Fascinating story.

I took a lot of anthro in college, and I well remember all the disagreement about practically everything.

It represents a small part of a much larger set of bones.

There are two extremes in interpreting these fossils. One group, ‘the splitters’, sees a new species with every fossilized hang nail they come across. And then there are ‘the lumpers’.

Is it more career enhancing to be a lumper or a splitter, to find just another jaw bone or a unique new species shedding important light on what happened in our family tree?

Also very few individuals ever get to be fossilized. In fact, many species (however defined) never even get to have one of their own end up a fossil. And of course once fossilized what are the chances it will ever be found? Not great.

Finding one of these pieces – actually collectively the many pieces found – is like looking through the keyhole of a very large palace. You get a view of the foyer but can only guess at what the other rooms might be like.

And the fact is that there was a lot going on across space and through time and the family tree is complex with most forever out of our reach.

The LATimes article on this find mentioned that it and the others fossils found in East Africa conclusively show that that’s where our ancestors diverged from the other primates. Actually I suspect it’s more like the man looking for his keys in the dark under a lamppost when he’s not sure where he lost them just that the other places have no light.

They’re finding fossils in East Africa because the conditions for both forming fossils back at the time of interest were pretty good. And now those strata are near the surface. I don’t see that as proof that there wasn’t much interesting evolution going on elsewhere in Africa and for that matter in other areas those many species had spread to. Primates were widespread both before and after.

The DNA analysis tends to point towards our immediate preceding ancestry as having derived from populations in East Africa but that doesn’t mean significant changes didn’t occur elsewhere. Given the time, millions of years, IMO it’s more likely than not that a great deal happened. And I doubt there was a straight line from 3 million years ago through that key H sapiens line in East Africa, but they can only look where the light from the lamppost shines.

If you gathered together in one room the top 20-25 Physical Anthropologists in the world and showed them that jaw bone and let’s assume they had plenty of time to study it etc, I guarantee you would be shocked at the degree to which they disagreed.

Many years before I was in a grad level course on primate morphology. The Prof was explaining his disagreements with, I believe the same Johanson quoted in the LATimes article, over the interpretation of some hand bones (from Lucy? or near Lucy finds?) in particular the degree to which they evidenced early human signs or not. The Prof was a bit peeved that Johanson would not let him see the bones, so he was working from published pictures. A grad student perked up, the Prof’s grad student, and announced that she had gone to visit Johanson and he let her look at the hand bones and she said Johanson’s position was the correct one. Our Prof went from peeved to angry for obvious reasons and told the grad student to go into the next room and bring in to the class the skull of a male chimp. In the next room were shelves lined with the skulls of male and female primates including humans. And they were not labeled. He was clearly angry and insisted she do it. She did. She came back with a female orangutan. The Prof told her no, try again. She came back with a female gorilla. She was near tears by this time. The Prof pointed out to the class without pulling punches that there are very few people in the world who can tell the difference between the hand bones of a chimp and a human or vs an orangutan. And even among the experts distinguishing between the hand bones of the species that led to todays apes vs the near relative that went on to become us has plenty of room for discussion.

Yes, I read it long long ago.

I also read “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema” long ago.

Bare skin is known to be decisively advantageous during persistence hunting.

Bare skin is also known to be very advantageous to hunters that wear the feces of lions, elephants and such as odor protection. A filthy practice, for sure, but it’s long been used by African natives to ward off lion attacks — and more. For it’s a fact that carnivores believe their noses long before they believe their eyes.

As for predation: the world ocean never ran out of world class carnivores.

BTW, due to geochemistry, many waters descending from volcanoes are laden with harsh chemicals that would prove too much for fish.

No fish, no fishing animal life.

Of course, the very chemicals that kill life would be an ideal bath for one afflicted by skin pests.

Our bare skin — way back when — had to evolve in a time and at a place that was not overrun with bloodsucking insects.

The only location that fits best is again — pretty high up on a volcano slope.

There’s a major troop of baboons in Africa that is ensconced high up on a cliff — not far from a water course, too. Nothing can really get at them without a total troop response. This particular baboon clan is figured to be the single largest concentration… as the layout is simply ideal for them.

And, yes, they spend an inordinate amount of time staring off into the distance — to discern any threat.

They just happen to not need to stand up to get a great view. It’s also of significance that this particular duty is overwhelmingly a male one. The female are very busy doing what females do.

The moment standing — even if supported by a rock face — became a success metric — the selection pressure upon the males would begin.

ALL of these ticks are STILL seen in humanity today.

To be a real man, one must stand tall.

Infants crawl — then build tone by using a linear prop such as a coffee table.

What happened was a circular virtuous circle: at first standing up, propped by a stone face to see over it, was merely an expedient — signifying no DNA shift.

Then the females began to favor their better protectors — and standing up is also a terrific way of displaying male virility… dominance.

Then, evolution was off and away.

The next thing you knew, males were facing off — vertically — to impress the babes and each other — for mating rights.

What started out as a social habit for basic needs morphed into ritualized face-offs.

This desire, by men, to be taller than the other guy really does go back a long, long, long, way.

It MUST link back to the desire to be vertical to impress the babes and save the clan from surprise attacks.

Rock throwing — from higher up on the mountainside had to begin even in the most ancient days.

And, ever since, humanity has been obsessed with gaining the higher ground. Only now, with drones and airmobile troops does the mountain advantage fade away. (Aircraft being portable mountains…)

sorry… we are talking about the time before tools… moats require tools, planning, etc… also, fresh water lakes in africa have CROCODILES… the lack of waves is also a negative…

blert Says:
I can’t buy us entering the world ocean. It’s been done by other mammals – and to good effect.

why not? whales… porpoise.. dolphins.. ceteaceans… and we only needed to be shore dwellers… ie. live like a beach bum..

blert Says:
If the lake was heated by vulcanism – (Japan style) then you’d have proto-homids living the easy life.

being Crocodile food…

blert Says:
The lake need not even be a bona fide hot tub. The tropics are pretty comfy anyway.

and teaming with predators, deseases and molds..
molds dont like salt water. crocodiles cant take the salt (though there ARE salt water alligators, but those are tidal, and not open ocean usually)
on land you have snakes, hippos, lions, tigers, crocodiles, other primates of other species, and so on… NONE of them go into the ocean but tigers, and they dont go beyond their ability to walk… where a human standing in the water can go way deeper than that…

blert Says:
Losing body hair would be a positive trait – if the clan kept coming out of the water into somewhat chilly air.

no chilly air in southern africa… and losing body hair is a negative trait on land, a positive trait in te ocean. protection vs drag… hair gives protection from insects, and can cause blows from fighting to glance off rather than biting and tearing flesh. the fact we have long hair on our heads would give us shark confusing streamers… a common thing in sea creatures…

I can imagine full body baldness taking off like crazy.

But, since heads had to remain above the pool, scalp hair is still with us. [yep…and the streamers they cause in the water confuses water predators who go after the streamer… and blue eyes would match the water color, like brown matches the land… ]

blert Says:
It’s really starting to make sense.
It only had to happen once, in one spot.
That’s how a DNA choke point arises.

yep…
it helps us walk upright… without predatory weakness
gives us a place to run into when predators come

affords us a huge amount of food which is very easy to get (crabs, fish, clams, mullusks… even today, it would be hard for humans to starve near an ocean coast… but inland, food is very scarce…

we also lived in caves for a while… you can tell this because we filter out echoes… when the timing of the echo is too short, we filter it out and dont hear it… this is from when we lived in caves, as there is no reason to develop this in an open enviornment as there is no echo on a savannah…

it also protects us from lots of the creatures that nibble on us… many insects drown in the water… if not, they die when we dry off and they are coated in salt. our wounds get less infected in ocean water… that is, if you get cut, and your in the ocean water a lot, its hard for a lot of the critters to take hold and kill you…

another point is that inland creatures dont use tools much…
but ocean creatures sort of do… with seaguls picking up clams and such and dropping them on rocks… not too hard to start hitting clams with rocks…

its the best idea as to this that i have ever read
even more so when and if you compare it to the others.

standing helps… just ask the prarie dog..
but… standing does not develop running… prarie dogs dont run standing.
so humans that stood higher to see predators, did not need to run
but then that begs the question… why would a creature who can climb a tree and see for miles think it was better to stand in the open it does not like?

the point is that we know that we came from a certain place
and we know we are in a certain place
but the theries for the savannah stuff dont explain a lot
why would we lose our hair on land? we dont live underground like the moles and voles that lost theirs… africa is full of all kinds of critters that find no hair easier to do their stuff… the idea that lice was the reason does not bear out for other hairy creatures with lice..

so its the floor and running around (tiny mouslie mamals)… then to the trees as the trees give a lot of the same protections the ocean does, but not as good… then from trees to the oceans… from the oceans back to the land and caves…
again, caves give some of the same protections that trees and oceans do. predators that cant climb up rocks cant eat you, and those that can, can be knocked off easy…

we dont discuss this alternative hypothesis because most of everyone grew up under the savannah idea, and it dominates…

just as the blue print model for genetics is completely erroneous
i worked out the actual model… but no one cares…
even less so because in my model, our bodies and being is just a well developed shell for our fertiliity… our fertile cells still follow the same pattern of sexual reproduction… our bodies though are basically infertile cells that serve the fertile ones by protecting them, and improving their lot… just cause that set of infertile protectors became a very well developed thing doesnt mean thats not its purpose. in fact, its main purpose before it became so fancy, was to also extend the period of no sex… that is, the DNA remains closer to a positive developement longer if the periods between changes is extended. bacteria dont get far as their dna changes in under twenty minutes when they divide… but humans and other animals can move that fertility change to 14 years between events… for every human fertility exchange a less developed creature would have 14,716,800 such events… if DNA is copied exactly to preserve itself, then it cant evolve… if it changes too much then it cant build on a positive… i even worked out the math for beneficience sorting… and why genes move up and down their activation points… (move bad past death, move good farther down) and how they integrate… i was able to solve the french flag problem wiht it… and more… but i am a nothing… an evil white male who is destined for the trash pile, and not to be heard… so all that great work, it goes no where…. there is no Hardy to my Ramanujan… mostly cause for hardy, the work was important, and for researchers today, the free ride playing is more important, and real work is secondary

Yes there was a proto-human from which we all descended, but it seems unlikely that we will ever find his, or her bones. More over, even if we did find such a fossil, we would never know for sure.