Australopiths = Aquarboreal Ancestors of African Apes
some kudu runner:
Falsified twice recently:
:-DDD
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S004724841830143X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047248422001713 These phylogenetic analyses show Australopithecus and Paranthropus to
be part of a clade that includes Homo, but not Pan and Gorilla.
:-DDD
My little little boy, this is about *Ardipithecus*!!
For my view on Ardip, see my recent book, e.g.
https://www.gondwanatalks.com/l/the-waterside-hypothesis-wading-led-to-upright-walking-in-early-humans/
In t has 0 to do with my publications, e.g.
MORPHOLOGICAL DISTANCE BETWEEN AUSTRALOPITHECINE, HUMAN AND APE SKULLS
Human Evolution 11: 35-41, 1996
This paper attempts to quantify the morphological difference between fossil and living species of hominoids. The comparison is based upon a balanced list of craniodental characters corrected for size (Wood & Chamberlain, 1986). The conclusions are:
craniodentally the australopithecine species are a unique and 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.
AUSTRALOPITHECINES: ANCESTORS OF THE AFRICAN APES?
Human Evolution 9: 121-139, 1994
Since australopithecines display humanlike traits such as short ilia, relatively small front teeth and thick molar enamel, they are usually assumed to be related to Homo rather than to Pan or Gorilla. However, this assumption is not supported by many
other of their features.
This paper briefly surveys the literature concerning craniodental comparisons of australopith species with those of bonobos, common chimps, humans and gorillas, adult and immature. It will be argued, albeit on fragmentary data, that the large
australopiths of East Africa were in many instances anatomically and therefore possibly also evolutionarily nearer to Gorilla than to Pan or Homo, and the South African australopiths nearer to Pan and Homo than to Gorilla. An example of a possible
evolutionary tree is provided. It is suggested that the evidence concerning the relation of the different australopithecines with humans, chimpanzees and gorillas should be re-evaluated.
...
Some quotations on ape-like features in australopith crania
• “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 [? M. V.] in the australopithecines parallel [? M. V.] 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, 1989b.
• “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 rate 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 (but Beynon et al., 1991).
• 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, 1987b.
• “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 et al., 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 et al., 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, 1954b.
• 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 apelike 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.
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, p. 351.
• “Other primitive [or advanced gorilla-like? M. V.] 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 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, he found
that the pattern changed”. Leakey, 1981, pp. 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.
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