I just read "The Australopithecus assemblage from Sterkfontein Member 4 (South Africa) and the concept of variation in palaeontology" Amélie Baudet 2023 Evol.Anthr. org/10.1002/evan.21972 open access.
It's statistically impossible that all Pliocene African hominid fossils are closer relatives of Homo than of Pan or Gorilla (= afro- & anthropocentrism!).
kudu runner:
Nonsense.
No, my little boy, think a little bit.
It's really not difficult, even for you:
there are 100s of hominid fossils, but kudu runners assume that 0 of these 100s is a closer relative of bonobo than of human, 0 is closer to common chimp than to human, 0 is closer to lowland gorilla than to human, 0 is closer to highland gorilla than to
humans, miraculously all of these 100s of fossils are closer relatives of human than of any of the 4 other spp, although anatomically they're all objectively much closer morphologically to these apes than to humans, as everybody agrees:
• “The evolution of the australopithecine crania was the antithesis of the Homo line. Instead of becoming less ape-like, as in Homo, they become more ‘ape-like’. Cranial proportions and ectocranial features that were thought to be unique among
pongids evolved separately [anthropocentrism] in the australopithecines parallel [anthropocentrism] with the great apes. The features of KNM-WT 17000, therefore, are not as ‘primitive’ as they look. The robust Australopithecus did not evolve from a
big-toothed pongid ancestor with large cranial superstructures, but from a small-toothed hominid with a rounder, smoother ectocranium, like A.africanus”. Ferguson 1989
• “Plio-Pleistocene hominids had markedly abbreviated [enamel] growth periods relative to modern man, similar to those of the modem great apes”. Bromage & Dean 1985
• “Enamel thickness has been secondarily reduced in the African apes and also, although at a different rare and extent, in the orang-utan. Thick enamel, previously the most important characteristic in arguments about the earliest hominid, does not
therefore identify a hominid”. Martin 1985
• In the South African fossils including Taung, “sulcal patterns of seven australopithecine encocasts appear to be ape-like rather than human-like”. Falk 1987
• “Cranial capacity, the relationship between endocast and skull, sulcal pattern, brain shape and cranial venous sinuses, all of these features appear to be consistent with an ape-like external cortical morphology in Hadar early hominids”. Falk
1985
• In the type specimen of A.afarensis, “the lower third premolar of ‘A.africanus afarensis’ LH-4 is completely apelike”. Ferguson 1987
• “A.afarensis is much more similar cranially to the modern African apes than to modern humans”. Schoenemann 1989
• “Olson's assertion that the lateral inflation of the A.L.333-45 mastoids is greater than in any extant ape is incorrect if the fossil is compared to P.troglodytes males or some Gorilla males and females. Moreover, the pattern of pneumatization in A.
afarensis is also found only in the extant apes among other hominoids”. Kimbel cs 1984
• “Prior to the identification of A.afarensis the asterionic notch was thought to characterize only the apes among hominoids. Kimbel and Rak relate this asterionic sutural figuration to the pattern of cranial cresting and temporal bone pneumatization
shared by A. afarensis and the extant apes”. Kimbel cs 1984
• “... the fact that two presumed Paranthropus [robustus] skulls were furnished with high sagittal crests implied that they had also possessed powerful occipital crests and ape-like planum nuchale... Nuchal crests which are no more prominent - and
indeed some less prominent - will be found in many adult apes”. Zuckerman 1954
• In Sts.5, MLD-37/38, SK-47, SK-48, SK-83, Taung, KNM-ER 406, O.H.24 and O.H.5, “craniometric analysis showed that they had marked similarities to those of extant pongids. These basicranial similarities between Plio-Pleistocene hominids and extant
apes suggest that the upper respiratory systems of these groups were also alike in appearance... Markedly flexed basicrania [are] found only in modern humans after the second year...”. Laitman & Heimbuch 1982
• “The total morphological pattern with regard to the nasal region of Australopithecus can be characterized by a flat, non-protruding nasal skeleton which does not differ qualitatively from the extant nonhuman hominoid pattern, one which is in marked
contrast to the protruding nasal skeleton of modern H. sapiens”. Franciscus & Trinkaus 1988
• “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
• “Other primitive [advanced gorilla-like!] 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 cs 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
• 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
• “Alan [Walker] has analysed a number of Australopithecus 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
• “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 1989
• 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, everybody sees & admits that apiths resemble Afr.apes much more than they resemble Homo, yet traditonal PAs still assume for some obscure reason (anthropocentrism) that apiths are nevertheless closer relatives of us than of chimps or bonobos or
gorillas... how unscientific (prejudiced) is that??
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