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


Marc Verhaegen wrote:
> "Lee Olsen" <paleocity@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:1120578486.954249.43620@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.
>
> Yes: they miss a lot.

*They* is a generalization. Name some names.


>
>
> >>> 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"
>
> You also said: indistinguishable.

And you also said: ~6-4 Ma. You also said: Fossils that no doubt belong
to Homo are georgicus-ergaster-erectus etc. H.rudolfensis possibly.
H.habilis. And those meet your definition by the traits you gave.
This is fine for 2.4 My ago. It is not fine for ~6 My ago. You don't
know if any of the traits you listed ( - H features were, eg, thick
enamel, low ilia, flatter feet, 5 lumbar >> vertebrae, no very long
arms, absence of KWing...) were in place at ~6 My.

But no matter, I was just trying to get some sort of idea when you
thought our ancestors left for the coast, which you did answer below.



>
> >> 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.]
>
> (what is OT?)

Off topic, maybe I should have said 'out of place' At one point we were
discussing who was making the tools, H habilis or Rudolf, elsewhere,
so I didn't think the comment really belonged here, that's all, so
I said OT for this paragraph.


>
> > H. habilis has a very common homo feature, ie, the start of a external
> > nose, unlike Rudolf.
>
> No, no: probably the reverse: H.rudolf. possibly had an ext.nose (Franciscus
> & Trinkaus 1988).


This says just the opposite:

http://www.geocities.com/palaeoanthropology/Hrudolfensis.html?200524

I realize web pages aren't always tops, so if you can *quote* what
Trinkaus said, I will concede the point for now.



>
> > 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?
>
> I'm not following. Relevance of all this?


Yes, my fault, that comment really belonged where we were discussing
tools/Rudolf/H. Habilis.



Why do you think some traits trump
> others?


I think before we go any further on that we should get the nose issue
straightened out.


>
> >> 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.
>
> OK, but what is your point?


I was just trying to get it straight who and when along our
evolutionary path the seaside living began.


>
> >>> 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?
>
> Probably not: IMO the early hominoids might well have been coastal forest
> dwellers, IOW, our ancestors might have been coastal (forests) since
> millions of years.


I was hoping for something more specific. Correct me if I'm wrong, but
you do seem to be arguing that Homo erectus (and Neandertals) was
influenced by waterside living. Maybe I'm not seeing something. Is AAH
taking claim for the evolution of both bipedalism and our large
brain ( in spite of the fact that there seems to be millions of years
between the two events)?



>
> ...
>
>
> >>> 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.
>
> Probably, but it's not necessary: we have anatomical-comparative data.


Yes, Jeffery Schwartz makes some great observations using comparative
data, but still that sort of thing can take you only so far:
"If chimps and humans are so alike, why do they look so different? And
why do orangs and humans have so much in common?"

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05170/523412.stm



My
> point is that PAs tend to neglect the importance of the
> anatomical-comparative data (on our ancestors) & over-emphasize
> (understandably: it's their job) fossil & archeol.data (on our relatives),
> and that fossil & archeol.data nowhere contradict the anat.-comparative
> data.

It will certainly be interesting to see what the PAs have to say about
this data when its published in the Journal of Human Evolution (or
some other peer-reviewed journal).



>
>
>
> >>>>>>> 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." ?
>
> Chimps use tools, orangs do,


Yes, today.




humans do, early great apes were probably
> durophagous (thick enamel),


Chimps and gorillas don't have this feature.


so why wouldn't the early apes not have been
> using stone tools? I'm not saying they did, only that I don't see any
> reason why they didn't.


I'm not saying they didn't/couldn't, but I don't see any evidence that
they did, and I prefer factual evidence over reason.



>
> >>> 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.
>
> AFAICS, there's no reason why they would have used tools: chimps, orangs &
> humans do (only the predom.herbivorous gorillas don't much), and the early
> great apes had probably thick enamel (probably for hard foods).
>
>
> >>> 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,
>
> Ah? How do you know?


Sue:
"I finally recognized that Nick was not really hitting rocks together;
instead, he was throwing the rock in his right hand against the edge of
the rock in his left hand, letting the force of the controlled throw
knock off the flake. The "hammer rock" never really left his right
hand, but it was none the less thrown, as a missile, against the
"core," or the rock held in place in his left hand."

And: "Once I realized how Nick was actually flaking stone, I grasped
the profound similarity between the activities of throwing and stone
knapping."

Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and Roger Lewin. 1994:3
KANZI: THE APE AT THE BRINK OF THE HUMAN MIND. John Wiley & Sons.

Chimps throw today, and yes, they can (or at least Kanzi can) hit a
rock on the ground with another rock. But can Kanzi throw a 109 mph
fast ball to home plate 445 feet away, no. This suggests we've had
more practice at throwing for a longer period of time (demonstrated by
spalls left in the record).

Also see more on throwing:
http://williamcalvin.com/bk5/bk5ch8.htm



>
> > 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.
>
> Same rasoning: humans throw accurately, apes do (F.deWaal), why wouldn't
> their LCA??

Same reasoning, no time depth. Many creatures stumble on to the same
adaptations independently of each other. For instance, you mentioned
above that chimps were our closest relatives. This means knuckle
walking evolved twice (or we were knuckle walkers once).


>
> >> 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
>
> Thanks a lot, Lee.


You are welcome, see below.


The link says: "CURIOUS CHILD CAUSES BABOON FRACAS - A
> third grader on a school outing to the San Jose Zoo caused an ugly scene.
> His older brother told him not to throw rocks at the red-ass baboons,
> because when they throw them back, they don't miss. He wanted to see if it
> was true. George Simms picked up a rock, and threw it at the biggest baboon
> he could see. It whizzed past Bobo, dominant male in the zoo's troop of
> Hamadryas Baboons, and landed just behind him. Bobo noticed who had thrown
> the rock, and flew into a rage. He picked it up, and threw it back, hitting
> little George squarely in the forehead, knocking him out cold. The Baboon
> then proceeded to screech loudly, jumping up and down, showing his teeth.
> A little girl, Susan Parker, yelled "You bad monkey!" and threw the rock a
> third time. This time it fell just short of an infant baboon. The entire
> troop became agitated, and started to fling rocks, dirt clods, mud, and
> their feces at the children, their teacher, and all other humans within
> sight, never once missing a target. As children began to drop like flies,
> and adults began to panic, some chimpanzees in the display behind them
> thought flinging things looked like fun, so they joined in, completely
> surrounding the bewildered zoo patrons. By the time the apes had nothing
> more to fling, Nine children and three adults lay unconscious, and many
> others were crying and moaning in pain, bleeding, and holding on to wounds.
> Those only needing first aid were treated at the zoo, and the rest were
> rushed to nearby hospitals. The young boy who started it all remains
> hospitalized in serious condition. As little George Simms and all his
> classmates learned the hard way, it is not just a myth or an old wives tale.
> Don't throw rocks at the red-ass baboons. When they throw them back, they
> don't miss!"

Notice especially that a *child* could throw a rock *to* the biggest
baboon. Let's get equals against equals here. Accuracy is only a small
part of the equation. No ape can win a rock throwing contest against a
trained human, only against human couch potatoes.



>
> > 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.
>
> (Who is Nolan Ryan?)

A trained ballplayer. We throw better than apes. Ask Frans de Waal if
he would rather have a chimp throwing at him or a major-league
ballplayer.


>
> Both hominoids & cercopiths throw accurately,


Savanna dwellers throw better than chimps, orang, or gorilla.


IOW, throwing hasn't much to
> do with human evolution, nor with ape evolution, nor with ground vs
> tree-dwelling.

Well, in William Calvin's opinion it does. He knows far more about how
the brain functions and it's evolution than you or I.


>
>
>
>
> >>>>> 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 our 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.
>
> Yes, apparently.
> I'll try again:
> 1) Our arguments are based on the behavior, anatomy & physiology of living
> humans compared to other animals http://www.onelist.com/community/AAT :
> they suggest that some time after the Homo-Pan split 7-4 Ma, our ancestors
> were seaside omnivores who collected coconuts, fruits, bird eggs, turtles,
> shell-, crayfish, algae... This explains many typically Homo traits (not
> seen in apes or australopiths) a lot better than dry savanna scenarios do:
> brain size, diving skills, breathing control, vocality, small mouth &
> chewing muscles, tongue bone descent, longer airway, projecting nose,
> reduced sense of smell, handiness, tool use, late puberty, long legs, body
> alignment, reduced climbing, fatness, fur loss, high needs of water, sodium,
> iodine & poly-unsaturated fatty acids...


Thank you for the review. I have followed some of these debates over
the years, but not nearly as close as some of the other readers on this
list (obviously :-).
>>From what I've seen so far, the world is not quite ready to accept your
conclusions.





> 2) We know that ~1.8 Ma Homo remains (fossil & archeol.) are found in
> Algeria, Iran, Kenya, Georgia, Java... No reason why they would have
> dispersed over the mountains rather than along the coast.


People can walk to and over these areas today, no reason to suspect our
ancestors couldn't have walked were other animals did, or did all
other African-animal migrants follow the coast also? Java seems to be
the only case where I would agree with you, but that hardly is proof of
how the other areas were populated, one case does not prove another
(not to mention the dating problems associated with the Java remains).


> IOW, in the fossil & archeological record, this waterside episode is
> reflected in the Plio-Pleistocene dispersals of Homo along the Indian Ocean
> & African coasts: 1.8-Ma Homo remains come from always near lakes or seas
> (R.Dennell 2003 JHE 45:421). In spite of sea level changes (Ice Ages), Homo
> much more than australopith remains have been found amid shells, corals &
> barnacles, from 1.8 to 0.1 Ma (throughout the Pleistocene), in coasts all
> over the Old World (Mojokerto, Terra Amata, Table Bay, Eritrea...), even on
> islands that could only be reached by sea (Flores 0.8 Ma
> http://allserv.rug.ac.be/~mvaneech/outthere.htm ).

This observation is 5 million years after the fact, unless you are
claiming no evolution took place before Homo e and 7 million years ago.




> 3) There are no fossil or archeol.data which contradict this seaside
> diaspora.

Total lack of evidence between 2 My and 7 My is not very convincing
IMO.



>
>
>
>
> >>>> 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.
>
> This would be "hard" evidence on the sites, not on our ancestors: our
> ancestors' "hard" evidence is inside us.

Are you familiar with the work of Jeffery Schwartz? He has lots of
comparative data also (in fact, some of it is pretty good), but it
doesn't make his conclusion right.

So comparative anatomy can be very deceptive and a very debatable
issue.



>
> >> 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.
>
> Again:
> 1) The fossil & archeol.evidence is very scanty.


Yes, on the seaside it is, but not inland.


> 2) Littoral fossilisation is esp.difficult.


I sympathize with you up to a point here, but nothing before ca 1 or 2
My ago is just too big a gap for me to accept, sorry. Again, stone
tools don't require fossilization.


> 3) We have the arguments in our anatomy, physiology & behaviour. These
> arguments are superior to the fossil data, but are often neglected.


Arguments that are plausible do not prove cause (says Binford). Then
someone from the AAT community should publish in JHE and point out the
neglect.



> 4) Without a littoral interlude we can't explain why we became so different
> from forest- (chimp) or savanna-(baboon)-dwelling relatives.


Well, the same argument would apply to the differences between chimps
and baboons. At the equator the forests extend to the sea. Why are
there chimps here at all (or baboons for that matter) if seaside living
was such an advantage? Chimps are not physically blocked from the sea
or rivers.



A littoral
> phase nicely explains most of this, see
> http://www.onelist.com/community/AAT
>
>
>
> >>>> Stones as well as carcasses are more abundant at the coast

None of this means anything if there is no evidence that anyone was
there to utilize them.



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 difficult 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).
>
> ?? You mean: when hominid populations radiated inland?
> Our view in short :
> - Miocene pongids-hominids : coastal forests peri-Tethys, Lake Chad etc.
> (Heliopith, Griphopith, Dryopith, Samburupith, Oreopith, Sahelanthr)
> - Plio-Pleistocene apiths : African wetlands
> http://allserv.rug.ac.be/~mvaneech/outthere.htm
> - Plio-Pleistocene Homo : African &/or Indian Ocean shores & from there
> inland along rivers


OK, that helps.


>
>
> >>> 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.
>
> Well possible, but our anatomy simply refutes a typical savanna past: we
> lack sun-reflecting fur (shaved sheep overheat), but have thick SC fat
> layers never seen in savanna mammals (it's a heat trap).


Heat trap? That's good, during the Pleistocene nights were freezing
where some of the stone tools have been found, they had to keep warm
somehow.




We have a
> water+Na-wasting cooling system


We have a lot of genetic baggage we don't use to capacity. If our
ancestors could make fine tools, they also had brains enough to get out
of the mid-day sun. Some Mexicans still take a mid-day siesta (the ones
with out air-conditioning).


(Na & water are scarse in the savanna,


Not where the tools are found.


but
> abundatn at the coast:


Salt water isn't very good to drink, and river deltas are poor places
to get a drink.



overheated sealions on land also sweat abundantly).
> Our max.urine concentration is much lower than in savanna-dwelling mammals.


The savanna is not/was not a continuous-burning desert.


> We need much more water than savanna-dwellers, have to drink more often, but
> can't drink large quantities at a time. We're much too slow (<35 km/hr).
> Very vulnerable (unportected skin).


That's why the tools are found in areas with plenty of shade trees
(root-casts do preserve in the record).


Plantigrade (slow runners). Have an
> unusually poor olfaction. We have a rel.low body temperature, very low body
> Tp fluctuations (oryxes can easily have 45°C in the afternoon!). Etc.

You are working too hard, take a siesta under a nice shade tree :-)



>
> > 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.
>
> Yes, the fossil record is much less reliable than the living evidence.
>
> >>>> 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?


Well, the forests that chimps live in go right out to the coasts. Why
do we have chimps at all if sea-side habitat was available to them
also?


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

That's just it, the coast/rivers were available to chimps also, why are
they so different?



Can't be the savanna, see above.


Must be the savanna, because no reason chimps couldn't have utilized
the benefits of coastal living also.


>
>
>
> >>> 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.
>
> No, no: starting from living H & P, we can go back to the HP LCA.
>
> > 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.
>
> If our ancestors could evolve this behaviour, why not theirs IYO?
>
>
>
>
> >>> 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.
>
> Yes, but we're not talking about America?

No, but it is an example of how earlier dates in one area demonstrates
where a particular group originated.



> The earliest hominids seem to come from Europe as you probably know
> (Dryo-Ouranopith).


Where they evolved would have nothing to do with what they evolved in
(which was not water). I have already mentioned that the stone tools
show up abruptly, in northern Africa (in a very advanced state). It
wouldn't surprise me too much if the makers migrated in from somewhere
else. If Ouranopith was found, then one would think tools would show up
even if homo fossils in particular didn't preserve in the record. If
Homo went south into Africa, they were undoubtedly following some
particular species of animal into the area, but certainly they were
not following sea-urchins :-).


>
> >> - 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.
>
> Whzt is the connection with the Todaro paper??


I'm not sure what you mean here, I have no particular problem with that
paper.


>
> > Also, 1.8 My is probably acceptable by the archaeological community, but
> > 4-3 My is based on sheer speculation.
>
> No, no, it's not, to the contrary: see our TREE paper (with P-F Puech & S
> Munro "Aquarboreal ancestors?" Trends in Ecology & Evolution 17:212-217,
> 2002).
> (But I don't know what the "archeol.community" thinks acceptable... :-))

Yes, I'm sure Louis Leakey (if he were still around today) would love
your idea that Homo goes way back, I'm just not sure too many others
would.


>
>
> >> - 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).
>
> Yes, you bias is stone tools: you forget the behavioural

But before 2.6 My, what behavioral evidence is there?



& anatomical
> evidence, and the stone tools nowhere contrdict this evidence.
>
> >>> 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.
>
> No idle speculation, tothe contrary: hard anatomical & behavioural facts
> (unfortunately neglected by many PAs & archeologists).
>
>
>
>
>
> >>>> 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 hominids into the
> > water.
>
> I don't need these hominids into the water to prove my case.


I'm really only arguing against your case after 2.6 My. Before that
I'm really just trying to get everything square in my mind, timelines,
etc. I'm not a biologist or physical anthropologist, so I really don't
know what the anatomical-comparative data might mean. It didn't seem to
mean much in the Schwartz hypothesis.


Nevertheless,
> AFAIK none of those sites were away from the water.


But not necessarily near water that would be deep enough to wade waist
deep or swim in, that is my point here. You can drown in a cup of
water, but that doesn't mean a cup of water is deep enough to change
the course of human evolution. Deep water is dangerous, period. Chimps
know this, and there is every reason to believe our ancestors knew this
also by the distribution of the stone tools. More tools/archaeological
sites are found in and around small sources than large ones (ie, large
enough to swim in).



My view is based on
> comparative data, and these are not contradicted by this evidence,


Just because something unknown and is not contradicted does not mean
the same thing as proven.


to the
> contrary: how do you think Homo populations became so different from hunting
> chimps?


If seaside living was such an evolutionary advantage, why didn't chimps
exploit this market also?


They developed handiness & use tools at the coasts, consuming
> seafood (as you know, sea otters are very dextrous tool-users).

Sea gulls use stone tools also, I'm not sure what your point is here.


>
>
> >>>> 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- thancarnivores (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 mean our ancestors spent part of their time in the water, diving, swimming
> http://www.onelist.com/community/AAT , dipping or wading.
>
> >> 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.
>
> Which problems do you mean?

Anything that implies Neandertals had a diet similar to mammoths.

>
>
>
>
>
> >>> 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.
>
> It does not AFAIK.

It does after stone tools turn up in the record. Rocks on the seashores
are evidence of nothing.


>
> >> 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.
>
> - There are no facts in the archeol.record that contradict our view AFAIK.

There are no facts that prove it either.


> - The abundant anatomical, physiological & behavioural data are the basis
> for our view.
>
> >> 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.
>
> ?? Care to explain?

Neandertals evolved without wading and diving and ended up same as us.
Please explain how this contradiction to your hypothesis happened.


>
> > 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?
>
> Well, we *know* they did *not* evolve without wading: where do you think
> cattails (see above) grow? :-)

Don't think so. I am well aware where cattails grow, since the grow on
my property. You do not have to get your feet wet to obtain them.






>
> --Marc

.

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