Discussion at aat@groups.io:

Yes, Bioko is nonsense,
but might Elaine's "Danakil" be correct?

Very likely, hominids came from the Red Sea
(and before that from the Med.Sea),
but was our (Homo's) *most*aquatic past
-Pliocene in the Red Sea?
-early-Pleistocene along the Ind.Ocean?



- the anthropological "Red Sea Theory" (not biblical)
- google "coastal dispersal Pleistocene Homo PPT"

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Francesca Mansfield:

The Red Sea Hypothesis gives us a date & a reason why Homo & Pan split:
there were no trees or vegetation, just cliffs, desert & sea in that location during the Pliocene.
Homo had no option but total immersion to survive.
Pan OTOH crossed into Africa, and had a nr of diverse environments to re-adapt to, incl. coasts & forests.
That's why the genome also shows
- a rel.recent, but sudden split with Pan,
- far more diversity from that point on in Pan,
- so many "hominin" spp in Africa. (Francesca means australopiths --MV)
We went in entirely different directions.
They spread out into Africa, while Homo got stuck in the Red Sea for a couple of mill.yrs.
By the time H.erectus emerged into the Pleistocene, and started spreading round the coasts, it was already aquatically adapted.
Pleistocene Homo did not suddenly appear with all those aquatic features fully formed.
There had to be a period before that when they were acquiring them (Pliocene), and there's nothing to suggest they retained arboreal features from that time.



We (Stephen Munro etc.) had thought that our most-aquatic evolution was early-Pleistocene
cf. H.erectus in SE.Asia: Java, Flores, Luzon...
google "coastal dispersal Pleistocene Homo PPT",
but Francesca might well be correct IMO:
the Red Sea Hypothesis.
Paleo-anthropologists start digging in the Red Sea??

Discussion at aat@groups.io:

Yes, Bioko is nonsense,
but might Elaine's "Danakil" be correct?

Very likely, hominids came from the Red Sea
(and before that from the Med.Sea),
but was our (Homo's) *most*aquatic past
-Pliocene in the Red Sea?
-early-Pleistocene along the Ind.Ocean?

The anthropological "Red Sea Theory" (not biblical).
Google "coastal dispersal Pleistocene Homo PPT"

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Thursday, September 30, 2021 at 12:03:01 PM UTC-4, littor...@gmail.com wrote:

Francesca Mansfield:

The Red Sea Hypothesis gives us a date & a reason why Homo & Pan split:
there were no trees or vegetation, just cliffs, desert & sea in that location during the Pliocene.
Homo had no option but total immersion to survive.
Pan OTOH crossed into Africa, and had a nr of diverse environments to re-adapt to, incl. coasts & forests.
That's why the genome also shows
- a rel.recent, but sudden split with Pan,

Usually dated about 6mya or a bit earlier. What's your hypothesis on this? Francesca's?

- far more diversity from that point on in Pan,
- so many "hominin" spp in Africa. (Francesca means australopiths --MV)

Closer to Homo erectus than to Pan, phylogenetically?

We went in entirely different directions.
They spread out into Africa, while Homo got stuck in the Red Sea for a couple of mill.yrs.
By the time H.erectus emerged into the Pleistocene, and started spreading round the coasts, it was already aquatically adapted.
Pleistocene Homo did not suddenly appear with all those aquatic features fully formed.

Which ones were they, and why did Australopithecus have a more human pelvis than Pan?

There had to be a period before that when they were acquiring them (Pliocene), and there's nothing to suggest they retained arboreal features from that time.

In fact, by that time they had fully opposable thumbs. This is a much neglected feature
separating humans from all other animals, AFAIK. And tremendously useful.

We (Stephen Munro etc.) had thought that our most-aquatic evolution was early-Pleistocene
cf. H.erectus in SE.Asia: Java, Flores, Luzon...
google "coastal dispersal Pleistocene Homo PPT",
but Francesca might well be correct IMO:
the Red Sea Hypothesis.
Paleo-anthropologists start digging in the Red Sea??

Discussion at a...@groups.io:

Masked like this, it is useless. I unmasked it to read aat before the @ symbol, but it asked me
which service to link thru, suggesting a gmail account of mine. But this led to the
sinister warning that I was giving Windows permission to delete all email and much else
from that Google account. So I canceled the effort to get to the discussion that you are supposedly linking.

Do you have a safer route?

Yes, Bioko is nonsense,
but might Elaine's "Danakil" be correct?

How about a description of Bioko and Danakil?
I never heard of either.

Very likely, hominids came from the Red Sea
(and before that from the Med.Sea),
but was our (Homo's) *most*aquatic past
-Pliocene in the Red Sea?
-early-Pleistocene along the Ind.Ocean?
The anthropological "Red Sea Theory" (not biblical).
Google "coastal dispersal Pleistocene Homo PPT"

I'm more curious about when and from what species you and the others
think Pan broke away from our ancestry.


Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Op donderdag 30 september 2021 om 21:34:49 UTC+2 schreef peter2...@gmail.com:

Francesca Mansfield:
The Red Sea Hypothesis gives us a date & a reason why Homo & Pan split: there were no trees or vegetation, just cliffs, desert & sea in that location during the Pliocene.
Homo had no option but total immersion to survive.
Pan OTOH crossed into Africa, and had a nr of diverse environments to re-adapt to, incl. coasts & forests.
That's why the genome also shows
- a rel.recent, but sudden split with Pan,

Usually dated about 6mya or a bit earlier.

OK. H/P = 5 Ma is fine with me, but it might have been somewhat earlier.

What's your hypothesis on this? Francesca's?

We have about the same ideas, I had thought early-Pleistocene coastal dispersal (Stephen Munro), esp.Ind.Ocean,
but Pliocene Red Sea might be where it ("aquatic"ape = diving for shellfish) started or even evolved mostly.

- far more diversity from that point on in Pan,
- so many "hominin" spp in Africa. (Francesca means australopiths --MV)

Closer to Homo erectus than to Pan, phylogenetically?

Google "Lucy was no human ancestor PPT verhaegen".

We went in entirely different directions.
They spread out into Africa, while Homo got stuck in the Red Sea for a couple of mill.yrs.
By the time H.erectus emerged into the Pleistocene, and started spreading round the coasts, it was already aquatically adapted.
Pleistocene Homo did not suddenly appear with all those aquatic features fully formed.

Which ones were they, and why did Australopithecus have a more human pelvis than Pan?

Here, they = Pan, we = Homo.
The apith pelvis was primitive for all hominids:
- P & G in parallel (allopatrically) lengthened the iliac blades,
- Hs lost the iliac flaring.

There had to be a period before that when they were acquiring them (Pliocene), and there's nothing to suggest they retained arboreal features from that time.

In fact, by that time they had fully opposable thumbs. This is a much neglected feature
separating humans from all other animals, AFAIK. And tremendously useful.

Early anthropoids (& even earlier?) probably already had opposable thumbs: for grasping branches & different sorts of foods
= preadaptation for opening shellfish with stone tools.

We (Stephen Munro etc.) had thought that our most-aquatic evolution was early-Pleistocene
cf. H.erectus in SE.Asia: Java, Flores, Luzon...
google "coastal dispersal Pleistocene Homo PPT",
but Francesca might well be correct IMO:
the Red Sea Hypothesis.
Paleo-anthropologists start digging in the Red Sea??
Discussion at a...@groups.io:

aat @ groups.io (omit spaces)

Masked like this, it is useless. I unmasked it to read aat before the @ symbol, but it asked me
which service to link thru, suggesting a gmail account of mine. But this led to the
sinister warning that I was giving Windows permission to delete all email and much else
from that Google account. So I canceled the effort to get to the discussion that you are supposedly linking.
Do you have a safer route?

Unnecessary AFAIK: we're using it a few years.

Yes, Bioko is nonsense,
but might Elaine's "Danakil" be correct?

How about a description of Bioko and Danakil?
I never heard of either.

:-) Forget Bioko. Perhaps google "Elaine Morgan Danakil".

Very likely, hominids came from the Red Sea
(and before that from the Med.Sea),
but was our (Homo's) *most*aquatic past
-Pliocene in the Red Sea?
-early-Pleistocene along the Ind.Ocean?
The anthropological "Red Sea Theory" (not biblical).
Google "coastal dispersal Pleistocene Homo PPT"

I'm more curious about when and from what species you and the others
think Pan broke away from our ancestry.

Then google
- "ape hjman evolution made easy PPT verhaegen" or
- our TREE paper "Aquarboral Ancestors".
Probably from an gracile apith-like or Ardipithecus-like or even Oreopith-like ancestor.
We think Miocene hominoids followed the Tethys Ocean coasts.
IMO, the Mesopotamian Seaway closure 16 or 15 Ma caused the hominid/pongid split:
- aquarboreal early pongids followed the Ind.Ocean shores (and forced the hylobatids higher into the trees),
- aquarboreal early hominids colonized the Med.Sea & from there the Red Sea coasts.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Thursday, September 30, 2021 at 6:42:50 PM UTC-4, littor...@gmail.com wrote:

Op donderdag 30 september 2021 om 21:34:49 UTC+2 schreef peter2...@gmail.com:

Francesca Mansfield:
The Red Sea Hypothesis gives us a date & a reason why Homo & Pan split: there were no trees or vegetation, just cliffs, desert & sea in that location during the Pliocene.
Homo had no option but total immersion to survive.
Pan OTOH crossed into Africa, and had a nr of diverse environments to re-adapt to, incl. coasts & forests.
That's why the genome also shows
- a rel.recent, but sudden split with Pan,

Usually dated about 6mya or a bit earlier.

OK. H/P = 5 Ma is fine with me, but it might have been somewhat earlier.

What's your hypothesis on this? Francesca's?

We have about the same ideas, I had thought early-Pleistocene coastal dispersal (Stephen Munro), esp.Ind.Ocean,
but Pliocene Red Sea might be where it ("aquatic"ape = diving for shellfish) started or even evolved mostly.

- far more diversity from that point on in Pan,
- so many "hominin" spp in Africa. (Francesca means australopiths --MV)

Closer to Homo erectus than to Pan, phylogenetically?

Google "Lucy was no human ancestor PPT verhaegen".

Do you think she was a chimp ancestor? or vice versa?

We went in entirely different directions.
They spread out into Africa, while Homo got stuck in the Red Sea for a couple of mill.yrs.
By the time H.erectus emerged into the Pleistocene, and started spreading round the coasts, it was already aquatically adapted.
Pleistocene Homo did not suddenly appear with all those aquatic features fully formed.

Which ones were they, and why did Australopithecus have a more human pelvis than Pan?

Here, they = Pan, we = Homo.
The apith pelvis was primitive for all hominids:
- P & G in parallel (allopatrically) lengthened the iliac blades,
- Hs lost the iliac flaring.

Interesting. I'm slowly getting a feel for your theory. Heterodox, but it seems to have
internal consistency.

There had to be a period before that when they were acquiring them (Pliocene), and there's nothing to suggest they retained arboreal features from that time.

In fact, by that time they had fully opposable thumbs. This is a much neglected feature
separating humans from all other animals, AFAIK. And tremendously useful.

Early anthropoids (& even earlier?) probably already had opposable thumbs: for grasping branches & different sorts of foods

I've seen photos which purport to show that chimps do not have *fully* opposable thumbs.
Fine for picking up small things between thumb and edge of the base of the hand,
but not between thumb and tips of phalanges.

= preadaptation for opening shellfish with stone tools.

We (Stephen Munro etc.) had thought that our most-aquatic evolution was early-Pleistocene
cf. H.erectus in SE.Asia: Java, Flores, Luzon...
google "coastal dispersal Pleistocene Homo PPT",
but Francesca might well be correct IMO:
the Red Sea Hypothesis.
Paleo-anthropologists start digging in the Red Sea??
Discussion at a...@groups.io:

aat @ groups.io (omit spaces)

Masked like this, it is useless. I unmasked it to read aat before the @ symbol, but it asked me
which service to link thru, suggesting a gmail account of mine. But this led to the
sinister warning that I was giving Windows permission to delete all email and much else
from that Google account. So I canceled the effort to get to the discussion that you are supposedly linking.
Do you have a safer route?

Unnecessary AFAIK: we're using it a few years.

Well, I realized belatedly that it is an e-mail address, apparently a listserv or whatever
they call "e-mail lists" these days. The first move would have to be by me, but whom
do I address? does it automatically go to the whole group of subscribers?

Yes, Bioko is nonsense,
but might Elaine's "Danakil" be correct?

How about a description of Bioko and Danakil?
I never heard of either.

:-) Forget Bioko. Perhaps google "Elaine Morgan Danakil".

Is it easy to navigate to a description of her main hypothesis?

Very likely, hominids came from the Red Sea
(and before that from the Med.Sea),
but was our (Homo's) *most*aquatic past
-Pliocene in the Red Sea?
-early-Pleistocene along the Ind.Ocean?
The anthropological "Red Sea Theory" (not biblical).
Google "coastal dispersal Pleistocene Homo PPT"

I'm more curious about when and from what species you and the others
think Pan broke away from our ancestry.

Then google
- "ape hjman evolution made easy PPT verhaegen" or
- our TREE paper "Aquarboral Ancestors".

Thanks, I'll take a look this weekend. I'm curious to see where it puts Sahelanthropus.

Probably from an gracile apith-like or Ardipithecus-like or even Oreopith-like ancestor.
We think Miocene hominoids followed the Tethys Ocean coasts.
IMO, the Mesopotamian Seaway closure 16 or 15 Ma caused the hominid/pongid split:
- aquarboreal early pongids followed the Ind.Ocean shores (and forced the hylobatids higher into the trees),
- aquarboreal early hominids colonized the Med.Sea & from there the Red Sea coasts.

Do you think any of them took alternative routes between Africa and Europe when the
Straits of Gibraltar was closed and most of the Mediterranean was dried up?


Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
Univ. of South Carolina at Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Op zaterdag 2 oktober 2021 om 02:55:52 UTC+2 schreef peter2...@gmail.com:

Francesca Mansfield:
The Red Sea Hypothesis gives us a date & a reason why Homo & Pan split:
there were no trees or vegetation, just cliffs, desert & sea in that location during the Pliocene.
Homo had no option but total immersion to survive.
Pan OTOH crossed into Africa, and had a nr of diverse environments to re-adapt to, incl. coasts & forests.
That's why the genome also shows
- a rel.recent, but sudden split with Pan,

Usually dated about 6mya or a bit earlier.

OK. H/P = 5 Ma is fine with me, but it might have been somewhat earlier.

What's your hypothesis on this? Francesca's?

We have about the same ideas, I had thought early-Pleistocene coastal dispersal (Stephen Munro), esp.Ind.Ocean,
but Pliocene Red Sea might be where it ("aquatic"ape = diving for shellfish) started or even evolved mostly.

- far more diversity from that point on in Pan,
- so many "hominin" spp in Africa. (Francesca means australopiths --MV)

Closer to Homo erectus than to Pan, phylogenetically?

Google "Lucy was no human ancestor PPT verhaegen".

Do you think she was a chimp ancestor? or vice versa?

:-)
I see you haven't googled "Lucy was no human ancestor PPT verhaegen". E.Afr.apiths incl.Lucy are morphologically closer to Gorilla than to Pan, e.g. • “Incisal dental microwear in A.afarensis is most similar to that observed in Gorilla”. Ryan & Johanson, 1989.
• The composite skull reconstructed mostly from A.L.333 specimens “looked very much like a small female gorilla”. Johanson & Edey, 1981, p. 351.
• “Other primitive [or advanced gorilla-like? MV] features found in KNM-WT 17000, but not know or much discussed for A. afarensis, are: very small cranial capacity; low posterior profile of the calvaria; nasals extended far above the frontomaxillar
suture and well onto an uninflated glabella; and extremely convex inferolateral margins of the orbits such as found in some gorillas”. Walker et al., 1986.
• As for the maximum parietal breadth and the biauriculare in O.H.5 and KNM-ER 406 “the robust australopithecines have values near the Gorilla mean: both the pongids and the robust australopithecines have highly pneumatized bases”. Kennedy, 1991 (
see also his fig. 1).
• In O.H.5, “the curious and characteristic features of the Paranthropus skull... parallel some of those of the gorilla”. Robinson, 1960.
• The A. boisei “lineage has been characterized by sexual dimorphism of the degree seen in modern Gorilla for the length of its known history”. Leakey & Walker, 1988.
• A. boisei teeth showed “a relative absence of prism decussation”; among extant hominoids, “Gorilla enamel showed relatively little decussation ...”. Beynon & Wood, 1986 (cf. Beynon et al., 1991).

We went in entirely different directions.
They spread out into Africa, while Homo got stuck in the Red Sea for a couple of mill.yrs.
By the time H.erectus emerged into the Pleistocene, and started spreading round the coasts, it was already aquatically adapted.
Pleistocene Homo did not suddenly appear with all those aquatic features fully formed.

Which ones were they, and why did Australopithecus have a more human pelvis than Pan?

Here, they = Pan, we = Homo.
The apith pelvis was primitive for all hominids:
- P & G in parallel (allopatrically) lengthened the iliac blades,
- Hs lost the iliac flaring.

Interesting. I'm slowly getting a feel for your theory. Heterodox, but it seems to have
internal consistency.

:-) It' perfect (AFAIK).

There had to be a period before that when they were acquiring them (Pliocene), and there's nothing to suggest they retained arboreal features from that time.

In fact, by that time they had fully opposable thumbs. This is a much neglected feature
separating humans from all other animals, AFAIK. And tremendously useful.

Early anthropoids (& even earlier?) probably already had opposable thumbs: for grasping branches & different sorts of foods

I've seen photos which purport to show that chimps do not have *fully* opposable thumbs.
Fine for picking up small things between thumb and edge of the base of the hand,
but not between thumb and tips of phalanges.

Pan & Gorilla hands are very derived, of course, they evolved knuckle-walking in //:
P & G KWing are very different in detail, morphologically & embryologically.

= preadaptation for opening shellfish with stone tools.

We (Stephen Munro etc.) had thought that our most-aquatic evolution was early-Pleistocene
cf. H.erectus in SE.Asia: Java, Flores, Luzon...
google "coastal dispersal Pleistocene Homo PPT",
but Francesca might well be correct IMO:
the Red Sea Hypothesis.
Paleo-anthropologists start digging in the Red Sea??
Discussion at a...@groups.io:

aat @ groups.io (omit spaces)

Masked like this, it is useless. I unmasked it to read aat before the @ symbol, but it asked me
which service to link thru, suggesting a gmail account of mine. But this led to the
sinister warning that I was giving Windows permission to delete all email and much else
from that Google account. So I canceled the effort to get to the discussion that you are supposedly linking.
Do you have a safer route?

Unnecessary AFAIK: we're using it a few years.

Well, I realized belatedly that it is an e-mail address, apparently a listserv or whatever
they call "e-mail lists" these days. The first move would have to be by me, but whom
do I address? does it automatically go to the whole group of subscribers?

Yes.

Yes, Bioko is nonsense,
but might Elaine's "Danakil" be correct?

How about a description of Bioko and Danakil?
I never heard of either.

:-) Forget Bioko. Perhaps google "Elaine Morgan Danakil".

Is it easy to navigate to a description of her main hypothesis?

Yes; but in short:
Elaine thought some "chimp" got isolated on Danakil in the Red Sea (H/P split 5 Ma), and evolved there as "aquatic ape":
fur loss, upright, SC fat, large brain etc.etc., +- everything that discerns humans from chimps.
(Not very correct of course, e.g. both H & P evolved after the split, but I could never convice her of this.)

Very likely, hominids came from the Red Sea
(and before that from the Med.Sea),
but was our (Homo's) *most*aquatic past
-Pliocene in the Red Sea?
-early-Pleistocene along the Ind.Ocean?
The anthropological "Red Sea Theory" (not biblical).
Google "coastal dispersal Pleistocene Homo PPT"

I'm more curious about when and from what species you and the others think Pan broke away from our ancestry.

Then google
- "ape human evolution made easy PPT verhaegen" or
- our TREE paper "Aquarboral Ancestors".

Thanks, I'll take a look this weekend. I'm curious to see where it puts Sahelanthropus.

:-) Probably an early hominid, close to Orrorin.

Probably from an gracile apith-like or Ardipithecus-like or even Oreopith-like ancestor.
We think Miocene hominoids followed the Tethys Ocean coasts.
IMO, the Mesopotamian Seaway closure 16 or 15 Ma caused the hominid/pongid split:
- aquarboreal early pongids followed the Ind.Ocean shores (and forced the hylobatids higher into the trees),
- aquarboreal early hominids colonized the Med.Sea & from there the Red Sea coasts.

Do you think any of them took alternative routes between Africa and Europe when the
Straits of Gibraltar was closed and most of the Mediterranean was dried up? Peter Nyikos

Well possible, but unknown AFAIK (no fossils).

Aquarborealism explains best why hominoids
- lost the tail,
- got much larger (secondarily reduced in hylobatids, but still very long gestation),
- evolved very broad bodies (Latisternalia): thorax-sternum & pelvis: for lateral amr & leg movements?
- got a centrally-placed spine (other primates & most mammas have dorsally-placed spines),
google our TREE paper "Aquarboreal Ancestors".

Miocene aquarboreal hominoids colonized most Tethys Ocean coastal forests? After the Mesopotamian Seaway closure c 15 Ma, hominids lived in Med & Red Sea coastal forests, and pongids along the Asian Ind.Ocean.

Nice to see serious discussions & questions here, Peter.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

littor...@gmail.com wrote:

Francesca Mansfield:

The Red Sea Hypothesis gives us a date & a reason why Homo & Pan split:
there were no trees or vegetation, just cliffs, desert & sea in that location during the Pliocene.
Homo had no option but total immersion to survive.
Pan OTOH crossed into Africa, and had a nr of diverse environments to re-adapt to, incl. coasts & forests.
That's why the genome also shows
- a rel.recent, but sudden split with Pan,
- far more diversity from that point on in Pan,
- so many "hominin" spp in Africa. (Francesca means australopiths --MV)
We went in entirely different directions.
They spread out into Africa, while Homo got stuck in the Red Sea for a couple of mill.yrs.
By the time H.erectus emerged into the Pleistocene, and started spreading round the coasts, it was already aquatically adapted.
Pleistocene Homo did not suddenly appear with all those aquatic features fully formed.
There had to be a period before that when they were acquiring them (Pliocene), and there's nothing to suggest they retained arboreal features from that time.

It makes sense, almost necessary, for evolution to take place within a new environment. The problem with such a model is that Pan seems too young
and the whole thing is quite linear.

"They became THIS, then THAT.

It's certainly nothing like we see later, with the splitting then folding back (interbreeding), and it's relying on the very connection that kept us one species not existing.

Right?

If Pan was what split off and ran to Africa, then they lost contact. They stopped interbreeding. Else they wouldn't have been Pan.

But it's that same connection which is missing in this model that kept
all our ancestors one species, able to interbreed...




-- --

https://jtem.tumblr.com/post/663948262976487424

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

peter2...@gmail.com wrote:

littor...@gmail.com wrote:

Pan OTOH crossed into Africa, and had a nr of diverse environments to re-adapt to, incl. coasts & forests.
That's why the genome also shows
- a rel.recent, but sudden split with Pan,

Usually dated about 6mya or a bit earlier.

Based on mtDNA, an imaginary "Molecular Clock" and a ridiculous assumption
that mtDNA isn't under any selective pressure.

The split had to be far more recent, under 4 million years. How much under I couldn't tell you, but maybe into the 3 million year mark. Maybe sooner. There's
no law that says it couldn't have been recent, and the oldest so called Chimp fossils are well under HALF the age of erectus.




-- --

https://jtem.tumblr.com/post/663948262976487424

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On Saturday, October 2, 2021 at 12:33:40 PM UTC-4, I Envy JTEM wrote:

peter2...@gmail.com wrote:

littor...@gmail.com wrote:

Pan OTOH crossed into Africa, and had a nr of diverse environments to re-adapt to, incl. coasts & forests.
That's why the genome also shows
- a rel.recent, but sudden split with Pan,

Usually dated about 6mya or a bit earlier.

Based on mtDNA, an imaginary "Molecular Clock" and a ridiculous assumption that mtDNA isn't under any selective pressure.

That is a trifle ridiculous, and one reason why molecular clocks are viewed with a lot of skepticism.
[Of course, genomic DNA is under a lot more selective pressure, and the contrast is why a lot of people
aren't as skeptical about mtDNA-based clocks as we are.]

The split had to be far more recent, under 4 million years.

On what hypothesis do you base this? and where does Sahelanthropus fit into this?

How much under I couldn't tell you, but maybe into the 3 million year mark. Maybe sooner. There's
no law that says it couldn't have been recent, and the oldest so called Chimp fossils are well under HALF the age of erectus.

I only knew of one, ca. 1mya, and that a single tooth. Do you know of any others?

As I told Pandora, this lack of chimp and gorilla fossils means that Verhaegen and anyone
else who derives chimps and/or gorillas from Australo- or Ardi- pithecus occupies an impregnable citadel.

However, one does have to think carefully about when Pan and Gorilla split off from each other.
FWIW, most or all molecular hypotheses put the split a good bit earlier than the Pan/Homo split,
so the citadel is coming under a lot of fire, but it will hold unless new fossils blow a gaping hole in it.


Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
Univ. of South Carolina at Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Op dinsdag 5 oktober 2021 om 00:31:07 UTC+2 schreef peter2...@gmail.com:

...

As I told Pandora, this lack of chimp and gorilla fossils means that Verhaegen and anyone
else who derives chimps and/or gorillas from Australo- or Ardi- pithecus occupies an impregnable citadel.

:-)
Where exactly to place Ardipith, I don't know (Gorilla? cf localisation),
but my ideas on apith relationships are based on very simple comparisons, which anyone could have made:
my 1994 & 1996 papers in Hum.Evol.

1996

Morphological distance between australopithecine, human and ape skulls
Human Evolution 11: 35-41, 1996
This paper attempts to quantify the morphological difference between fossil & living spp of hominoids.
The comparison is based upon a balanced list of cranio-dental characters corrected for size (Wood & Chamberlain& 1986).
Concl.:
- cranio-dentally, the australopithecine spp are a unique & rather uniform group, much nearer to the great apes than to humans;
- overall, their skull and dentition do not resemble the human more than the chimpanzee’s do.
...
This comparison of 37 cranio-dental characters of fossil & living apes & humans yields no indication that any of the australopithecine spp has evolved in the human direction.
- S.African australopithecine skulls are morphologically closest to the chimpanzee among the living hominoids,
- A.boisei is closest to the gorilla among the living hominoids.
- Human cranio-dental evolution appears to have been very fast the last 1 or 2 mill.yrs. ...

1994

Table 2 - Quotations on gorilla-like features in large East African australopith crania

• “Incisal dental microwear in A.afarensis is most similar to that observed in Gorilla”. Ryan & Johanson 1989.
• The composite skull reconstructed mostly from A.L.333 specimens “looked very much like a small female gorilla”. Johanson & Edey 1981:351.
• “Other primitive [or advanced gorilla-like? MV] features found in KNM-WT 17000, but not know or much discussed for A.afarensis, are: very small cranial capacity; low posterior profile of the calvaria; nasals extended far above the frontomaxillar
suture and well onto an uninflated glabella; and extremely convex inferolateral margins of the orbits such as found in some gorillas”. Walker et al.1986.
• As for the maximum parietal breadth and the biauriculare in O.H.5 and KNM-ER 406 “the robust australopithecines have values near the Gorilla mean: both the pongids and the robust australopithecines have highly pneumatized bases”. Kennedy 1991 (
see also his fig.1).
• In O.H.5, “the curious and characteristic features of the Paranthropus skull... parallel some of those of the gorilla”. Robinson 1960.
• The A.boisei “lineage has been characterized by sexual dimorphism of the degree seen in modern Gorilla for the length of its known history”. Leakey & Walker 1988.
• A.boisei teeth showed “a relative absence of prism decussation”; among extant hominoids, “Gorilla enamel showed relatively little decussation ...”. Beynon & Wood 1986 (cf. Beynon et al.1991).

Table 3 - Quotations on chimp-like features in South African australopith crania

• “Alan [Walker] has analysed a number of Au.robustus teeth and they fall into the fruit-eating category. More precisely, their teeth patterns look like those of chimpanzees... Then, when be looked at some Homo erectus teeth, be found that the
pattern changed”. Leakey 1981:74-75.
• “The ‘keystone’ nasal bone arrangement suggested as a derived diagnostic of Paranthropus [robustus] is found in an appreciable number of pongids, particularly clearly in some chimpanzees”. Eckhardt 1987.
• “P. paniscus provides a suitable comparison for Australopithecus [Sts.5]; they are similar in body size, postcranial dimensions and... even in cranial and facial features”. Zihlman et al.1978.
• “A.africanus Sts.5, which... falls well within the range of Pan troglodytes, is markedly prognathous or hyperprognathous”". Ferguson, 1989a.
• In Taung, “I see nothing in the orbits, nasal bones, and canine teeth definitely nearer to the human condition than the corresponding parts of the skull of a modern young chimpanzee”. Woodward 1925.
• “The Taung juvenile seems to resemble a young chimpanzee more closely than it resembles L338y-6”, a juvenile A. boisei. Rak & Howell 1978.
• “In addition to similarities in facial remodeling it appears that Taung and Australopithecus in general, had maturation periods similar to those of the extant chimpanzee”. Bromage 1985.
• “I estimate an adult capacity for Taung ranging from 404-420 cm2, with a mean of 412 cm2. Application of Passingham’s curve for brain development in Pan is preferable to that for humans because (a) brain size of early hominids approximates that
of chimpanzees, and (b) the curves for brain volume relative to body weight are essentially parallel in pongids and australopithecines, leading Hofman to conclude that ‘as with pongids, the australopithecines probably differed only in size, not in
design’”. Falk 1987.
• In Taung, “pneumatization has also extended into the zygoma and hard palate. This is intriguing because an intrapalatal extension of the maxillary sinus has only been reported in chimpanzees and robust australopithecines among higher primates”.
Bromage & Dean 1985.
• “That the fossil ape Australopithecus [Taung] ‘is distinguished from all living apes by the... unfused nasal bones…’ as claimed by Dart (1940), cannot be maintained in view of the very considerable number of cases of separate nasal bones
among orang-utans and chimpanzees of ages corresponding to that of Australopithecus”. Schultz 1941.


IOW, from c 1940 to when these papers where written, a lot of fossil hunters noticed resemblances between boisei & gorilla, and OTOH between S.Afr.apiths & chimps.
IMO, "primitive" should often be replaces by "advanced gorilla-" or "chimp-like":
we don't descend from chimps, but both chimps & humans had a common ancestor c 5 Ma, who had primitive-hominid as well as human- & chimp-like features.

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peter2...@gmail.com wrote:

Based on mtDNA, an imaginary "Molecular Clock" and a ridiculous assumption that mtDNA isn't under any selective pressure.

That is a trifle ridiculous, and one reason why molecular clocks are viewed with a lot of skepticism.
[Of course, genomic DNA is under a lot more selective pressure, and the contrast is why a lot of people
aren't as skeptical about mtDNA-based clocks as we are.]

The split had to be far more recent, under 4 million years.

On what hypothesis do you base this?

I could re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-post the same cite I offered the
last [blah, blah] times but, given present circumstances, that does not look to be fruitful.

No hypothesis. "Molecular dating" exaggerates age. Human mtDNA, for example, has been under
enormous selective pressure. It's related to everything from our ability to grow old, fight cancer
and withstand cold. But the same is true for the y-Chromosome, the other favorite for "Dating."

Anyway, you simply have to widen your view, look at the whole genome, work out all these very
different "Molecular Clocks" and then take into account that the true dating has to be younger.
BECAUSE genes are under selective pressure. Oh, they'll tick away ever so "Clock like" when
everything is a constant, but move them somewhere else, like where it's colder, and changes
can start accumulating rapidly.

And the hilarious part here? The selective pressure, all this change only has to be on one side
of the fence! If Population-A is in a fairly stable environment they might be under very little
selective pressure, while if Population-B moves into a new environment they could be under
heavy selection, accumulate a lot of changes. And then comparing the two, they assume that
any & all differences seen were acquired at the slow meticulous rate seen under stable
circumstances. There. Fake aging.

and where does Sahelanthropus fit into this?

It doesn't. It's too old.

How much under I couldn't tell you, but maybe into the 3 million year mark. Maybe sooner. There's
no law that says it couldn't have been recent, and the oldest so called Chimp
fossils are well under HALF the age of erectus.

I only knew of one, ca. 1mya, and that a single tooth. Do you know of any others?

I am unaware of any in the 1 million year range.

This is not to say that we haven't found them. In fact I have argued that we have found
Chimp fossils, or the predecessors to our Chimps, only we don't know what they are.

Not yet.

It's hardly far fetched. If anything, it's a safer, more conservative bet than "We ain't never found
none!"






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