NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/talk/origins/16921

Internet Message Format | 1993-01-28 | 4.0 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!tdat!tools3!swf
From: [e-mail] (Stan Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Human Origins
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 29 Jan 93 00:58:33 GMT
References: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail]
Distribution: world
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit
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In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Rich Trott) writes:
|>
|> "Some consider Ramapithecus to have been a hominid, and this judgment
|> has been made solely on the basis of a few teeth and a few fragments
|> of the jaw.  That's all the fossil fragments they have."

This is mostly simply outdated.  More recent studies of Ramapithecus have shown
it to be closely similar to Sivapithecus, and to be extremely close to the
living Orang-utan.  (Perhaps even being its direct ancestor - my personal
opinion). [This is pretty universally accepted now, its placement in Hominidae
is considered pretty well demolished].

Though there are some other fallacies here.  For one, in mammals a few teeth
and jaw fragments can tell a *great* deal about it.  Secondly, I am fairly
cerain there is a nearly complete skull available (though it may be newer
than the original find).

Almost any book on primate evolution published in the last four years ought
to do.  There have been several, some of them quite good.  I am fairly sure
that at least two of them are still available in most university book stores.
[I cannot get the titles now, the books are at home].

|> I naturally suspect that such statements are WAY OUTDATED, but I'd
|> like some sources to back me up, and I've got a bunch of these
|> statements to check up on.  (The statements are regarding
|> Ramapithecus, Australopithecines, Peking Man, Java Man, Neanderthal
|> Man, Cro-Magnon Man, and the hoaxes of Nebraska Man and Piltdown Man.)

I think you need to get one of those books I mentioned.
The taxonomy of the australopithecines is in a state of flux right now.
But it is pretty clearly established that there were at least two main lineages,
the "gracile" and the "robust" groups, that coexisted for several million years.

Cro-magnon man is anatomically indistinguishable from modern humans, and is
associated with mesolithic stone tool technologies (advanced spear points,
and perhaps arrow-heads).

The Neanderthals are a group of large, heavy-boned hominids from glacial
Europe that combine features of Homo erectus with features of archaic Homo
sapiens (archaic H.s. refers to pre-Cro Magnon forms).  They had brains as
large as, or larger than ours, but they were also much heavier, and brain
size is generally correlated with body weight (whales have brains *much*
larger than humans).  Some (actually most) now consider them to have been
a sub-species of Homo sapiens.  But there is some anatomical evidence
(very controversial evidence) that they could not speak as we do, which would
strongly suggest that they should be placed in a seperate species.  Also,
they are associated with a Late Paleolithic stone tool technology, one
which did not change over the entire 100,000 or so years they inhabited
Europe - indicating a profound lack of imagination and originality.
[All post paleolithic technologies have lasted less than 10,000 years].

The Piltdown man is not likely to be discussed in any modern book - it is
no longer of much interest.  That some unknown person a century ago managed
to fool contemporary scientists into believing that composite to be a real
specimen says more about the state of science a century ago than it does
about the state of science now. [And, yes I do mean a century ago, the
suspects in the mystery include such famous names as Arthur Conan Doyle
and Teilhard de Chardin].

I am unfamiliar with the "Nebraska Man hoax".  I suspect that it was of little
real consequence (unlike the Piltdown Hoax).  Either that, or it is not
correctly characterized as a hoax.

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