"Nick Maclaren" <nmm1@...> wrote in message
news:bulejg$rfb$1@....

> implying that Morgan and Verhaegen shared the same theories. They don't.

Well,
- I agree to most of what Elaine says, except perhaps for her placing the
waterside episode immediately after the H/P split: 5 Ma or so? You still do,
Elaine?
- AFAIK, Elaine doesn't disagree with all I'm saying , but says I can't
prove everything I'm saying. She's right.

I think we both agree that at some time after the human/chimp split (~6-4
Ma), human ancestors were seaside (perhaps more specifically river delta?)
omnivores: collecting coconuts, shellfish, turtles & turtle eggs, bird eggs,
crabs, seaweeds etc., beach-combing & wading bipedally, parttime diving etc.
explains many human traits (absent in chimps) much better than dry savanna
scenarios do: brain enlargement (but olfactory bulb reduction), improved
breathing control & diving skills, varied vocality, handiness & tool use,
reduction of climbing, reduction of fur, more subcutaneous fat, very long
legs & straight body build, reduction of sense of smell, late puberty, high
needs of water, iodine, sodium & poly-unsaturated fatty acids etc.

IMO this seaside episode happened late Plio- or early Pleistocene when early
Homo followed the Mediterranean & Indian Ocean coasts: Homo fossils or tools
~1.8 Ma have "suddenly" been found in Israel, Algeria, Iran, Kenya, Georgia,
Java... In spite of drastic & repeated sea level changes (Ice Ages), Homo
(but not australopith) remains (not necessarily our direct ancestors) have
often been found amid shells, corals, barnacles etc., throughout the
Pleistocene, in coasts all over the Old World (eg, Mojokerto, Terra Amata,
Table Bay, Eritrea), even on islands that could only be reached by sea
(Flores 0.8 Ma http://allserv.rug.ac.be/~mvaneech/outthere.htm ).

Marc Verhaegen
http://www.onelist.com/community/AAT
http://allserv.rug.ac.be/~mvaneech/Verhaegen.html

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994586

I think that a waterside episode did not follow a waterside episode, but
precipitated the split. I also think there was not one waterside episode, but
probably several, yeilding a more generalized species with the capability of
adapting and readapting to several scenarios quite rapidly.

In a message dated 1/31/04 10:35:30 PM, fa204466@... writes:


> Well,
> - I agree to most of what Elaine says, except perhaps for her placing the
> waterside episode immediately after the H/P split: 5 Ma or so? You still do,
> Elaine?
> - AFAIK, Elaine doesn't disagree with all I'm saying , but says I can't
> prove everything I'm saying. She's right.
>
> I think we both agree that at some time after the human/chimp split (~6-4
> Ma), human ancestors were seaside (perhaps more specifically river delta?)
> omnivores: collecting coconuts, shellfish, turtles & turtle eggs, bird eggs,
> crabs, seaweeds etc., beach-combing & wading bipedally, parttime diving etc.
> explains many human traits (absent in chimps) much better than dry savanna
> scenarios do: brain enlargement (but olfactory bulb reduction), improved
> breathing control & diving skills, varied vocality, handiness & tool use,
> reduction of climbing, reduction of fur, more subcutaneous fat, very long
> legs & straight body build, reduction of sense of smell, late puberty, high
> needs of water, iodine, sodium & poly-unsaturated fatty acids etc.
>



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

--- In AAT@yahoogroups.com, "Marc Verhaegen" <fa204466@s...> wrote:
> "Mario Petrinovich" <mario.petrinovic@z...> wrote in message
> news:bvfjsv$bee$1@....
>
> http://www.utmb.edu/otoref/Grnds/Paranasal-Sinus-2002-01/Paranasal-
sinus-2002-01.htm
>
> PL Blanton & NL Biggs 1968 "Eighteen hundred years of controversy:
> the paranasal sinus" Am J Anat 124:135-148.
> Mario, I don't have this paper on file, but they list several
> hypotheses
> they found in the lit, and found none of them likely (I agree):
> 1- impart resonance to the voice
> 2- humidify & warm inspired air
> 3- increase olfactory area
> 4- absorb shocks
> 5- secrete mucus, eg, to moisten the nasal passages
> 6- thermo-insulation of brain etc. (in cold or hot milieu?)
> 7- help facial growth & architecture
> 8- evol.relic
> 9- unwanted space
> 10- lighten skull bones in head balancing
>
> Some other or more detailed possibilities:
> 11- set wider apart eyes or ears (stereo), horns, antlers, tusks,
> teeth, masticatory musles...
> 12- make head look bigger for intra- or interspec.intimidation
> 13- narrow nasal passages, eg, for better closure during diving,
> or for better moistening
> 14- keep more air & O2 in the body, eg, during diving
> 15- lower spec.gravity of skull parts, eg, for stabilising head
> position in or outside the water
> 16- cool & moisten dry savanna air
>
> Inexistant or negligeable effect:
> 1: experimentally no effect
> 2-3-5-14-16: air circulation in sinuses is minimal, mucus
> secretion is low, no olf.membrane
> 4: to the contrary: make frontal bones more fragile
> 6-12: easier by longer head hairs
> 10-15(outside water)
>
> The only possible functions are IMO:
> 7-8-9: but are vague
> 11: but then: why don't OWMs have maxill.sinuses (vs.apes)?
> 15(in water)
>
> That air sinuses have/had functions is clear IMO:
> - they're the cause of sinusitis (sometimes dangerous)
> - it's believed that early catarrhines had maxill.sinuses, but
> OWMs lost these, and apes didn't            Marc Verhaegen

         Ok. Thanks, Marc.
         BTW, you forgot 13.
         BTW 2, I spoke to my sister (a nurse or something), and she
said that while swimming in a pool can be dangerous to sinuses
(because of infections), swimming in a sea can actually be
beneficial (because sea is clearing those passages. -- Mario

anatome.ncl.ac.uk/tutorials/index.html

  -- Mario

--- In AAT@yahoogroups.com, "first42n8son" <watersgn@e...> wrote:
> hi folks,
> have you even noticed how many of the opinions about this subject
> are black and white?  no middle of the road....
>
> a classic example is the T-Rex; couldn't be a predator because the
> arms weren't strong enough.  that means that animals such as
> birds,
> like hawks and eagles, snakes, crocodiles, and sharks can't be
> predators because their arms aren't used for the kill or
> consumption of their prey...
>
> aquadic mammals like whales, porpuses and dolphins do not have
> closeable breathing holes, why should an aquatic ape?
>
> reductio ad absurdum!              chas

         T-rex supposedly couldn't stand up if it falls down, so he
couldn't be fast predator because if it falls down (because of
hurrying during hunt), it dies.

         Can you explain this, that aquatic mammals don't have
closable breathing holes? -- Mario

> > aquadic mammals like whales, porpuses and dolphins do not have closeable
breathing holes...

?? (you do mean "aquatic" & "porpoises"?)

> Can you explain this, that aquatic mammals don't have closable breathing
holes? -- Mario

Aquatic mammals have several places in the wairways that can be closed: not
only the blowhole, but there are also a lot of valves in the airways.
Interesting is that the human airways also have some sort of valves (which
are difficult to find at autopsies: the muscles are relaxed), see MG Baggot
1992 "The valves, baffles and sphincters of the respiratory system"
Med.Hypotheses 37:103-6. From my 1987 paper: "In drowned humans, unlike
animal models, the amount of fluid aspirated is usually small (23). Complete
laryngospasm even occurs in about 10% of human drownings: it is assumed
that, after gasping under water, the first gulp causes laryngeal
obstruction, the victim never aspirates water ("dry drowning"), and some
patients, even with wide, fixed pupils, have been resuscitated after more
than half an hour (3,23).  Asthma (24) is a bronchial hypersensitivity that
gives a reversible air-way obstruction mostly due to constriction of the
bronchial musculature. Expiration is delayed, so that more air is kept in
the lungs during en asthma crisis. Bronchospasm can be due to irritating
inhalants, viral, helminthic and other infections, allergy, face immersion
(25), and hyperventilation (exercise, emotion or voluntary HV). HV reduces
the temperature and saturation of the breathing-air. In susceptible
individuals this induces bronchospasm, which can be a preparation for
diving. Asthma seems to be unknown in apes, but according to Anderson, seals
do have bronchoconstriction while diving (3,25). Deep-diving mammals
(Weddell seals, many cetaceans) close the bronchi completely during diving
(26).  We recently suggested that vasomotor rhinopathy, a hypertrophy and
hypersensitivity of the plexus cavernosi of the inferior nasal conchae,
which can suddenly block the nose passage, is an aquatic rudiment (11)."

--Marc

http://www.utmb.edu/otoref/Grnds/Paranasal-Sinus-2002-01/Paranasal-sinus-2002-01\
.htm

> > PL Blanton & NL Biggs 1968 "Eighteen hundred years of controversy: the
paranasal sinus" Am J Anat 124:135-148. Mario, I don't have this paper on
file, but they list several hypotheses they found in the lit, and found none
of them likely (I agree): 1- impart resonance to the voice   2- humidify &
warm inspired air   3- increase olfactory area    4- absorb shocks    5-
secrete mucus, eg, to moisten the nasal passages    6- thermo-insulation of
brain etc. (in cold or hot milieu?)    7- help facial growth & architecture
8- evol.relic    9- unwanted space   10- lighten skull bones in head
balancing.   Some other or more detailed possibilities: 11- set wider apart
eyes or ears (stereo), horns, antlers, tusks, teeth, masticatory musles...
12- make head look bigger for intra- or interspec.intimidation    13- narrow
nasal passages, eg, for better closure during diving, or for better
moistening      14- keep more air & O2 in the body, eg, during diving    15-
lower spec.gravity of skull parts, eg, for stabilising head position in or
outside the water    16- cool & moisten dry savanna air.         Inexistant
or negligeable effect: 1: experimentally no effect    2-3-5-14-16: air
circulation in sinuses is minimal, mucus secretion is low, no olf.membrane
4: to the contrary: make frontal bones more fragile     6-12: easier by
longer head hairs     10-15(outside water).      The only possible functions
are IMO: 7-8-9: but are vague     11: but then: why don't OWMs have
maxill.sinuses (vs.apes)?    15(in water).         That air sinuses have/had
functions is clear IMO: - they're the cause of sinusitis (sometimes
dangerous), - it's believed that early catarrhines had maxill.sinuses, but
OWMs lost these, and apes didn't

>         Ok. Thanks, Marc.    BTW, you forgot 13.

Yes, sorry, but it's far-fetched IMO: the nasal passages can also be
narrowed without sinuses.

>         BTW 2, I spoke to my sister (a nurse or something), and she said
that while swimming in a pool can be dangerous to sinuses (because of
infections), swimming in a sea can actually be beneficial (because sea is
clearing those passages. -- Mario

Yes, salt solutions are used to open the nose.

--Marc

Betty Meehan 1982 "Shell bed to shell midden"  Canberra: Australian
Institute of Aboriginal Studies 189p.

Anybody has read this book?

--Marc

> I think that a waterside episode did not follow a waterside episode, but
precipitated the split. I also think there was not one waterside episode,
but probably several, yeilding a more generalized species with the
capability of adapting and readapting to several scenarios quite rapidly.

Not impossible, Empress, but why do you think these things?

--Marc
________


> > - I agree to most of what Elaine says, except perhaps for her placing
the
> > waterside episode immediately after the H/P split: 5 Ma or so? You still
do,
> > Elaine?
> > - AFAIK, Elaine doesn't disagree with all I'm saying , but says I can't
> > prove everything I'm saying. She's right.
> >
> > I think we both agree that at some time after the human/chimp split
(~6-4
> > Ma), human ancestors were seaside (perhaps more specifically river
delta?)
> > omnivores: collecting coconuts, shellfish, turtles & turtle eggs, bird
eggs,
> > crabs, seaweeds etc., beach-combing & wading bipedally, parttime diving
etc.
> > explains many human traits (absent in chimps) much better than dry
savanna
> > scenarios do: brain enlargement (but olfactory bulb reduction), improved
> > breathing control & diving skills, varied vocality, handiness & tool
use,
> > reduction of climbing, reduction of fur, more subcutaneous fat, very
long
> > legs & straight body build, reduction of sense of smell, late puberty,
high
> > needs of water, iodine, sodium & poly-unsaturated fatty acids etc.
> >
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
> Community email addresses:
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>

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/01/08/1073437416715.html

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

/:sorry, no, i misspelled: it's about evolution, speciation commonly
called Darwin's mystery. hybridisation is mixing of two subspecies.
like sexual vs asex. procreation etc.

:if two subspecies could mix, where do in this case
come all the species from.

Marc, what's up, how could two subspecies mix. Is this possible.
Could you give an example.

frank

Published online before print January 26, 2004, 10.1073/pnas.0308085100
PNAS 101:1147-52
Neanderthal taxonomy reconsidered: Implications of 3D primate models of
intra- and interspecific differences
Katerina Harvati, Stephen R. Frost  & Kieran P. McNulty 2004
The taxonomic status of Neanderthals lies at the center of the modern human
origins debate. Proponents of the single-origin model often view this group
as a distinct species with little or no contribution to the evolution of
modern humans. Adherents to the regional continuity model consider
Neanderthals a subspecies or population of Homo sapiens, which contributed
significantly to the evolution of early modern Europeans. Paleontologists
generally agree that fossil species should be equivalent to extant ones in
the amount of their morphological variation. Recognition of fossil species
therefore hinges on analogy to living species. A previous study by one of
the authors and recent work by other researchers [Schillachi, M. A. &
Froelich, J. W. (2001) Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 115, 157-166] have supported
specific status for Neanderthals based on analogy to chimpanzees and
Sulawesi macaques, respectively. However, these taxa may not be the most
appropriate models for Pleistocene humans. Here we test the hypothesis that
Neanderthals represent a subspecies of H. sapiens by comparing the degree of
their morphological differentiation from modern humans to that found within
and between 12 species of extant primates. The model taxa comprised >1,000
specimens, including phylogenetic (modern humans and African apes) and
ecological (eight papionin taxa) models for Pleistocene humans.
Morphological distances between model taxon pairs were compared to the
distances between Neanderthals and modern humans obtained by using a
randomization technique. Results strongly support a specific distinction for
Neanderthals.
katerina.harvati@...

> /:sorry, no, i misspelled: it's about evolution, speciation commonly
called Darwin's mystery. hybridisation is mixing of two subspecies. like
sexual vs asex. procreation etc.   :if two subspecies could mix, where do in
this case come all the species from.

(I didn't say this.)

> Marc, what's up, how could two subspecies mix. Is this possible. Could you
give an example. frank

Different spp can't mix, but 2 subspp can: that's the usual definition.
Example: Pan troglodytes troglodytes & P.t.schweinfurthii.

--Marc

>different spp can't mix, but 2 subspp can: that's the usual definition.
example, pan troglodytes troglodytes & P.t.schweinfurthii. -Marc

Have you a more common example.

frank

Any subsepcies, frank.
   ----- Original Message -----
   From: Frank Punke
   To: AAT
   Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2004 10:17 AM
   Subject: [AAT] re: hybridisation


   >different spp can't mix, but 2 subspp can: that's the usual definition.
   example, pan troglodytes troglodytes & P.t.schweinfurthii. -Marc

   Have you a more common example.

   frank


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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

"Nick Maclaren" <nmm1@...> wrote in message
news:bvqbnl$8bq$1@....

> |> Now for the habitual wading ape idea!  8-)  Im trying really hard but
not thinking of all that many wading species (and the ones that I do think
of all tend to have broad, webbed feet!

This shows the man's biases & total lack of information.
- Webbed fingers or toes are seen in primates such as indris, siamangs, some
pottos, gorillas etc.
- Webs are poorly developed in clawless otters vs clawed otters. Etc.
When will these antiAATers finally start to inform a little bit??
____

Nick, your "soggy ape" is perhaps correct for apiths & Afr.ape ancestors,
eg, lowland gorillas spend some time in swamps, playing there, sitting,
wading, eating aquatic herbs etc.  A comparable lifestyle is not impossible
for early Homo ancestors shortly after the H/P split, but the typical Homo
traits (well-developed stone tools, straight body, SC fat, limited diving
skills, high sodium, iodine, PUFA... needs etc.) suggest that after the H/P
split ~5 Ma, early Pan stayed in the swamp-mangrove forests, and early Homo
chose the treeless strand-rif-mudflats-deltas?  This is confirmed by the
fossils evidence: early Homo appears "suddenly" ~1.8 Ma near tropical seas
from Algeria to Java (& then inland along lakes & riviers, of course).  This
might be where we have to situate the coastal episode.

--Marc

...

> > I meant, are you still placing the episode between the LCA & the apiths?

> Yes.

But then you don't have enough time IMO: Sahelanthr was ~7-6 Ma, Orrorin ~6
Ma, Ardipith ~5 Ma, apiths 4-1 Ma. Besides, IMO apiths have nothing
typically human (no long legs, no large brains, no external noses...).

> > > Yes, not impossible. I just read M.Schilthuizen 2002 "Frogs, flies &
dandelions" Oxford UP (on speciation): parallel evolution (Pan//Gorilla?) is
frequent after geogr.isolation, adaptative radiation (Homo><Pan?) can happen
isopatrically. Possibly, after the split ~5 Ma, early Pan stayed in the
swamp-mangrove forests, early Homo chose the treeless strand-rif-mudflats?
Early Homo appears suddenly ~1.8 Ma near tropical seas all over the Old
World, that's why I think the "real" semi-aq.episode was at the most shortly
before this date & perhaps Pleistocene?

> I think the "real" one caused bipedalism,

Unlikely IMO:
- (semi)aquatic mammals are not bipedal AFAIK,
- humanlike bipedalism is a combination of
-- bipedal locomotion (kangaroo, bird, indri on ground...),
-- truncal erectness (eg, gibbons often),
-- long legs (stork, heron),
-- straight build (penguin, seacow...).
No doubt, our bipedalism evolved gradually. IMO in this sequence: A. truncal
erectness (trees), B. bipedal wading (forest swamps), C. straight build
(coasts), D. long legs (wading, terrestrial). Or perhaps AB
(suspensory+wading), then CD (wading+diving). IMO, Afr.apes & apiths were
AB, Homo was CD.

> so I have to think it preceded all the bipedal species. The descendants of
the resultant last-common-bipedal ancestor diversified and bushed out and
most branches became extinct. Maybe early Homo came from a branch of that
family that stayed near the coasts and became more adept at living on marine
resources and so flourished when some of its cousins were beset by some
crisis inland - drought, or something.     But your phrase the "real" one
presupposes there was more than one. The main difference between our
respective views is that I have never been convinced that we need to propose
an aquatic episode for Pan at all. I have read your case for thinking so and
it is arguable but it doesn't grab me. I think the other apes stayed in the
forests. Just forests. I think gorillas and chimps had ancestors what were
not aquarboreal, just arboreal.

Yes, but then you can't explain the combination of large size, tail loss &
suspensory behaviour.

> I see no way of proving this one way or the other. You can quote the
wading Congo gorillas and think all apes once lived like that and some have
strayed back into the upland forests. I can quote the Ruanda ones and think
all gorillas once lived like that and some strayed into the wet clearings.
Either could be correct. It is just that we read the anatomical evidence
differently, and I  doubt whether either of us has anything new to say on
that score.  Elaine

In your view (nothing but forests), hominoids should be monkey-like. IOW,
you have no explanation why apes don't look like monkeys.

--Marc

Age of Our Ancestors
How Our Genetic Adam Is Much Younger than Genetic Eve
Commentary
By John Allen Paulos

Feb. 1 - A new book, The Journey of Man, demonstrates how recent advances in
genetics, particularly those involving the Y-chromosome, allow us to follow the
arc of human migration out of Africa, our ancestral home.
Although Neanderthals and other hominids related to Homo sapiens date back
hundreds of thousands of years, the book's author, geneticist Spencer Wells,
shows that our origins are much more recent. Presenting the work of Luigi Luca
Cavalli-Sforza, Richard Lewontin, and other eminent researchers, Wells argues
convincingly that all men on earth (the Y-chromosome is passed only from father
to son) can trace their roots to a particular male who lived in Africa, almost
60,000 years ago.
Likewise, all humans on earth can trace their lineage through our maternally
inherited mitochondrial DNA back to a particular woman, who lived in Africa
roughly 150,000 years ago. This "Adam" is my great-grandfather roughly 2500
times removed and this "Eve" my great grandmother roughly 6500 times removed.
(Yours too, so we're all distant cousins.)
In coming to these conclusions, Wells relies upon a variety of mathematical
techniques, ranging from statistical tests to measure the similarities between
and among the genomes of present-day populations to carbon dating and other
methods commonly employed at archeological sites.
The probability of branching processes lends additional support as does
empirical research on the world's various ethnic groups. Most revealing is the
use of the rate at which random mutations naturally occur to infer the paths of
our ancestors around the globe.
Wells employs a culinary metaphor to clarify the notion of a genetic Eve, whose
existence was long disputed by those who believed that mankind developed
independently in several locations around the world. Altering Wells' metaphor a
little, let's imagine a small village that has been inhabited for millennia.
Imagine further that we go way back in time and note that the few families in
the village use different recipes for their primary meal, and that the recipes
are handed down from mother to daughter only.
Very complex, the recipes can be modified in hundreds of ways - a different
ingredient here, longer cooking time there, etc. - and every once in a while a
daughter makes a tiny change in her mother's recipe, which she then passes down
to her daughter(s). Sometimes because of accident, disease, or simply a line's
not having any daughters, a family's recipe and its variants die out. In fact,
let's assume that all but one of the original recipes and their variants
disappear. Thus in the village we can now find only one of the dozen original
recipes, dating back X thousand years, and its many variants.
If for the village we substitute Africa, and for recipes we substitute the human
genome, the surviving original recipe is analogous to the genetic makeup of
African Eve since all the surviving recipes derive from it just as we all can
trace all our mitochondrial DNA back to a particular woman who lived 150,000
years ago.
And just as our mitochondrial DNA is inherited only through our mothers, the
male Y-chromosome is passed only from fathers to sons. So let's invent another
just-so story about, say, elaborate hunting rituals that are passed down from
father to son with very rare changes. We again go back to a time when there were
very few families and hence few different hunting rituals.
Once again, each of these elaborate hunting rituals changes very slowly.
Furthermore, because of famine, disease, or not having any sons, a family's
hunting ritual and its variants die out. Let's assume that all but one of the
original rituals and their variants disappear. Thus in the village we can find
only one of the few original rituals, dating back Y thousand years, and its many
variants, and thus conclude that all existing rituals derive from the original
one, the analogue of a genetic Adam.

The Paths We Took
Note that X and Y need not be equal since recipes and hunting rituals will no
doubt change and die out at different rates, so our genetic Eve did not meet our
genetic Adam (and both, of course, had parents, grandparents, and other
progenitors).
There is, however, much more in Journey than this absence of a prehistoric
romance. As mentioned, the bulk of the book examines how geneticists study small
changes in the DNA of our Y-chromosomes and use the rate at which they naturally
occur as a sort of molecular clock to determine when and where various groups
and clans of our prehistoric ancestors split off and spread over the earth
(along the coast of India to Australia, later into Eurasia, and then down to the
Americas across the Bering Sea).
If we know where we originated, and if a distinct recipe or ritual and its
descendants, to revert to our metaphor, appears only in a neighboring village,
then this (along with much other evidence) indicates that these people left the
original village at a certain time. And if their descendants' recipes and
rituals appear only in an even more distant village, then these others left
still later.
The common childhood game in which we change, a letter at a time, one sequence
of letters into another - say GENE to GONE to GORE to MORE to MARE to MARS -
also sheds some light on what geneticists do when analyzing the branching
changes in the very long sequence of "letters" that constitute our DNA. If each
of the changing sequences of letters also gave rise to other changing sequences
of letters and if some of these sequences split off and moved to different
physical locations, we would be led to the sort of considerations and methods
that are described in The Journey of Man.
We've come a long way, and the fascinating, sometimes counterintuitive details
of the trip are finally becoming a little clearer.
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/SciTech/WhosCounting/whoscounting_paulos_math_040\
201-1.html


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Biology Letters
DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2003.0136
Tipsy punters: sauropod dinosaur pneumaticity, buoyancy and aquatic habits
http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/link.asp?id=pa6a316clj7h
Donald M. Henderson

Sauropod dinosaurs were the largest terrestrial animals to have ever
existed, and are difficult to interpret as living animals owing to their
lack of living descendants. With computer models that employ the basic
physics of buoyancy and equilibrium, it is possible to investigate how the
bodies of these animals would have reacted when immersed in water.
Multi-tonne sauropods are found to be extremely buoyant and unstable in
water when aspects of their probable respiratory anatomy are considered,
which obviates the old problem of them being unable to breathe when fully
immersed. Interpretations of 'manus-only' trackways made by floating
sauropods will depend on the details of buoyancy as not all sauropods float
in the same manner.

>Any subsepcies, frank. -Marc

:Please explain a little more. What are subspecies. And how could
they get into sexuall contact. Does this mean that two different
kind of apes could have sex. I don't get this. My and supposetly
the common understanding is, that only one species could have sex
with each other. IE. is a dog a subspecies of the wolf.

Actually I thought the understanding of species is, the creatures
which could have sex with each other. So, sex as the succesful
process to get offspring.

Hm, there is a problem in the history of language, cause actually
there is no word for the most important process in life. Sex.

I suppose it would be provitable to create a word for what is
orgasm-stimulating contact, but not sex. I'm not a fundamentalist,
but there is reason for the assumption, that using a condom averts
sex. Also the pill.

Don't get me wrong, orgasm-stimulating behaviour is not evil, but
in my eyes we need a differentiation to the process which end
with a certain likelihood in life.

Thank you, india.

frank

http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/0204/0204_feature.html
February 2004
Headstrong Hominids

The mysterious skulls of Java man and Peking man may have evolved because
males were clubbing each other in fights.

By Noel T. Boaz and Russell L. Ciochon
This article was adapted from Noel T. Boaz and Russell L. Ciochon's book,
Dragon Bone Hill: An Ice-Age Saga of Homo erectus, which is being published
by Oxford University Press in February 2004.
Ever since the 1890s, when the Dutch anatomist Eugene Dubois unearthed the
first-recorded cranium of the early, small-brained human relative now known
as Homo erectus, scholars have been struck by the unusual anatomy of its
skull. The top and sides of the cranium have thick, bony walls and a low,
wide profile. To the modern eye, this part of its skull, known as the
calotte, or skullcap, looks a lot like a cyclist's helmet-low and
streamlined, designed to protect the brain, ears, and eyes from impact. In
contrast, we modern humans hold our enormous, easily injured, semiliquid
brains in relatively thin-walled bony globes. We have to buy our bicycle
helmets.


Skull of Peking man, a composite reconstruction by G. J. Sawyer and Ian
Tattersall that is based on skull XII and other fossils discovered in China

Photo by R. Mickens, AMNH

Because Dubois discovered his fossils in Java, it and other specimens later
found in that region became popularly known as "Java man." In the 1920s
similar fossils were discovered in China's Longgushan Cave, about thirty
miles from Beijing (then transliterated in the West as "Peking"), and were
dubbed "Peking man." At the time, no other hominid fossils of comparable
antiquity were known, so Dubois and everyone else initially regarded the
skull's robustness-its strength and thickness-as typical of early human
ancestors. Even as late as the 1940s, Franz Weidenreich, an eminent German
paleoanthropologist then working at the American Museum of Natural History,
proposed that H. erectus had descended from a line of massive, indeed
gigantic ancestors, and that modern H. sapiens was the end result of a
down-scaling trend. But as more hominid fossils have come to light, it has
become clear that the ancestors of H. erectus did not have massive bones,
and neither did H. erectus. In fact, except for its strange skull, the
skeleton of H. erectus resembled our own.
H. erectus arose in Africa more than 2 million years ago, and soon
thereafter some populations of this early human migrated out of the
continent. Descendants of the migrants reached eastern Asia at least 1.9
million years ago. The stone tools they manufactured have been discovered at
various sites, but the earliest fossils in eastern Asia have been found only
in Java and China. Java man comprises both the earliest and the most recent
specimens of H. erectus; the fossils span a period that lasted from 1.8
million years ago until just 50,000 years ago. Peking man dates more
narrowly, from between 670,000 and 410,000 years ago.
The skullcaps discovered in eastern Asia tend to be more robust than the
ones in Africa. Hence some paleoanthropologists have regarded the African
fossils as a distinct species, which they call H. ergaster. But one African
skullcap just as robust as any Asian specimen was discovered by Louis Leakey
in Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. It dates from about 1.4 million years ago. And
even the strapping youth known as Turkana boy, the most complete H. erectus
skeleton discovered so far, probably would have had a thick skull when fully
grown. In any case, there is little doubt that H. erectus was on the line
that ultimately led to the first modern humans. Whether that further
evolution took place in Africa or was a more widespread phenomenon is a
matter of debate, but one way or another we got bigger brains and thinner
skulls.




Visualizing Java man: A fossil designated Sangiran 17 is the most complete
Homo erectus skull discovered on Java. Under the supervision of Hisao Baba,
Curator of Anthropology at the National Science Museum in Tokyo, sculptor
Yoichi Yazawa reconstructed the individual's appearance in life. First, a
cast of the fossil (A) was rounded out with teeth, lower jaw, and chewing
muscles (B). Other soft tissues were built up (C), and finally the outer
skin was added (D). Because this fossil had relatively robust features
compared with some others, it was presumed to be that of a male.

Courtesy Hisao Baba, National Science Museum, Tokyo


Many differences in hominid skulls can be accounted for by the evolution of
the brain and the chewing apparatus. Large skulls are needed to contain
large brains, and large jaws and teeth for processing tough foods need
heavy-duty skull bones to anchor massive chewing muscles. Unfortunately,
neither of these tried-and-true explanations can entirely account for the
unique attributes of the H. erectus skull. What seems more likely is that
the species badly needed some protective headgear. Functionally, the H.
erectus skullcap is similar to the defensive carapace of a turtle-indeed,
some excavators have mistaken cranial fragments of H. erectus for fossil
turtle shell. But what special sources of traumatic injury did hominids face
that might have encouraged the evolution of such a robust skull? We don't
think it was exposure to predators (which can readily attack other, more
vulnerable parts of the body), or a habit of venturing into slippery or
precarious territory where the hazards of falling were increased. In
examining the protection afforded by the H. erectus skull, we think the
evidence points to some kind of violence perpetrated within the species
itself.
Large skulls are needed to contain large brains, and large jaws and teeth
for processing tough foods need heavy-duty skull bones to anchor massive
chewing muscles. Unfortunately, neither of these tried-and-true explanations
can entirely account for the unique attributes of the H. erectus skull. What
seems more likely is that the species badly needed some protective headgear.

When a person is injured in the head today, whether or not the skull is
fractured often makes the difference between life and death. What might seem
like a relatively minor break in the skull can tear blood vessels that
adhere tightly to its inside surface. The buildup of blood under the skull,
known as a hematoma, pushes on the brain. Coma and, eventually, death can
result.
In modern skulls one of the commonest kinds of fracture is the so-called
eggshell. The concussion caused by a fall or by a blow from a blunt object
can crack and push a section of cranial vault inward without disjointing the
bone. The bone may remain depressed, but in an eggshell fracture, the
bone-pulled by skin, muscle, and other tissues attached to the scalp-springs
back to nearly its original shape. In either case, though, the damage is
done. Branches of the blood vessels serving the meninges, or fibrous
coverings of the brain, begin to bleed. As the hematoma expands and begins
to compress the brain, sometimes hours after the injury, neurological
symptoms become progressively severe.
In the days before emergency rooms, X rays, and intracranial surgery, people
suffering from intracranial bleeding managed the best they could. Usually
that meant not very well. Even if a person regained consciousness and
survived the hematoma, profound neurological deficits often continued.
Partial paralysis, gait problems, lack of hand-eye coordination,
difficulties in speaking, or any number of disruptions in cognitive
functioning were the result. For active early humans, it is hard to imagine
a more debilitating condition. Any traits that reduced the chances of
cranial fracture would have given a substantial evolutionary advantage to
the individuals who possessed them.
As one might expect, the thicker the bone, the less likely it is to break on
impact. In our most recent work we have been experimentally testing and
quantifying the advantages of thick bones. With a nine-foot-high,
guillotinelike bone-testing apparatus, we administer calibrated impacts on
one-inch circular pieces of bone from human cadavers. Certainly thick bone
does confer a competitive advantage. But minimizing weight and optimizing
protective value at the same time is a problem that we continue to study.


Contrast between the cranium of Homo erectus (top) and that of a modern
human (middle and bottom) is clear in cross section. Homo erectus had by far
the thicker skull, with a prominent keel along the midline and extra bracing
along the lower sides.

Patricia J. Wynne

The H. erectus skullcap is described technically as pachyostotic
("thick-boned"): thick, solid layers of bone make up both its inner and
outer surfaces. Sandwiched between them is a less strong, latticelike layer
of bone, whose intervening spaces, in life, would have been filled with
marrow and blood. The H. erectus skull also has a number of unique bony
structures. Three of them, namely a beetling brow ridge and bony thickenings
on the sides and rear of the cranium, form a bony ring starting above the
eyes, extending back around the head above the ears, and meeting on the back
of the head. The top of the skull resembles the inverted bottom of a boat,
with a thickened bony mound that looks like the boat's keel extending along
the midline of the skull [see illustration right].
In the 1920s an American surgeon named E.R. LeCount classified skull
fractures by type. A heavy blow falling directly on top of the head tends to
cave in the bone overlying the so-called superior sagittal sinus, a channel
within the meninges for venous blood draining along the midline of the
brain. LeCount hypothesized that the strongly constructed midline of the
skull is an adaptation that protects against such damage. In most H. erectus
skulls the same adaptation appears in exaggerated form as the so-called
sagittal keel.
Blows delivered in a fight, however, are more likely to land at eye level
than to rain down on top of the head. LeCount regarded the eye-level armor
of the modern skull as the main protection against blunt trauma to the head.
Again, the H. erectus skull, with its even thicker ring of bone, would have
afforded even more protection. The bony ridge above the eyes protected the
orbits, or eye sockets. The bony bulge on either side of the skull overlay
the sinus that conducts blood into the internal jugular vein, and helped
protect the ear region from blows to the side of the head. And the bony
ridge on the rear of the cranium shielded the confluence of sinuses carrying
venous blood inside the back of the skull, the rearmost lobe of the
cerebrum, and the cerebellum.
In addition to the skullcap, other features of the H. erectus skull and jaws
seem well adapted for defense against trauma. René Le Fort, a French surgeon
working at the turn of the twentieth century, studied and classified the
pattern of facial fractures in modern people.
The H. erectus skull has a number of unique bony structures. Three of them,
namely a beetling brow ridge and bony thickenings on the sides and rear of
the cranium, form a bony ring starting above the eyes, extending back around
the head above the ears, and meeting on the back of the head.

A Le Fort type I fracture is one that results from a blow to the upper face
that breaks the bone forming an eye socket. H. erectus not only had a heavy
brow ridge but also a remarkably flat and horizontal roof to the eye socket.
That eye-socket covering would have been particularly hard to break because
any impact there would have been transmitted straight back to the base of
the skull.
Le Fort type II and type III fractures are highly debilitating breaks in
which the facial skeleton is separated from the brain case. In H. erectus
the face evolved to become tucked under the protecting brow ridges, making
it less likely that a fracture would cause such a separation. A strong blow
to the face would have resulted in soft-tissue damage, and perhaps in a
fracture of the forward part of the upper jaw and damage to the incisors.
But more serious fractures, such as breaks of the cheek bones, would have
been reduced. H. erectus incisors were also reinforced by a thick layer of
enamel on their inner sides and, often, by their "shovel shape."
An old boxing adage warns would-be fighters to avoid the ring if they have
"a glass jaw." A broken mandible makes chewing painful and difficult, if not
impossible, and even today the injury requires that the broken sections be
surgically wired together. For H. erectus, such a fracture would have been
life-threatening. Weidenreich was the first to point out, in a monograph on
Peking man, that the H. erectus jawbone thickens on the inside of each
mandible, just behind the chin. That is exactly where the jaw most commonly
breaks from trauma in modern people. The thickening makes the most
anatomical sense as a defense against trauma to the lower face.
Another vulnerable part of the anatomy protected by the skull is the middle
meningeal artery. In modern humans the main branch of the vessel runs
beneath the temple, in a region of intersecting bone sutures known as the
pterion. The bone here is particularly thin, though the overlying chewing
muscle provides some protection. But a good blow to the temple is still
likely to break the bone and tear the artery-a dangerous injury because
arterial blood can bleed out so rapidly. Damage at the pterion usually
results in a large hematoma and rapid loss of consciousness or coma. The
little flange on baseball batting helmets, extending down the side of the
helmet that faces the pitcher, is specifically designed to protect the
batter against this injury from a hard-pitched ball.
Contrary to what one might predict, the H. erectus skull is not particularly
thick at the pterion. But other details of its anatomy are just as
revealing. In modern humans the middle meningeal artery divides into two
branches, a large branch that runs forward on the inside of the skull, under
the pterion, and a smaller branch that runs toward the back of the skull. In
H. erectus the middle meningeal artery divides as well, but the forward
branch is minuscule compared to the large rearward branch. Weidenreich, who
discovered the anomaly, devoted a paper to it, considering it a reflection
of the primitive quality of the H. erectus skull and brain.
We think this flow network, like the thick cranium, evolved in response to
interpersonal violence. Moving the main blood supply to the meningeal
coverings of the brain away from this vulnerable area of the skull helped
mitigate the effects of arterial breakage. But why rearrange arteries when
evolutionary change had so readily thickened other parts of the skull?
Perhaps skull sutures created developmental or structural problems for such
thickening, particularly while the cranial vault was expanding through
evolution to house a larger brain.
Franz Weidenreich was trained as a medical doctor, and worked most of his
career in medical institutions in Germany. He even served briefly as a medic
in the German army during the First World War. Doubtless, then, he had more
than a passing familiarity with the devastating effects of head trauma-a
familiarity that became invaluable when he began to analyze the skulls of
Peking man.
In those fossil specimens he identified a number of depressed fractures that
had subsequently healed. In other words, half a million years or so after
these hominids had sustained massive blows to the head, Weidenreich had
suddenly stumbled on evidence that could still reveal not only the kind of
trauma that resulted, but also, because the trauma victims had survived, the
protective value of their skulls. Tragically, the original fossils of Peking
man were lost during the Japanese invasion of China in the Second World War.
Fortunately, careful casts of the excavated remains had been made before the
war, and so we were still able to re-examine the head trauma systematically.
Some of the damage Weidenreich first attributed to hominids he later
ascribed to carnivores. Other damage was clearly geological: some bones have
been crushed by overlying sediment, others bear the impressions of rocks
pushed into them as they themselves turned to stone. But in the end,
Weidenreich classified some ten depressions or defects in the skulls as
having been caused by blows from other hominids. We agree. The damage
closely matches in size, form, and even location the healed depressed
fractures seen in human skulls today [see photo below].


Depressed fracture is evident at the top of this fossil skull of Peking man
(designated skull X), perhaps the result of a blow from a blunt instrument
wielded by another Homo erectus. Such a wound is dangerous; it causes
bleeding beneath the bone, which can put pressure on the brain. The fossil
shows that this individual survived long enough for the fracture to heal.

Courtesy of the authors

But what was the source of these injuries? To understand how and why
pachyostosis and other features may have evolved in H. erectus, comparative
anatomists look to other animal species in which similar protective armor
has evolved. Among terrestrial animals, extremely thick skull bones occur in
species as diverse as modern bighorn sheep and the Cretaceous dinosaur
Pachycephalosaurus. One of the most striking forms of behavior in bighorn
sheep is the way males butt heads. They each run at speeds of twenty miles
an hour, colliding with an impact that sounds like an explosion. What could
possibly lead these animals to engage in such potentially lethal behavior?
Females. Darwin long ago explained that such behavior is the result of
sexual selection. Among many species, the male's ability to procreate
depends to a substantial degree on attracting members of the opposite sex,
or to winning access to females through competitions with other males. In
the evolution of bighorn sheep, for instance, males that defeated their
rivals in butting contests got to mate more often. The mating passed on
whatever attributes had given the victor an edge-and one of those attributes
was apparently a reinforced skull. Paleontologists speculate, by analogy,
that Pachycephalosaurus engaged in similar behavior, but no one knows for
sure.
We aren't suggesting that early hominids charged at one another and banged
their heads together like rutting sheep (although if you think about
football and some martial arts, the idea is not as bizarre as it might seem
at first). Pachyostotic species that use the head as a weapon also have bony
cranial outgrowths that evolved along with their behavior. Sheep have sharp
horns rising out of their thick skulls, and Pachycephalosaurus had
nasty-looking knobs projecting from the back of its domed head. H. erectus
had none of these offensive adaptations. Modern human beings tend to fight
with their hands, and (leaving out gunshots) almost all cases of serious or
lethal trauma inflicted during nonsexual assaults are to the face and head.
When animals compete over mates or rank (which often amounts to the same
thing), their combat tends to fall within certain instinctively understood
limits. Nowadays, of course, violence among modern humans can be
unrestrained, both in intergroup conflict (warfare) and between members of
the same group. But some forms of human violence remain culturally
circumscribed. In Western society, duels were historically carried out with
matched weapons, and boxers (even fistfighters) follow the dictates of
"clean" fighting. Among the Yanomami of Venezuela and Brazil, violence is
traditionally limited, despite their reputation as "the fierce people." As
the anthropologist Kenneth Good and the writer David Chanoff report in their
book Into the Heart: One Man's Pursuit of Love and Knowledge Among the
Yanomami:
When a situation really got heated, the men of two lineages or two villages
might get involved in chest-pounding matches, where individuals took turns
giving and receiving punches, either open-handed or with closed
fists-depending on the level of anger. . . . A step up the scale were club
fights, where antagonists traded blows to the top of the head with
eight-foot-long staves. Often they carried the scars of these duels for
life. But this too was ritualized violence, a substitute for deadly
bloodshed.
A particularly instructive example comes from nineteenth-century
ethnographic reports of Australian Aboriginal groups, particularly for
central and southeastern Australia. Men or women who "had a bone to pick"
with another group member followed a code for resolving the conflict. They
challenged their adversary to a duel with a combination club and throwing
stick called a nulla-nulla. Once the bout began, it continued until one of
the combatants won by knock-out or TKO-that is, until the adversary was
disabled and could not continue.
Peter Brown, a paleoanthropologist at the University of New England in
Armidale, Australia, has investigated skull thickness in modern and
historical Australian Aboriginal populations, whose cranial bones are the
thickest of any living H. sapiens. In a sample of 430 Aboriginal crania,
Brown found evidence of healed depressed fractures on the frontal or
parietal bones in 59 percent of the female crania and in 37 percent of male
crania. Depressed fractures occurred in these people and they survived;
undoubtedly, many others did not. His findings led Brown to hypothesize that
the thick skull vaults of the Aboriginals may have evolved as a consequence
of the traditional method for settling conflicts.
A similar explanation may account for the evolution of pachyostosis and
other unique features that strengthened the H. erectus skull. We are
reasonably confident that the distinct anatomical features, as well as the
healed fractures that have been preserved in the fossil record, are
primarily a response to violence within the species. We can only speculate
about whether the violence involved ritualized fights with clubs or rocks
among hot-headed young males competing over females, or instead revolved
around other kinds of conflict. But we would lay bets that, as in many other
species, we are detecting the results of sexual selection.
If H. sapiens evolved from H. erectus, why don't we, too, have thickened
cranial bones? If modern children had thicker skulls, for instance,
significantly smaller numbers of them would suffer serious head injuries
when they crash on bicycles, skateboards, and snowboards. Theoretically, a
species could have both a commodious skull to house an enlarged brain and a
thick, heavily armored skull for protection. But reality steps in when the
weight of such a structure has to be supported and balanced atop the spine.
Cranial bone may have become thinner in modern humans simply to reduce skull
weight.
Theoretically, a species could have both a commodious skull to house an
enlarged brain and a thick, heavily armored skull for protection. But
reality steps in when the weight of such a structure has to be supported and
balanced atop the spine. Cranial bone may have become thinner in modern
humans simply to reduce skull weight.

Another possible explanation comes out of the work of Dean Falk, an
anthropologist at Florida State University, in Tallahassee. Falk argues that
the heat generated by the enlarged human brain became an important factor in
evolution. She hypothesizes that the pattern of venous blood drainage in the
head became reorganized in order to cool the brain. Many small holes known
as emissary foramina pierce the skull, enabling veins to transport blood
from the scalp into the venous sinuses. This blood, cooled at the surface by
sweat evaporating from the scalp, then enters the skull to help cool the
brain.
Falk discovered that emissary foramina are much more common in large-brained
Homo species than they are in the earlier, small-brained hominids known as
australopithecines [See "A Good Brain Is Hard to Cool," by Dean Falk,
Natural History, August 1993]. Falk's hypothesis is still debated, but we
think it could explain why skulls became thinner as modern humans evolved: a
thick skull would have presented a far greater obstacle to penetration by
the delicate, low-pressure emissary veins.
Thus was defensive armor reduced, as H. sapiens evolved a larger, more
globular, thin-walled skull. Human violence by no means ended, but other
means of protection from trauma or avoidance of attack, or both, were
evolved by the descendants of H. erectus. Almost certainly, those
adaptations were no longer primarily biological but cultural. Culture was to
become the hallmark of our species.
Noel T. Boaz and Russell L. Ciochon met thirty years ago, when they were
both graduate students in paleoanthropology at the University of California,
Berkeley. Their interests in Homo erectus fossils from the Chinese site of
Longgushan have brought them back together. Their new book, Dragon Bone
Hill: An Ice-Age Saga of Homo erectus, is being published this month by
Oxford University Press. Boaz is a professor of anatomy at the Ross
University School of Medicine, in the Commonwealth of Dominica. Ciochon is a
professor of anthropology at the University of Iowa in Iowa City.
Copyright © Natural History Magazine, Inc., 2004

--- In AAT@yahoogroups.com, "Marc Verhaegen" <fa204466@s...> wrote:
> > I think the "real" one caused bipedalism,

> > so I have to think it preceded all the bipedal species. The
> descendants of
> the resultant last-common-bipedal ancestor diversified and bushed
> out and
> most branches became extinct. Maybe early Homo came from a branch
> of that
> family that stayed near the coasts and became more adept at living
> on marine
> resources and so flourished when some of its cousins were beset by
> some crisis inland - drought, or something.

         This is exactly what I am thinking. I would say that we
stayed at coast, while others went inland, making deforestation by
using of fire. The ones that stayed at rocky coast, became better
at rock manipulation, and acquired much better language. Which, in
turn, led to development of tools. -- Mario

Frank writes:
>>I suppose it would be provitable to create a word for what is
orgasm-stimulating contact, but not sex. I'm not a fundamentalist,
but there is reason for the assumption, that using a condom averts
sex. Also the pill.<<

I am scratching my head in wonderment....how does a condom or the pill avert
sex?  The advertized benefit of both a condom or the pill is to be able to enjoy
sex without the worry
of producing a child.  Ah, are you claiming the meaning of sex differs for
different ethnic groups?
Could me.  Margaret Mead and her Samoan subjects had very different meanings for
the word.
Sex to a Puritan surely differed from that of a British aristocrat,  a French
chantreuse, or an American cabaret singer.  What I've discovered in my language
studies is that given enough time, meanings for words usually can end up "upside
down".  Word definition is truly time and location dependent.

Gerry


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

> > > I think the "real" one caused bipedalism, so I have to think it
preceded all the bipedal species. The descendants of the resultant
last-common-bipedal ancestor diversified and bushed out and most branches
became extinct. Maybe early Homo came from a branch of that family that
stayed near the coasts and became more adept at living on marine resources
and so flourished when some of its cousins were beset by some crisis
inland - drought, or something. --Elaine

>         This is exactly what I am thinking. I would say that we stayed at
coast, while others went inland, making deforestation by using of fire. The
ones that stayed at rocky coast, became better at rock manipulation, and
acquired much better language. Which, in turn, led to development of
tools. -- Mario

A (semi)aquatic life (alone) didn't cause bipedalism:
- no (semi)aquatic species is bipedal,
- most bipedal spp are not (semi)aquatic (exceptions: penguins,
flamingoes...).

--Marc

>>Any subspecies, frank. -Marc

>:Please explain a little more. What are subspecies.

A classic example is a species of birds (forgot which - ?seagull) that lives
far north: Scandinavia>N.Russia>Siberia>Alaska>Canada>Island>Scandinavia.
Each subspecies can produce viable offspring with its neighbours, so
according to the usual definition, they belong to the same species, but at
one point there are 2 populations, one can mix with its neighbours to the
east, the other with its neighbours to the west, but the 2 can't mix with
each other (IOW, they're 2 different spp).

An excellent book on speciation etc. is M.Schilthuizen 2002 "Frogs, flies &
dandelions" Oxford UP.

--Marc

> Suspensory behaviour is an inheritance from arboreal life and needs no
other explanation.

It does: simply-arboreal isn't enough to explain why some are above & other
below-branch.

> That triple combination is not universal in apes nor exclusive to them.
Gibbons do not have the large size.

Yes.  2 possibilities: they reduced size after the split (still have
unexpectedly long gestation periods) or the hominoid was no larger than a
gibbon (well possible: early hominoids, like sloths, only entered to water
to swim to other trees surrounded by water in the flooded season - great
hominoids later spent more time in water).

> Barbary "apes" are not apes but are tailless.

Yes. Several macaque spp have short tails, esp. the trans-water forms
(Celebes & Gibraltar): apparently early Macaca followed the Med & Ind.Ocean
coasts (they're good swimmers & even divers), not bipedally like early Homo,
but quadrupedally (macaques are the only cercopithecines outside Africa).

> Tail loss is not the rule in aquatic mammals; tail growth or adaptation is
just as common. Elaine

Yes. The problem is: why do fast arboreals (gibbons) lose the tail -very
illogical (New World brachiators have long tails). This is easily explained
by parttime wading (or even only seasonal swimming to other trees surrounded
by water).

Elaine, evolution is gradual: nothing appears ex machina: if an arboreal
mammal (primate) becomes partly aquatic (human ancestors), there has to be
an intermediate phase with both trees & water. Very logical, only 1 problem
is: why did they all lost most of the aquatic part of their lifestyle? Well,
this is not unexpected in cooling & drying times (Ice Ages).

Best wishes

--Marc

Y'all trying to give a new meaning to "wet apes"?

Geraldine Reinhardt <waluk@...> wrote:Frank writes:
>>I suppose it would be provitable to create a word for what is
orgasm-stimulating contact, but not sex. I'm not a fundamentalist,
but there is reason for the assumption, that using a condom averts
sex. Also the pill.<<

I am scratching my head in wonderment....how does a condom or the pill avert
sex?  The advertized benefit of both a condom or the pill is to be able to enjoy
sex without the worry
of producing a child.  Ah, are you claiming the meaning of sex differs for
different ethnic groups?
Could me.  Margaret Mead and her Samoan subjects had very different meanings for
the word.
Sex to a Puritan surely differed from that of a British aristocrat,  a French
chantreuse, or an American cabaret singer.  What I've discovered in my language
studies is that given enough time, meanings for words usually can end up "upside
down".  Word definition is truly time and location dependent.

Gerry


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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Thanks Marc for bringing it to our attention. I've just borrowed a copy.
Meehan, who lived with the Gidjingali people, part of the Anbarra group, who
inhabit areas around the mouth of the Blyth River in the Northern Territory,
details their shell gathering activities and assesses the part that
shellfish plays in the total diet of the people. She concludes: "There can
be no doubt that shellfish, especially those from the open seabeds, and
Tapes hiantina in particular, occupy a special place in Anbarra culture
which is not due soley to their nutritional content. It is in the wider
cultural context that the real significance of shellfish in Anbarra economy
can be fully appreciated, a significance that may help to give some insight
into the fact that they are so constantly represented as a food source of
ancient coastal hunters."

Shell midden remains are a common feature of the landscape in this part of
Northern Australia. Meehan describes three different types of midden; those
that the local people were able to point to as being certain types of camps
(eg "rain-time camps") used by particular people in the past who can be
identified; those that were inhabited by "dead men" (these were essentially
the same as the first type, only the names of the people who had used them
were either not known or not able to be said); the third type of midden were
known as dreaming mounds, and these were said to be made not by men but by
dreaming ancestors. These dreaming mounds, measuring anything up to 5m high
and 30m in diameter, are found at least a km inland from the coast and are
associated with fossil dunes. According to Meehan these dreaming mounds are
"markedly different" to the contemporary middens as well as those attributed
to "dead men", not only in their structure but in the frequencies of
shellfish types. "From their geomorphological positions and the fact that
they are no longer remembered as camps of men," writes Meehan "I believe
that the 'Dreaming' mounds are considerably older than the 'dead men sites'
and are related to the exploitation of a coastline that is different to the
present one."

Its a very interesting book Marc, I've still got a lot to read. Thanks again
for bringing it to our attention.

Stephen.



>From: "Marc Verhaegen" <marc.verhaegen@...>
>Reply-To: AAT@yahoogroups.com
>To: "Stephen Munro" <u3372190@...>, <AAT@yahoogroups.com>
>Subject: [AAT] Shell bed to shell midden
>Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2004 22:10:12 +0100
>
>Betty Meehan 1982 "Shell bed to shell midden"  Canberra: Australian
>Institute of Aboriginal Studies 189p.
>
>Anybody has read this book?
>
>--Marc
>
>

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J.Burger cs.2004
Molecular phylogeny of the extinct cave lion Panthera leo spelaea.
Molecular Phylogenetics & Evolution 30:841-9

To reconstruct the phylogenetic position of the extinct cave lion (Panthera
leo spelaea), we sequenced 1 kb of the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene from
two Pleistocene cave lion DNA samples (47 and 32 ky B.P.). Phylogenetic
analysis shows that the ancient sequences form a clade that is most closely
related to the extant lions from Africa and Asia; at the same time, cave
lions appear to be highly distinct from their living relatives. Our data
show that these cave lion sequences represent lineages that were isolated
from lions in Africa and Asia since their dispersal over Europe about 600 ky
B.P., as they are not found among our sample of extant populations. The cave
lion lineages presented here went extinct without mitochondrial descendants
on other continents. The high sequence divergence in the cytochrome b gene
between cave and modern lions is notable.