There are at least 8 *independent* scientific indications (undenied & undeniable) that Pleistocene archaic Homo were semi-aquatic:
• Archaic Homo's atypical tooth-wear was caused by "sand and oral processing of marine mollusks" (Towle cs 2022 doi 10.1002/ajpa.24500).
• H.erectus s.s. fossilized typically (always?) in coastal sediments, e.g. Mojokerto child amid barnacles & corals, Trinil amid Pseudodon & Elongaria, Sangiran-17 in a "brackish marsh near the coast".
• Stephen Munro discovered sea-shell engravings made by H.erectus (Joordens cs 2015 Nature 518:228-231).
• Ear exostoses (H.erectus & H.neand.) develop only after years of cold(er) water irrigation.
• Pachyosteosclerosis is typically & exclusively seen in slow+shallow-diving tetrapods (de Buffrénil cs 2010 J.Mamm.Evol.17:101-120), e.g. erectus' parietal bone is twice (2x) as thick as in gorillas.
• Brain enlargement++ (cf. Odontocetes, Pinnipedia) is facilitated by sea-food, e.g. DHA docosahexaenoic acid in shellfish etc.
• Homo’s stone tool use & manual dexterity is typical for molluscivores: sea-otters etc.
• Pleistocene Homo colonized islands far oversea (Flores & later even Luzon), google “coastal dispersal Pleistocene Homo”.

IOW, only *incredible* idiots still believe their Pleistocene ancestors ran after antelopes over African savanna... :-DDD The savanna fantasy is the most unscientific just-so story imaginalbe.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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littor...@gmail.com wrote:

There are at least 8 *independent* scientific indications (undenied & undeniable)
that Pleistocene archaic Homo were semi-aquatic:

Your argument on Homo erectus is good. It's great. It convinced me that I'm wrong,
sent me reeling into a new direction.

Effectively, everything you say about erectus is true, and when combined with other
pieces of evidence -- non "Aquatic" evidence -- it amounts to one fact: It all starts
with erectus.

Oh we had other ancestors before erectus. And those other ancestors had ancestors. But none of them are "Us." Erectus was.

So called "Moderns" very likely could and even did interbreed with erectus...

• Archaic Homo's atypical tooth-wear was caused by "sand and oral processing of marine mollusks" (Towle cs 2022 doi 10.1002/ajpa.24500).
• H.erectus s.s. fossilized typically (always?) in coastal sediments, e.g. Mojokerto child amid barnacles & corals, Trinil amid Pseudodon & Elongaria, Sangiran-17 in a "brackish marsh near the coast".
• Stephen Munro discovered sea-shell engravings made by H.erectus (Joordens cs 2015 Nature 518:228-231).
• Ear exostoses (H.erectus & H.neand.) develop only after years of cold(er) water irrigation.
• Pachyosteosclerosis is typically & exclusively seen in slow+shallow-diving tetrapods (de Buffrénil cs 2010 J.Mamm.Evol.17:101-120), e.g. erectus' parietal bone is twice (2x) as thick as in gorillas.
• Brain enlargement++ (cf. Odontocetes, Pinnipedia) is facilitated by sea-food, e.g. DHA docosahexaenoic acid in shellfish etc.
• Homo’s stone tool use & manual dexterity is typical for molluscivores: sea-otters etc.
• Pleistocene Homo colonized islands far oversea (Flores & later even Luzon), google “coastal dispersal Pleistocene Homo”.

IOW, only *incredible* idiots still believe their Pleistocene ancestors ran after antelopes over African savanna... :-DDD The savanna fantasy is the most unscientific just-so story imaginalbe.

Effectively, stealing all your arguments, I came up with this:

THE CHROMOSOME FUSION!

In my model the littoral or waterside population is the mother group,
and all through history splinter groups had broken off, bushed
inland and adapted to their new environments. And they all interbred,
sharing DNA and moderating each others evolution.

...the waterside group, following the coast, was the conduit,
carrying new adaptions (DNA) from group to group.

In a nutshell: We all had many ancestors but the one ancestor we
all share in common, the one we owe our humanity to is the waterside population.

Now this spreading -- coastal dispersal -- and splintering off, pushing
inland, had been happening since the beginning. But there were many
key events that stopped it.

THERE WERE RESET BUTTONS!

On of them was the eruption of Yellowstone, close to 9 million years
ago. Yes, it had all began before that...

Another was the vastly more recent eruption of Toba. It's the reason
why people say "Out of Africa," the Toba eruption having wiped out
much of Homo outside of Africa..

The relevant RESET BUTTON here was the Chromosome Fusion,
which is popularly aligned with erectus.

There. That's it: Modern man.

Without the inland population to moderate their evolution, they
could better adapt to exploiting aquatic resources.

Oh, they were always there, exploiting those resources, but *Tons*
of selective pressures were on the inland environment -- the forests
and savannas -- and not just the littoral world. But after the
chromosome fusion they could no longer interbreed with those
more archaic inland groups. So, we got everything you describe

-- --

https://jtem.tumblr.com/post/724043846433062912

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Op zaterdag 29 juli 2023 om 03:00:07 UTC+2 schreef JTEM is so reasonable:

littor...@gmail.com wrote:

There are at least 8 *independent* scientific indications (undenied & undeniable)
that Pleistocene archaic Homo were semi-aquatic:

Your argument on Homo erectus is good. It's great. It convinced me that I'm wrong,
sent me reeling into a new direction.
Effectively, everything you say about erectus is true, and when combined with other
pieces of evidence -- non "Aquatic" evidence -- it amounts to one fact: It all starts
with erectus.

"all"? But what happened with our Pliocene ancestors?
Hs lacks Pliocene African retroviral DNA = we were following S.Asian coasts, but so far we have no Pliocene Homo s.s. fossils:
did frequent shellfish-diving begin early-Pleist.? e.g. colder? more shellfish...??
or already Pliocene??

Oh we had other ancestors before erectus. And those other ancestors had ancestors. But none of them are "Us." Erectus was.
So called "Moderns" very likely could and even did interbreed with erectus...

? what are "Moderns"? = Hs??

• Archaic Homo's atypical tooth-wear was caused by "sand and oral processing of marine mollusks" (Towle cs 2022 doi 10.1002/ajpa.24500).
• H.erectus s.s. fossilized typically (always?) in coastal sediments, e.g. Mojokerto child amid barnacles & corals, Trinil amid Pseudodon & Elongaria, Sangiran-17 in a "brackish marsh near the coast".
• Stephen Munro discovered sea-shell engravings made by H.erectus (Joordens cs 2015 Nature 518:228-231).
• Ear exostoses (H.erectus & H.neand.) develop only after years of cold(er) water irrigation.
• Pachyosteosclerosis is typically & exclusively seen in slow+shallow-diving tetrapods (de Buffrénil cs 2010 J.Mamm.Evol.17:101-120), e.g. erectus' parietal bone is twice (2x) as thick as in gorillas.
• Brain enlargement++ (cf. Odontocetes, Pinnipedia) is facilitated by sea-food, e.g. DHA docosahexaenoic acid in shellfish etc.
• Homo’s stone tool use & manual dexterity is typical for molluscivores: sea-otters etc.
• Pleistocene Homo colonized islands far oversea (Flores & later even Luzon), google “coastal dispersal Pleistocene Homo”.
IOW, only *incredible* idiots still believe their Pleistocene ancestors ran after antelopes over African savanna... :-DDD The savanna fantasy is the most unscientific just-so story imaginable.

Effectively, stealing all your arguments, I came up with this:
THE CHROMOSOME FUSION!
In my model the littoral or waterside population is the mother group,
and all through history splinter groups had broken off, bushed
inland and adapted to their new environments. And they all interbred, sharing DNA and moderating each others evolution.
...the waterside group, following the coast, was the conduit,
carrying new adaptions (DNA) from group to group.
In a nutshell: We all had many ancestors but the one ancestor we
all share in common, the one we owe our humanity to is the waterside population.
Now this spreading -- coastal dispersal -- and splintering off, pushing inland, had been happening since the beginning. But there were many
key events that stopped it.
THERE WERE RESET BUTTONS!
On of them was the eruption of Yellowstone, close to 9 million years
ago. Yes, it had all began before that...
Another was the vastly more recent eruption of Toba. It's the reason
why people say "Out of Africa," the Toba eruption having wiped out
much of Homo outside of Africa..

I have no ideas on chromo-fusions.
What *is* clear IMO:
late-Miocene HPG lived in Red Sea forests = aquarboreal,
Gorilla 8-7 Ma followed the incipient N-Rift -> Afar Lucy -> boisei...
the Red Sea opened into the Gulf 6-5 Ma:
-Pan->right: E.Afr.coast -> incipient S-Rift -> Taung -> robustus (Pan//Gorilla)
-Homo->left: S.Asian coast aquarboreal->diving early-Pleist.Mojokerto -> H.erectus

The relevant RESET BUTTON here was the Chromosome Fusion,
which is popularly aligned with erectus.
There. That's it: Modern man.
Without the inland population to moderate their evolution, they
could better adapt to exploiting aquatic resources.

OK, but in SE.Asia early-Pleist., we also had e.g.
-aquarboreal Pongo forced Homo deeper into the sea??
-Pleist.coolings = more shellfish??

Oh, they were always there, exploiting those resources, but *Tons*
of selective pressures were on the inland environment -- the forests
and savannas -- and not just the littoral world. But after the
chromosome fusion they could no longer interbreed with those
more archaic inland groups. So, we got everything you describe

Certainly a possibility IMO. --marc

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

littor...@gmail.com wrote:

Effectively, everything you say about erectus is true, and when combined with other
pieces of evidence -- non "Aquatic" evidence -- it amounts to one fact: It all starts
with erectus.

"all"? But what happened with our Pliocene ancestors?

They weren't us and they were never going to be us, not without erectus and the unique circumstances (events, interbreeding, selective pressures) that resulted in erectus.

Hs lacks Pliocene African retroviral DNA = we were following S.Asian coasts,

Partially true. Our ancestors were everywhere from Sundaland to South Africa, but the African population was so devastated by the retrovirus event that they were either driven to extinction, absorbed by the Pan side of the family (because
they were still co fertile) or survivors were absorbed by the Eurasian population.

but so far we have no Pliocene Homo s.s. fossils:

"Homo" is an artificial construct. Our habilis is usually described as the first
Homo, but it's just a convenient dividing line. I mean, habilis had immediate ancestors, and we're are just as descended from them, even if they are NOT considered Homo...

did frequent shellfish-diving begin early-Pleist.? e.g. colder? more shellfish...??
or already Pliocene??

Before both.

Bipedalism is linked to "Aquatic Ape" -- the exploitation of marine resources --
and that goes but a minimum of 7 million years, working with the hard
evidence, and probably before 10 million years ago...

I like the island model. Where the island was I do not care. But I like the Island model. It gets us from monkeys to apes, via the ocean.

Gould's Punctuated Equilibrium.

Verhaegen's "Isolation is the engine of evolution."

They get isolated on an island. No natural predators. Their only
competition is each other:

Insular Gigantism

This usually precedes Insular Dwarfism as the Gigantism
exhausts available resources, placing selective pressures on
"Small," but in this case the opposite happened. Instead of
exhausting resources they tapped into what was for them an
inexhaustible supply: The sea!

All that free protein to grow just as big as genetics would
allow!

There. We went from little monkeys to big apes.

Well. Not really apes. The apes would come later. The bipedalism,
the loss of the tale and growing brains just as big as they could,
which back then wasn't very big, all came first. LATER as some
groups branched off from the mother Aquatic Ape population,
pushed inland and adapted, they would become apes....

I have no ideas on chromo-fusions.

The Chromosome Fusion thingie aligns with erectus. It would
have stopped the waterside population from interbreeding with
more archaic inland groups. It would have genetically isolated
them from more archaic inland groups.




-- --

https://jtem.tumblr.com/post/723805704340865024

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

Op zondag 30 juli 2023 om 05:42:24 UTC+2 schreef JTEM is so reasonable:

littor...@gmail.com wrote:

Effectively, everything you say about erectus is true, and when combined with other
pieces of evidence -- non "Aquatic" evidence -- it amounts to one fact: It all starts
with erectus.

"all"? But what happened with our Pliocene ancestors?

They weren't us and they were never going to be us, not without erectus and the
unique circumstances (events, interbreeding, selective pressures) that resulted
in erectus.

I meant: early Hominoidea (at least early-Miocene) also underwent drastic changes (island effect??):
- larger body: semi-aquatic?
- broad: very wide pelvis (+ lateral leg movements) & esp.thorax = dorsally-placed scapulas -> lateral+upward arm movements,
+ very strong, flat, broad sternum=breast-bone (Hominoidea=Latisternalia) + long arms -> lateral & upward arm movements,
- centrally-placed spine (dorsally- in most mammals) = upright body posture = wading + climbing arms overhead in swamp?coastal forests,
- complete tail loss! underestimated, but very unexpected: frequent wading? even swimming??

You know my plate tectonics hypothesis (my book p.299):
c 30 Ma, India was approaching S-Eurasia, first forming island archipels = full of coastal forests:
some Catarrhini reached some of these islands -> Hominoidea in coastal forests: aquarboreal! google!
India further underneath Eurasia split hylobatids (E) & great hominoids (W) along Tethys Ocean coasts.
The Mesopotamian Seaway Closure c 15 Ma split hominids-drypoths (E) & pongids-sivapiths (E).
Hominids (Medit.Sea+rivers...) died out except in the incipient Red Sea = hominids, now Gorilla, Homo & Pan:
- Gorilla ancestors 8-7 Ma followed the incipient N-Rift -> Lucy... -> boisei etc.
- when de Red Sea opened into the Gulf 6-5 Ma, Homo went left, Pan went right. :-) Simple, no?
Pliocene Pan along the E.Afr.coasts followed the incipient S-Rift -> Taung... -> robustus etc.
This explains Gorilla//Pan evolutions: aquarboreal->"gracile"->"robust"->knuckle-walking.

Hs lacks Pliocene African retroviral DNA = we were following S.Asian coasts,

Partially true. Our ancestors were everywhere from Sundaland to South Africa,

No:
Pliocene Homo followed the S.Asian coasts -> Sundaland.
We (I at least) never were in S.Africa, except perhaps late-Pleistocene: "Out-of-Africa" is almost as idiotic as "endurance-running". :-DDD

but the African population was so devastated by the retrovirus event that they
were either driven to extinction, absorbed by the Pan side of the family (because
they were still co fertile) or survivors were absorbed by the Eurasian population.

but so far we have no Pliocene Homo s.s. fossils:

"Homo" is an artificial construct. Our habilis is usually described as the first
Homo, but it's just a convenient dividing line. I mean, habilis had immediate
ancestors, and we're are just as descended from them, even if they are NOT considered Homo...

Most "habilis" were Pan-Australopithecus, see my book, e.g. (a bit shortened): "Homo habilis: australopitheek of/en oermens? -- Kort na de chimpansee–mens-splitsing (~5 Ma?) waren de verschillen klein, en vermits veranderingen in diverse lichaamsdelen bij diverse oerhominiden mozaïekachtig en soms zelfs omgekeerd gebeurden (
mosaic, parallel, convergent, reverse evolution), weten we vaak niet tot welke tak een vroeg ‘mensachtig’ (hominide) fossiel behoort: Pan, Homo, Gorilla, een gemeenschappelijke, of een uitgestorven tak. Volgens Louise Leakey is Kenyanthropus platyops
(ontdekt in meerafzettingen) antropo-centrisch een vroege Homo 3½ Ma, volgens Tim White een door fossilisatie vervormde afarensis, wellicht 2½ Ma.
Verscheidene fossielen uit het Oost-Afrikaanse slenkengebied die men gewoonlijk tot het geslacht Homo rekent, zijn bijna 2 Ma (bv. OH of Olduvai Hominids). Veel zijn afgezet met water- en moeras-bewoners in nu opgedroogde papyrus-meren. Soms lagen
resten van nijlpaarden en andere grote zoogdieren bij bewerkte stenen, en op enkele fossiele hoefdierbotten beschrijft men – maar bijtletsels van krokodillen of vertrappeling door hoeven lijken op bewerking met keien – sporen van kloppen of schrapen
met stenen werktuigen over afdrukken van roofdier-tanden heen: aas gedood door predatoren? vaak bij oversteek-plekken in ondiep water? Zoogdier-botten nabij werktuigen in Oldowan-traditie vertonen soms sporen van krokodillen-tanden (OH).
De term Homo habilis is gebruikt voor diverse 'graciele' skeletresten toen uit Olduvai (OH), Oost-Turkana (ER) en Zuid-Afrika (ST en SK): behoorden die allemaal wel tot eenzelfde soort habilis, of zelfs tot Homo? Sommige waren zo klein als Lucy, of
leken wat op africanus, en heetten misschien beter Australopithecus of Praeanthropus habilis? Bij OH-16 wees de glazuurslijtage op fruiteten zoals bij africanus en chimps, en het tandbederf deed prof.Puech denken dat zij, zoals de oude Egyptenaren bij
schaarste, van papyrus niet alleen de zetmeelhoudende delen aten, maar ook de zure vruchten. Bij OH-62 waren de slanke botten, lange armen, en handbotjes en sleutelbeen met armhang-kenmerken eerder bonobo-achtig. Ook OH-7–8–35 was geen Homo: het
chimp-achtig stevige kuitbot=fibula wees op klimmen (OH-35, Harper 2017, Marchi 2019), de voet leek op boisei (OH-8, Weiss 2012), het superbrede duim-kootje en de onderkaak-reconstructie leken op afarensis (OH-7, Spoor 2015). Wel was het 5de
middenvoetbotje (kleine teen) zo stevig dat de bekende OH-8-voet peddelvormiger was dan de onze (ook chimp-fetussen hebben mensachtige voeten, die tegen de geboorte hand-achtig worden, zegt Carleton Coon). Ook leken sommige naledi-botten op sommige
habilis- of ergaster-fossielen.
De inhoud van sommige habilis-schedels schat men 600 à 900 cc, te groot voor Australopithecus: dus te klasseren bij Homo? Maar hun lichaams-gewicht kan onderschat zijn, zoals vaak. Ook zijn de 4 habilis-schedels uit Olduvai zo verschrikkelijk
verbrokkeld dat hun schedelinhoud slecht te meten is (Spoor 2015). En kregen chimpanzees na hun splitsing met onze voorouders – door minder water(kant)voedsel te gaan eten? – terug kleinere hersenen? Ook ons brein is kleiner dan dat van neandertalers
en Cro-Magnons.
ER-1470 (~1,8 Ma), nog groter dan OH-7, is vaak geklasseerd bij habilis. Volgens Richard Leakey had hij hersenen van 750 cc, volgens Dean Falk een Broca-achtig hersengebied dat mond- en keel-spieren coördineerde, volgens Bob Franciscus wat uitwendige
neus en grote neusbijholtes=sinus, hij zou dus Homo zijn, en Bernard Wood noemde hem Homo rudolfensis (daartoe rekende hij ook BC-1 en UR-501, 2 stukken schedel uit schelp-rijke meren of lagunes in Kenya en Malawi ~2,4 Ma). Maar Tim Bromage verwerpt
Leakey’s reconstructie, en beschrijft australopitheekachtige kaakbotten(cheek-bones) en kleinere hersenen(brain), in een eerste reconstructie slechts 525 cc, in een latere misschien toch 700 cc (bij gorillamannen soms 750 cc).
2,6 of 2,5 Ma zijn de vroegst bekende ‘werktuigateliers’ (met Oldowan-afslagtechniek – ook chimps laten op hun noot-kraak-plaatsen vergelijkbare steenschilfers achter, zegt Julio Mercader). Ze lagen aan de oude Awash-rivier in Gona, niet ver van
Hadar, waar Lucy ontdekt is. Homo-werktuigen of -fossielen aan Oost-Afrikaanse meren lijken samen te gaan met hoge zee-nivo’s (~2½, ~1,8 en ~1 Ma, Trauth 2005). José Joordens vermoedt dan telkens zee-verbindingen. Rond 1,8 Ma verschijnen er in het
Turkana-meer erectus-achtigen samen met pijlstaartroggen (Dasyatis, Feibel 1993): José denkt dat ze van de Indische Oceaan kwamen.
Het Turkana-meer, zegt José’s mooie proefschrift, was toen (~1,8 Ma) veel rijker aan eetbare schelp-dieren dan nu. Er leefden blijkbaar tenminste 3 soorten hominiden: de Gorilla-achtige boisei, de Homo-achtige ergaster, en de Pan-achtige habilis (
resp. bv. ER-406, ER-3733 en ER-1813). Was boisei een 'drasland-gorilla' met papyrus-dieet? ergaster een schelpdier-etende Homo uit Indische Oceaankusten? en sommige habilis fruitetende bonobo-verwanten uit Oost-Afrikaanse kustbossen, die kleiner werden,
zodat hun dieet minder overlapte met boisei en ergaster? Totaal onzeker."

Rest later: have to prepare for family feast, says my wife... :-)

_______

did frequent shellfish-diving begin early-Pleist.? e.g. colder? more shellfish...??
or already Pliocene??

Before both.

Bipedalism is linked to "Aquatic Ape" -- the exploitation of marine resources --
and that goes but a minimum of 7 million years, working with the hard evidence, and probably before 10 million years ago...

I like the island model. Where the island was I do not care. But I like the Island model. It gets us from monkeys to apes, via the ocean.

Gould's Punctuated Equilibrium.

Verhaegen's "Isolation is the engine of evolution."

They get isolated on an island. No natural predators. Their only
competition is each other:

Insular Gigantism

This usually precedes Insular Dwarfism as the Gigantism
exhausts available resources, placing selective pressures on
"Small," but in this case the opposite happened. Instead of
exhausting resources they tapped into what was for them an
inexhaustible supply: The sea!

All that free protein to grow just as big as genetics would
allow!

There. We went from little monkeys to big apes.

Well. Not really apes. The apes would come later. The bipedalism,
the loss of the tale and growing brains just as big as they could,
which back then wasn't very big, all came first. LATER as some
groups branched off from the mother Aquatic Ape population,
pushed inland and adapted, they would become apes....

I have no ideas on chromo-fusions.

The Chromosome Fusion thingie aligns with erectus. It would
have stopped the waterside population from interbreeding with
more archaic inland groups. It would have genetically isolated
them from more archaic inland groups.

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

Op zondag 30 juli 2023 om 11:09:25 UTC+2 schreef littor...@gmail.com:

Op zondag 30 juli 2023 om 05:42:24 UTC+2 schreef JTEM is so reasonable:

(continuation + some corrections)

Effectively, everything you say about erectus is true, and when combined with other
pieces of evidence -- non "Aquatic" evidence -- it amounts to one fact: It all starts
with erectus.

"all"? But what happened with our Pliocene ancestors?

They weren't us and they were never going to be us, not without erectus and the
unique circumstances (events, interbreeding, selective pressures) that resulted
in erectus.

I meant: early Hominoidea (at least early-Miocene) also underwent drastic changes (island effect??):
- larger body: semi-aquatic?
- broad: very wide pelvis (+ lateral leg movements) & esp.thorax = dorsally-placed scapulas -> lateral+upward arm movements,
+ very strong, flat, broad sternum=breast-bone (Hominoidea=Latisternalia) + long arms -> suspensory... swimming...
- centrally-placed spine (dorsally- in most mammals) = upright body posture = wading + climbing arms overhead in swamp forests,
- complete tail loss! underestimated, but very unexpected: frequent wading? even swimming??

You know my "plate tectonics & hominoid splittings" hypothesis (my book p.299):
c 30 Ma or so, India was approaching S-Eurasia, first forming island archipels = full of coastal forests:
some Catarrhini reached some of these islands -> Hominoidea in coastal forests: aquarboreal! google!
India further underneath Eurasia split hylobatids (E) & great hominoids (W) along Tethys Ocean coasts.
The Mesopotamian Seaway Closure c 15 Ma split hominids-dryopiths (E) & pongids-sivapiths (E).
Hominids (Medit.Sea+rivers...) died out except in the incipient Red Sea = hominids, now Gorilla, Homo & Pan:
- Gorilla ancestors 8-7 Ma followed the incipient N-Rift -> Lucy... -> boisei etc.
- when de Red Sea opened into the Gulf 6-5 Ma, Homo went left, Pan went right. :-) Simple, no?
Pliocene Pan along the E.Afr.coasts followed the incipient S-Rift -> Taung... -> robustus etc.
This explains Gorilla//Pan evolutions: aquarboreal->"gracile"->"robust"->knuckle-walking.

Considerable parallel evolution also helps explain why Gorilla & Pan resemble each other, although Pan is a closer relative of us.

H.sapiens lacks Pliocene African retroviral DNA = we were following S.Asian coasts,

Partially true. Our ancestors were everywhere from Sundaland to South Africa,

No:
Pliocene Homo followed the S.Asian coasts -> Sundaland.
We never were in S.Africa, except perhaps late-Pleistocene:
"Out-of-Africa" is almost as idiotic as "endurance-running".

Sundaland = islands:
island forms are often "special":
this might help explain Homo's peculiar evolution?

but the African population was so devastated by the retrovirus event that they
were either driven to extinction, absorbed by the Pan side of the family (because
they were still co fertile) or survivors were absorbed by the Eurasian population.

but so far we have no Pliocene Homo s.s. fossils:

"Homo" is an artificial construct. Our habilis is usually described as the first
Homo, but it's just a convenient dividing line. I mean, habilis had immediate
ancestors, and we're are just as descended from them, even if they are NOT considered Homo...

Most "habilis" were Pan-Australopithecus, not Homo! e.g. see my book (a bit shortened):
"Homo habilis: australopitheek of/en oermens? -- Kort na de chimp/mens-splitsing (~5 Ma?) waren de verschillen klein, en vermits veranderingen in diverse lichaamsdelen bij diverse oerhominiden mozaïekachtig en soms zelfs omgekeerd gebeurden (mosaic,

parallel, convergent, reverse evolution), weten we vaak niet tot welke tak een vroeg ‘mensachtig’ (hominide) fossiel behoort: Pan, Homo, Gorilla, een gemeenschappelijke tak, een uitgestorven tak? Volgens Louise Leakey is Kenyanthropus platyops (
ontdekt in meer-afzettingen) antropo-centrisch een vroege Homo 3½ Ma, volgens Tim White een door fossilisatie vervormde afarensis, wellicht 2½ Ma.

Verscheidene fossielen uit het Oost-Afrikaanse slenkengebied die men gewoonlijk tot het geslacht Homo rekent, zijn bijna 2 Ma (bv. OH Olduvai Hominids). Veel zijn afgezet met water- en moeras-bewoners in nu opgedroogde papyrus-meren. Soms lagen resten

van nijlpaarden en andere grote zoogdieren bij bewerkte stenen, en op enkele fossiele hoefdier-botten beschrijft men – maar bijt-letsels van krokodillen of vertrappeling door hoeven lijken op bewerking met keien – sporen van kloppen of schrapen met
stenen werktuigen over afdrukken van roofdier-tanden heen: aas gedood door predatoren? vaak bij oversteek-plekken in ondiep water? Zoogdier-botten nabij werktuigen in Oldowan-traditie vertonen soms sporen van krokodillen-tanden (OH).

De term Homo habilis is gebruikt voor diverse 'graciele' skeletresten toen uit Olduvai (OH), Oost-Turkana (ER) en Zuid-Afrika (ST en SK): behoorden die allemaal wel tot eenzelfde soort habilis, of zelfs tot Homo? Sommige waren zo klein als Lucy, of

leken wat op africanus, en heetten misschien beter Australopithecus of Praeanthropus habilis? Bij OH-16 wees de glazuur-slijtage op fruiteten zoals bij africanus en chimps, en het tand-bederf deed prof.Puech denken dat zij (zoals de oude Egyptenaren bij
schaarste) van papyrus niet alleen de zetmeel-houdende delen aten, maar ook de zure vruchten. Bij OH-62 waren de slanke botten, lange armen, en handbotjes en sleutelbeen met armhang-kenmerken eerder bonobo-achtig. Ook OH-7–8–35 was geen Homo: het
chimp-achtig stevige kuitbot=fibula wees op klimmen (OH-35, Harper 2017, Marchi 2019), de voet leek op boisei (OH-8, Weiss 2012), het superbrede duim-kootje en de onderkaak-reconstructie leken op afarensis (OH-7, Spoor 2015). Wel was het 5de
middenvoetbotje (kleine teen) zo stevig dat de bekende OH-8-voet peddel-vormiger was dan de onze (ook chimp-fetussen hebben mens-achtige voeten, die tegen de geboorte hand-achtig worden, zegt Carleton Coon). Ook leken sommige naledi-botten op sommige
habilis- of ergaster-fossielen.

De inhoud van sommige habilis-schedels schat men 600 à 900 cc, te groot voor Australopithecus: dus te klasseren bij Homo? Maar hun lichaams-gewicht kan onderschat zijn, zoals vaak. Ook zijn de 4 habilis-schedels uit Olduvai zo verschrikkelijk

verbrokkeld dat hun schedelinhoud slecht te meten is (Spoor 2015). En kregen chimpanzees na hun splitsing met onze voorouders – door minder water(kant)voedsel te gaan eten? – terug kleinere hersenen? Ook ons brein is kleiner dan dat van neandertalers
en Cro-Magnons.

ER-1470 (~1,8 Ma), nog groter dan OH-7, is vaak geklasseerd bij habilis. Volgens Richard Leakey had hij hersenen van 750 cc, volgens Dean Falk een Broca-achtig hersengebied (dat mond- en keel-spieren coördineerde), volgens Bob Franciscus wat

uitwendige neus en grote neusbijholtes(sinus), hij zou dus Homo zijn, en Bernard Wood noemde hem Homo rudolfensis (daartoe rekende hij ook BC-1 en UR-501, 2 stukken schedel uit schelp-rijke meren of lagunes in Kenya en Malawi ~2,4 Ma). Maar Tim Bromage
verwerpt Leakey’s reconstructie, en beschrijft australopitheekachtige kaakbotten(cheek-bones) en kleinere hersenen(brain), in een eerste reconstructie slechts 525 cc, in een latere misschien toch 700 cc (gorillamannen: soms 750 cc).

2,6 of 2,5 Ma zijn de vroegst bekende ‘werktuig-ateliers’ (met Oldowan-afslagtechniek – ook chimps laten op hun noot-kraak-plaatsen vergelijkbare steenschilfers achter, zegt Julio Mercader). Ze lagen aan de oude Awash-rivier in Gona, niet ver van

Hadar, waar Lucy ontdekt is. Homo-werktuigen of -fossielen aan Oost-Afrikaanse meren lijken samen te gaan met hoge zee-nivo’s (~2½, ~1,8 en ~1 Ma, Trauth 2005). José Joordens vermoedt dan telkens zee-verbindingen. Rond 1,8 Ma verschijnen er in het
Turkana-meer erectus-achtigen samen met pijlstaartroggen (Dasyatis, Feibel 1993): José denkt dat ze van de Indische Oceaan kwamen.

Het Turkana-meer, zegt José’s mooie proefschrift, was toen (~1,8 Ma) veel rijker aan eetbare schelp-dieren dan nu. Er leefden blijkbaar tenminste 3 soorten hominiden: de Gorilla-achtige boisei, de Homo-achtige ergaster, en de Pan-achtige habilis (

resp. bv. ER-406, ER-3733 en ER-1813). Was boisei een 'drasland-gorilla' met papyrus-dieet? ergaster een schelpdier-etende Homo uit Indische Oceaankusten? en sommige habilis fruitetende bonobo-verwanten uit Oost-Afrikaanse kustbossen, die kleiner werden,
zodat hun dieet minder overlapte met boisei en ergaster? Totaal onzeker."

Rest later: have to prepare for family feast, says my wife... :-)

It was an excellent feast... :-)

did frequent shellfish-diving begin early-Pleist.? e.g. colder? more shellfish...??
or already Pliocene??

Before both.
Bipedalism is linked to "Aquatic Ape" -- the exploitation of marine resources --
and that goes but a minimum of 7 million years, working with the hard evidence, and probably before 10 million years ago...

Hylobatids are (still?) vertical: early hominoids were already "BP": >25 Ma? Not running after kudus, but wading + climbing upright in swamp (mostly coastal?) forest?

I like the island model. Where the island was I do not care. But I like the
Island model. It gets us from monkeys to apes, via the ocean.

:-) Sunda = islands.

I'd think we have to discern (at least) 2 island phases:
1) early Hominoidea = arboreal->aquarboreal (late-Oligo- already & early-Miocene?)
2) archaic Homo = aquarboreal->shallow-diving (early-Pleisto- & already late-Pliocene?)

Gould's Punctuated Equilibrium.
Verhaegen's "Isolation is the engine of evolution."

??
I do think there appears to be a strong correlation between plate tectonics & hominoid splittings, see above.
:-)
I'm frustrated that the waterside model is still not generally accepted although the evidence is obvious for everybody with a little bit of intelligence,
but I'm very happy at my age to see a very coherent scenario of hominoid evolution arising, partly based on isolation (island = It.isola = Lat.insula).

They get isolated on an island. No natural predators. Their only competition is each other:
Insular Gigantism
This usually precedes Insular Dwarfism as the Gigantism
exhausts available resources, placing selective pressures on
"Small," but in this case the opposite happened. Instead of
exhausting resources they tapped into what was for them an
inexhaustible supply: The sea!
All that free protein to grow just as big as genetics would
allow!
There. We went from little monkeys to big apes.
Well. Not really apes. The apes would come later. The bipedalism,
the loss of the tail and growing brains just as big as they could,
which back then wasn't very big, all came first. LATER as some
groups branched off from the mother Aquatic Ape population,
pushed inland and adapted, they would become apes...

Interesting thinking. :-)
Insular gigantism followed by insular dwarfism??

(Semi)aquatic mammals generally become larger.
I was wondering:
- why was Gigantopith.(fossil pongid?) so big?
- and why is Gorilla larger than Homo & Pan?

I have no ideas on chromo-fusions.

The Chromosome Fusion thingie aligns with erectus. It would
have stopped the waterside population from interbreeding with
more archaic inland groups. It would have genetically isolated
them from more archaic inland groups.

When is this chromo-fusion (only Homo?) estimated to have happened?

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littor...@gmail.com wrote:

I meant: early Hominoidea (at least early-Miocene) also underwent
drastic changes (island effect??):
- larger body: semi-aquatic?

It's certainly logical.

By becoming isolated on an island, free of natural predators, populations
breed rapidly and are only in competition with themselves. This results in Insular Gigantism.

I've read claims where Insular Gigantism precedes Insular Dwarfism.That,
FIRST they get big and then they get small.

BUT...

If a population so isolated had exhausted it's food supply, and adapted by exploiting the sea, the opposite could happen. They could have gotten
big, and then after switching to a very high protein diet of abundant seafood, they got bigger!

Sundaland = islands:
island forms are often "special":
this might help explain Homo's peculiar evolution?

I'm guessing that monkeys in isolation, probably on islands, resulted in Hominins, which (very quickly?) spawned Hominids...

Yes I'm guessing that all the so called "Great Apes" are only secondarily knuckle walkers.

I'd think we have to discern (at least) 2 island phases:
1) early Hominoidea = arboreal->aquarboreal (late-Oligo- already & early-Miocene?)
2) archaic Homo = aquarboreal->shallow-diving (early-Pleisto- & already late-Pliocene?)

I don't see it as distinct phases. Well, what I mean is that I don't see a need for it. The two can happen in parallel, and I believe THAT model is more the more likely.

I actually, I believe we are seeing this in the evidence..

There were groups/populations that had pushed inland, adapted to the
"new" environment, eventually radiating out into every niche it could fit.
And THAT is why you are seeing your "Aquaboreal." It's because some
were exploiting the forest, adapting to an arboreal lifestyle, but they
were co fertile with, sharing DNA with other groups, exploiting other
niches... including new arrivals from the waterside group. So your
forest population was maintaining traits inherited from the Aquatic
Ape population, due to all this interbreeding, even as selective
pressures were helping it to adapt to the trees.

So we don't need separate phases. This could all be happening at
once. What we need is separate populations.

I'm frustrated that the waterside model is still not generally accepted although the evidence is obvious for everybody with a little bit of intelligence

What pisses me off is the supposedly "Educated" people who can't
spot circular reasoning when it's staring them in the face. And they're
blind to the selection/sampling bias even when it's pointed out to
them!

I mean, I regular state that "Paleo anthropology is not a real science"
and people think I'm just being an asshole. No. No I'm not. It honestly
isn't a real science. It fails to meet the standards of science.

It's not alone in this regard.

but I'm very happy at my age to see a very coherent scenario of
hominoid evolution arising, partly based on isolation
(island = It.isola = Lat.insula).

I came to Aquatic Ape via Wolpoff and his ideas on Multi
regionalism, so "Isolation" had always been a part of the formula.
It was just a matter of how much.

Presently, I see his Multi Regionalism as the macro scale, as
opposed to the micro scale of your islands.

There. We went from little monkeys to big apes.
Well. Not really apes. The apes would come later. The bipedalism,
the loss of the tail and growing brains just as big as they could,
which back then wasn't very big, all came first. LATER as some
groups branched off from the mother Aquatic Ape population,
pushed inland and adapted, they would become apes...

Interesting thinking. :-)

Hominins followed by Hominids.

Insular gigantism followed by insular dwarfism??

There are many who will tell you this is the norm. That, the Gigantism
is a phase they pass through prior to the dwarfism. But what if instead
of shrinking as your giants on the island exhausted resources, they
instead turned to exploiting a new, abundant and extremely high
protein food source: The ocean!

(Semi)aquatic mammals generally become larger.
I was wondering:
- why was Gigantopith.(fossil pongid?) so big?
- and why is Gorilla larger than Homo & Pan?

i believe that Gigantism isn't linked to the isolation per se, but
with a species in competition with itself.

The size is likely a product of their breeding strategy, their
social structure.

The isolation on an island can protect a population, resulting
in vastly increased competition with itself.

When is this chromo-fusion (only Homo?) estimated to have happened?

W-I-D-E variation in numbers. This one says about a million years ago:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36008753/#:~:text=Genomic%20signatures%20of%20this%20event,million%20years%20ago%20(Mya).

This one says 0.74 to 4.5 million years ago:

https://molecularcytogenetics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13039-016-0283-3#:~:text=Results,0.74%20%2D%204.5%20million%20years%20ago.

From there it gets complicated.

I personally have long argued for TWO events, not one. Mutations
along these lines are NOT uncommon. So I came up with the model
where such mutations cropped up in not one but TWO populations,
only for them to interbreed, fusing the fusion!

Okay, I didn't come up with it, I stole it from someone else. Big deal.

In science it's about getting things right. That's all that matters. Not
being the first but being smart enough to recognize the truth when
you see it...

Anyway, WHY I see this as so important is because it allows for a
much larger founding population. You have a group prone to what
is not an uncommon mutation meeting up with another group...
DOUBLE YOUR PLEASURE! DOUBLE YOUR FUN!

Double your chances of getting this fusion thing going for real.

The point is, you could have ONE group dealing with this for
millions of years, perhaps, and the other for significantly shorter.
So the molecular dating nonsense could be even less accurate
than it usually is.

Regardless, all the estimates overlap with the range of erectus.







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Op donderdag 17 augustus 2023 om 19:42:56 UTC+2 schreef JTEM is so reasonable:

littor...@gmail.com wrote:

I meant: early Hominoidea (at least early-Miocene) also underwent
drastic changes (island effect??):
- larger body: semi-aquatic?

It's certainly logical.
By becoming isolated on an island, free of natural predators, populations breed rapidly and are only in competition with themselves. This results in Insular Gigantism.
I've read claims where Insular Gigantism precedes Insular Dwarfism. That, FIRST they get big and then they get small. BUT...
If a population so isolated had exhausted its food supply, and adapted by exploiting the sea, the opposite could happen. They could have gotten
big, and then after switching to a very high protein diet of abundant seafood,
they got bigger!

OK.

Sundaland = islands:
island forms are often "special":
this might help explain Homo's peculiar evolution?

I'm guessing that monkeys in isolation, probably on islands, resulted in Hominins, which (very quickly?) spawned Hominids...

I'm now thinking:
when Arabafrica approached Eurasia (20-18 Ma?), this first formed island archipels + coastal forests,
these became colonized by Catarrhini, i.c. hominoid ancestors, who became aquarboreal:
larger size, broader pelvis-thorax-sternum + dorsal scapulas: + lateral leg & arm movements,
+-shorter & more centrally-placed lumbar spine = vertical BP wading + climbing arms overhead,
tail loss (equilibirum organ): disadvantageous when wading, e.g. heat loss, infection...

Yes I'm guessing that all the so called "Great Apes" are only secondarily knuckle walkers.

Yes, chimps (>bonobos) & gorillas evolved (different forms of) KWing in parallel, orangutans evolved fist-walking.

I'd think we have to discern (at least) 2 island phases:
1) early Hominoidea = arboreal->aquarboreal (late-Oligo- already & early-Miocene?)
2) archaic Homo = aquarboreal->shallow-diving (early-Pleisto- & already late-Pliocene?)

I don't see it as distinct phases. Well, what I mean is that I don't see a need
for it. The two can happen in parallel, and I believe THAT model is more the more likely.
I actually, I believe we are seeing this in the evidence..
There were groups/populations that had pushed inland, adapted to the
"new" environment, eventually radiating out into every niche it could fit. And THAT is why you are seeing your "Aquaboreal." It's because some
were exploiting the forest, adapting to an arboreal lifestyle, but they
were co-fertile with, sharing DNA with other groups, exploiting other niches... including new arrivals from the waterside group. So your
forest population was maintaining traits inherited from the Aquatic
Ape population, due to all this interbreeding, even as selective
pressures were helping it to adapt to the trees.
So we don't need separate phases. This could all be happening at
once. What we need is separate populations.

Interbreeding is perhaps still often possible after a few 100,000s of yrs, but not after >1 My?
Archaic Homo differed considerably from their ape/apith-like ancestors:
brain x2-3, pachyosteosclerosis, platycephaly, bigger nose, island colonizations, fossilisation amid edible shellfish, ear exostoses...:
no doubt they often dived (vs early apes & apiths "only" waded+climbed):
this might have evolved Pliocene (fossils??), but I'd think more likely early-Pleist.: Tp & sea-level changes, different shell+crayfish, ...?

I'm frustrated that the waterside model is still not generally accepted although the evidence is obvious for everybody with a little bit of intelligence

What pisses me off is the supposedly "Educated" people who can't
spot circular reasoning when it's staring them in the face. And they're
blind to the selection/sampling bias even when it's pointed out to
them!

Yes. They're flat-earthers (vs Aristole) & sun-around-earthers (vs Copernicus)... :-DDD
They're as stupid as geologists before plate tectonics.

I mean, I regular state that "Paleo anthropology is not a real science"
and people think I'm just being an asshole. No. No I'm not. It honestly
isn't a real science. It fails to meet the standards of science.
It's not alone in this regard.

Yes, our waterside past is obvious, except to kudu-runners... :-DDD

but I'm very happy at my age to see a very coherent scenario of
hominoid evolution arising, partly based on isolation
(island = It.isola = Lat.insula).

I came to Aquatic Ape via Wolpoff and his ideas on Multi
regionalism, so "Isolation" had always been a part of the formula.
It was just a matter of how much.

In my book (in extremis before print added as Bijlage=App.16) I mistakenly thought (cf. hylobatids & pongids in SE.Asia):
India, approaching Eurasia, creating island archipels + swamp forests, caused the hominoid/cercopithecoid split,
but at that time (c 25 Ma?), India was already part of Eurasia:
more likely, it was Arabafrica approaching Eurasia (or even earlier?) that caused the cercopith/hominoid split.

Presently, I see his Multi Regionalism as the macro scale, as
opposed to the micro scale of your islands.

There. We went from little monkeys to big apes.
Well. Not really apes. The apes would come later. The bipedalism,
the loss of the tail and growing brains just as big as they could, which back then wasn't very big, all came first. LATER as some
groups branched off from the mother Aquatic Ape population,
pushed inland and adapted, they would become apes...

Interesting thinking. :-)

Hominins followed by Hominids.

??

Insular gigantism followed by insular dwarfism??

There are many who will tell you this is the norm. That, the Gigantism
is a phase they pass through prior to the dwarfism. But what if instead
of shrinking as your giants on the island exhausted resources, they
instead turned to exploiting a new, abundant and extremely high
protein food source: The ocean!

(Semi)aquatic mammals generally become larger.
I was wondering:
- why was Gigantopith.(fossil pongid?) so big?
- and why is Gorilla larger than Homo & Pan?

I believe that Gigantism isn't linked to the isolation per se, but
with a species in competition with itself.
The size is likely a product of their breeding strategy, their
social structure.
The isolation on an island can protect a population, resulting
in vastly increased competition with itself.

When is this chromo-fusion (only Homo?) estimated to have happened?

W-I-D-E variation in numbers. This one says about a million years ago: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36008753/#:~:text=Genomic%20signatures%20of%20this%20event,million%20years%20ago%20(Mya).
This one says 0.74 to 4.5 million years ago: https://molecularcytogenetics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13039-016-0283-3#:~:text=Results,0.74%20%2D%204.5%20million%20years%20ago.
From there it gets complicated.
I personally have long argued for TWO events, not one. Mutations
along these lines are NOT uncommon. So I came up with the model
where such mutations cropped up in not one but TWO populations,
only for them to interbreed, fusing the fusion!
Okay, I didn't come up with it, I stole it from someone else. Big deal.
In science it's about getting things right. That's all that matters. Not being the first but being smart enough to recognize the truth when
you see it...
Anyway, WHY I see this as so important is because it allows for a
much larger founding population. You have a group prone to what
is not an uncommon mutation meeting up with another group...
DOUBLE YOUR PLEASURE! DOUBLE YOUR FUN!
Double your chances of getting this fusion thing going for real.
The point is, you could have ONE group dealing with this for
millions of years, perhaps, and the other for significantly shorter.
So the molecular dating nonsense could be even less accurate
than it usually is.
Regardless, all the estimates overlap with the range of erectus.

Eurasians carry neandertal DNA = a form of multiregionalism,
but Hs & Hn (Hss & Hsn?) are nearly 2 different spp.

--marc

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littor...@gmail.com wrote:

Interbreeding is perhaps still often possible after a few 100,000s of yrs, but not after >1 My?

I've heard that 2 million years is the upward limit.

Well. in regards to humans.

One researcher claimed that there has been only a single human species
for most of the last 2 million years... which would start us off with erectus.

I like his thinking, as it moves everything in line with erectus.





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Op zaterdag 19 augustus 2023 om 05:26:20 UTC+2 schreef JTEM is so reasonable:

littor...@gmail.com wrote:

Interbreeding is perhaps still often possible after a few 100,000s of yrs, but not after >1 My?

I've heard that 2 million years is the upward limit.
Well. in regards to humans.
One researcher claimed that there has been only a single human species
for most of the last 2 million years... which would start us off with erectus.
I like his thinking, as it moves everything in line with erectus.

Difficult to know: H.neand. (late-Pleist.) was apparently still inter-fertile, but H.erectus (early-Pleist.) was a lot more different from us AFAICS (fossil data: bones): smaller brain, long & low brain-skull, foramen magnum a bit more dorsally, very
heavy & thick bones, projecting mid-face, no chin, more flaring ilia & longer + more horizontal femoral necks IIRC, shorter tibias etc. They were predom.shallow-divers, we are predom.terrestrial walkers. But only incredible imbeciles still assume
erectus ran after antelopes... :-DDD

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littor...@gmail.com wrote:

Difficult to know: H.neand. (late-Pleist.) was apparently still inter-fertile, but H.erectus (early-Pleist.) was a lot more different from us AFAICS (fossil data: bones): smaller brain, long & low brain-skull, foramen magnum a bit more dorsally, very

heavy & thick bones, projecting mid-face, no chin, more flaring ilia & longer + more horizontal femoral necks IIRC, shorter tibias etc. They were predom.shallow-divers, we are predom.terrestrial walkers. But only incredible imbeciles still assume erectus
ran after antelopes... :-DDD

It's a little difficult, and by that I mean excessively difficult, to ascertain the
significance of any of these differences. Many, most or even all of them
could be superficial. Lifestyle, even diet can have a major impact on the physical traits of people. If you do the Google, many claim that something
as simple as eating utensils changed the human face...

There's no doubt in my mind that so called moderns were interbreeding
with either erectus or the descendants of erectus and Neanderthals (Denisovans?).

It was claimed until recent years, post Denisovans, that erectus clung on
in southeast Asia/the Pacific until 50k years ago OR MORE RECENT.

Google sucks. It's all about disseminating information at this point, not finding it, so good luck trying to find it. But "Recent" erectus populations have been discussed many times in the past. I've often argued that these
or at least some of these had to be what we now call Denisovans...




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Op vrijdag 28 juli 2023 om 21:56:30 UTC+2 schreef littor...@gmail.com:
2 (unimportant) corrections:

There are at least 8 *independent* scientific indications (undenied & undeniable) that Pleistocene archaic Homo were semi-aquatic:
• Archaic Homo's atypical tooth-wear was caused by "sand and oral processing of marine mollusks" (Towle cs 2022 doi 10.1002/ajpa.24500).
• H.erectus s.s. fossilized typically (always?) in coastal sediments, e.g. Mojokerto child amid barnacles & corals, Trinil amid Pseudodon & Elongaria, Sangiran-17 in a "brackish marsh near the coast".
• Stephen Munro discovered sea-shell engravings made by H.erectus (Joordens cs 2015 Nature 518:228-231).
• Ear exostoses (H.erectus & H.neand.) develop after years of cold(er) water irrigation.
• Pachyosteosclerosis is typically & exclusively seen in slow+shallow-diving tetrapods (de Buffrénil cs 2010 J.Mamm.Evol.17:101-120), e.g. erectus' parietal bone is twice (2x) as thick as in gorillas.
• Brain enlargement++ (cf. Odontocetes, Pinnipedia) is facilitated by sea-food, e.g. DHA docosahexaenoic acid in shellfish etc.
• Homo’s stone tool use & manual dexterity is typical for molluscivores: sea-otters etc.
• Pleistocene Homo colonized islands far oversea (Flores & later even Luzon), google “coastal dispersal Pleistocene Homo”.

IOW, only *incredible* idiots still believe their Pleistocene ancestors ran after antelopes over African savanna... :-DDD The savanna fantasy is the most unscientific just-so story imaginable.

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