Hi faul,
Look, I understand and respect that you are trying to make sense out of the chaos and I sympathise with your process. The fact that you aren't necessarily persuading me is neither here nor there. Most of us create some kind of model that is the heart of what we believe about the universe.
I find mine a different way to you. And of course, I believe what I believe just as you do. You cannot expect it would be otherwise.
The way I examine every theory is the same. I ask questions. I look for anomalies. Where I find them, I assume I need to find another theory to explain the facts. I don't see this as a destructive process. I see it as a constructive one. I try to find facts upon which I can rely. Once I have them, I build the theory.
So your theory involves an external agency involved in the development of intelligence upon this planet. That's fine, but it's not easily susceptible to a test.
You think you find documentary evidence for it in ancient texts. Okay. I don't agree, but that is okay, right. I've read the books to a great extent and when I read them, I didn't think astronaut Gods. I thought primitive people believe strange things. I think that about Adam and Eve as well. So you can gang up with all the fundamentalist Christians against me if you wish!!
You think you find support in pre-history, and we can look at that. I think it is important to be precise, and the matter of 100,000 years is important. I'm not sure if you are claiming a 100,000 year old mine or a 200,000 year old one. So I could use a reference.
The earliest known mine I have discovered was in Swaziland. It is called the Lion's Gate. But it was carbon dated to 43,000 years ago and it was not a gold mine. Anatomically modern humans date from 200,000 years ago. So it looks like there's something of a gap there between the origin of a modern type of anatomical human and his mining activity. If you are an astronaut God, why wait 157,000 years to begin mining the gold after you have created homo sapiens?
In addition, I would also point out that Neanderthals mined flint. So the ability to mine is not something exclusive to Homo Sapiens.
I've looked up chromosome fusion. No mention of third party interference causing it that I could find - so again I could use help finding a reference. From what I have read, it appears that chromosomes sometimes fuse and sometimes split, and - as I read it - this happens for causes that are natural eg there's a similar situation with horses. This is interesting new knowledge for me.
As regards your demand for the missing link: golly, I don't know how granular you want to be, but it's sorta the nature of fossils that you don't get a record of daily changes. What palaeontologists appear to believe is that homo sapiens derives from homo erectus and that the evolution occurred fairly swiftly. This is what folks like Stephen Jay Gould call punctuated equilibrium. Others say that it's just as likely if not more so that apparently rapid evolution is explained by migration (the intermediate steps occurring in places where fossil creation is absent).
The old missing link argument occurred early in the history of Darwinian theory when there were no existing links between humans and apes and all we had was a theory. Then along came Lucy, Neanderthals and various other related human forms. And I guess now the demand is for links bridging these intermediate forms and homo sapiens.
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