The thread for discussing anthropology

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So, there are some big questions on the table right now, when it comes to anthropology, questions about the most basic stuff in anthropology. What do you folks think about some of these issues? Well, here are some good questions to get started with:

Are all the H. habilis specimens part of the same species? I would say that not even the strongest sexual dimorphism really accounts for the differences in brain size between KNM-ER 1470 (http://w ww. talko rigins.org /faqs/hom s/14 70.html) and KNM-ER 1813 (https ://hu man orig ins.si.e du/evid ence/hu man- fossils/fos sils/knm-er-1813), and the general difference in body size and dentition can't be accounted for by saying that the two are different genders. Yes, yes, among the great apes there is some pretty big sexual dimorphism (like male orangs weighing literally twice as much as female orangs), but that level of dimorphism isn't typical for our hominid ancestors at all, and the brain size and dentition difference is really telling. I agree with the other anthropologists who say that there are two species called H. habilis and a H. rudolfensis, instead of just H. habilis, but only up until the point that they call them members of the Homo genus. My research and statistical study of the specimens, has convinced me that those two species were Australopithecines. Their brain size is sub-par for members of the Homo genus, they still have arboreal adaptations (an anatomy with adaptations to tree living), and they only used Oldowan tool kits, which were used by other Australopithecines.

Moreover, when Leakey discovered them and ever since, anthropologists have all been concluding that the tools found near H. habilis were used by them, when there are a few other hominid species found at those sites, too. While Leakey is a great figure in anthropology, I look at a lot of his and his son's work, and say to myself that they weren't being very rigorous.

Do you think that the so-called problem of a "missing link" is actually a problem? There seems to be a long and clear line of descent, to me.

By the way, sorry I'm still having to insert spaces in my links. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to share them with you.

Gosh.
Wouldnt even try to challenge your expertise on Homo Hablis, and aledged Homo Hablis.

Just bought the latest issue (havent cracked it yet) of Scientific American which has a new Hominid they found in South Africa that seems to be right on the cusp between australapithicus and the genus homo ( a missing link of sorts if proven). But you're saying that some putative homo hablis are really australapithecines.

What people usually mean by a "missing link" is a creature that would be link between humans and living apes.

Whats "missing" is not a "link" in a linear chain, but a missing fork in the road ( or a missing crotch in the family tree).

Also apes are not one kind of animal but several, some closer to humans than they are to other apes.

The common ancestor between humans and chimps (our closest animal cousins) is the real scientific analog to the folk pop culture notion of a "missing link".

And it would cool if they could find such a fossil.

Lucy, and the earlier aripedus, fossils are both several steps down the road from this "missing fork in the road". They were on the line to (or were close collarteral cousins of the creatures on the line) that lead to us. The ancestors of the chimps were also on their way to becoming chimps (and bonobos). Lucy had many ape like traits. Its possible that the forerunners of chimps may have been somewhat more humanlike than modern chimps but we dont yet have what have been a indentified as chimp ancestor fossils.

DNA testing has suggested that the missing fork in the road is at around 6 to 8 million years .

Lucy was at four million ( I believe). So were getting close.