Posted on 10/03/2009 12:34:59 PM PDT by JoeProBono
The big news from the journal Science today is the discovery of the oldest human skeleton—a small-brained, 110-pound (50-kilogram) female of the species Ardipithecus ramidus, nicknamed "Ardi." She lived in what is now Ethiopia 4.4 million years ago, which makes her over a million years older than the famous Lucy fossil, found in the same region 35 years ago. Buried among the slew of papers about the new find is one about the creature's sex life. It makes fascinating reading, especially if you like learning why human females don't know when they are ovulating, and men lack the clacker-sized testicles and bristly penises sported by chimpanzees.
One of the defining attributes of Lucy and all other hominids—members of our evolutionary lineage, including ourselves—is that they walk upright on two legs. While Ardi also walked on two legs on the ground, the species also clambered about on four legs in the trees. Ardi thus offers a fascinating glimpse of an ape caught in the act of becoming human.
The problem is it is doing it in the wrong place at the wrong time—at least according to conventional wisdom, which says our kind first stood up on two legs when they moved out of the forest and onto open savanna grasslands. At the time Ardi lived, her environment was a woodland, much cooler and wetter than the desert there today.
So why did her species become bipedal while it was still living partly in the trees, especially since walking on two legs is a much less efficient way of getting about?
According to Owen Lovejoy of Kent State University, it all comes down to food, and sex.
In apes—both modern apes and, presumably, the ancient ancestors of Ardipithecus—males find mates the good old-fashioned apish way: by fighting with other males for access to fertile females. Success, measured in number of offspring, goes to macho males with big sharp canine teeth who try to mate with as many ovulating females as possible. Sex is best done quickly—hence those penis bristles, which accelerate ejaculation—with the advantage to the male with big testicles carrying a heavy load of sperm. Among females, the winners are those who flaunt their fertility with swollen genitals or some other prominent display of ovulation, so those big alpha dudes will take notice and give them a tumble, providing a baby with his big alpha genes.
Let's suppose that some lesser male, with poor little stubby canines, figures out that he can entice a fertile female into mating by bringing her some food. That sometimes happens among living chimpanzees, for instance when a female rewards a male for presenting her with a tasty gift of colobus monkey.
Among Ardipithecus's ancestors, such a strategy could catch on if searching for food required a lot of time and exposure to predators. Males would be far more successful food-providers if they had their hands free to carry home loads of fruits and tubers—which would favor walking on two legs. Females would come to prefer good, steady providers with smaller canines over the big fierce-toothed ones who left as soon as they spot another fertile female. The results, says Lovejoy, are visible in Ardipithecus, which had small canines even in males and walked upright......
They also found hexagonal dog tags....
People take flights just for sex.
I have done a lot of things for sex, including walking.
Makes sense to me, except humans haven’t been around that long.
Apparently, women don’t know why they have sex:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/216341
parsy, who almost did a post on this
>> clacker-sized testicles
Say what? You mean the General Mills cereal from the 1970s? Their ad had Dracula leaning toward a girl’s neck saying, “I vant to suck your Clackers.”
Yeah, I know; just couldn’t resist ;o)
Believe me, those of us in South Carolina know all about it.
Our Governor told us.
Well, they do display an intense proclivity for killing their unborn. Unfortunately, the NEA RATs get control of our children and then raise them as their own for 16 years.
So, these guys found skeletal remains, anthropomorphised it with a name, and have constructed a titilating story to market it to a dumbed-down and overly sexualized public? Seems to be the case.
What in this article is anything but speculation?
Probably called the trail walkers back then. Their men wore pimp furs on their heads.
They were trail walkers back then in search of Homo Erectus. When they found him it didn’t matter, ‘cause he was homo.
Let's suppose Ardi is a composite formed from bones “of at least 36 individuals” and animal bones “trampled into the mud”, an “Irish stew” of pieces in such bad condition it has taken years to assemble into even a partial skeleton.
Let's further suppose that missing pieces of skull were added from another skull and then “resized” to make them fit digitally.
Let's suppose too, Lucy is passe’, Ida got the hype but lost the hope, and something “new and improved” is needed to “make careers”, and “PhD’s in prestigious institutions around the world” since those pesky Chinese keep finding Tyrannosaurus Feather Duster Fossils.
Ardi’s Secret Admirer's: Do Modern Humans Talk the Walk for Grants? or There's Less to This Incomplete Composite Skeleton Than Merits the OH MY!
My “Let's Suppose” is better than his!
Darn you. I was going to say much the same thing...
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