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To: vincentblackshadow
There is no denying the fossil evidence and the progression from Australopithecus to Homo Habilis to Homo Erectus to Homo Sapien

Well, yes there is.

A. africanus used to be regarded as ancestral to the genus Homo (in particular Homo erectus). However, fossils assigned to the genus Homo have been found that are older than A. africanus. Thus, the genus Homo either split off from the genus Australopithecus at an earlier date (the latest common ancestor being A. afarensis or an even earlier form), or both developed from an as yet possibly unknown common ancestor independently.

104 posted on 02/18/2006 5:21:05 PM PST by Tribune7
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To: Tribune7

You mean a another 'indisputable' house of cards just went POOF? :)


105 posted on 02/18/2006 5:23:57 PM PST by AmericaUnited
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To: Tribune7
Yet Australopithecus was certainly bipedal, suggesting it was bipedalism which made human-like intelligence possible and not the other way around.

They are our earliest known bipedal ancestors. At times chimps can be bipedal. Hunt has observed, for example, that chimps stand on two legs when they eat tiny fruits, some of them no larger than a grape seed. These findings support a hypothesis advanced in 1970 by anthropologist Clifford Jolly. But Hunt's observation of chimps has added a new wrinkle: chimps are bipedal while eating tiny fruits both when on the ground, consistent with Jolly's hypothesis, and when in trees. Bipedalism is useful to chimps when feeding in either location.

This is so typical of this IDIOT BS science. So we only recently confirmed that modern chimps are bipedal, but these moonbats will claim to know with great authority (usually from examining a tooth or bone) that some monkey ancestor from 4 milliion years ago was 'certainly bipedal'. Modern 'intelligent' people believing this tripe and hanging on every word. What a farce!~

110 posted on 02/18/2006 5:45:13 PM PST by AmericaUnited
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To: Tribune7; vincentblackshadow
There is no denying the fossil evidence and the progression from Australopithecus to Homo Habilis to Homo Erectus to Homo Sapien

Well, yes there is.

A. africanus used to be regarded as ancestral to the genus Homo (in particular Homo erectus). However, fossils assigned to the genus Homo have been found that are older than A. africanus. Thus, the genus Homo either split off from the genus Australopithecus at an earlier date (the latest common ancestor being A. afarensis or an even earlier form), or both developed from an as yet possibly unknown common ancestor independently.

That Wikipedia article isn't very clearly written. Besides, I suspect it's just wrong. Australopithecus, which vincentblackshadow referred to, is the genus, Australopithecus africanus is a species within that genus. The very next sentence after the ones you included in your quote, says "The gracile australopithecines first appeared in the hominid fossil record between 5.4 to 1.5 million years ago."

So, the earliest australopithecine fossil is 5.4 million years old. But what does Wikipedia say about how old Australopithecus africanus specifically was?

Australopithecus africanus was an early hominid, an australopithecine, who lived between 3.3 and 2.4 million years ago in the Pliocene.
Ah, interesting. A. africanus fossils range from 3.3 to 2.4 mya. OK, now what does Wikipedia say about how old Homo erectus fossils are?
It is now believed that H. erectus is a descendent of more primitive ape-men such as australopithecines and early Homo species. Before their settlement of South Eastern Asia, dating fewer than 500,000 and 300,000 years ago, H. erectus originally migrated during the Pleistocene glacial period in Africa roughly 2.0 million years ago and so disbursed throughout various areas of the Old World.
So the Wikipedia articles paint a fully consistent picture to what vincentblackshadow said.

This site at Michigan State says A. africanus fossils range from 3.3 to 2.3 mya, while H. erectus fossils range from 1.7 mya to 300 kya.

It is true that some later Australopithecine fossils are younger than some of the earlier Hominid fossils. But of course that's to be expected, since they're on a bush, not a ladder.

130 posted on 02/18/2006 6:20:55 PM PST by jennyp (WHAT I'M READING NOW: The Chicago Manual of Style, 14th ed.)
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