The particularly small Homo erectus skull, shown from above with a large skull of the same species (from Olduvai, Tanzania), to demonstrate the gorilla-like size variation.
Credit: National Museums of Kenya/F. Spoor and J. Reader.
PARIS: The discovery of two fossils has challenged the belief that our early human ancestor Homo erectus evolved from Homo habilis and suggests they co-existed.
The finds, on the eastern bank of Lake Turkana in Kenya – detailed today in the British journal Nature – are evidence that the two species may have intermingled for some 50,000 years in East Africa.
The team that found the remains was led by mother-daughter team Louise and Meave Leakey of the famed Kenyan anthropological family who have uncovered a host of critical human and hominid remains in east Africa.
Stirring controversy
One of the fossils is a 1.4-million-year-old upper jaw bone of H.habilis, which is the most recent fossil of the species known. The second is a remarkably well preserved skull of H.erectus, which paradoxically dates back even further, to some 1.55 million years ago.
"What is truly striking about this fossil is its size," said Fred Spoor of University College London in the U.K., and one of the paper's authors. "It's the smallest Homo erectus found anywhere in the world."
The recent discovery of the two fossils has created a stir among academics tracing humankind's roots, as it challenges the presumed evolutionary timeline of the species: H.habilis to H.erectus to Homo sapiens.
"Their co-existence makes it unlikely that Homo erectus evolved from Homo habilis," said Meave Leakey of the Koobi Fora Research Project at the National museums of Kenya in Nairobi. "The fact that they stayed separate as individual species for a long time suggests that they had their own ecological niche, thus avoiding direct competition."
H.habilis is a species of the genus Homo, which is thought to have lived from approximately 2.5 million to 1.8 million years ago.
Great variation
The name, literally "clothed man" was given because crude stone tools were found near the sites of their remains. They were thought to have been succeeded by the H.erectus, or upright man, whose remains were first found in Asia. But later their fossilised remains ranging from between 1.8- and one-million-years-old were unearthed in Africa, and Europe as well as in Indonesia, Vietnam, and China.
H.erectus is thought to be an important human ancestor because it may have been the first to leave Africa.
The weaker teeth and jawbones of H.erectus suggest a food regime including more meat, animal fat and softer food unlike the H.habilis who largely fed on nuts and tubers
The variation in the skull size of the East African H.erectus fossils – from the petite new skull to a large specimen previously discovered in neighbouring Tanzania – points to sexual dimorphism, or a large difference in form between male and female individuals of the same species.
"In gorillas, males are much larger than females and this sexual dimorphism is related to their strategy of having multiple mates," said co-author and anthropologist Susan Anton of New York University In New York City, USA."The new Kenyan fossil suggests that, contrary to common belief, this may have been true of Homo erectus as well."
The authors point out that like gorillas and chimpanzees, who currently cohabit in Africa without entering into conflict, the two genus species had likely lived side by side on the continent for nearly half a million years.
Sooo Silly
You're going to have to put up or shut up. I don't believe a word you've said. No critical scientist worth the raw pulp in their degree certificate would ever consider the natural erosion among dinosaur tracks to be human footprints. What is astonishing is that such cons think that anyone takes them and their fantasies seriously
Visitor
What, pray tell, do I have to put up or shut up? your response is typical where you too can, in one fell swoop, attribute erosion to what has produced human footprints among dinosaur tracks. What deep scientific logic that is! Last time I checked, erosion washed detail away and did not produce it. Ah, how extensively you and your kind use the power of denial. You don't believe anything I have said and even if you saw the footprints being made, I'm sure you would deny that too! But you haven't offered anything of substance except denial. Is that your best shot? I have nothing but sympathy for those of you who must cling tenaciously to evolution in order to support your atheism.
Ron Cote's credentials
To be blunt: you are a liar! You claim to have training in biology, but you fail to mention where. Did you perhaps major in biology at "Matchbook cover University?" Citing fake, or fraudulent credentials is a tried and true fundie trick. Really, Ron, you are just being lazy, as well as a liar!
YOU say that using sarcasm is a "poor crutch, usually when there is nothing to offer." Kind of funny how that is what you yourself used, isn't it Ron?! Seeing as how you offer nothing other than one unsubstantiated comment after another, dripping with sarcasm, does that mean that you are hypocrite, as well as a liar?!
Oh, you will reply with righteous indignation as to the authenticity of your so-called credentials, but you'll stop short of offering any verifiable evidence, because, the fact of the matter is, you are a an angry fundamentalist creationist, who probably barely finished high school. I wouldn't be surprised if you are the janitor at your local First Congregation of the Self-Righteous.
But then, neither will you offer any evidence to back up your claims as to evolution. You no doubt have a very, very limited understanding of biology, most likely based on a very perverted, biased education spoon fed you by another fundie creationist.
Let's spell this out, Ron: you practice the "because I said so" argument; also known as circular reasoning. You do not wish to debate anything - you merely want to discredit that which you do not believe/understand (for you that is no doubt the same thing), followed by a demand that everyone else accept your take because you said so.
So do yourself a favor, Ron, if you insist on continuing to fill your head with s--t, you could at least flush every once inawhile!
Dear Visitor, Golly it sure
Dear Visitor, Golly it sure seems that I raised a few of your hackles. I am still licking my wounds from all the names you called me, and I’m really a nice fundie creationist who enjoys blogging with my detractors. I more enjoy blogging with intelligent people than with those whose only offerings are name calling but I take the good with the bad.
I think you called me every name in the book so it’s good that you flushed that out of your system.
I do have a degree in biology from the University of New Hampshire. I served in the USAF as a Captain. I was employed by United Technologies Corp. when they were prime contractors for several space programs, I served as a member of the NASA management team that produced the Portable Life Support System that astronauts wore on the moon and in subsequent EVA missions. I have a pretty good grasp of biology having managed several bio-medical engineering programs on artificial heart and kidney devices. I retired as executive vice president of a nationally known agency. I have never janitored. Well, there, at your behest, I have reluctantly bared my soul.
This may shock you also that I am an ex- evolutionist and have seriously studied both sides. Creationism has overwhelming evidence which gets stronger each day, while, like in the article, evolution is coming apart at the seams. That's why I became a fundie. Like any good scientist, my decision was based on the weight of the evidence. You may not be acquainted with thinking outside the box, but give it a try if you want to be refreshed! You, too can become a fundie!
Since we have become such good pen pals, I sure would like you to reciprocate on your work history and education. You have piqued my interest.
As an aside, Joe Jenkins implies that this site is consecrated to science but I reread all of it and find little. What am I missing?
Dear Ronnie Fundamentalist
So, you're a retired, chest-thumping bio-engineer.... You now claim that you served our country. You no doubt figure that your sarcasm has shamed any that would disagree with you.
Touting credentials is a standard fundamentalist creationist ploy. Maybe you did have the career you claimed, maybe you "borrowed" it from somebody else. This is the internet - you can claim to be anybody you wish. My advice: if you want to be taken seriously - put away the chest-thumping, and the autobiography, and offer some evidence as to why you believe that evolution is the fraud you claim it to be.
I am not shocked that you claim to be an ex-evolutionist; I just don't believe you!
Why don't you "think outside the box" and explain why "evolution is coming apart at the seams?!"
I'll give you an example of what will not suffice as evidence to your claim (this IS you writing, I presume - if not, the premise is the same):
The proof of evolution
If evolution was true, the proof of its effects would be overwhelming.
The fossil record would be, as the name implies , an incontrovertible, uncontestable record of plants and animals in their varying stages of transition from something to something else.
There should be few, if any , missing links. They are called “missing links” because after tens of thousands of fossil specimens have been unearthed, the links are still missing. They are missing because they never existed in the first place and no amount of time or worn shovels will change that. Although missing links are usually referenced as regards human evolution, links are missing in all aspects of nature, insects, reptiles, birds, mammals, plants etc. With such a paucity of fossil evidence, there should be recognition that the lack of transitional fossil specimens a clue that they never existed, otherwise the fossil record would be conclusive and with room for debate or controversy.
The observation of nature today should be the crowning glory for proving evolution. Even without the fossil record or missing links, ongoing evolution should be evident, observable. recordable and collectible as we see before our very eyes something, plant or animal in some stage of the transitional process changing from something to something else. How fascinating nature would be to observe thousands of species becoming something different, a clover leaf changing into an oak tree, a gecko changing into a bobolink, a fox changing into an elk, a cat in transition to becoming a deer etc.
Bizarre and as unbelievable as these changes seem, to the evolutionist they must be believable because their tenet is that thousands of “somethings” had to change into thousands of “ something elses” by adding the magical ingredient, time. But none of them can shed any evidence on what became what and when.
So far evolutionists have sought, in vain, for the missing parts to their mythical puzzle. A tooth, a few pieces of bone, fraudulent drawings, questionable conclusions, hoaxes, doctored fossils plus a large measure of speculation are evolutionists’ concepts of what they maintain as fact and science. This is abysmally bad science and as such, the evolutionists ally of time will also be their downfall as their precious myth erodes even more, and soon into oblivion.
If that was your post, Ron, that will not convince anybody but yourself.
So, again, here's your challenge for today: offer something other than creationist propaganda, or your own personal sarcasm to defend your position. Good luck!
Visitor, you are truly
Visitor, you are truly incredible and I have never met anyone so close minded and opinionated. You asked for my credentials and when offered you still don't believe . I guess you typify evolutionists that can not or will not acknowledge the truth no matter what. Were I an evolutionist, I would disassociate with your kind. You don't make any sense at all and the only thing you offer is denial. Not much science there! I regret having wasted my time with you.
Ron the Fraud
Never met anyone so close minded and opinionated? Gosh, Ron - you gotta stop looking in the mirror!
Nobody here asked for your credentials - you thumped your own and chest and proudly bleated them out.
You were asked - in very plain, easy to understand terms - to explain why you feel evolution is wrong. Cite some LEGITIMATE SOURCES, make a coherent, compelling argument..... that sort of thing. I was certainly willing to hear you out, but, like the rest of the creationist frauds, you have nothing to offer; except, that is, more tired sarcasm.
Rick Karlin wrote about you - you probably have a shrine in your "spacious a-frame" filled with such clippings - and I quote:
Rick Karlin, a staff writer for the Albany Times Union reports:
Ron Cote, who describes himself as a born-again creationist, has obtained permission to give annual guest lectures to students at the North Warren High School in the Adirondack community of Chestertown.
Cote doesn't disagree with the idea that students should learn about Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. And he realizes that prohibitions on bringing religion into the classroom mean that he can't talk about his evangelical Christian faith.
"I'm not there to convert people," Cote said during an interview in the spacious hillside A-frame he shares with his wife in this rural community near the Schroon River. "I'm there to get them to think about the flip side of evolution."
He has a bridge he wants to sell you, too.
Yep, Ron, you have quite the compelling case against evolution; so much so that you have to OBTAIN PERMISSION to talk about it at a public school.
Could that be why you are on the net, making such a nuisance out of yourself with your quackery? Is it not quite so embarrassing to make a fool out of yourself when you don't have to ASK permission to do it?
But, like the fraud you are, you didn't bother critiquing any troublesome points in the article to which you posted to here in Cosmos; you just came in, making the same tired creationist points of propaganda that your kind are wont to do.
You want so desperately to turn people away from legitimate science, using your own particular half-baked fundamentalism, thumping your chest bleating about your glory days as a second-rate technician slogging away for a minor NASA contractor; all the while refusing to offer anything like a compelling argument against evolution - because you don't have one!
In short, Ron Fundamentalist, you are intellectually bankrupt, and an ethical fraud to boot. At least, given your age, we won't have to put up with your nonsense much longer!
evolution
I agree with you Ron, wholeheartedly! The amazing thing about the evolution believers is their inability to think for themselves. When I attended a lecture by Gould at the UNC campus he was very uncomfortable when asked random questions. He was asked about the 24 Chrom. (apes) vs the 23Chrom. (humans) have. The question '' which was the mistake, the human or the ape when the fusion took place that created the human?" Most wannabe ''evolutionist'' haven't a clue about that question because they simply refuse to challenge the pompus arrogance of the gang,Dawkins and the late Gould! I would be embarrassed if I were a ''believer'' in the fantasy whale story or the explanations of the scientist who found the Neanderthal. The Piltdown was the tip of the iceberg as far as I'm concerned. The deceit and animosity of evolutionist must be challenged and perhaps the AAS should be investigated for it's involvement with coersing our youth through ''science'' to perpetuate the faith of scientism as a fact. You havegot to have great faith in man when you see what you see and hear what you hear, yet, deny BOTH! Creation is obvious and the bone readers are laughable, to be kind. So you arrogant ''evolution'' believer's go ahead and attack with your insults, but beware that God's children are HIS!
He was asked about the 24
He was asked about the 24 Chrom. (apes) vs the 23Chrom. (humans) have. The question '' which was the mistake, the human or the ape when the fusion took place that created the human?"
It always has to be the good and evil, right and wrong, heaven and damnation huh?
Can I answer? In a case like that, neither is a mistake. A mistake would imply there is a known end point, for if you do not know the end point how can you judge any change as a mistake?
As an analogy consider the case of tossing a coin. If it landed on heads, is that a mistake or is landing on tails the mistake? By your reasoning, one of them must be a mistake - but neither of them are, it's just a coin toss.
The fact that you imply some magical event where the chromosome fused and from that both modern day chimpanzees and humans were formed suggests a deeply flawed, borderline juvenile (at best) understanding of evolutionary biology. I can't see how you have the gall to be so arrogant and dismissive when you understand so little of the subject matter.
I think your god deserves you.
Age of the earth ?
Hi Ron ,
Do you believe the earth is around 10,000 years old ?
Thank you
Chuck Kinney