Fossils paint new picture of human evolution

AP via Yahoo ^ | 2007-Aug-08 | Julie Steenhuysen

[TheKidster]

[John Jorsett]

An ancient skull and upper jawbone from two early branches of the human family tree -- Homo erectus and Homo habilis -- suggest the early human ancestors may have lived close together for half a million years, researchers said on Wednesday.

Hell, I think I was standing behind a Homo habilis in the market checkout line the other day. Or maybe he was a Cro-magnon. Which one buys a lot of beer?

[Greg F]

“There has been a view that has suggested habilis very slowly evolved into erectus,” said Susan Anton, a professor of anthropology at New York University. “Now we have the two cohabitating, so that can no longer be the case.”
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But let’s not question the theory of gradual change through natural selection even where evidence, such as this, casts doubt on it. If the small changes in habilis were positive adaptations that led gradually to erectus . . . this doesn’t make sense. Why did Habilis stay frozen as Habilis while all sorts of mutations lumped together only in Erectus to create Erectus (suddenly).

[EveningStar]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1878232/posts

[muawiyah]

Well, the one lived in a nice upscale neighborhood and the other one was confined to the late pliocene ghetto.

[lilylangtree]

Does this mean we still have a “missing link” running around?

[Abathar]

Awful big numbers to swallow here for some people, soon the HTT crowd will show up telling everyone that nothing can be more than 6-10 thousand years old.

[Adder]

Damn homos.

[SlowBoat407]

It makes more sense that these would overlap, rather than having a direct, linear evolution. We actually seem to be living with less variety today than the world has seen in a long, long time. Only one variety of hominid? How dull!

[BigCinBigD]

All was good till Homo habilis came home and caught Homo erectus with his daughter.

[SlowBoat407]

All was good till Homo habilis came home and caught Homo erectus with his daughter.

Betcha that erectus went away quickly.

[Brujo]

Thanks for the cross reference. It's the same discovery, but commented on by different writers.

[sit-rep]

lol...

[EveningStar]

True. But it’s essentially the same story, just different wire services with their own writers.

[Greg F]

I’ve read that Louis Leaky found evidence at Oldavai Gorge that australopithicus, habilis, erectus and modern man lived at the same time. Sort of blows away the ascent of man pictures . . .

[muawiyah]

Who knows what Leaky found ~ the Olduvai Gorge area is one of those places where settlement and resettlement has occurred for thousands of centuries ~ it's just like Arlington Virginia ~ Chief Powhatan had his chief village just about 2 miles East of the present day CIA headquarters.

He was intent on taking over the East Coast, and then the World!

That does not mean that Chief Powhatan reside at the CIA!

[muawiyah]

There are probably 3 major varieties. It's quite easy to identify the Sa'ami as one, the Khalahari Bushmen as another, and then everybody else is the third variety.

And that should be a lesson to folks ~ looks ain't everything. Unfortunately we don't have a clue how the DNA in these ancient "species", if they are species, differed.

[elephantlips]

They carpooled, held barbecues, drank beer, etc.