Re: A More Reasonable Interpretation of the Evidence


Lee Olsen wrote:
claudiusdenk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Lee Olsen wrote:

Marc claims:
"There's not the slightest evidence that our ancestors ever ran over
your savannas. Zero.
Nada."

To make a claim like this is totally irresponsible,

Well, it depends how you interpret it. The supposition that early man,
including homo, regularly walked or ran over, across, or through
treeless savanna habitat is not viable in that they were largely if not

Nope, "treeless" is not what Marc claimed (he said "your savannas"),
but apparently he is the last one left on the planet that thinks they
are treeless and waterless, in fact I think he thinks a savanna is a
desert year round.

Yes, Marc's strawman tactics are well documented.


completely defenseless against the predators thereof. IOW, it makes
about as much sense to emplace human ancestors, including homo,
neanderdudes, and even early humans (before the advent of jeeps and
guns) in treeless savanna habitat as it does to emplace them swimming
alongside crocodiles.

This leaves us with a bit of a dilemma when it comes to interpreting
the evidence. If human ancestors were not regularly venturing across
treeless habitat chasing down prey and defending themselves against
predators then what purpose do the stone weapons (spears, bow and
arrow) serve that show up in the fossil record starting about 2.5 mya?
(My answe to this question is below.)

But we know for a fact that early Homo completely solved the big cat
problem. Pound for pound all cats are cowards. Whether it was in large
groups, sticks, rocks, fire, spears or just bluffing, Homo dropped off
the dinner menu at archaeological sites (that is to say they no longer
make up a larger percent of the fossil victims than do the big cats
themselves).

Well, I would agree that it seems reasonable to assume that
homo--starting about 2.5 mya--had advanced to the point to where big
cats were no longer the means by which most hominids died (unlike how
it had been for A'pith who typically met their demise in the clutches
of some kind of large predator, if not specifically a cat). All the
more reason to assume that they were not out in treeless habitat where
they would have had zero chance against lions and bear-sized hyena.
Homo rarely if ever left treed habitat.

if not downright
dishonest and typical of a total amateur like Marc. Olduvai Gorge cuts
right through two million years of sediments of the Serengeti Plain,
which is about as savanna as you can get.

I agree mostly, but keep in mind that the world climate generally was
wetter (and warmer) prior to 2 mya. This means that the treed
localities where early hominids resided were more expansive than these
same treed localities are presently at Serengeti and similar regions.

Keywords: OUR ANCESTORS, EVER, OK? No timeline was specified in Marc's
statement.

So, you're arguing that Marc's vagueness excuses yours?



The thousands of artifacts
that have been found there speak for themselves.

Artifacts never speak for themselves. They have to be interpreted in
the context of reconstructed paleohabitats.

One does not have to know the cause of a train wreck to know that there
was one.

But one must know more than that there was a train wreck to determine
its cause.

I never claimed the artifacts were concentrated in treeless
plains, but they are found there just the same, proving they utilized
such areas at times. It proves they were not afraid to be there.

Now you're becoming Marc. You are pretending the evidence tell you
something that it does not. There is no evidence of homo fossils in
treeless habitat. The fact that homo fossils can be found in places
that are currently treeless does not mean that the same location was
treeless millions of years ago.




"The earliest Eurasians preferentially occupied
grasslands and open scrub- and wood-lands, as in
East Africa.

They didn't occupy grasslands and open scrub. They occupied the treed
localities in the vicinity of grassland and open scrub. These were the
locations that had the resources--fruit trees, nuts, vegetables--that
were most essential to them surviving the dry season.

You do realize he is talking about early Homo, not apiths?

Absolutely I realize that. There is no good reason for homo to
regularly travel through treeless habitat. They were completely
incapably of hunting any of the animals that resided there and they had
no defense against lions, dogs, and hyena. They would have avoided
such habitat in the same way that they would have avoided swimming next
to crocodiles.



Homo ergaster/erectus in East Africa after 1.7 Ma is
associated with hot and dry conditions, and open
grasslands; its post-cranial anatomy, with its long
limbs was geared to long-distance walking across
open ground, and to heat dispersal through upright
posture (Dennell 2003:442)."

Might later hominids have ventured across open habitat more often than
A'pith? Sure. But to suggest that these adapatations indicate a shift

Keywords: OUR ANCESTORS, EVER. If you want to talk about apiths
exclusively, then start another thread, Mark did not say apiths only.


to a lifestyle that often involved long distance walking through hot,
treeless habitat is inconsisten with the predatory realities thereof.


Apiths probably not, but that changed as soon as early Homo showed up.

There is no good reason for homo to regularly travel through treeless
habitat. They were completely incapably of hunting any of the animals
that resided there and they had no defense against lions, dogs, and
hyena. They would have avoided such habitat in the same way that they
would have avoided swimming next to crocodiles.

What, then, were the stone weapons for? I think the answer to this
question is fairly obvious when you consider the fact that all the
evidence inidcated that hominids are and always have been highly
communal and territorial. The stone weapons served the purpose of
keeping food-competitor species out of their garden-like communal
territory which was part of their larger strategy to survive the dry
season and its rather dramatic predatory implications (predatory
massacres). Does this mean that they never used their weapons for
hunting? No, that too is too simplistic. In addition to keeping these
food-competitor species out off of their garden-like communal property
they employed them to ambush these same species once they had entered
their communal property. (And they also employed these stone weapons
to fend off or deter lesser predators.)

I think this interpretation of the evidence better matches up with the
overwhelming evidence that present day humans are primarily communal,
non-migratory.

So are chimps in the sense that they don't gobble up 50,000 sq. km as
do some hunter gatherers.

?

One of the things that puts a damper on
human migratory habits today is the 6.5 billion of us that are in each
others way. Kind of hard to migrate if your neighbor has the A-bomb.
If you want to mix all into "hominids" then you have a problem. There
is an enormous switch in who were the victims and who were not after
two million years ago.

?

It is obvious apiths were doing one thing and
Homo quite another.

I agree.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: A More Reasonable Interpretation of the Evidence
    ... "There's not the slightest evidence that our ancestors ever ran over ... including homo, regularly walked or ran over, across, or through ... treeless savanna habitat is not viable in that they were largely if not ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: A More Reasonable Interpretation of the Evidence
    ... guns) in treeless savanna habitat as it does to emplace them swimming ... But we know for a fact that early Homo completely solved the big cat ... plethora of fossil evidence that indisputably indicates that all homo ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: A More Reasonable Interpretation of the Evidence
    ... that they hunted and scavenged out on the treeless savanna. ... Are you talking about Homo, apiths, or both? ... predatory realities in treeless habitat." ... Evidence doesn't lie. ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: A More Reasonable Interpretation of the Evidence
    ... that they hunted and scavenged out on the treeless savanna. ... Are you talking about Homo, apiths, or both? ... predatory realities in treeless habitat." ... Do you have any evidence that the habitat was treeless when the tools ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: A More Reasonable Interpretation of the Evidence
    ... guns) in treeless savanna habitat as it does to emplace them swimming ... the evidence. ... treeless habitat chasing down prey and defending themselves against ... But we know for a fact that early Homo completely solved the big cat ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
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