Re: Samburupithecus in swampland amid cranes & plovers
- From: Marc Verhaegen <m_verhaegen@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2007 12:12:12 +0200
Our little boy seems to believe that ostriches contradict AAT?? PAs usu.look
only to the fossil & archeological evidence when they reconstruct human
evolution, but fossils are scarse & incomplete, fragmented pieces of bone
without soft parts, frequently of uncertain relation to living species;
often, species, age & sex are unknown; sometimes the geological age &
paleo-environment are uncertain. The fossil record can provide important
insights, but PAs (understandably) tend to overstate its importance for
reconstructing our past. The comparative method comparing the behaviour,
anatomy, physiology, DNA etc. of living animals is much more secure,
systematic & reliable. The main drawback of the comparative approach is
probably the insufficient data available for so many species.
The physiological, anatomical, behavioural & DNA differences between Homo &
Pan show that human ancestors some time after the Homo/Pan split ~5 Ma lived
at the waterside (coast/lake/river). Whether that was before 2.6 Ma (first
finds of stone tools at Gona) &/or after 2.6 Ma &/or at 2.6 Ma
simultaneously but elsewhere (eg, in S.Asia), is of no importance:
A creature that needs a lot of water & salt is physiologically not adapted
to living in hot & dry regions. If some hominids ever lived in savannas as
PAs traditionally believed, it was at the waterside there, not running after
antelopes as some people till seem to think. After 20 years, the
physiological facts remain the same: "Origin of hominid bipedalism"
Nature 325:305-306, 1987: "... it is highly unlikely that hominid ancestors
ever lived in the savannas. Man is the opposite of a savanna inhabitant.
Humans lack sun-reflecting fur, but have thermo-insulative SC fat layers,
which are never seen in savanna mammals. We have a water-& sodium-wasting
cooling system of abundant sweat glands, totally unfit for a dry
environment. Our maximal urine concentration is much too low for a
savanna-dwelling mammal. We need much more water than other primates, and
have to drink more often than savanna inhabitants, yet we cannot drink large
quantities at a time." As prof.Tobias says: ³if ever our earliest ancestors
were savannah dwellers, we must have been the worst, the most profligate
urinators there.² It is not very sensible to believe that humans (unlike
chimps) exposed their naked skin to the sun & evolved 10 kilo of fat to run
after wildebeest. Not unlikely, hominids at Gona & other "butchery sites"
butchered trampled & drowned bovids crossing a river during the trek. Homo
members (as opposed to Pan) probably improved their dexterity for opening
hard-shelled foods at the waterside (like racoons & sea-otters) & used those
skills to butcher bovids they found drowned at rivers (trekking bovid
herds). If the savanna ideas were true, every primate should have adapted
to the savanna (if the Pleistocene drying replaced forests by grasslands) &
developed very large brains, extreme dexterity, more nakedness, more dilute
urine etc., not only human ancestors. Why didn't members of Pan or other
primates adapt to live in the savannas & develop better tol using skills,
more SC fat, more plantigrady, more sweating etc.? Waterside hypotheses
otoh nicely explain why after the Homo/Pan split 5 Ma, only members of Homo
got larger brains (brain-specific nutrients in waterside foods), more SC fat
(they hadn't to run fast under the hot sun after antelopes, but they all,
incl.women & children, found their food while ³playing² in the water
(probably savanna theorists spend their holidays in the savanna?)), started
sweating (=water+salt) to cool at the waterside etc.etc. Savanna stories
can't explain all this. And of course, why couldn't some of those waterside
hominids follow the rivers inland in Georgia, Flores, Java etc. & perhaps
(captatio benevolentiae of savanna believers :-)) even in savannas?
--Marc Verhaegen
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AAT
http://allserv.rug.ac.be/~mvaneech/outthere.htm
Op 11-06-2007 00:46, in artikel
1181515577.077012.271430@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Lee Olsen
<paleocity@xxxxxxxxxxx> schreef:
Marc Verhaegen wrote:
Samburupithecus, 10-9.5 Ma, Samburu Hills, Kenya:
Go to this link:
http://jambo.africa.kyoto-u.ac.jp/
Click on "African study monographs..." in the left column.
Then click on second link "African study monographs suppl.
issue contents,..."
Then click on "No32 (2005)".
It is second abstract from top "pp.51-62".
-- Mario Petrinovich
Thanks a lot, Mario: "Near the hominoid bearing site, SH 22, the
Palaeo-environment seems to have been more wooded. Several places are likely
to have been open environments. The footprints suggest a swampland
surrounded by savanna. Samburupithecus kiptalami was likely to have
inhabited woodland surrounded by an open environment such as savanna and
grassland."
IOW, it was wooded swampland, but of course, every savanna believer knows
Samburup lived in the savanna that surrounded the swampland...
"The avian footprints are similar to those of wading birds such as extant
cranes and plovers. These birds occur in swampland. In fact, the sediments
accumulated in a (back)swamp or floodplain (Saneyoshi 2001)."
Roche (1999): "ostrich-egg shell fragments are more closely
associated with the lithic artigacts"
H. Roche et al. Nature Vol 399:59
Ostriches in a swamp???? ROFL
.
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