Japan: Over 900 minor quakes with prediction of the big one coming.

Tonga: Rattled by an earthquake.

Indonesia: Moderate earthquake---but this is on the heels of last

weeks volcanic eruption.

Turkey: Small quake---but not far from the seismic activity rocking Italy and the Greek Islands the last 2 months.

Mexico: Tropical Storm floods east coast.

Moon: Prediction that an asteroid may be heading for the moon and striking it within a few years.

Thailand/Cambodia: Border Clashes. Massive floods in Thailand.

For the Last 2 Weeks SEE Links Below:

IN the NEWS - There's More..... (plus a sidenote)

Dig Deeper: IN the NEWS - There's More..... (plus a sidenote)

IN the NEWS - Don't Panic: All these are only the BEGINNING of sorrows

Dig Deeper: IN the NEWS - Don't Panic: All these are only the BEGINNING of sorrows

SDA NEWS - SDA's on Catholic Radar

They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent; adders' poison is under their lips. Psalm 140:3

"The Southern Cross, a widely read South African monthly Catholic magazine fully endorsed by the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference—the highest Catholic authority in the region—made a startling revelation on May 13, 2025. 

In a bold and clear statement, The Southern Cross exposed the true objective of the ecumenical movement, declaring that its ultimate goal is to transition Seventh-day Adventists into full communion with the Catholic Church. This candid admission lifts the veil on years of ecumenical dialogue and confirms long-standing concerns about the movement’s real intentions.

The Southern Cross published the following:
• “From a Catholic perspective, the key disagreements with Seventh-day Adventists are clear. Seventh-day Adventists observe the Sabbath on Saturday, which contrasts with the Catholic tradition of observing the Lord’s Day on Sunday.”

• “Seventh-day Adventists do not recognize the authority of the Pope.”
• “They also reject the Catholic doctrine of the immortality of the soul, believing instead in the concept of “soul sleep”, where the dead remain unconscious until the resurrection.”
• “Furthermore, Seventh-day Adventists do not uphold the Catholic sacraments, particularly the Eucharist.”
• “Their practice of baptism by immersion for those who have reached an age of accountability differs from the Catholic tradition of infant baptism.”

• “Despite these differences, progress has been made. The Second Vatican Council’s Decree on Ecumenism, Unitatis Redintegratio, opened doors for dialogue with other denominations, including Seventh-day Adventists. More recently, joint statements and collaborative projects have highlighted areas of agreement and mutual respect. For instance, both groups have worked together on humanitarian efforts, such as disaster relief and health initiatives, reflecting a shared commitment to serving others.”

The Catholic Church’s statement lays bare the hidden agenda behind the ecumenical movement. It was never truly about the reasons our church leaders have promoted for years—such as sharing our beliefs, mingling, promoting religious liberty, or dispelling misconceptions. All of that now rings hollow." 

AdventMessenger

ARCHAEOLOGY: 2 Cases

But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; 1 Corinthians 1:27

"Twice now this year, researchers have noticed man-made etchings in rock that indicate possible awareness of extinct creatures. In the belief system of evolutionists and their requisite millions of years, such awareness is impossible, and so they come up with other explanations. 

Q: Why do they rule out eyewitness experiences of these creatures living among them?

The assumption of deep time leads to rejecting any explanation that infers overlap of humans with creatures that went extinct tens or

hundreds of millions of years ago. Those who doubt deep time, by contrast, can be more open minded about that possibility.

South African rock art possibly inspired by long-extinct species (18 Sept 2024, Science Daily). Dicynodonts (“two dog tooth”) are members of a motley group of pre-dinosaurian tetrapods classified as therapsids and synapsids. Today they are only known by their fossilized bones. South Africa is particularly rich in fossils of dicynodonts, some of which protrude from the ground. No other living land animal has their characteristic downward-curved tusks. It was a big surprise, therefore, when Julien Benoit of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg found petroglyphs (rock art) resembling dicynodonts.

"The Horned Serpent panel is a section of rock wall featuring artwork of animals and other cultural elements associated with the San people of South Africa, originally painted between 1821 and 1835. Among the painted figures is a long-bodied animal with downward-turned tusks which doesn’t match any known modern species in the area."

Benoit published the evidence in PLoS One, supplying photographs of the rock art that Benoit thinks resemble dicynodonts, and artist’s depictions of the creatures. As an evolutionist, how does he explain this? He speculates that the San people found fossil dicynodonts and depicted them in their rock art. This is curious, given that dicynodonts were not even recognized until Richard Owen named them in 1845.

"There is archaeological evidence that the San people might have collected fossils and incorporated them into their artwork, but the extent of indigenous knowledge of paleontology is poorly understood across Africa.

Further research into indigenous cultures might shed more light on how humans around the world have incorporated fossils into their culture."

It’s not an unreasonable speculation; even young-earth creationists

might find it doubtful to think that dicynodonts were walking around in 1821 to 1835 without more eyewitness reports by colonizers and missionaries. The point, again, is that Benoit cannot even consider it as a possibility the artists drew a living dicynodont.

"The ethnographic, archaeological, and palaeontological evidence are consistent with the hypothesis that the Horned Serpent panel could possibly depict a dicynodont…. This would imply that the San may have i) discovered dicynodont fossils, ii) interpreted them as long-extinct species, iii) made a painting of one of them at La Belle France, and iv) integrated them into their worldview."

---His explanation requires that the San people were fairly good at paleontology, able to depict what a creature looked like from its bones. Update 21 Sept 2024: Benoit wrote an article at The Conversation reposted at Live Science that gives additional details. He says that the 1835 date is “at the latest” but that “the San have inhabited the area for thousands of years.” This could make the petroglyph much, much earlier. Benoit claims that dicynodonts lived 265 to 200 million Darwin Years ago and were the dominant species in the area. The artists portrayed the creature as covered with bumps; Benoit shows a fossil of mummified skin of a dicynodont covered with bumps—really 250 million years old? He ruled out other creatures that the petroglyphs might represent. Walruses have downward tusks but never lived in sub-Saharan Africa, he says. A San myth spoke of “enormous brutes” that lived in their area. If the petroglyph depicts a dicynodont, it was drawn in the “death pose” common to many fossils. Others have commented that the “dinosaur death pose” (arched neck, body bent like a banana) represented suffocation by drowning (16 Feb 2012). A Flood, perhaps?

A remarkable assemblage of petroglyphs and dinosaur footprints in Northeast Brazil (Troiano et al., Nature Scientific Reports, 19 March 2024). This example is more subjective, yet interesting, since everyone is fascinated by dinosaurs. A location in Brazil has numerous fossilized dinosaur tracks in rock, made by both theropods and sauropods. Leonardo P. Troiano and three colleagues have found a “remarkable assemblage of petroglyphs” that appear to be associated with the dinosaur tracks.

"The three prominent outcrops feature fossilized footprints of theropod, sauropod, and iguanodontian dinosaurs from the Early

Cretaceous Period. Adjacent to these dinosaur tracks, indigenous petroglyphs adorn the surface. The petroglyphs, mainly characterized by circular motifs, maintain a striking resemblance to other petroglyphs found in the states of Paraíba and Rio Grande do Norte. This study primarily endeavors to delineate the site’s major characteristics while concentrating on the relationship between the dinosaur footprints and the petroglyphs."

*How does he know they are Cretaceous rocks? Because they have Cretaceous dinosaur tracks in them. How does he know the dinosaur tracks are Cretaceous? Because they are found in Cretaceous rocks, dummy!

Since everyone “knows” that humans and dinosaurs did not co-exist, the team needed an explanation. Once again, they reasoned that early peoples who lived in Brazil must have been good paleontologists.

"The petroglyphs represent a unique and significant record, given

their direct association with dinosaur fossil tracks. This ensemble of archaeological and paleontological evidence unequivocally indicates that human populations during the pre-colonial period interacted with and likely assimilated the fossil record, incorporating such record into their graphical expression, a cultural one, and consequently integrating it into its collective identity. Particularly noteworthy is the evident intentionality in creating petroglyphs near the footprints, revealing active engagement with the fossil material, suggesting that these traces not only caught the attention of the native community but were meaningful and became integrated into their knowledge repertoire."

Readers can look at the photos and drawings in this open-access paper and draw their own conclusions. Most of the petroglyphs do not resemble the tracks (circles, rectangles, and nets), but are drawn near them, often in the same rock exposure next to the footprints. The team believes that the juxtaposition of the art in rock containing dinosaur tracks establishes the pre-colonial people’s interest in the tracks.

Q: What did the artists think they were drawing? They never heard the word dinosaur, obviously, since the word was not even invented until Richard Owen coined it in 1841.

So there’s the two cases: evolutionary scientists unable to consider the possibility that early peoples saw extinct creatures. 

The interesting thing in these two cases is how they could not even consider the alternative explanation, that people actually witnessed creatures alive then that are extinct today. Creationists, not beholden to deep time, can consider that possibility. They may reject it and agree with the evolutionists’ explanations in these particular cases. But they are not required by their worldview to do so." 

CEH

IN the NEWS - "Kill the Boer" Chants?

But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man.

Matthew 15:18

"The leader of the far-left Pan-African Economic Freedom Fighters

(EFF) Julius Malema is embroiled in an ongoing hate speech court case over the alleged anti-white “Kill the Boer” chant used by South African extremists.

AfriForum, a South African non-governmental organization (NGO) that advocates largely for the rights of Afrikaners — the white descendants of South Africa’s Dutch settlers — has taken Julius Malema to court under grounds of hate speech after multiple members of his party sang a chant of “Kill the Boer/Dubul’ibhunu” on several occasions.

The pro-Boer NGO argues that this song has had a direct effect on increasing the number of notorious farm attacks on white farmers in the “Rainbow Nation”, which they believe are motivated by anti-white racist beliefs." Breitbart

IN the NEWS - Unrest all over

 They have heard that I sigh: Lamentations 1:21

 

"Haiti has asked for foreign troops to be sent to the country to protect key infrastructure after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.

The request was sent by the government to the U.S. and the U.N.

Haitian police earlier said a group of 28 foreign mercenaries killed the president on Wednesday.

The killing has triggered some civil unrest in Haiti, the poorest nation in the Americas. A state of emergency remains in force across the country and it is unclear who is in effective charge of the country's government." BBC

"South Africa will deploy soldiers to quell violence that erupted in the wake of former president Jacob Zuma’s jailing, the military said on Monday, after days of riots and looting left at least six people

dead.

Disturbances worsened as Zuma challenged his 15-month prison term in the country’s top court after weekend unrest by pro-Zuma protesters in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) and Gauteng, where the country’s largest city Johannesburg is located.

Police said 219 arrests had been made, as opportunistic criminals appeared to take advantage of the anger some feel over Zuma’s incarceration to steal and cause destruction.

Any confrontation with soldiers risks fuelling claims by Zuma and his supporters that they are victims of a politically-motivated crackdown by his successor, President Cyril Ramaphosa.

The rand fell sharply after the military announced its deployment, extending losses to trade down 2% against the U.S. dollar by 12.30 p.m. local time (1030 GMT). Analysts said, however, that the slump was also partly driven by fears over the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Zuma, 79, was sentenced late last month for defying a constitutional court order to give evidence at an inquiry investigating high-level corruption during his nine years in office until 2018.

The decision to jail him resulted from legal proceedings seen as a test of post-apartheid South Africa’s ability to enforce the rule of law, including against powerful politicians.

In the past seven days, South Africa has never come closer to becoming a failed state. The riotous looting has reduced Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal, the two provinces hit hard by the social unrest into what resembles warzones. The country quickly descended into what could be the beginning innings of a civil war, prompting the government to call up military reserves and seek deployment of up to 25,000 troops to quell the violence. " France24/ZeroHedge

"More than 50 people have died since a wave of protests started to sweep across Colombia at the end of April.

Protesters have blocked key roads leading to shortages of fuel and food in some areas and there have been violent clashes between the security forces and demonstrators.

The government has been holding talks with protest leaders but with more and more groups joining in the demonstrations, the demands of those who have taken to the streets have widened and a quick resolution seems unlikely. 

 The demonstrations started on 28 April and were initially in opposition to a proposed tax reform. The proposed reform would have lowered the threshold at which salaries are taxed, affecting anyone with a monthly income of 2.6m pesos ($684; £493) or more. It would also have eliminated many of the current exemptions enjoyed by individuals, as well as increasing taxes imposed on businesses.

 There have also been marches by Colombians who oppose the protests. On Sunday, thousands took to the

streets of major cities to demand an end to the roadblocks and violent clashes." BBC 

Creation Moment 4/23/2021 - Darwinian Tweakers

 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,... Romans 1:22

"One of the Darwin Party’s standard sub-myths is the story of five mass extinctions in Earth history, the Permian extinction being the largest. This team notices problems with the story, so they decide to take a more “nuanced approach” to it.

Finally, the changing narrative of PTT extinctions in the Karoo emphasizes that a more nuanced approach to the end-Permian mass extinction is needed that accounts for the idiosyncrasies of the event in different geographical areas. Only by recognizing the specific details of the extinction in different places can the search for generalizations be successful.

They investigate two exposures of a slope in South Africa called the Karoo Basin – a much larger feature than the two sample outcrops they look at. 

Assuming the geological time scale, 

---they agree together that the exposures represent 4 million years of

evolution. 

---They divide up the slopes into 13 imaginary time intervals of 300,000 years each, 

---and count fossils within each time “bin” they have imagined. 

Then come to an unexpected conclusion that land creatures went extinct ten times slower than sea creatures in the great Permian Extinction Event. Work all done, they publish their findings in PNAS, a major US science journal.

 

Q: How much did they really come to “know” about this deposit? 

A: One way to measure their knowledge is to count the instances of the word “likely” in the paper. It appears 8 times among the technical Jargonwocky:

1/ Large outpourings from Siberian Trap volcanism are the likely trigger of calamitous climatic changes, including a runaway greenhouse effect and ocean acidification, which had profound consequences for life on land and in the oceans. [What? Before SUVs?]

2/ Extinction dynamics likely reflect the disappearance of theriodonts …, pareiasaurs …, cynodonts …, and dicynodont species.

3/ Our data show species-level evenness to be relatively stable throughout the Cistecephalus and Daptocephalus assemblage zones and across the main extinction acme close to the Daptocephalus–Lystrosaurus declivis Assemblage Zone boundary, likely because of the retention of some extinction acme-crossing species (Lystrosaurus curvatus, Lystrosaurus maccaigi, Moschorhinus, Promoschorhynchus) alongside the appearance of new species in the inferred recovery phase.

4/ The substantial evidence for significant climatic changes related to global warming beginning at the end of the Permian period globally likely had disastrous effects on local conditions in the Karoo. These effects were possibly related to aridity and also increased climatic variability.

5/ Nevertheless, it is very likely that fluctuating climates associated with the end-Permian mass extinction played a significant role in steadily altering the composition and structure of tetrapod communities in the uppermost DAZ, eventually causing an ecosystem collapse marked by the unstable, short-lived communities observed in the lower Lystrosaurus declivis Assemblage Zone of South Africa’s Karoo Basin.

6/ Therefore, the success of Lystrosaurus and the likely reason for its cosmopolitan distribution was not caused strictly by the ecological aftermath of the PTT or Early Triassic environments but instead had its roots in the Permian.

7/ The rise of the disaster taxon Lystrosaurus well before the Permian–Triassic boundary indicates that its success did not stem solely from an ability to survive postextinction conditions. Instead, it likely had preexisting adaptations or ecological and evolutionary versatility that allowed it to flourish under the conditions that caused widespread and sustained extinctions among other taxa.

8/ This period of instability was likely key to breaking the incumbency of previously dominant synapsid clades, paving the way for the rise of archosaurs and their relatives as a more complete recovery was achieved later in the Triassic.

Assuming Oneself into Cluelessness

Before starting their working vacation in South Africa, the team had already assumed evolution and vast ages. 

---They assumed the evolutionary extinction sub-myth about the Permian Extinction. 

---They divided up the deposit according to these time assumptions. ---They assumed the Karoo Basin collected bones for 4 million Darwin Years. 

 

---The entire analysis and conclusion is based on these assumptions. Q: But what if they were not true? 

Q: What if the Karoo Basin formed rapidly, like in a catastrophic flood that buried all these animals in a single event? 

Q: What if evolution had nothing to do with the fossils? 

A: Then what they “know” is all bluffing. 

 

They were dividing up fossils into imaginary time intervals and assuming evolutionary lines between animals. It could be totally fake, like a house of cards resting on the word “likely.” 

They knew the Permian myth has its “idiosyncrasies” (i.e., anomalies against expectations), so they tweaked the narrative to mold their web of belief around it. 

 

Q: And what if their two sampling sites are not characteristic of the rest of the vast Karoo Basin?" CEH