Re: AAT is based on comparative data (Re: Algis ranting about AAH

Marc Verhaegen wrote:
> "Lee Olsen" <paleocity@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:1124628819.445067.96450@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> > > > >Do you really believe that Homo got to Java over your savanna?? :-D
>
> > > > That's what Dennell said.
>
> > > Yes, those biases... They can people make tell everything...
>
> > Biases like: "1.8-Ma Homo remains come from Algeria, Iran, Kenya, Georgia,
> Java... always near lakes or seas (R.Dennell 2003 JHE 45:421);..." Message
> ID 42e54fa7$0$6141$ba620e4c@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx This erroneous piece of
> information you believe from Dennell (or did you mis-quote Dennell-I see no
> quotation marks here, maybe you ought recheck to see if he actually said
> that),
>
> Haven't you read the paper?


Haven't you read Isaac, Hay, Leakey, Feibel, Brown? Why do you cite
from a secondary researcher? Where are his African site reports, his
original research papers on Africa? Has he ever been to Africa? Why
would he know what the people who do research there do not????



Well, although Dennell is biased by the 'old'
> savanna beliefs ("heat dispersal through upright posture" :-D as if all
> savanna mammals walk on their hindlimbs) he has to admit: "...preferred
> mosaic environments that also contained permanent water".


Another words, he has out-of-date savanna beliefs, but he is up to date
on the lake situation?



Further on he
> mentions "perennial open water ... palaeo-shore deposits of a vast shallow
> Late Plio/Early Pleist.lake ... Caspian, which may then have joined the
> Black Sea... " etc.


So, there was perennial open water somewhere, fine, everyone knows
that. That does not put the majority of the Plio/Pleistocene sites at
those locations.

"At Olduvai the Acheulean sites tend to lie along the former stream
channels away from the playa lakes." Hay 1967a, 1976.

At Olorgesailie:
"The study suggests hominid preferences for certain kinds of
topographic settings as locals for camps, notably the sandy channels of
ephemeral water courses." Isaac 1977.


There's not 1 site where large bodies of water must
> have been absent.


Would you like to put your money where your mouth is on that one? :-)



Logically: where else could heavy slow naked fat hominids
> survive??


They just did it in the deserts and on the savannas for 2.6 million
years, do you want to see it again? If they didn't need the Indian
Ocean for 2.6 million years, then they didn't need it at all.



>
> > but cut-marked bones and tools that litter the savanna, you call "bias", I
> call it evidence.
>
> Evidence they butchered animals, yes of course.


OK, you have one newspaper report for a 'possibly maybe' butchered
whale, but
Clark (1992:22-23): "The faunal remains all come from large terrestrial
mammals and there is no indication, at this or any other site in
Morocco, that marine fauna was made use of."



IMO drowned herbivores
> crossing rivers or so.


Not in the evidence of Hay and Isaac. What site, where butchery
occurred, is at a river crossing?



What else?


Where are the coconut middens?
I forgot to mention another problem for your littoral dispersion. I
notice that there are many sites scattered through out northwest
Africa, some even near the coasts. Clark (1992:31): "..several
scientific expeditions have shown that the Acheulian is well
represented in most parts of the desert." He is referring to the
central and western Sahara. From Sidi Zin to the Nile delta, ca. 2000
km there is not one site listed on the coast as of 1992. Sites are
numerous in nw Africa, but not along the coast back to the Nile. This
means Homo got there through the middle of the Sahara, not by coastal
migration. They followed the fauna, not the clams.




Even if you believe these heavily-built
> slow hominids ran after herbivores, they could never have killed them.


That's why we can throw a rock 400 feet.


>
> > Overwhelming evidence at that. There is no evidence of a predominant
> littoral-lifestyle anywhere in the history of Homo, not now, not ever.
>
> There is: the anatomical & physiological data which you neglect. How do you
> explain SC fat?


How do you determine just how much SC fat was on the Turkana Boy?



and nakedness?


Geez, you'd think the Dinka would die instantly, as if struck down by
lightning, if they got out in the sun the way you talk.


and olfactory reduction?


We don't need good smell. A zebra mother, for instance, uses its smell
to find it's baby amongst hundreds of others. We obviously didn't have
that problem. We have a brain that can remember those things.




and masticatory
> reduction?


That trend is still going on today, we aren't leading a littorial
lifstyle. Just like Schwartz said, if you sit areound eating mush all
day, that's what happens.



and body alignment? etc.etc. No mammal running over the plains
> has ever evolved these features: they have a keen sense of small, can move
> very fast, have large teeth etc.

That's why they are on the endangered species list.



If a few human populations can survive on
> the plains, it's because they have technology: but where did they evolve
> this? Not in the savanna: otherwise savanna chimps would have had a worse
> olfaction, very thick SC fat, no fur, bipedality, technology...


Wrong, you are taking leaps of faith that are not in the record. What
makes you think savanna chimps have been on the savanna for 2.6 +
million years as we have?



>
> > > > How do you think cheetahs got to China, by being littoral?
>
> > > Well, cheetahs have an excellent sense of smell,
>
> > .....and a better sense of sight. The excellent sense of smell in cats is
> used primarily to find or identify each other, eg, mark territories etc.
> They hunt primarily with sight, just as Homo does.
>
> Fine, fine, everybody knows that, but the point is: why do we have a worse
> olfaction than chimps?


Well then, why did you mention "cheetahs have an excellent sense of
smell," if you wanted to talk about chimps?



>
> > > run on 4 legs,
>
> > For about 400 yds, then they have to rest and at that point Homo runs
> (slowly) up and takes away their kill. So much for running fast on 4 legs
> (that's why they are an endangered species and we are not).
>
> Afr.hunting dogs run down prey. On 4 legs.


We run them down on two.



They *all* do that, not only a
> few males of a few populations occasionally & carrying water...


1) Modern H/G are not 100% of the population any longer, so a few today
are not 100% of yesterday, you bias the record. 2) No one person does
all the running, nor do they need run in the heat of the day.



>
> > > have a thick fur, no SC fat...
>
> > One picture is worth a thousand words (thanks Paul).
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4163282.stm
>
> You're showing poor bipedal humans in the desert dying of TB... What is
> your point, Lee?


You can see which ones have TB? I thought you needed a stethoscope or
something for that? Well, I guess that's why I'm not a MD.

Those poor people are the same stature as the Turkana Boy and the Dinka
of today. If they turned sideways you would barely see them. Allen's
rule works in hot dry climates.


>
> > > Must I go on?
>
> > I think you'd better :-)
>
> I'm afraid you're not realising the evidence.


I'm afraid comparative evidence is circumstantial evidence and you
don't have any more of it than anybody else.


>
> > > > Did cheetahs eat dead whales and algae on the way? :-)
>
> > > Ever seen a naked fat slow cheetah? :-)
>
> > Naked-fat-slow Homo can, and does, easily take away a cheetah kill (after
> the cheetah BURNS himself out after ca. 400 yds). No need to smell anything,
> the cloud of dust can easily be seen (even up-wind) that marks the exact
> kill spot.
>
> With a gun, yes.


I saw a video once were a couple of !Kung took a kill away from a
cheetah with out firing a shot from their bows. Yes, it could have been
a set up, maybe the cameraman had a gun. But hyaenas take away kills
from cheetahs and we can take away kills from hyaenas, Leakey's tested
that. So why is it so difficult to get a kill away from a single
cheetah?


>
> --Marc
>
> BTW, FYI: the new description of AAT group (Algis had objections to the
> previous one - but the present one isn't any better in his eyes, but I can
> always try):
>
> AAT-subscribe@xxxxxxxxxxx
> http://www.onelist.com/community/AAT
>
> AAT = littoral Homo
> [littoral = sea/lake-shore - AAT in the narrow sense has nothing to do with
> apiths, only with Homo]
>
> * Aquatic Ape Theory [original term E.Morgan]
> * Aquarboreal Apes Theory [AAT broad sense]
> * Amphibious Ancestors Theory [narrow sense]
>
> AAT (based on the behavior, anatomy, physiology & DNA of living humans
> compared to other animals) says that sea/lake-side ancestors collected
> coconuts, fruits, bird eggs, turtles, shell-, crayfish, algae etc. This
> explains unique Homo traits (not seen in apes or apiths) better than plains-
> or forest-dwelling scenarios: brain size, diving skills, breathing control,
> vocality, small mouth & chewing muscles, tongue bone descent, longer airway,
> projecting nose, poor sense of smell, handiness, tool use, late puberty,
> long legs, aligned body, poor climbing, fatness, fur loss, high needs of
> water, sodium, iodine & poly-unsaturated fatty acids etc.[note: no
> bipedality: this mostly due to vertical climbing]
>
> In the fossil & archeological record, we see this in the Plio-Pleistocene
> diaspora of Homo along the Indian Ocean, African coasts, Rift valley lakes
> etc. (eg, R.Dennell 2003 JHE 45:421, M.Trauth cs.2005 Science). Homo much
> more than apith remains have been found (in spite of sea level fluctuations)
> amid shells, corals & barnacles throughout the Pleistocene, in coasts al
> over the Old World: Mojokerto, Terra Amata, Table Bay, Eritrea etc., even on
> islands that could only be reached by sea: Flores 0.8 Ma
> http://allserv.rug.ac.be/~mvaneech/outthere.htm.
>
> * Max Westenhöfer 1942 "Der Eigenweg des Menschen" Mannstaede
> * Alister Hardy 1960 "Was Man more aquatic in the past?" NS 7:624
> * Elaine Morgan 1982 "The aquatic ape" Souvenir London
> * Maggie Roede cs. 1991 "The aquatic ape: fact or fiction?" Souvenir
> * Marc Verhaegen cs. 2002 "Aquarboreal ancestors?" TREE 17:212
> * Stephen Cunnane 2005 "Survival of the fattest" World Scientific
> * http://allserv.rug.ac.be/~mvaneech/Symposium.html
>
> Additional files at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AAT1

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Final Solution of the Aquatic Question
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  • Re: Final Solution of the Aquatic Question
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  • Re: Homo & molluscs
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