There are reports of a new form of tool found at Swartkrans and Sterkfontein
in South Africa which quite possibly were made by Australopithecus robustus.
The tools are made of bone and were used to fish for termites. The article
can be found at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/17/science/science-humans-dc.html
This adds to the evidence for bone tools among the Australopithecines as
other bones have been shown to have been used to dig up tubers. Susman
writes:
"Figure 8. Bone and horn core artefacts from Swartkrans. Microscopy of the
rounded ends of these fragments indicates that they were used as digging
tools. Similar use wear is observed under the electron microscope, on shaft
fragments of ungulate long bones used for digging up subterranean plant
foods." ~ R. L. Susman, "Hand Function and Tool Behavior in Early Hominids,"
Journal of Human Evolution, 35(1998):23-46, p. 40
Why would they do this? Nutrition. The NY Times article writes:
"`While a rump steak yields 322 calories per 100 grams and cod fish 74,
termites provide 560 calories per 100 grams.'"
The interesting thing about these bone tools is that Raymond Dart suggested
that Australopithecus used bone tools. Berger writes of this:
“Based on the fossils recovered from Makapansgat, Dart surmised that their
fragmentary nature was due to what he called Osteo-Dento-Keratic (ODK)
culture, a term that has taxed the tongues of anthropology students possibly
more than their minds. ODK literally means bone, tooth and horn culture.”
Lee R. Berger, and Brett Hilton-Barber, In the Footsteps of Eve,
(Washington, D. C.: National Geographic Press, 2000), p. 151
Anthropologists had rejected such an idea but it seems that ODK is graually
making a comeback. There are also controversial reports of fire use in this
same strata.
DISCOVERY OF A 3.4 MILLION YEAR OLD CHILD
The BBC reports that there has been a discovery of an australopithecine
child in Ethiopia.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1118000/1118455.stm)
There is not much in press reports other than that this is a relatively rare
find and will enable researchers to compare developmental pathways for such
species.
DEFENDING NEANDERTHAL ANCESTRY
There is a report coming out in science by Wolpoff et al, which David
Campbell alerted me to which attempts to use skull shape of various fossil
and modern men to determine if Neanderthals were in our ancestry. A press
report of this can be found at
http://www.deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,245014193,00.html
The article says:
" Their comparisons of skull features seem to show that people around
the world don't all descend from the same stock of ancient humans. Instead,
Europeans derive some of their genes from Neanderthals, while Australian
natives descend partly from an ancient human species like that called Homo
erectus, according to the article."
and
" "What our research shows is that the earliest modern people in Europe
share characteristics with Neanderthals," indicating the Neanderthals are
probably among their ancestors, Hawks told the Deseret News.
"If that's true, anybody of European ancestry today can probably trace
some of their ancestry to the Neanderthals."
What pleases him especially is the idea that different kinds of people
were sharing lives over a long time. He prefers that over the alternative
theory, that "everybody is descended from one group from Africa."
The study also indicates a mixed ancestry for Australians. Skulls of
ancient Australians are nearly identical to those of ancient Java residents
who were classified as either archaic humans or late-surviving members of
the now-extinct human species H. erectus.
The findings, if verified, would not destroy an "Out of Africa" origin
for humans. They would only prove that everybody descends from at least two
different waves of settlers from Africa."
Even an out of Africa advocate, Henry Harpending praised the carefulness of
this work although he still disagrees with the conclusions. He says that the
characteristics the authors found were due to parallelisms and not descent.
That would be surprising if it is true that Australians just happened to
evolve in parallel with H. erectus and Europeans just happened to evolve in
parallel with Neanderthal--H. erectus and Neanderthal were in the same area
respectively as those 'moderns' who just happen to share traits with those
who lived there before. IMO a better and easier explanation is
interbreeding of some limited degree. And that raises the theological issue
of who these people are--in the image of God (as their behavior also
indicates) or in the image of beast.
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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