Anthropologists working with the recently discovered remains of a 1.8 million year old human have begun reaching some startling conclusions regarding the diversity of the human form at that point in our evolution. What have been hitherto presumed to have been separate human species now appear to actually have been simply very different but completely contemporary members of the one species, Homo Erectus. This video from The Guardian introduces the topic:






A link to the full article can be found here:

Homo Erectus - find challenges traditional evolutionary theory

That should start a right good stair heid rammy amongst the paleo-anthropologists, they're an argumentative and vitriolic bunch. The Johanson-Leaky feud over Lucy's family was a doozy. A lot of territories will now be defended with the vigour of bull elephant seals.
Talking of Johanson, didn't he originally think that the Hadar au. africanus specimens were different species until he was persuaded that the differences were due to sexual dimorphism?

I've had a look at the Science article and the argument seems persuasive, at least to one who isn't au fait with the a lot of it; there's another more detailed illustration of the 5 skulls drawn from different aspects and the variety of size, shape, jaw robustity and brain case size is striking. The main problem in deciding whether or not these and the African homos are all of the same species, I suppose, is the paucity of examples of, say, h. rudolfensis which does, it must be said, look very different to the Dmanisi skulls. Maybe he ran into a rock face while getting away from a big cat.

Whoever is right, I wouldn't want to argue with no 5, he's a scary looking dude.

ferval wrote:

That should start a right good stair heid rammy amongst the paleo-anthropologists, they're an argumentative and vitriolic bunch. The Johanson-Leaky feud over Lucy's family was a doozy. A lot of territories will now be defended with the vigour of bull elephant seals.
Talking of Johanson, didn't he originally think that the Hadar au. africanus specimens were different species until he was persuaded that the differences were due to sexual dimorphism?

I've had a look at the Science article and the argument seems persuasive, at least to one who isn't au fait with the a lot of it; there's another more detailed illustration of the 5 skulls drawn from different aspects and the variety of size, shape, jaw robustity and brain case size is striking. The main problem in deciding whether or not these and the African homos are all of the same species, I suppose, is the paucity of examples of, say, h. rudolfensis which does, it must be said, look very different to the Dmanisi skulls. Maybe he ran into a rock face while getting away from a big cat.

Whoever is right, I wouldn't want to argue with no 5, he's a scary looking dude.

 
Yes, Ferval, some different thoughts from different sides...
Saw this evening on the BBC world site:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24564375

And yes Temperance, I too see a hallo around the name of our most distinguished leader...

Kind regards and with esteem to both,

Paul.

Paelontologists are divided into two species, "lumpers" who regard all contemporary fossils as being of one species, and "splitters" who will postulate a new species (especially if they have discovered it) for any new discovery which isn't virtually identical to existing ones. Professoris dmanisianus is obvously a representative of the "lumper" tendency.

Discovery of a jaw bone in Ethiopia has pushed the date for the earliest human back by 400,000 years;


http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/mar/04/jaw-bone-discovery-in-ethiopia-is-oldest-ever-human-lineage-remains

Triceratops wrote:

Discovery of a jaw bone in Ethiopia has pushed the date for the earliest human back by 400,000 years;


http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/mar/04/jaw-bone-discovery-in-ethiopia-is-oldest-ever-human-lineage-remains

For a given value of the term "human" - I don't reckon that one is "Homo", rather another Australopithecine - possibly a new species, more likely just an early member of one of the known ones.

Homo Sapiens in Morocco around 300,000 years ago, NOT East Africa:

Early Humans in Morocco

Triceratops,

beaten in the spurt...
I wanted just to start a thread about:
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-40194150

Kind regards from your friend Paul.

Human like footprints in Crete:

Cretian Footprints

HUMAN-like footprints have been found on an ancient sea shore. They shouldn’t be there. They’re in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The key word would appear to be human-LIKE, they may not even have been made by hominids ... crucially the prints also do not seem to show a deep heel-print which is one of the signatures of a truely human-like bipedal gait.

Which in turn begs the question, what did make the tracks?

Or a descendent of this chap, the 7 million-year old Graecopithicus from Northern Greece and Bulgaria:



... or their dating is a bit out.

Interesting nevertheless.

PS : I take that reconstruction of Graecopithicus to be anatomically correct, as least as far as one can be sure given the paucity of remains, but for a 7 million-year-old hominid it does look remarkably "non-primitive". The face at least would not raise many eyebrows were he to be sat on public transport. Indeed I once dated a guy who looked very much like that ... hairy and often rather unshaven, and very, very  muscular ... but although amiable and pleasant, he was not, intellectually, the sharpest handaxe in the basket.

Isn't it just amazing what can be deduced from this..........



If you dressed that reconstruction in an old oil stained vest he would be the very image of a fisherman we met in Thassos in the early 70s.

Yes, yes, Meles meles you too have a history...and a rich one...

Kind regards from your friend Paul, not that hairy, muscular and so on one...

PS: Couldn't resist, it was starker than myself...
PPS: But murderers said the same...

We all, every one of us, have our history, Paul.

Although strictly don't family tales only really become 'history' once they've been reliably written down, otherwise they're still just 'anecdotes'. But apologies to the OP, we're straying away from the subject and dem old bones.


Groetjes, MM

Coming over here, eating all our fish and getting put straight to the front of the queue for council caving ...

First modern Britons had 'dark to black' skin, Cheddar Man DNA analysis reveals.



... but did he like cheese?

I heard an interview with the DNA extractor this morning - and I'm not convinced that the modellers haven't actually jumped the gun a little in their projection based on the actual genetic material that could be identified, a bit like the nun in the car park thingy all over again. But isn't it one fantastic sculpture anyway? The expression actually changes subtly depending on the viewing angle - just like an actual face. And it's great to see the lad smile - most waxwork descendants stare vacantly as if they've just seen their bad wig in a mirror. This one's almost alive!




This was the "Cheddar Man" model based on previous biases and waxwork skills (complete with bad hair day) compared to the present one with a sense of humour and dreads:

What is also interseting about 'Cheddar Man' is that he has proven relations (direct descendents through the female line from his mother) still living in the area. This is from some years ago but I don't think it's been refuted:

The family link that reaches back 300 generations to a Cheddar cave

And while I was being flippant in asking "...did he like cheese?", apparently the answer is probably no. The current DNA study shows he was probably lactose intolerant and unable to digest un-fermented dairy products ... and so Cheddar cheese would have made him ill.

Surprise after DNA test

back in BC time:

How Europeans evolved white skin

Meles meles wrote:

What is also interseting about 'Cheddar Man' is that he has proven relations (direct descendents through the female line from his mother) still living in the area. This is from some years ago but I don't think it's been refuted:

The family link that reaches back 300 generations to a Cheddar cave

And while I was being flippant in asking "...did he like cheese?", apparently the answer is probably no. The current DNA study shows he was probably lactose intolerant and unable to digest un-fermented dairy products ... and so Cheddar cheese would have made him ill.

Not only lactose intolerant but alcohol as well, didn't they say?  No cheese and no booze, how very unEnglish.

The name 'Cheddar Man' always makes me think of a Marvel comics, superhero-type character who uses his cheesy superpowers to save the world from the machinations of the evil Dr Fondue ... or something like that.

Islanddawn wrote:

Meles meles wrote:

What is also interseting about 'Cheddar Man' is that he has proven relations (direct descendents through the female line from his mother) still living in the area. This is from some years ago but I don't think it's been refuted:

The family link that reaches back 300 generations to a Cheddar cave

And while I was being flippant in asking "...did he like cheese?", apparently the answer is probably no. The current DNA study shows he was probably lactose intolerant and unable to digest un-fermented dairy products ... and so Cheddar cheese would have made him ill.

Not only lactose intolerant but alcohol as well, didn't they say?  No cheese and no booze, how very unEnglish.

Actually no - if one in ten of us carry this man's genes (as I read yesterday), then it is not surprising that so many Brits cannot tolerate dairy foods - or alcohol.

Yet the entire nation is in denial about this - as the sales of cheese and wine would indicate (irritable bowel syndrome and a bad headache, anyone?). We love what we cannot tolerate - it is one of life's little ironies - and carry on consuming these substances willy-nilly. Well, I do.



 Alas, my downfall, and the downfall of many like me. I blame that Cheddar No-Cheese Man.

Studies undertaken by Trinity College Dublin have made great progress on the sequencing of ancient genomes:

Ancient Human Genomes

Professor Daniel Bradley has described Ireland as being "the world capital of lactose tolerance" with Britain, the Netherlands and Scandinavia close behind. The School of Genetics and Microbiology has also suggested that dairy-farming and cheese-making predated lactose tolerance by millenia:

Ancients lactose intolerant for 5000 years after adopting agriculture

Another candidate for the title of 'Cheddar Man' must surely be Daniel Defoe who waxed lyrical about the cheese in his 1720s work A Tour Through The Whole Island of Great Britain. In the chapter on Somerset he writes:  

In the low country, on the other side of the Mendip Hills, lies Chedder (sic), a village pleasantly situated under the very ridge of the mountains; before the village is a large green, or common, a piece of ground, in which the whole herd of the cows, belonging to the town, do feed; the ground is exceeding rich, and as the whole village are cowkeepers, they take care to keep up the goodness of the soil, by agreeing to lay on large quantities of dung for manuring, and inriching the land.

The milk of all the town cows, is brought together every day into a common room, where the persons appointed, or trusted for the management, measure every man’s quantity, and set it down in a book; when the quantities are adjusted, the milk is all put together, and every meal’s milk makes one cheese, and no more; so that the cheese is bigger, or less, as the cows yield more, or less, milk. By this method, the goodness of the cheese is preserved, and, without all dispute, it is the best cheese that England affords, if not, that the whole world affords.

Superheroic praise indeed.

I don't think Defoe was as impressed by Stilton:

"We pass'd Stilton, a town famous for cheese, which is call'd our English Parmesan, and is brought to table with the mites, or maggots round it, so thick, that they bring a spoon with them for you to eat the mites with, as you do the cheese."