Re: Faster Than A Hyena?

On Feb 21, 2:17 pm, "Paul Crowley"
<slkwuoiutiuytciu...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Gerrit Hanenburg" <G.Hanenb...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:p1nrr31d0ko2v7jtv7uqvp4gmr3kk4omko@xxxxxxxxxx

After some research I see there is evidence that early homo (pre-
erectus) did make it out of Africa, and on re-reading Leakey, I see
that all species of homo, including the early/questionable ones, were
runners,

How come, after mastering this
niche, they stopped occupying it?

How many find pursuit hunting still a viable lifestyle in the modern
world?

A vanishingly small number (in every
sense).  IF this had been the standard
way of life for Homo for the past few
million years, then the population doing
this would be in the millions, and all
other predators (and scavengers) would
be in trouble.

Right. IOW, only a complete whackjob would suggest that any early
hominids, including HE, would be the small band hunter-gatherers that
modern anthropology wishes them to be. The evidence is very clear on
this point.





 Of course, modern homo
would also have all manner of savanna
carnivore adaptations, including fur, a
taste for rotten meat, an ability to live on
very little water and little salt,  night-sight,
precocial infants, resistance to savanna
parasites (such as the tsetse fly) and so
on and on.

though the A'piths were not.

So A'piths clearly occupied a different
niche (and different habitats) from later
homo.

How come all hominids before Homo
(as represented by A'piths) went into
extinction -- after so successfully
occupying a distinct niche for a few
million years?

Maybe because that niche disappeared and/or was invaded by other taxa.

Which other taxa?

Maybe space aliens made them . . .




The apith taxon that lasted the longest in stratigraphic overlap with
Homo, namely Paranthropus, was also the one with the most extreme
expression of craniodental characters (under the influence of
character displacement to avoid competition?).

Hominids would have been most closely
competitive with other hominids.  There
is no need to look far for the reason for
the extinction of Paranthropus.





Bad evolutionary theorists -- such
as the savanna types (e.g. Leakey)
and the aquatic nuts --  love to indulge
in promiscuous niche-swapping.  It can
'explain' everything, and avoids all need
for thought.

It seems that they are quite unfamiliar
with all of nature, and the fact that taxa
and species prefer to stick to the same
kind of habitat, and ways of life.   They
have no understanding of evolution,
nor of the concept of 'evolutionary
niche'.

If there were no such thing as niche-swapping (shifting would be a
more appropriate term

'Shifting' is not the right term.  Under
standard PA (and AAT theories) the
hominid taxon wandered more or less
at will from one ecology to the other,
happily saying goodbye to old one
each time (i.e. going extinct at just that
moment -- to suit the convenience of
21st century theorists).

 then the enormous diversity of life on this
planet would be unexplained.

Apart from the issue of 'convenient
extinctions', it's a question of time and
scale. Taxa generally stick to what they
know -- new branches stay in the same
kind of habitat, and follow much the
same kind of life (i.e. plains-running
carnivores give rise to more of the same,
and not to (say) tree-living vegetarians,
likewise tree-living primates give rise to
more tree-living primates, and not to
plains-running carnivores).

Extraordinary changes can occur in
extraordinary circumstances, such as
after mass-extinctions.  There were no
such events in the relevant period.

Well stated, Paul.


The bipedal hominidae is not a single species and therefore can not be
considered to have had a single niche that remained unchanged from the
most basal member of that clade to its only extant representative.

It can very well be considered to have
had a single niche, with the various
speciations being merely the result of
geographical separation -- and a hostile
attitude to strangers, only marginally
intensified over that commonly seen in
nature and among other primates.

The
morphological change alone within that group is already an argument
against such a position (there is no need for morphological change in
a stable niche).

The morphological changes are quite
minor, and certainly don't indicate
shifts to very different habitats or
lifestyles -- as both standard PA and
AAT claim.  The only significant
change was from Apith to Homo, in
the acquisition of longer legs and a
more athletic frame. Apiths appear to
have had little need for fast or regular
movement.  This strange condition
could hardly be expected to last
indefinitely.

Hominids emerged on the scene--from the very start--as communal,
communally territorialistic, and social. It's the agenda of the
anthropological establishment to conceal this.

Another thing that is really obvious from the evidence is the fact
that the stone tools are not found distributed over the greater
savanna. Instead they tend to be found at localities that were well
treed and well watered when these tools/weapons were first deposited
there.
.

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