I just sent thsi to prof.Zeller:
Dear professor Zeller & all co-authors,
I just read your very interesting article in Science,
"Human adaptation to diverse biomes over the past 3 million years".
I tried to send a comment, but it failed
therefore I sent something like this to sci.anthropology.paleo:
Retroviral data confirm our Pliocene ancestors were not in Africa
(Yohn CT cs 2005 PLoS Biol 3:1-11, Benveniste & Todaro 1976 Nature 261:101) Your article tries to describe where "hominins" lived,
but using the word "hominin" already shows the prejudiced assumption that apiths were closer relatives of Homo than of Pan or Gorilla,
but detailed anatomical comparisons leave little doubt:
apiths were fossil relatives of Gorilla (E.Africa) or Pan (S.Africa initially), as shown in a lot of publications by different authors
(google e.g. "WHATtalk verhaegen").
Pliocene Homo simply followed the S.Asian coasts -> SE.Asia Java: early-Pleist.Java H.erectus cs were found amid marine & freshwater molluscs, e.g.
-Chemeron KNM-BC1 early Homo: ‘The Fish Beds […] seem to be almost entirely lacustrine and fluviatile; fish remains are abundant […] Molluscs also lived in the lake, and locally their remains accumulate to form shelly limestones’ (Martyn & Tobias
1967).
-Turkana Boy KNM-WT 15000 H.erectus: ‘Mammalian fossils are rare at this locality, the most abundant vertebrate fossils being parts of small and large fish. The depositional environment was evidently an alluvial plain of low relief […] Typical
lacustrine forms (for example, ostracods, molluscs) could invade the area […] The only other fauna found so far in the fossiliferous bed are many opercula of the swamp snail Pila, a few bones of the catfish Synodontis and two fragments of indeterminate
large mammal bone […]’ (Brown cs1985).
-Mojokerto H.erectus: ‘The basal part of the Putjangan Beds is composed of volcanic breccias containing marine and freshwater molluscs. The rest of the Putjangan Beds is composed of black clays of lacustrine origin’ (Ninkovich & Burckle 1987).
-Peking H.erectus: ‘A big river and possibly a lake were located to the east and contained various water species; along the shorelines grew reeds and plants, which were home for buffalo, deer, otters, beavers and other animals’ (Poirier 1978); ‘[…
] accumulation in quiet water. The cave at this time was probably the locus of ponded water and was probably more open to the atmosphere’ (Weiner cs 1998).
-Hopefield, Rabat & Terra Amata: H.erectus fossils came from sandstone made up from dune sand resting upon a former sea beach (De Lumley, 1990). In Terra Amata, ‘there are also indications that the inhabitants ate oysters, mussels and limpets –
shells of which are present. The presence of fish bones and fish vertebrae indicate that the population also fished’ (Poirier 1987).
Modern insight in ape & human evolution:
1) apiths=Afr.ape ancestors, google "WHATtalk verhaegen".
2) Plio-Pleist.Homo evolution biologically:
-wading-climbing Pliocene hominids, google "aquarboreal",
-wading-diving early-Plest.Homo, google "pachyosteosclerosis",
-wading-walking late-Pleist.Homo, googl "gonwanatalks verhaegen".
The traditional assumption that Plio-Pleistocenecene human ancestors were regular hunters is ridiculous:
e.g. humans have poor olfaction and evolved vulnerable fleshy noses...
Our large brain (DHA), fur loss, SC fat layer etc. leave no doubt: we were waterside.
In fact, H.erectus was pachy-osteo-sclerotic, which is exclusvely seen in tetrapods that frequently dive for shallow-aquatic foods, in the case of H.erectus no doubt incl.shellfish, see e.g. shellfish engravings (google "Joordens Munro"), island
colonizations (Flores 18 km oversea) etc.
When will paleo-anthropologists accept what is biologically obvious?
Homo ancestors have always been waterside!
With best wishes --marc verhaegen
_____
Op woensdag 14 juni 2023 om 07:21:57 UTC+2 schreef Primum Sapienti:
littor...@gmail.com wrote:
Op zaterdag 13 mei 2023 om 08:11:01 UTC+2 schreef Primum Sapienti:
https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.abq1288
Early humans and their hominin relatives had to
adapt to new environments to spread out of Africa. ...
:-DDD
Plio-Pleist.Homo lived along the S-Asian coasts.
Traditional paleo-anthropology is incredibly wrong in at least 4 instances:
-- it was not "out of Africa"! it was out of the Red Sea" & "out of southern Asia",
-- early-Miocene Hominoidea were already "bipedal" sensu "aquarboreal",
-- S.Afr.australopiths = fossil relatives of Pan, E-Afr.apiths of Gorilla, not Homo,
-- Plio-Pleistocene Homo were no savanna hunters, but followed coasts & rivers.
Google e.g. – aquarboreal – GondwanaTalks verhaegen – WHATtalk verhaegen
Read the paper and note the figures showing distribution. You're
wrong on all counts https://www.iris.unina.it/retrieve/5e8471b9-cfd8-442c-8bb2-ff5c0dc7c989/science.abq1288.pdf
Zeller et al., Science 380, 604–608 (2023) 12 May 2023
Abstract
To investigate the role of vegetation and ecosystem
diversity on hominin adaptation and migration,
we identify past human habitat preferences over
time using a transient 3-million-year earth
system-biome model simulation and an extensive
hominin fossil and archaeological database. Our
analysis shows that early African hominins
predominantly lived in open environments such as
grassland and dry shrubland. Migrating into Eurasia,
hominins adapted to a broader range of biomes over
time. By linking the location and age of hominin
sites with corresponding simulated regional biomes,
we also find that our ancestors actively selected
for spatially diverse environments. The quantitative
results lead to a new diversity hypothesis: Homo
species, in particular Homo sapiens, were specially
equipped to adapt to landscape mosaics.
Figure 1 shows locations where the various hominin species
have been found.
Figure 3 is especially interesting for the hominin
preferences in Africa and Asia over time...
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