Re: Faster Than A Hyena?
- From: "Paul Crowley" <slkwuoiutiuytciuyik@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 10:45:13 -0000
<pgarrone@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:c2994055-0fbf-4bdf-ab02-64857fbd1534@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
As a lurker who's merely read some of Leakey's popular science books,
I am unconvinced that hominids such as Homo Habilis or the
Australopithecines would have practised persistence/endurance hunting.
The idea of "persistence/endurance hunting"
is nonsensical for almost any hominid. What
advantage did a biped have over predators and
scavengers which had been exploiting this niche
(or very closely-related ones) over the previous
tens of millions of years?
1) If they did, surely they would have been mobile enough to migrate
out of Africa, and Homo Erectus is the first human to do this.
That kind of speed is irrelevant. One hundred
metres in a lifetime is enough for any species
to spread over the globe in a few thousand
years.
2) The Austraopithecines, like gorillas and unlike homo and
chimpanzees, had strong sexual dimorphism.
The data on early hominid sexing is
very poor. No reasoning should be
based upon it.
This implies that the males of a group were unrelated
and competed with each other for access to related females,
Even if the data was good, any such
'implication' would be extremely weak.
The 'rule' is not invariable, and can
readily have exceptions.
The conclusion is also unlikely on other
grounds. Chimps and humans demonstrate
a pattern quite unusual in primates and
mammals generally. It is parsimonious to
assume that humans acquired it from
ancestors who derived it from chimps.
which implies they were power rather than endurance
athletes.
Another very loosely-drawn implication.
Therefore this line of evidence seems poor ammunition to use against
the various crackpot alternate theories seen on this group.
The 'crackpot alternatives' are generally
about as sound as standard theory -- i.e.
they are as ignorant of evolutionary rules,
as poorly reasoned and they reach
conclusions that are as wildly far-fetched.
Paul.
.
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