Posted on 01/02/2005 9:41:39 PM PST by bondserv
Anthropologist Claims Humans, Neanderthals, Australopithecines All Variations on One Species 01/01/2005
According to a news story in the UK News Telegraph, all fossil hominims, including modern humans, Australopithecines, Neandertals and the recent Indonesian hobbit man, belong to the same species: Homo sapiens. Reporter Robert Matthews wrote about Maciej Henneberg (U of Adelaide) and his argument, based on skull sizes and body weights for 200 fossil specimens, that all known hominim bones fit within the range of variation expected for a single species. Henneberg made the startling claim in the Journal of Comparative Human Biology, where he said, All hominims appear to be a single gradually evolving lineage containing only one species at each point in time.
Henneberg still believes humans were evolving, but his analysis points out several important shortcomings in the science of paleoanthropology that should make the thoughtful reader wary of its practitioners. (1) There is a huge range of variation possible within a single species. (2) It is difficult to assign any human bone to one or another species. Notice what this led Henneberg to state: There is no precise way in which we can test whether Julius Caesar and Princess Diana were members of the same species of Homo sapiens (emphasis added in all quotes). Consider what that means when judging bones of alleged human ancestors. You could tell any story you want. (We like the one that Caesar and Diana were different species.) (3) The article reminds everyone that paleoanthropologists often bicker about the meaning of their discoveries (see 12/21/2004 headline). Geoffrey Harrison (Prof. emeritus, Oxford) said it best: Clearly there is a need to be more aware of the possibility of variation but that is not the inclination today. It has been a problem because the discoverers have usually put so much effort into finding the evidence, so they want it to be important. (4) There are too few bones to make any conclusions. Henneberg said there are fewer than 30 Neandertal specimens available for study. (5) Neandertals could be considered fully human. The article refers to Henneberg stating, in effect, that What evidence there is, however, is consistent with Neanderthals being from the same species as modern humans. Christopher Stringer (Natural History Museum, London) adds that Neandertals were not signficantly different from us in skull or body size. The argument they are a different species is, of course, only a hypothesis... (italics added).
Best quote from the story is the last paragraph:He [Henneberg] added that the never-ending announcements of new species said more about those making the claims than about human evolution. The problem is there are far more palaeontologists than fossil specimens.Corollary: it also says more about the editors of National Geographic than about human evolution, too both when they make never-ending announcements, and when they become strangely quiet about stories like this one.
Antarctica split from Australia about 96 million years ago, in the early Cretaceous Era. Antarctica was covered in ice by 25 million years ago, about the start of the Miocene Era. The first hominids don't show up until about 4 million years ago, in the middle Pliocene Era.
I find it somewhat implausible that Australopithecines evolved from seals on the edge of an ice shelf and swam 3,500 miles to Africa hunting penguins, or whatever..
My recollection is that mtDNA studies showed at least no female Neanderthal ancestry for modern humans - strong evidence against this "One Species" proposal.
Shh, don't confuse them with facts.
AFAIK, there are no animals or plants or even viuses on Earth that have DNA made from anything other than Adenosine, Cysteine, Guanine, and Thymine.
So any argument about "species" is kind of lame and has no meaning.
Life on earth is based on the above. Any proteins or amino acid complexes that are different are ruthlessly attacked.
Perhaps we are a bit too proud of ourselves. Something like 90% of living beings on earth are too small to be seen by the naked eye, they are bacteria.
And 80% of those live undeground or in the oceans.
Hmm.. I should not have said "10,000 BC Siberia or Polynesia" because Polynesia wasn't settled until after 1600 BC (beginning with the Solomon Islands, and that is more strictly Melanesia). I should've said Oceania, and I was thinking New Guinea and Australia, to be exact.
I would say we aren't nearly proud enough of ourselves. My prediction is that that will change within 10,000 years.. Prove me wrong! =)
merely right-click an image, then select PROPERTIES from menu shown.
the URL will be there.....
Rib bones?
Does it matter?
If your daddy lost his index finger way before you were concieved, I'll bet you have two of them.......
(Or is this a 'horse' toes type of question?)
Well, you had to post it on Christmas Day when I wasn't at the computer to stir up trouble!
Actually, evolution says that when you have enough data available to you it *should be* hard to say where one species leaves off and another begins. But, as Ichneumon has explained already on this thread, Henneberg's analysis is more naive than insightful. It makes fun newspaper copy but don't expect it to win much influence.
Exactly.
Actually there is, but I bet you can't figure it out. Hint: it doesn't require any scientific training.
I remember how astounded I was a few years back when I read the report that they had found chemosynthetic bacteria in solid bedrock something like 25 hundred feet down.
I imagine that limit itself has been exceeded, next they will find chemosynthetic pyrophilic ones even deeper.
No. It's a question you obviously don't understand.
"Bacterial spores have recently been brought to public attention, following the use of these organisms for warfare purposes and the exciting report of viable 250-million-year-old spores (35).
Professor Maciej Henneberg, of the University of Adelaide, a world authority on fossil human anatomy.
Professor Chris Stringer, a leading expert on human fossils at the Natural History Museum, London.
Geoffrey Harrison, emeritus professor of biological anthropology at the University of Oxford.
Yikes! I read the article, it didn't say how they found them. I know they have found viable archeobacteria in the guts of insects trapped in amber.
I'm a bit spooked by something that old. Modern lifeforms might have lost all resistance.
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