Re: Fanatic kudu runners (Re: Dugouts inland/coastal, Trade, Spears, Apes

"Rick Wagler" <taxidea3@xxxxxxx> wrote in message news:SKsAi.95986$rX4.36598@xxxxxxxxxxxx

I make the wildly radical claim
that the hominid taxon is like all other
taxa on the planet. It speciated (on the
split from chimps) into a certain kind of
niche in a certain kind of habitat and has
never left it since.

It's dopes like you (and other dry apers)
who say that hominids could, and did,
live everywhere -- or almost anywhere
that took their fancy. Somehow, even
though their technology developed
hugely during the existence of the taxon,
until farming etc., they never got much
better at occupying any particular niche
or habitat, often (or usually) having tiny
numbers and nearly getting wiped out
around 150 kya.

Whether you think they did it well or badly the fact
remains that the genus Homo at least from erectus
on inhabited a wide variety of biomes. The archaeological
record which is more numerous and extensive by orders
of magnitude than the fossil record is very clear on this
point.

Once Homo was able to make substantial
buildings and had other technologies, it
could live in many previously uninhabitable
places -- but even then the range is restricted.

Early hominids had no such capacity, nor
did they have fire or clothing. They could
not expose babies and infants to cold
night and regular ground damp. Get a map,
shade out all areas which have cold nights
with regular damp, and what you are left
with will be possible early hominid habitat.
(Of course, water and vegetation were also
needed.)

To see Homo as some kind of niche specialist
is beyond absurd.

Utterly wrong. Technology enables
modern homo to occupy a large range
of highly specialist niches.

To see ANY hominids -- but especially
early hominids -- as a wild exception to the
fundamental rules of nature that govern
every other species on the planet is to
display a truly massive ignorance of them.


Paul.


.

Relevant Pages

  • The evidence indicates hominids have always been communal
    ... The legs and hip bones of Homo erectus were buttressed by tremendous ... niche, they stopped occupying it? ... Hominids experienced group vs. group competition (Actually it's ... community vs. community competition) that accelerated hominid ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: Darwin and Modern PA
    ... Paul Crowley wrote: ... Humans are niche independent. ... Hominids greatly _extended_ ... evolution that is categorically distinct from the kind ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: Faster Than A Hyena?
    ... had moved from a primate niche into one ... PA) is the hominids moved into a quasi- ... canid niche". ... Humans don't exclusively rely on any survival strategy. ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: Darwin and Modern PA
    ... > one considers a niche an observation or a cause. ... > hominids seem to have occupied a "niche" that doesn't ... > evolution that is categorically distinct from the kind ... canines are not very expensive. ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)