Re: A critique of the BBC aquatic ape programme and the transcript.

Marc Verhaegen wrote:
> "Lee Olsen" <paleocity@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:1120242595.730900.87360@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> >>> ....so when you say 4 Ma I'm confused as to your definition of Homo.
>
> >> I usu.start from living animals: Homo is everything after the H/P split
> >> (~6-4 Ma) in our branch. Fossils that no doubt belong to Homo are
> >> georgicus-ergaster-erectus etc. H.rudolfensis possibly. H.habilis s.s.
> >> not likely IMO. But whether this or that fossil belongs to Homo or to
> >> Pan is not so important IMO, & perhaps often impossible to say: there's a
> >> lot of convergence in evolution. Fossils are important in that they're
> >> illustrations of how early hominids (sensu HPG) could have lived, but
> >> it's usu.useless to try to find ancestors in fossils.
>
> > I think I see where you are coming from. Whatever line we happened to have
> > derived from would be Homo. I suppose that is one way to look at it, we
> > did have ancestors even though there are a lot of gaps or dead ends on the
> > tree.
>
> Yes, it's a line of thinking seldom used by PAs. Unfortunately.


IYO.


>
> > It seems like soon after the LCA there would be a period of time where the
> > creature on our branch would be indistinguishable from something like a
> > chimp.
>
> No, no: this is a common mistake.


I didn't say "like a chimp" I said "something like a chimp" that is the
equivalent of your saying "probably resembled somewhat apiths"


Chimps live today. Humans live today. The
> H/P LCA had some features of P, some features of H & some unique features,
> and probably resembled somewhat apiths (= fossil hominids 4-1 Ma).
> Presumably the LCA resembled P more than it did H, but it was no doubt
> clearly different from P:
> - H features were, eg, thick enamel, low ilia, flatter feet, 5 lumbar
> vertebrae, no very long arms, absence of KWing...
> - P features were, eg, small brain with apelike organisation, non-flexed
> basicranium, no masticatory reduction (MYH16), short legs, no external nose,


[just a OT side observation here.] H. habilis has a very common homo
feature, ie, the start of a external nose, unlike Rudolf. We know
external-nose H. erectus could make stone tools, but we don't know that
any of the no-external-nose hominids could. What is more diagnostic, a
nose or a long arm? Why should one trait trump another?



> good climbing skills...
> - Unique featues, eg, very broad pelvis, very long & horizontal femoral
> necks, very valgus knees... (apiths).

Yes, but the two different creatures didn't just pop out of a hat.
These differences did take some time.


>
> > There could possibly be a 3.4 My gap ( ~6 minus 2.6). The gap for missing
> > Homo-like activities is larger than the first arguable evidence (ie, Gona
> > tools) to now. I know there was someone a short
> time ago that was arguing that chimps should be reclassified to Homo, but I
> don't think it was very well received. I doubt if much could be
> accomplished debating the definition of Homo, since there is little
> consensus of just where the line is to be drawn.
>
> The definition is what it always has been: our branch after the H/P split


So it was after all these changes took place [ie,- H features were, eg,
thick enamel, low ilia, flatter feet, 5 lumbar vertebrae, no very long
arms, absence of KWing...] that H went coastal?



> (chimps are our nearest ancestors).
>
> ......
>
> > OK, since you have used the example of the whale and tools, then whales
> > and tool exploitation should show up earlier on the coast than inland
> > tools and elephant exploitation (even if that happened to be in India).
>
> Yes, there were no fossilisation biases, and if Gona had not been waterside.
>
> > Since all the fossils in the gap between ~6 and 2.6 are inland, and you
> > have just demonstrated that coastal preservation is possible, then Gona
> > caliber tools should be found on the coasts somewhere if they were
> > developed earlier at those locations.
>
> The CRAS paper (not I) demonstrated that Pleistocene coastal preservation is
> possible, not how frequent it should be, nor whether earlier coastal
> preservations were possible.

But I'm really not saying that the coastal sites have to outnumber the
inland sites, I agree there is some bias in the record. Even one well
dated site on the coast that was earlier than the inlands sites would
be positive evidence rather than negative.


>
>
>
> ....
>
>
> >>>>> Chimps break hard nuts with stones, bones break easy enough when
> >>>>> bashed with a rock. Tests have already been done to show that
> >>>>> hominid-bashed bones are in the record.
>
> >>>> - Chimps hunt. Do they break bones?
>
> >>> The bad thing about chimps is we don't have any idea of when they
> >>> started doing much of anything before a couple hundred years ago.
>
> >> We have a lot indirect evidence: chimps use tools, orangs use tools,
> >> early apes were probably durophagous (thick enamel), IOW, the great
> >> hominoid LCA presumably used stones.
>
> > This may be true if pongo, pan, and gorilla remained fixed with no
> > evolution of their own after the split with the LCA.
>
> ?? Why should their evolution then have been fixed IYO?


It wouldn't, so how can you assume "IOW, the great hominoid LCA
presumably used stones." ?

>
> > This doesn't prove the LCA did.
>
> Of course not.


Then I'm not sure why you would presume the LCA would use stones,
whether for throwing, breaking nuts, or anything else.

>
> > Stone throwing/use seems to be associated with how much time a primate
> > spends on the ground.
>
> Apes are excellent throwers, but why must this be correlated to tool use?

Isn't a missile a tool? It was just an example because we know the Gona
creatures were throwers, but there is zero evidence that throwing was
practiced by the apes (at 2 My) or by the LCA. We only know what apes
do today. There is no time-depth to when they started doing anything as
far as tool use.



> Frans de Waal, evol-psych 22.9.01: "Now, please, don't believe everything
> you hear about apes not throwing. Darwin was talking about monkeys, and
> Goodall's chimps may not have had much practice. In all research
> facilities with chimpanzees it is known how well apes throw. This is why
> projectiles are kept away from them, and why they mostly work with feces.
> They are deadly accurate, they swing around from the back of their cage and
> invariably "nail" the one new face in the crowd with deadly accuracy. Ask
> any worker in such a facility: it's not rare, and no illusion! Out in
> the open, their skills are even more striking. I used to photograph the
> Arnhem chimpanzees from across the moat, where they were at about 10 m from
> me. I had to be extremely careful because young males tended to throw
> extremely well. They would see my eye go behind the camera, and all of a
> sudden it turned out they had a stone with them which they'd throw at me.
> Males more than females, mostly overhand. (Another tidbit in the debate
> whether they know if our eyes are for seeing or not .). Then
> there was the mother who came to the reception with her crying son. She
> complained that our chimps threw stones. After questioning and an account by
> a bystander it turned out that the boy had thrown first, and that the same
> stone had come back to him. The estimated distance of this case was 25 m.
> In short, the idea that apes can't throw is bogus. It has been around for a
> long time, but should be tested with apes who have had target practice. I
> invite all man-the-thrower advocates for a visit - at least if they don't
> mind some smelly stuff coming their way!"
>
>
> > I don't know this for a fact, but I would be willing to bet baboons spend
> > more time throwing rocks than pongo. No reason to believe LCA had anything
> > to do with rocks, since time on the ground was probably minimal.
>
> Apes seem to throw better than baboons (see DeWaal above), so this
> ground-spending argument has no basis.


Don't bet on it:
http://www.uncoveror.com/baboons.htm
In a fight to the death, I'll take the ground dwelling baboons and
ground dwelling Nolan Ryan with his 109 MPH fast ball. So the
ground-spending argument is valid.


>
>
> >>> The problem would be the size of the bones in the record. Chimps don't
> >>> hunt (today) any animals with bones larger than what they can
> >>> comfortably break with their teeth. Two million years ago hominids were
> >>> breaking the bones of the largest animals.
>
> >> Yes, that's to be expected when they came from the shores: why woudn't
> >> they have butchered turtles & stranded whales there?
>
> > There are lots of turtles at Olduvai and I would think (but don't really
> > know) that an elephant or hippo carcass would be easier to get into than a
> > whale.
>
> Not impossible, but how is this an argument against opur ancestors having
> been littoral?

I'm just having a hard time imagining what would drive a group of
hominids to the coast when they did just fine inland.

>
> >> eg, M.Gutierrez cs.2001 "Exploitation d'un grand cétacé au Paléolithique
> >> ancien: le site de Dungo V à Baia Farta (Benguela, Angola)" CRAS
> >> 332:357-362: "The almost complete skeleton of a Balaenoptera sp was found
> >> closely associated with 57 Lower Palaeolithic artefacts..."
>
> > Question is, what is the estimated date of this evidence? Lower
> > Paleolithic artifacts are to be expected on the coast once the populations
> > inland swelled and expanded out to the coast. You need an earlier date
> > somewhere.
>
> IIRC, the authors spoke of earlier than 1 Ma, but why should we need an
> earlier date?


Because IMO, just saying they were on the coast or leading an early
lifestyle there is negative evidence. You have to be somewhere first
(earliest) in order to radiate out from there, hard evidence always
helps, which is exactly the evidence inland.


I'm only saying whale butchering should be considered,


Sure, but 1 My is a long time from when inland living started. I'm not
arguing that Homo e could not have butcher a whale a million years ago.
That isn't evidence he evolved there, everyone realizes Homo e had a
wide range of territory.


and
> it's many times easier to butcher a stranded whale on the beach than to
> catch & kill & butcher an antilope I'd think.

But antelope (or some type of bone) evidence with human modification
shows up a million before that inland. Your whale evidence is 1 My too
late.


>
> >> Stones as well as carcasses are more abundant at the coast or riverside
> >> than in inland.
>
> > Stone acquisition did not seem to be a problem for inland hominids, or
> > there wouldn't be the millions of flakes/manuports found in that record.
>
> I don't know how diffidult it was, but this doesn't contradict our ancestors
> lived at the coasts once.

Well, make a guestimate then as to when you think the first hominids
radiated from a inland forest habitat to a seaside life style. I need
to put something on the chronology chart ( I'm using Science 2002 until
someone comes up with a better one).


>
> > Closely associated does not prove exploitation. Are there any cut marks on
> > the whale bones or spiral fractures?
>
> I don't remember, but the authors had no doubt: "exploitation".
>
>
>
>
> >>>>> OK, but they couldn't continually carry seaside food from the Indian
> >>>>> Ocean to Koobi Fora.
>
> >>>> ?? Why should they? To the contrary: I'm suggesting they needed bone
> >>>> marrow because they had no seafood any more.
>
> >>> I'm just wondering why they should need something first if they could do
> >>> with something else second? Why switch?
>
> >> The real problem is: why did H switch & P didn't (or did less).
>
> > The distribution of the fossils shows hominids and pan were utilizing a
> > different niche
>
> I agree Homo & Pan use different niches, but Pan is a hominid.
>
> > , why would a switch between these two be required? Hominid occupation
> > was continuous through time inland. Yes, the coastal record may bias the
> > record somewhat, I agreed to that, but your whale
> site shows that at least *some* of the seaside evidence could be preserved.
>
> I'm no geologist, but I can image that the Ice Ages (sea level changes)
> could have erased all Pliocene possible preservations.
>
> > I don't follow the fossils finds that close. Are there any coastal hominid
> > fossils dated between 6 My and when your whale site turns up?
>
> Yes, eg, Mojokerto.

If you can use a biased record for the lack of coastal finds, I will
claim in return that the record is also biased by the simple fact that
the odds of preservation is favored in water/mud over a body that dies
out in the open on the savanna or in the jungle away from a water
source. If only one skeleton in a million gets preserved, then the odds
are it will be in the water/mud regardless of whether or not the
hominids lived near the source or not.

>
>
>
> >> If H ancestors came from the Indian Ocean or other coasts, this problem
> >> is solved.
>
> > Only if there were a problem that needed solving in the first place.
>
> How else do you explain why H & P differ?

Same way P and gorilla ended up so much alike (as compared to us as the
yard stick), we had a different niche.


>
> > Homo can get into turtle shells with a hammer stone at Olduvai (or any
> > other inland location) easier than any other creature, why move to the
> > coast to do this?
>
> Why IYO would a Pan ancestor be incapable of evolving this skill? why didn't
> Pan ancestors IYO try to get into turtle shells?


Extrapolating back into the distant past from what the chimps are doing
in the present is total speculation. We have evidence that 2 million
years ago hominids were modifying turtle shells with stone tools. I
don't have to guess on this. Today Washoe, the chimp, likes to page
through the magazine Ladies Home Journal, this doesn't mean that 2
million years ago her ancestors would have done so.


>
>
>
> ....
>
> > Evidence on the branch to Homo then should be found earlier on the coasts
> > than inland somewhere after the split with the LCA.
>
> No. Why?


We know by the earlier dates consistently found in the Old World that
hominids evolved there. All dates in the New World are much, much
younger, thereby implying no hominid evolution took place there. If one
were to argue it did, then the burden is on that person to come up with
the eariler dates, it is not the burden of the rest of the workers to
disprove the negative.


> - There's some evidence (Todaro's retro-viruses) that Homo ancestors were
> not in Africa 4-3 Ma or so, but we don't have Homo fossils then. This seems
> to confirm the fossil record is extremely biased.


Maybe, but that still doesn't prove a *portion* of our evolution
occurred *in* the water.
Also, 1.8 My is probably acceptable by the archaeological community,
but 4-3 My is based on sheer speculation.


> - OTOH even if there's fossil or archeol.evidence, why should this say much
> on our ancestors? We know our DNA has ancestors, but we don't know whether
> fossils have descendants.


My bias is stone tools, which do not require fossilization, and in the
time ranges we are talking about are nearly indestructible and there
are a million times more of them than fossils. The patterns of
distribution of these tools over the landscape do not suggest any
particular bias toward seaside/lakeside living nor do they suggest
early hominids were spending 'evolutionary altering' time *in* the
water (even if anyone knew how much time that would take).



>
> > You cited evidence that stone tools do preserve in the coastal record
> > (even if less), then conchoidal fractured tools should show up there first
> > if hominds were exploiting the coastal areas earlier than 2.6 My.
>
> Not necessarily. Waves, tides, sea level changes...


You only need a few acceptable dates, not the thousands that have been
confirmed inland to make a case based on something more than idle
speculation.


>
> ....
>
> >> I just came across James Shreeve 1995 "The Neandertal enigma" Penguin.
> >> Some quotes worth considering: p.147 "...when you find microwear it is
> >> usu. the kind association with wood-working."
>
> > The Clacton, Boxgrove, and Schoningen spears required a lot of
> > woodworking, but that is hardly evidence they were eating spears.
>
> Any evidence why spears would not have been used at the waterside?

The only direct association of spear use so far would be the spears
found with the horses inland. Here again, if you had a spear directly
associated with seal bones, or otter bones it might help your case.
But none of the seaside/lakeside evidence really gets your hominds into
the water.



>
> >> p.160: Combe Grenal: "Medium-sized animals like reindeer & red deer had
> >> been brought into the cave by hominids, and the pattern of anatomical
> >> parts represented, & the absence of gnaw-marks, suggested that the
> >> animals had indeed been hunted for their meat. But the large animals,
> >> like horses & wild cattle, continued to be scavenged.
>
> > If there was only evidence for one meal every 250 years, this sounds like
> > pretty slim evidence to be drawing any conclusions as to what was hunted
> > and what was scavenged.
>
> >> And the main staple of the Combe Grenal Hn, according to Binford, was not
> >> flesh at all. Judging from the traces of pollen left on flake tools at
> >> the site, it was aquatic plants plucked from the canyon stream. Cattails,
> >> to be exact." p.161: "Any paleont.site can show single sp concentration,
> >> but that doesn't mean the animals were hunted. Just 4 ya, 70 red deer
> >> jumped off a cliff during a thunder-storm. They were spooked... At
> >> Wretton in England, 100s of bison bones were found together; maybe those
> >> animals drowned crossing a river." p.162: "75,000 years of occupation,
> >> divided by ~300 medium to large animals - I came out with 1 meal every
> >> 250 years." It's often assumed that Hn were meat-eaters, usu.based on
> >> the PNAS paper of Richards cs.(2000 IIRC?), but when we see the figure in
> >> this paper, the Hn diet is not much more distant from mammoths (ate
> >> sedges etc.) than from wolves. The Hn dentition (eg, taurodonty) was
> >> even more herbivorous than ours, who are still more herbi- than
> >> carnivores (except Eskimos perhaps). Hn tools show traces of cattails
> >> (the dominant food of Hs is still growing in water: rice).
>
> >What makes Binford think the only use for cattails is eating? Native
> >Americans found all kinds of uses for cattails. Does Binford have Coprolite
> >evidence to back up his claim?
>
> I haven't read Binford on this, but the point is: cattails grow in shallow
> water.
>
> > Marean, from abstract: "Both assemblages are then analyzed in there
> > entirety and a new pattern, consistent with hunting is revealed." Marean,
> > C 1998. A critique of the evidence for scavenging by
> Neandertals and early modern humans: new data from Lobeh Cave (Zagros
> Mountains, Iran) and the Die Kelders Cave 1 Layer 10 (South Africa). Journal
> of Human Evolution, Vol. 35:111-136. See also Marean and Kim 1998 Current
> Anthropology Vol.39. At least this group of Neandertals ate a high meat
> diet. http://tinyurl.com/9rnz7 One does not need hafted tools to cut
> cattails. To get a point embedded into animal bone you do. See Science News
> vol 154, 1998 and vol 156, 1999 for smoking-gun proof of Middle Paleolithic
> hunting. As far as buffalo accidentally falling off a cliff, there is
> evidence for long term storage at La Quina. How did the Neandertals know the
> buffalo were going to accidentally fall off that particular cliff on a
> regular (possibly annual) basis? And page 12: "With the discovery of a
> stone point in the phalanx of a bovid, Dr. Henri-Martin felt confident in
> assuming that the Neanderthals had hunted with lances." Brierwirth, Susan
> 1996 Lithic Analysis in Southewestern France: Middle Paleolithic assemblages
> from the site of La Quina. BAR International Series 633. It is very hard to
> argue against three independent lines of 'smoking gun' evidence.
>
> Who argued against this? I said:
>
> >> IOW, all H populations until sapiens seem to have been strongly
> >> waterside.


Would you please explain just what exactly IYO is meant by waterside?
One can harvest cattails with out getting your feet wet. All Hn
populations require oxygen. There is oxygen at the North Pole.
Conclusion: Hn lived at the North Pole. Wrong.
No one is arguing humans don't need water or never went near it. One
does not have to wade, dive, or swim in it to obtain benefit from it.


>
> I also said: it's often concluded from Richard's Vindija paper in PNAS that
> Hn were predom.meat-eaters, but this interpretation is not based on the
> facts in that paper: see their fig.1.

Then fig.1 obviously has some problems, as demonstrated by the smoking
gun evidence.


>
> ....
>
>
> > What I was trying to point out is the evidence for non-large
> > lakeside/non-large river utilization of the landscape. I see no evidence
> > that the deeper water sources were a special target, in fact, at
> > Olorgesailie the evidence suggests just the opposite. I was not trying to
> > make any particular point about the specific technology here. I'm not the
> > only one to notice this: Johanson page 132, "The lakeshore location of FLK
> > slso makes it an unlikely site for a hominid camp. The edges of African
> > lakes and water holes are potentially dangerous places, especially at
> > night..." Johanson, D 1994 Ancestors: In search of Human Origins.
> > Villard http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20050627/stoneagetool.html
>
> I was trying to point out
> 1) the absence of evidence for a non-waterside lifestyle of our ancestors

> (until c 200 ka or so = Herto-Omo),


The distribution of stone tools suggests otherwise.


> 2) the comparative evidence for a littoral life once.
>
> .....
>
> >> Lee, are you an archeologist?
>
> > No, but I've followed many of the debates in the peer-reviewed journals
> > over the last thirteen years or so.
>
> >> I don't know much about archeology. I know a bit more about fossils &
> >> about comparative anatomy.
>
> > I don't know much about the fossils & comparative anatomy
>
> >> As you perhaps know, comparative anatomy & physiology led me to conclude
> >> that our ancestors must have been coastal for some time. So far, there's
> >> nothing in the fossil or archeol.record AFAIK that contradicts our
> >> hypothesis that our Plio-Pleistocene ancestors were littoral once, and
> >> that early Homo populations dispersed along the coasts & from there
> >> inland, see http://www.onelist.com/community/AAT All know archeol.data
> >> seem to be in agreement with this view AFAICS.
>
> > Depends on just where the lines are drawn. Before 2.6 My I really don't
> > have much of an opinion. Your point 3 above for instance is interesting
> > (retro-viruses), and if true, I don't really find it a problem as it still
> > doesn't put anyone in the water. After 2.6 My, I don't see much of a
> > pattern to support a wading/diving lifestyle.
>
> That's your opinion,

Yes it is, but it is based on what little facts that can be
demonstrated in the archaeological record.



but I see no data that disprove the comparative data
> http://www.onelist.com/community/AAT that suggest that our ancestors
> parttime waded or dived until not so long ago.

The Neandertals evolved in concert with He. They used similar tools,
evolved just as large a brain, and the hard evidence shows Richard's
fig.1 is an anomaly and primarily wrong. The Neandertals did this
without part-time wading or diving. It is one thing to suggest
wading/diving in tropical (and dangerous) waters, but in the far north
such activity is an automatic death sentence (ask any Eskimo). So if
the Neandertals could evolve without wading and diving, why couldn't
our ancestors?





>
> --Marc Verhaegen

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Anyone want to discuss paleoanthropology?
    ... (apes evolved longer ilia in parallel), ... apes to the homo line. ... Pierola+Dryopiths were probably hominids-pongids, possibly hominids. ... more-homo-like fossils have yet been found. ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: Louise Leakey talks about humanitys origins
    ... Fossil-hunters of hominid fossils don't dig up human ... of our ancestors were contemporeous!?) ... might be Homo, others (eg, OH-62 woith rel.very long ... east Africa, living side by side ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: A critique of the BBC aquatic ape programme and the transcript.
    ... >>> ....so when you say 4 Ma I'm confused as to your definition of Homo. ... Fossils that no doubt belong to Homo are ... >> it's usu.useless to try to find ancestors in fossils. ... > Homo-like activities is larger than the first arguable evidence (ie, ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: Louise Leakey talks about humanitys origins
    ... of our ancestors were contemporeous!?) ... , no Homo, but an A.boisei. ... She believes our ancestors left Africa early-Pleistocene, ... fossils come grom Dmanisi & probably Mojokerto c 1.8 Ma - both outside ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • AAT research (Re: Eritrean stone tools push back dates of earliest use of marine resources
    ... First *think* a little bit, my boy: we know we had ancestors, but nobody ... - Fossils only say something on the fossils, ... AAT - shoreline adaptations of the genus Homo: ... The Aquatic Ape: Fact or Fiction? ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
Loading