Re: Ardip c 4.4 Ma herbivorous in woodland/grassland not swamps :-)

From: John Roth (newsgroups_at_jhrothjr.com)
Date: 01/20/05 

Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2005 08:56:14 -0600

"Rich Travsky" <traRvEsky@hotmMOVEail.com> wrote in message
news:41EEF1F9.C7511174@hotmMOVEail.com...
> Marc Verhaegen wrote:
>>
>
> Try reading the actual paper, Marc, instead of a news account...
> No mention of swamps.

Agreed, the abstract of the article you posted doesn't mention
swamps. What it does say is "moderate rainfall woodland and
woodland/grassland."

I spent a few years growing up in one of them. Are there usually
swamps there? You better believe it. Not a whole lot of them,
and not very big, but you will find swamps.

Now whether those swamps were critical to a. ramidus, a
neutral feature, or a feature that it assiduously avoided
is a different question.

John Roth

>
> http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v433/n7023/full/nature03177_r.html&filetype=&dynoptions=
>
> Comparative biomolecular studies suggest that the last common ancestor
> of humans and chimpanzees, our closest living relatives, lived during
> the Late Miocene-Early Pliocene1, 2. Fossil evidence of Late
> Miocene-Early Pliocene hominid evolution is rare and limited to a few
> sites in Ethiopia3-5, Kenya6 and Chad7. Here we report new Early
> Pliocene hominid discoveries and their palaeoenvironmental context from
> the fossiliferous deposits of As Duma, Gona Western Margin (GWM), Afar,
> Ethiopia. The hominid dental anatomy (occlusal enamel thickness, absolute
> and relative size of the first and second lower molar crowns, and premolar
> crown and radicular anatomy) indicates attribution to Ardipithecus
> ramidus.
> The combined radioisotopic and palaeomagnetic data suggest an age of
> between 4.51 and 4.32 million years for the hominid finds at As Duma.
> Diverse sources of data (sedimentology, faunal composition,
> ecomorphological variables and stable carbon isotopic evidence from the
> palaeosols and fossil tooth enamel) indicate that the Early Pliocene As
> Duma sediments sample a moderate rainfall woodland and woodland/grassland.
>
>
> Of course, you'll find some way to twist what they say...