Yes, Neandertals played bagpipes with their noses

The April 1997 issue of Discover magazine had a pretty good April Fool’s joke about a number of Neandertal musical instruments that had supposedly been discovered in Germany. It was an unlikely collection, featuring bagpipes, a tuba, a triangle and a ‘xylobone’, along with a cave painting of marching musicians. In September 2000 the Institute for Creation Research fell for it and featured this evidence in one of their radio programs. I pointed that out on the Fossil Hominids website about a month later, and the ICR quickly apologized and retracted the claim. However, no erroneous argument ever completely disappears from creationist literature.

I’ve recently noticed the April Fool article cited again in an article by Brad Harrub on the Answers in Genesis website (update: the citation has now been removed). Harrub also thinks that the Java Man skullcap belongs to a gibbon - even though AIG has admitted that this is a discredited argument that creationists shouldn’t use any longer. Harrub’s article was also published in AIG’s ‘peer-reviewed scientific journal’, the Technical Journal. What is AIG’s peer-review process like, if clangers like these can get through it?