>Unlike Mr. Willingham, I don't pretend to be an expert, but isn't there a
>Homo Rudolfensis(Skull K-1470?) who has been proposed as being intermediary
>between H. habilis and H. erectus? A paleontologist, Prof. Stanley from
>Hopkins, has proposed that he was the first true Hominid and that
>H. habilis
>was still pre Homo.The book was " Children of the Ice Age"
>http://www.2think.org/stanley.shtml
>Maybe this species, and not Erectus, was the first to leave Africa.If they
>lived in Georgia, then they would have been lot more capable than, say,
>Binford would give them credit for.
Hi Shuan, Thanks for sticking up for experts. Too often non-experts want
to tell experts what they can and can't do, what they can and can't
conclude. I don't mind anyone crtiquing a field, regardless of their
degree, so long as they have learned the topic. I for instance, never had a
geology course in college. But now, because I have studied it on the job for
30 years am managing geoscientists. Degrees don't matter, study does.
Now to your question. Yes H. rudolfensis has been proposed, by Valerii
Alexeev (who was not the discoverer of the fossil--R.Leakey was but he
refused to put a name on it) , as the earliest member of the genus. This is
partly because the species habilis has been a diverse group of fossils, and
many anthropologists don't believe it is a single species. This has
encouraged alternative classifications. Rudolfensis has a broader face,
heavier lower jaw and bigger grinding teeth than habilis.
One thing people dont realize about rudolfensis is the following:
"Below the neck Homo rudolfensis appears to have been quite
human in form. The pelvis from which I estimated male birth weight
for this species also gives an estimate of the animal's stature.
>From the diameter of the hip socket, Henry McHenry estimated that
the creature who unintentionally donated his pelvic bone to science
stood nearly 172 centimeters (5 feet 8 inches) tall. This is very
close to the average for a modern man, but more than 21 centimeters
above any estimates that have been made for individuals belonging to
the genus Australopithecus. " ~ Steven
M. Stanley, Children of the Ice Age, (New York: W. H. Freeman,
1998), p. 164
(Yes I have read the book you cite)
And the oldest H. rudolfensis comes form Malawi:
"UR 501 is biochronologically aged at 2.4 Myr. Hill et al.
Have reported the occurrence of an early Homo temporal bone (KNM-
BC1) traced to radiometrically dated 2.4 Myr deposits from the
Chemeron Formation, Kenya. Wood suggests that this specimen may be
an early representative of Homo rudolfensis, whereas other specimens
assigned to this taxon derive from just below and above the KBS Tuff
of the Koobi For a Formation and date to approximately 1.9-1.8 Myr.
Thus a date of 2.4-1.8 Myr is at present indicated for Homo
rudolfensis." ~ Friedemann Schrenk et al, "Oldest Homo and Pliocene
Biogeography of the Malawi Rift," Nature, 365(1993):833-836, p. 834
Your comment about Binford does show you have done some reading in the area.
Binford was a skeptic on everything. He said that ancient man didn't hunt
(since that we have found spears from 400,000 years ago), he said they
didn't do lots of things but now we are finding out that Binford was simply
wrong and probably caused a lot of time to be spent in anthropology
disproving Binford.
glenn
see http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/dmd.htm
for lots of creation/evolution information
anthropology/geology/paleontology/theology\
personal stories of struggle
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