Why use an obvious fake to support the idea that the evidence cannot be made to fit the assumptions? It would not be easy to work a combination of ape and human bones into anything, although the fraud may have enjoyed wide support for a time.
What specific bone shapes would lead one to conclude that skull is not that of a human, but of something quasi-human? What is the range of bone shapes in our current population? How does its diversity compare to all the bone shapes found throughout history? Can the shape of a bone found buried in Ethiopia match the shape of a bone residing in the body of the bum crouching at the corner of 5th and Bergen a Newark at 2:37 this afternoon?
When I say it is "easy," what I mean is the inclination to interpret morphological similarities as historic continuities, or to arrange the findings in a manner that shows a progression. We are born into progressions, so it would be natural to assume progressions govern all things.
Fester,
I have neither the time nor the inclination to manually transcribe pages 37 through 93 of the book i metioned earlier.
I will simply ask you to admit the fact that there are indeed sufficient landmark features and measurements and indices and ratios on the human skull to identify age, gender, and race with over 99% certainty... and then ask you to use your head for a moment and consider that these same landmarks and measurements and indices and ratios allow for accurate typing of hominid skulls by morpholgical deviation from the human benchmarks.
??? Because it's the ideal test case as to whether REAL patterns are being found in the fossil history, or whether (as your hypothesis suggests) they are just being imposed on the data. If the former then faked evidence should NOT fit in with the real evidence. If the later then it wouldn't matter.