Early Man

Sean D. Pitman, M.D.

Updated October 2005

Introduction

Taking isolated similarities by themselves, the theory of evolution appears to be

quite reasonable... to a point. However, it seems that too much weight has been placed
on similarities without questioning the differences. To the embarrassment of many a
very intelligent man and woman of science, overly confident conclusions and arrogant
statements have been made based on such similarities that have, on occasion, turned
out to be not only wrong, but painfully wrong. It is fine to hypothesize that similarities
between different creatures are the result of common ancestry, but since such
similarities have been and are often conflicting when compared with other features, it
might be prudent to hold back a little when making conclusions about any sort of definite
taxonomic classification model or even relationship. The conclusions that are drawn
from the evidence are often and have often been very much exaggerated to fit personal
beliefs and biases. Yes, even scientists have biases and favorite theories. No one, not
even a scientist, likes to see a theory that has cost a great deal of money and much of
one's personal time and effort, go up in smoke. So, some caution might be in order
before even long established theories are accepted as the "gospel truth", especially
when some of the most famous scientists in the field start to question their own life's
work.
In considering the theory of human evolution it is interesting to note that some very
well known scientists have actually suggested that the line of human evolution is far
from clear. For example, in 1990, Richard Leakey himself said that, "If pressed about
man's ancestry, I would have to unequivocally say that all we have is a huge question
mark. To date, there has been nothing found to truthfully purport as a transitional specie
to man, including Lucy, since 1470 was as old and probably older. If further pressed, I
would have to state that there is more evidence to suggest an abrupt arrival of man
rather than a gradual process of evolving." 10 Mary Leakey also said pretty much the
same thing just before her death at the age of 83. Although Leakey was convinced that
man had evolved from ape-like ancestors, she was equally convinced that scientists will
never be able to prove a particular scenario of human evolution. Three months before
her death, she said in an interview, "All these trees of life with their branches of our
ancestors, that's a lot of nonsense." 60
Biases are of course part of human nature. No one is immune from bias. However,
bias should at least be admitted. As it is, popular sciences often refuse to admit that
there are significant limitations to the evolutionary interpretations that are given out to
the public as "gospel truth." Consider the evidence for yourself and judge if popular
science has not and is not overstepping itself when it comes to its conclusions on "Early
Man."

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Early Goofs
o Piltdown Man
o Nebraska Man
• In The Right Ballpark
o Ramapithecus lufagensis
o Australopithecus africanus
o Australopithecus aferensis - - LUCY
o Homo habilis
o KNM-ER 1470
o Turkana Boy
o Peking Man
o Java Man
o Neanderthals

• Semicircular Canals
• Fontéchevade Cave
 • The Dating Game
• Ancient Bones with Modern Bones?
• Modern Footprints in Ancient Ash?
• The Current Understanding of Human Evolution - A
Subjective Mess
• Key Human-Ape Differences

• General Observations

• Human Stature, Facial Features and Skull Capacity

Home Page

Piltdown Man --
Eanthropus dawsoni or
"dawn man." Discovered in
1912 by Charles Dawson, a
medical doctor and amateur
paleontologist. Dawson
found a mandible and a
small piece of a skull in a gravel pit near Piltdown
England. The jawbone was ape-like but the teeth
had human characteristics. The skull piece was very
human-like. These two specimens were combined to form dawn man, which was
supposedly 500,000 years old. However, the whole thing turned out to be an elaborate
hoax. The skull was indeed human (about 500 years old) but the jaw was that of a
modern ape whose teeth had been filed to look like human wear. The success of this
hoax for almost 40 years is pretty impressive. However, had the original bones been
available for study, this hoax would probably not have continued for as long as it did. It
was not until 38 years after the bones had been "found" that the hoax was exposed. In
1953 Kenneth Oakley, Joseph Weiner and Wilfred Le Gros Clark exposed the fact that
Piltdown Man was a hoax.1
Of course many scientists love to predict the discussion of
Piltdown Man by those who are doubtful of evolution. But why
shouldn't the Piltdown Man hoax be discussed? The success of
the Piltdown Man hoax gives us an interesting look into human
nature. It cannot be denied as a very embarrassing hoax that
tricked even the scientific community for decades. It is readily
admitted that many scientists believed in Piltdown Man
wholeheartedly and made some rather foolish statements
concerning the meaning of this "find." It is also admitted that
Piltdown Man's general acceptance as a "missing link" was due to the fact that it
matched the prevailing opinion of the time as to what such as missing link would look
like. Of course, the argument is that many scientists of the day did not think too much
of Piltdown Man since many did not think that the cranium and the jaw were from the
same creature. But still, it is interesting to note that no one suspected the hoax despite
"close inspection" of the specimen for almost 40 years. Other arguments contend that
the differences from other fossil hominids are said to have turned Piltdown Man into a
puzzling anomaly well before the hoax was discovered and, that by the time the hoax
was revealed, most scientists were rather relieved to be finally rid of Piltdown Man.
Even if this is true, the success of such an apparently obvious hoax seems quite
impressive indeed.
So obviously, the point of including the Piltdown Man hoax in this discussion is to
show that even scientists are, or at least have been, capable and possibly even willing
to overlook something if it matches their preconceived ideas. (Back to Top)
Nebraska Man -- Hesperopithecus
haroldcookii was discovered in 1922 in
the Pliocene deposits of Nebraska by
Mr. Cook and made famous by Henry
Osborn of the American Museum of
Natural History. There was an attempt to
use this tooth at the Scopes "monkey"
trial in 1925 as evidence of the animal
ancestry of man. However, it was
declared inadmissible by the judge.
Even so, since William Jennings Bryan,
former Secretary of State and a special
prosecutor in the case, was himself from
the state of Nebraska, Osborn chided him about Nebraska Man in the press: "The earth
spoke to Bryan from his own state of Nebraska. The Hesperopithecus tooth is like the
still, small voice. Its sound is by no means easy to hear ----. This little tooth speaks
volumes of truth, in that it affords evidence of man's descent from the ape." 10 An
illustration of Nebraska Man and his wife was published in the Illustrated London News
(see illustration, printed June 24, 1922) . . . All from a tooth! When other parts of the
skeleton were found in 1927, it quickly became clear that it was nothing more than the
tooth of an extinct pig (peccary)! 2
 In defense of the scientists of the day, many like to point out that this drawing was
done for a non-scientific popular magazine. It is often claimed that few scientists,
including Osborn, recognized Nebraska Man as anything more than an advanced
primate of some kind. It is also claimed that Osborn specifically avoided making any
extravagant claims about Hesperopithecus being an ape-man or any sort of human
ancestor. To support this contention, Osborn is quoted as saying, "I have not stated that
Hesperopithecus was either an Ape-man or in the direct line of human ancestry,
because I consider it quite possible that we may discover anthropoid apes (Simiidae)
with teeth closely imitating those of man (Hominidae),... Until we secure more of the
dentition, or parts of the skull or of the skeleton, we cannot be certain whether
Hesperopithecus is a member of the Simiidae or of the Hominidae." 41 The fact of the
matter is, however, that Osborn did believe that the Hesperopithecus tooth was clear
evidence of human evolution from apes. If he did not believe this, then why did he
chide Bryan by saying, "This little tooth speaks volumes of truth, in that it affords
evidence of man's descent from the ape."? Of course, in retrospect, this statement of
Osborn looks rather silly, seeing as how "Hesperopithecus" turned out to be nothing
more than the tooth of a pig.
However, even if Osborn made some foolish statements about Nebraska Man, the
claim is that most other scientists of the day did not even think that the Nebraska Man
tooth was from a primate at all. In fact, the tooth was generally dismissed and had a
negligible effect on the scientific thinking of the day. This is a strange conclusion
considering the fact that a published picture of Nebraska Man in a popular and
"respectable" news magazine did not raise very much objection from the scientific
community of the day. The reply to this argument is often an appeal to a disclaimer that
was published below the picture detailing the speculative nature of the picture.

"Mr. Forestier has made a remarkable sketch to convey some idea of the possibilities
suggested by this discovery. As we know nothing of the creature's form, his
reconstruction is merely the expression of an artist's brilliant imaginative genius. But if,
as the peculiarities of the tooth suggest, Hesperopithecus was a primitive forerunner of
42
Pithecanthropus, he may have been a creature such as Mr. Forestier has depicted."
 I dare say that this disclaimer comment did not disclaim enough! The comment
itself is very suggestive of the prevailing notion that Nebraska Man was in fact an
ancestral hominid. That is a very far cry from an ancestral pig. Osborn himself
commented on Forestier's drawing by saying:

"Such a drawing or 'reconstruction' would doubtless be only a figment of the

43
imagination, of no scientific value, and undoubtedly inaccurate."

Little did Osborn know exactly how inaccurate it would turn out to be.

Beyond this, few understand the racially motivated nature of Osborn's ideas.
Osborn firmly believed that certain human races were evolutionarily superior to other
races.

"The Negroid stock is even more ancient than the Caucasian and Mongolian, as may
be proved by an examination not only of the brain, of the hair, of the bodily characters,
such as the teeth, the genitalia, the sense organs, but of the instincts, the intelligence.
The standard intelligence of the average adult Negro is similar to that of the eleven-
year-old youth of the species Homo sapiens." 76

Consider such statements in light of the fact that Osborn's "intelligence" led him to
use a single tooth as clear evidence of the evolution of humans from apes - a tooth
which was later shown to be nothing more than a pig's tooth!

Many try to play down the Nebraska Man discovery and the influence that it was
given by science and popular culture. However, the amazing thing is that the Nebraska
Man tooth got any attention whatsoever and that such extravagant claims were ever
made for it by anyone as respectable and intelligent as Osborn was. (Back to Top)
Getting it in the Right Ballpark - Sort of . . .
(Back to Top)

Ramapithecus lufengensis --
Ramapithecus, thought by popular scientists
to have lived between 12 and 14 million
years ago, was first discovered in southwest
Kenya by Louis Leakey in 1932. At that time,
all that was found were a few teeth and some fragments of the
upper jaw or maxilla. Leakey assembled these fragments so that
they fortuitously resembled the parabolically arched shape of a
human jaw (apes have a more U-shaped form).
Because of this human-like maxillary shape and what were
thought to be "human-like" teeth characteristics, this creature was long believed to be
the first branch from a line of apes that eventually evolved into modern humans. Many
drawings in various scientific publications, textbooks, and newspapers, show
Ramapithecus walking pretty much upright based on these relatively few fragments of
maxilla and a few teeth. One might think that the lesson of Nebraska Man would be
remembered . . . but they weren't. Popular scientists through the late 1970s continued
to actively promote Ramapithecus as one of the early human ancestors.
Noted scientist Dr. Elwyn Simons stated confidently, "The pathway can now be
traced with little fear of contradiction from generalized hominids -- to the genus Homo."
The importance of Ramapithecus as an early ancestor of hominids is evident in this
comment by Simons in Time Magazine (Nov. 7, 1977):

"Ramapithecus is ideally structured to be an ancestor of hominids. If he isn't, we

don't have anything else that is."10

Interesting statement . . . But, from what evidence were these conclusions drawn
in the first place? Once again, a few teeth and a portion of maxilla. From these few
fragments many drawings have been made of Ramapithecus walking upright? Go
figure?
Of course, not everyone was so confident. That is why the almost exuberant
confidence of Simons and his peers in the human ancestry of Ramapithecus is more
than a bit surprising. For example, a study by Dr. Robert Eckhardt, which appeared in
an earlier issue (1972) of Scientific American seemed to be quite problematic.11 What
Eckhardt did was to take 24 different measurements from the teeth of two species of
Dryopithecus (a fossil ape) and one species of Ramapithecus. He compared the range
of variation of these measurements with that of similar measurements taken from a
population of modern chimpanzees. What Eckhardt found was quite interesting indeed.
He found that there is greater variation in the teeth among living chimps than there is
between Dryopithecus and Ramapithecus. This is significant because Ramapithecus
was judged to be an early hominid primarily on the basis of its teeth. Eckhardt
concluded: "There is no compelling evidence for the existence of any distinct hominid
species during this interval (pliocene 14 myo), unless the designation hominid means
simply any individual ape that happens to have small teeth and a corresponding small
face."
Then, in 1976, renowned secular anthropologist Richard Leaky had this to say:
"The case for Ramapithecus as a hominid is not substantial, and the fragments of fossil
material leave many questions open." 9 Given what followed next, I'd say this is yet
another huge understatement.
Despite this physical evidence, the apparently overwhelming desire to see the
world in a certain way allowed most mainstream scientists to come up with all kinds of
amazing things despite having so very little to work with. I mean really, they make CSI
look like child's play! Despite the fact that only a few fragments of Ramapithecus were
available, David Pilbeam, formerly at Yale and now at Harvard University, and Elwyn
Simons, Duke University, both leading paleoanthropologists, strongly championed
Ramapithecus as an early hominid, a creature in the direct
line leading to the evolution of humans. (Simons E. L., Ann.
N. Y. Acad. of Sci, 1969, 167:319; Simons E. L., Sci. Amer,
1964,. 211(1):50; Pilbeam D. R., Nature, 1968, 219:1335;
Simons E. L. & Pilbeam D. R., Science, 1971, 173:23).
Then, in 1977, a little problem surfaced for
Ramapithecus - a full jaw (mandible) was discovered. This jaw bone was U-shaped, not
parabolically shaped.
Zilman and Lowenstein attempt to explain the reason for the earlier thinking of
most of the world most prominent paleoanthropologists:

"Ramapithecus walking upright has been reconstructed from only jaws and teeth.
In 1961 an ancestral human was badly wanted. The prince's ape latched onto position
by his teeth and has been hanging on ever since, his legitimacy sanctified by millions of
textbooks and Time-Life volumes on human evolution." 10
 After the
discovery of
the full
jawbone in
1977, David
Pilbeam
admirably
recanted his
earlier views
commenting
that, "A group
of creatures
once thought
to be our
oldest
ancestors may
have been
firmly bumped
out of the
human family
tree. Many

paleontologists [including David Pilbeam] have maintained that Ramamorphs are our
oldest known ancestors. These conclusions were drawn from little more than a few
jawbones and some teeth. Truthfully, it appears to be nothing more than an orangutan
ancestor."3
 Isn't it interesting that Pilbeam was so convinced before the jawbone discovery that
Ramapithecus was indeed an early human ancestor, despite the very limited material,
when only after the jawbone discovery does he seem to recognize the limited nature of
what he really did have to work with.
Currently, the general view of science is that Ramapithecus was nothing more than
an ancestor of the modern orangutan or even of a third lineage which has no modern
survivor.70 Note the following conclusion published in a 1981 Science Digest article: "A
reinterpretation of this jaw now suggests that Ramapithecus was an ancestor of neither
modern humans or modern apes. Instead, Pilbeam himself thinks it represents a third
lineage that has no living descendants."
What is interesting though is that even in relatively recent times Ramapithecus was
widely considered an evolutionary link between apes and man. This opinion was
strongly held and taught as unquestionable fact in public schools for many years, and is
still being taught in some places based on what is now thought to be, not so many years
later, very poor evidence. Such is the power of a prevailing paradigm to make one
believe in just about any story that "fits" regardless of the quality of the evidence
presented. (Back to Top)

Australopithecus africanus -- The word

"Australopithecus" means "southern ape." This name is
used because the first fossils were found in South Africa.
Dr. Raymond Dart, professor of anatomy at
Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg, was the first
to study these fossils. In 1924 at Taung in South Africa,
Dart discovered a fossil skull consisting of a full face,
teeth and jaws, and an endocranial cast of the brain.
The brain size was 410cc. Its age is currently felt to be around two to three million
years old. Dart was convinced that some teeth were man-like and thus concluded a
transition between apes and man. His opinions on the matter of this particular skull
were largely scorned by the scientists of this time (1924) who considered it nothing
more than a young chimpanzee (now considered to be about three years of age). The
skull was soon known derisively as "Dart's baby." 10 Sir Solly Zuckerman, an expert
on australopithecines, commented that, "There is indeed no question what the
australopithecine skull resembles when placed side by side with specimens of humans
and living ape skulls. It is the ape so much so that only detailed and close scrutiny can
reveal any difference between modern ape and Australopithecus." 4 This opinion was
generally held by scientists until the mid-1940's when similar skulls were found. Dart
had made his discovery during the time that Piltdown Man was widely accepted as a
human ancestor. With Piltdown Man's human cranium and apelike jaw, it was hard to
reconcile it to the Taung Child. Then in the 1930's Peking Man became famous, again
overshadowing Dart and
his Taung Child. Although
Dart gave up fossil hunting
for some time, all was not
lost.
Years after the
discovery of the "Taungs
child", as it is known today,
Dart and Broom found
other Australopithecines at
Kromdraii, Swartkrans and
Makapansgat. These finds
of similar creatures
seemed to vindicate Dart
and Broom, and the
scientific community again
accepted their finds as
they do today. These new fossil Australopithecines seemed to show two parallel lines of
development, one being a small "gracile" (slender) type and the other a larger "robust"
type. Much controversy has existed regarding these types and some investigators,
including Richard Leakey, have concluded that they represent merely the male and
female of the same species while others say the gracile form, which is believed to be
older, evolved into the robust form. Today these animals are known as Australopithecus
africanus and Australopithecus robustus respectively. The latter is clearly heavier, has
more massive jaws, and a pronounced sagital crest. All these traits are typical of
sexual dimorphism in male apes. What is also felt to be a more human trait is that
foramen magnum (the opening in the skull above the attachment of the spinal column)
in Australopithecines seems to be placed in an intermediate forward position between
that of modern apes and man. Although not as far forward as in man, this more forward
position is felt to indicate a more upright posture for the Australopithecines.
The australopithecines have often been found in association with other animals,
such as baboons, and often show evidence of bashed-in skulls. Tools in the form of
clubs, knives, and choppers have been found in association, as well as evidence of fire.
It might be attractive to assume that the Australopithecines had been the hunters and
butchers except that some of their skulls were broken in as well. Were they then the
hunters or the hunted? An American journalist
met up with Dart who convinced him that the
Australopithecines were actually hunting one
another. The journalist, Robert Ardrey wrote a
book, African Genesis, which popularized the
view of the "killer ape." This view was even
used in the movie, "2001, A Space Odyssey."
Although the view did reach a mild degree of
popularity, it has since been widely discredited.
10
It does seem rather hard to imagine how
such primitive creatures could actually make all
those weapons and use fire as well. Not bad
for a primitive man who is still not yet walking completely upright and has a head the
size of a chimp (less than 500cc max).
Although modern scientists do generally accept that Australopithecines had a
generally upright gait and human-like posture, this notion has not gone uncontested.
Although evolutionists predictably discount Zuckerman's work, arguing that it is no
longer accepted (further discussion of such arguments a few paragraphs below), one
must still at least consider the fact that in the 1950s the famous British anatomist, Lord
Solly Zuckerman, aggressively rejected the notion that Australopithecines are closely
related to humans and completely discounted the notion that they walked upright like
humans. Rather, Zuckerman suggested that they be classified as apes, not hominids
(Evolution as a Process, 1954):

"There is, indeed, no question which the Australopithecine skull

resembles when placed side by side with specimens of human and
living ape skulls. It is the ape - so much so that only detailed and
close scrutiny can reveal any differences between them".

As for the notion of "bipedal posture", Zuckerman said:

"In short, the evidence for an erect posture, as derived from a

study of the inanimate bones, seems anything but certain."

Anatomist Dr. Charles Oxnard of the University of Chicago, who's work modern
evolutionists also reject (see below), claimed in a paper published in a 1975 edition of
Nature that:

"Multivariate studies of several anatomical regions, shoulder,

pelvis, ankle, foot, elbow, and hand are now available for the
australopithecines. These suggest that the common view, that
these fossils are similar to modern man, may be incorrect. Most of
the fossil fragments are in fact uniquely different from both man
 and man's nearest living genetic relatives, the chimpanzee and
gorilla (Nature 258:389).

Neither of these investigators, who have spent much of their professional careers
studying the Australopithecines, believed that Australopithecines walked upright or that
they were generally bipedal. Some have suggested that both Australopithecus africanus
and robustus were simply an evolutionary dead end - not ancestral to man.
However, many evolutionists, such as those that frequent Talk.Origins, argue that,
"Howell et al. (1978) criticized this conclusion [of Charles Oxnard] on a number of
grounds. Oxnard's results were based on measurements of a few skeletal bones which
were usually fragmentary and often poorly preserved. The measurements did not
describe the complex shape of some bones, and did not distinguish between aspects
which are important for understanding locomotion from those which were not. Finally,
there is 'an overwhelming body of evidence', based on the work of nearly 30 scientists,
which contradicts Oxnard's work. These studies used a variety of techniques, including
those used by Oxnard, and were based on many different body parts and joint
complexes. They overwhelmingly indicate that australopithecines resemble humans
more closely than the living apes."
Perhaps the most significant problem with this argument (discussed in more detail
below in the section on "Lucy") comes in the form of Fred Spoor's very interesting
computed tomography scan (CT-scan) analysis (1990s) of the preserved inner ear
canals of Australopithecus africanus and robustus. Inner ear canals are used to
determine orientation in space. In other words, their orientation can be used determine
the position of the head and posture. Spoor compared the canals of many living
primates, to include humans, with many "hominid" fossils. As it turns out, the canals of
Australopithecus africanus and robustus are most similar to the great apes - not modern
humans. Spoor and his associates concluded that this finding was consistent with the
idea that these creatures were at least partly arboreal and that they "did not walk
habitually upright."
Of course, Spoor still believed them to be partly bipedal as well, but suggested that
his findings proved that these "hominids" were not obligatory bipeds as humans are, but
were instead part-time bipeds at best - certainly not nearly as accomplished at
bipedalism as are humans. For example, they would have had a very hard time running
on two legs - as is true for apes today.44,65
Consider that this labyrinth evidence goes completely counter to several long-
accepted assumptions based on much weaker morphologic characteristics. In fact, this
evidence speaks directly counter to the position that H. habilis is a "missing link" -
intermediate in the evolution of bipedalism between australopithecines and H. erectus -
actually supporting the positions of Zuckerman and Oxnard. Spoor also found extreme
differences in the labyrinthine morphology between SK 847 and Stw 53. These two
specimens were both classified in the H. habilis species group. However, according to
Spoor, SK 847 has a "modern-human-like labyrinth" while "Stw 53 relied less upon
bipedal behavior than the australopithecines." 44,65
Talk about confusion! This CT-scan evidence is far more objective than the
measurements done by Howell and his colleagues, and it throws their conclusions on
their head where many of the previous notions of hominid evolutionary sequence and
relationship are at best contradictory. These problems are so bad that perhaps we could
write the Australopithecines off entirely as
ancestral to modern man if were it not for the
current love affair with an Australopithecine named
"Lucy." (Back to Top)

Australopithecus afarensis
"LUCY" -- In 1974, Donald
Johanson discovered a half
complete skeleton (Locality A.L.
288; Ethiopia's Awash Valley)
that he named after the Beetle's
song "Lucy in the Sky with
Diamonds" (LSD). The
specimen was only 1.1 meters tall, estimated to
weigh 29 kilograms and look somewhat like a common chimpanzee. A year later,
thirteen similar skeletons were found.
In his book "Lucy, The beginnings of Human Kind," Johanson said: "I had no
problem with Lucy. She was so odd that there was no question about her not being
human. She simply wasn't. She was too little. Her brain was way too small and her
jaw was the wrong shape. Her teeth pointed away from the human condition and back
in the direction of apes. The jaws had the same primitive features." (see jaw illustration
below)
However, what set Lucy apart for Johanson was that it appeared that she had a
tendency to walk in an upright position. A monkey that could do this would, for
Johanson, clearly be some sort of transitional form between apes and man. The reason
for this belief is because Lucy's knee region seemed to match a lone fossilized knee
joint that he had found a year earlier in 1973 (locality numbered A.L. 128/129). The
earlier knee was from a creature that appeared to walk in an upright fashion. Even
though it was located about 2 km away and in a lower strata from that of Lucy, the
match between it and the knee region of Lucy seemed to indicate that both individuals
walked mostly upright. The logic for this assumption is based on the fact that humans,
because of
wider hips
than knees,
have an angle
between the
upper leg
bone (or
femur), and
the lower leg
bone (or tibia).
This angle of
the bones
causes an
angle of about
9 degrees to
form in the
knee joint at
the junctions
of the bones.
An ape that
walks on all fours does not have this angle. Lucy and the australopithecines have an
angle of about 15 degrees. Since this larger angle is somewhat similar to the human
condition, the obvious assumption is that Lucy spent a lot of time walking upright.21
There is just one more interesting fact though. Monkeys that climb trees (ie: orangutans
and spider monkeys etc.) also have an angled knee joint like humans. It is the ground-
dwellers that do not have the angle. So, what happens if Lucy tended to climb trees? Is
there evidence that she did climb trees?
Dave Phillips (a paleoanthropologist) says that A. afarensis in general (Lucy's
classification) has long upper limbs with an arm to leg length ratio of approximately
85%. The toe bones are also curved in an ape-like manner. This characteristic curve is
not seen in human feet. This seems to indicate that A. afarensis did not habitually walk
upright, but rather spent much of their time in trees. Also, studies of the other bones to
include hands, skull (inner ears), and even the teeth indicate a fairly strong similarity to
apes. 45

1. General anatomy of Lucy's shoulder blade was characterized as "virtually

identical to that of a great ape and had a probability less than 0.001 of
coming from the population represented by our modern human sample"
(Susman et al, 1984, pp 120-121)
2. Lucy's shoulder blade has a shoulder joint which points upwards (Oxnard
1984, p334-i; Stern and Susman 1983, p284) This would allow "use of the
upper limb in elevated positions as would be common during climbing
behavior" (Stern and Susman, 1983, p284). 5
3. Afarensis wrist bones are apelike. "Thus we may conclude that A.
afarensis possessed large and mechanically advantageous wrist flexors,
as might be useful in an arboreal setting" (Stern and Susman, 1983,
p282).
4. Afarensis metacarpals [the bones in the palm of the hand] "have large
heads and bases relative to their parallel sided and somewhat curved
shafts an overall pattern shared by chimpanzees". This "might be
interpreted as evidence of developed grasping capabilities to be used in
suspensory behavior" (Stern and Susman 1983, pp 282-3).
5. The finger bones are even more curved than in chimpanzees and are
morphologically chimpanzee-like. (Stern and Susman 1983, pp 282-4;
Susman et al 1984 p. 117; Marzke 1983, p 198).
6. Afarensis humerus (upper arm bone) has features that are "most likely
related to some form of arboreal locomotion" (Oxnard 1984, p.334-1;
see also Senut 1981, p.282).
 7. One of the long bones in the forearm, the ulna, resembles that of the
pygmy chimpanzee (Feldsman 1982b, p.187).
8. Vertebrae show points of attachment for shoulder and back muscles
"massive relative to their size in modern humans" (Cook et al 1983, p.86)
These would be very useful for arboreal activity (Oxnard 1984, p 334-i).
9. "Recently Schmid (1983) has reconstructed the A.L. 288-1 rib cage as
being chimpanzee-like" Susman et al 1984, p 131).
10. Blades of hip oriented as in chimpanzee (Stern and Susman 1983, p.292.)
Features of afarensis hip therefore "enable proficient climbing" (Stern
and Susman 1983, p. 290).
11. In 1987, Dr. Charles Oxnard (University of Western Australia) analyzed
certain australopithecines (such as Lucy is classed as). He concluded
that they were not ancestral to humans, but are instead an extinct form of
arboreal ape.6 Of course, this analysis was done before Lucy came on
the scene and changed everything.

Emphasis added to the above statements to highlight the tree-climbing

characteristics of Australopithecines.

So, it seems like Lucy really did not need or wish to do a lot of walking around on
the ground. It seems more likely that she spent much of her time in trees. Since the
angle of her knee joint is a key factor in turning her into a "missing link" in human
evolution, what happens to this argument when one finds out that such an angled knee
joint is owned by tree dwelling chimps? It it not something new. Where is the evolution
here?
Of course evolutionists are well aware of these "standard creationist arguments."
A common rebuttal is to argue that the authors of many of the comments I just quoted
above are themselves believers in Lucy's role as a "missing link" between chimps and
humans. Consider the following comments by Stern and Susman:
 "In our opinion A. afarensis is very close to what can be called a "missing link". It
possesses a combination of traits entirely appropriate for an animal that had traveled
well down the road toward full-time bipedality ..." "That bipedality was a more
fundamental part of australopithecine behavior than in any other living or extinct
nonhuman primate is not in serious dispute." "... we must emphasize that in no way do
we dispute the claim that terrestrial bipedality was a far more significant component of
the behavior of A. afarensis than in any living nonhuman primate." (Stern, Jr. and
Susman 1983)

So, how can Stern and Susman believe that A. afarensis spent so much time
running around on two legs after they just detailed many physical attributes of classic
tree climbing behavior? Some of the reasons are as follows:

"The most significant features for bipedalism include shortened iliac blades, lumbar
curve, knees approaching midline, distal articular surface of tibia nearly perpendicular to
the shaft, robust metatarsal I with expanded head, convergent hallux (big toe), and
proximal foot phalanges with dorsally oriented proximal articular surfaces. (McHenry
1994)

This is an example of interpreting the same characteristics in different ways. For

example, the perpendicular tibia and angled knee joints that are "approaching midline"
are seen in modern tree-climbing monkeys. The "robust" first metatarsal with an
expanded head is also consistent with Stern and Susman's comment that the hand
bones (and reasonable the foot bones as well), "have large heads and bases relative to
their parallel sided and somewhat curved shafts, an overall pattern shared by
chimpanzees." and that this, "might be interpreted as evidence of developed grasping
capabilities to be used in suspensory behavior." This might especially be true if the first
digit was favored by Lucy to carry most of her body weight during suspension.
This is an example of picking morphological traits that agree with a favored
hypothesis and forgetting about the ones that do not agree or even contradict the
hypothesis of the day. For instance, fairly recent papers have been published that
suggest that Lucy was in fact a "knuckle walker" like some apes living today.38 Of
course knuckle walking is a distinctly quadruped specialization characteristic that is
quite different from bipedalism. The authors of this paper, Richmond and Strait,
identified four skeletal features of the distal radius of living knuckle-walking apes,
chimps and gorillas. What is interesting is that they found similar morphologic features
on Lucy as well as on another australopithecine.

"A UPGMA clustering diagram illustrates the similarity between the radii of A.
anamensis and A. afarensis and those of the knuckle-walking African apes, indicating
that these hominids retain the derived wrist morphology of knuckle-walkers." 38

In an interview, Richmond stated that after they analyzed the wrist characteristics
of living knuckle-walkers, he and Strait walked across the hall to check plaster casts at
the National Museum of Natural History: "I walked over to the cabinet, pulled out Lucy,
and shazam! she had the morphology that was classic for knuckle walkers ." 39 Of
course Richmond and Strait still believe that Lucy walked upright despite these knuckle-
walking features. They believe that these features are simply evolutionary remnants of
past ancestor knuckle walkers but that Lucy herself was bipedal. Some suggest as
evidence for this assumption that Lucy lacks certain knuckle-walking features. 39 Of
course, there are modern knuckle-walkers that are also known to lack one specific
feature or another, but they are still knuckle walkers. 38
It seems now that Lucy was quite an amazing creature. She not only had features
of tree-climbing behavior and bipedalism, but now it seems like she has features of
knuckle-walkers as well. So, which of these characteristics are the result of lifestyle and
which ones are evolutionary carryovers?
Lucy becomes even more problematic when one considers her classic placement
in evolutionary phylogeny. Lucy is thought to be an ancestor or early form of A.
africanus because of Lucy's more chimpanzee-like skull. The problem is that the foot
bones and lower leg of an A. africanus specimen have been recently found. These foot
and leg bones happen to be a lot more apelike than the hypothesized foot of Lucy. 40
Also, A. africanus does not have the knuckle-walking morphology that Lucy has. So,
depending on what part of the body one concentrates on, one might be able to find
evidence for just about any theory of locomotion that one wishes to find. Collard and
Aiello, in an article for Nature, commented on this confusing phylogenic mess by saying:

"The work by Richmond and Strait further complicates the picture: it suggests that A.
afarensis retained some knuckle-walking features, whereas A. africanus did not. It is no
longer a case of the skull pointing to one set of phylogenetic relationships, and the
postcranial skeleton (everything but the skull) to another. Rather, different parts of the
postcranium may not support the same phylogenetic hypothesis." 40

The anatomy of the semicircular canals of

australopithecines is also interesting. The
semicircular canals are three small, loop-shaped
structures in the inner ear, arranged roughly at
right angles to each other. These structures are
responsible for giving us our sense of balance
by allowing us to orient ourselves with respect to
a gravitational field. In the early 1990s, a
scientist by the name of Fred Spoor decided to
study these canals. He compared the canals of
many living primates, to include humans, with
some "hominid" fossils. He used a
computerized tomography scanner (CT-
scanner) to do this. His results were very
interesting. The canals of Australopithecus africanus and robustus were most similar to
the great apes. Spoor and his associates concluded that this finding was consistent
with the idea that these creatures were at least partly arboreal and that they "did not
walk habitually upright," but Spoor still believed them to be partly bipedal as well. Spoor
believed that his findings proved that these "hominids" were not obligatory bipeds as
humans are, but were instead part-time bipeds, and not as accomplished at bipedalism
as humans are.44,65 Consider Spoors following comments published in a 1994 issue of
the journal Nature:

". . . A. africanus showed a locomotor repertoire comprising facultative bipedalism

as well as arboreal climbing. The labyrinthine evidence is consistent with proposals that
bipedalism in australopithecines was characterized by a substantial postural component
[non-bipedal], and by the absence of more complex movements such as running and
jumping.
. . . the similarity with the canal proportions in large cercopithecoids suggests that Stw
53 [Homo habilis - discussed below] relied less on bipedal behaviour than the
australopithecines. Interestingly, similar observations were reached from an analysis of
the postcranial bones of OH 62, a specimen that has been assigned to the same
species as Stw 53 on the basis of similarities of their maxillary and dental morphology.
Phylogenetically, the unique labyrinth of Stw 53 represents an unlikely intermediate
between the morphologies seen in the australopithecines and H. erectus. . .
The specimen SK 847 has both been associated with H. erectus and H. habilis, in
particular with Stw 53. The modern-human-like labyrinth of SK 847 is consistent with the
attribution to H. erectus, and the extreme differences in labyrinthine morphology
between SK 847 and Stw 53 make attribution of both specimens to the same species,
on this evidence alone, highly unlikely. The specimen Sts 19 is part of the conventional
A. africanus hypodigm, but has also been considered as a basicranium of early Homo.
As the labyrinth of Sts 19 is very similar to that in the other three A. africanus
specimens, and major aspects of its overall morphology, such as petrous pyramid
orientation and basicranial flexion, can easily be accommodated in normal species
variation . . ." 65

Note how this labyrinth evidence goes completely counter to several long accepted
assumptions based on much weaker morphologic characteristics. In fact, this evidence
speaks directly counter to the position that H. habilis is a "missing link" intermediate in
the evolution of bipedalism between australopithecines and H. erectus. Note also the
extreme differences in the labyrinthine morphology between SK 847 and Stw 53. These
two specimens were both classified in the H. habilis species group. However, according
to Spoor, SK 847 has a "modern-human-like labyrinth" while "Stw 53 relied less upon
bipedal behaviour than the australopithecines." Also, how can Sts 19 have been
considered as a "basicranium of early Homo" with a labyrinth "very similar to the other
three A. africanus specimens"? I mean really, an early Homo would most certainly have
had well developed bipedalism - right? How then can a specimen classified as "early
Homo" have an inner ear labyrinth that is not distinguishable from creatures that did not
have well developed bipedalism at all? I ask you, how objectively accurate a "science"
can these classification systems be if they can be this far off so many times?
Consider also that perfectly formed human footprints have been found in solidified
volcanic ash dating at around "3.6 million years" (See discussion on Ancient Footprints
below). These footprints show no evidence of the curved tree-climbing bones of Lucy or
of the ape-like toes of A. africanus. The footprints have a well shaped modern heel,
strong arches, and a good ball at the base of the great toe. The great toe itself is in a
straight line. It does not stick out to the side like an ape toe does. These footprints are
in all respects indistinguishable from the footprints of modern humans,23 and yet
Johanson claims that Lucy-like creatures (A. afarensis) made these footprints since they
are found in ash dated to be about as old or older than Lucy. But where is the evidence
for Johanson's claims? The available evidence suggest that A. afarensis could not have
made these footprints owning to the fact that they have curved toes. Despite this fact,
Johanson continues to be a strong believer that A. afarensis made these footprints
anyway. I ask, is this science... or wishful
thinking?
It seems like the more is learned about
Australopithecus, the more apelike and less
like a "missing link" they appear. In fact, as
recently as April of 2007, Rak et. al. found a
portion of a jawbone of A. afarensis that
matched the general appearance of gorillas
(and Australopithecus robustus) - a feature
not shared by modern humans, chimpanzees, orangutans, and other primates. Rak
argues that, "The presence of the morphology in both [A. robustus] and A. afarensis and
its absence in modern humans casts doubt on the role of A. afarensis as a modern
human ancestor." 75
Of course, only a very few stop to consider the possibility that perhaps there is no
evolutionary relationship between humans and apes at all. Perhaps certain of these
unique "traits" were designed specifically for particular creatures with particular needs?
Perhaps humans did not evolve from apes after all? In any case, it seems like the
evidence is far from being conclusively in favor of any particular evolutionary
relationship. The unknowns are too great and too much subjective interpretation is
required to draw any definite evolutionary conclusions from the fragmented and pieced
together bones of Lucy and her cousins. One starts to wonder what evidence it would
take to cause the smallest shadow of doubt to creep across the minds of some of these
paleontologists as to the veracity of their beliefs?

One other interesting statement by Johanson concerns how he feels at least some
of the individuals met their end: "The rapid burial of bones at Hadar, particularly those
of the 'First Family,' are related to a geological catastrophe suggesting, perhaps, a flash
flood. Bones are fragmented and scattered because individuals fell into a river, or were
washed into a river, rapidly transported, broken up, and scattered. These are all
products of a depositional process." (The 333, or the 'First Family' locality, as it is
sometimes called, at Hadar, is situated
stratigraphically between the Lucy site and the
1973 knee joint site.) 21

(Back to Top)

Homo habilis -- Homo habilis was discovered

in 1959 by Mary Leakey and dated at about 1.8
million years old. What she found were some
badly fragmented pieces of skull. Her husband,
Louis Leakey, was not impressed at first. He commented that it was nothing more than
a "damned Australopithecine". However, he quickly changed his mind when what
appeared to be stone tools were found near the site of Homo habilis. The bones of
many of these animals revealed that they had been butchered and deliberately broken
for their marrow. Leakey decided, on the basis of this evidence, that his fossil had been
a toolmaker and butcher and thus called him Homo habilis or "handy man." Most other
investigators, however, were not comfortable with such an extremely primitive beast
being a toolmaker. Like Australopithecus robustus, Leakey's "Homo habilis" had huge
and very unhuman molars, a very small brain, and a large bony sagital crest on the top
of its skull. Later, Leaky thought
better of the whole idea of his
"Homo habilis" as a tool maker
and demoted him to the
classification of Zinjanthropus
boisei, which means East
African man.
The skull of Zinj is
especially robust, sometimes
called, "hyper-robust". Notice,
in the reconstruction of Zinj, the
very wide zygomatic arches,
which project forward in front of
the nasal opening to form a
dish-shaped face (like many
apes today). These outward
flaring arches provided space
for huge temporalis muscles
that are used for chewing. In
other words, Zinj had a very
powerful bite. Zinj's teeth are also massive, sometimes more than 4-times the size of
modern human teeth. (Note that the mandible portion of the jaw in the reconstruction
was not originally found with Zinj, but is based on subsequent finds of similar
individuals).
Although Mary Leaky found Zinjanthropus, or "Zinj", it made Louis Leakey famous
as a result of the publicity he received from the National Geographic Society through its
magazine and educational films. The National Geographic Society financed Leakey's
work and largely, through their publicity of Leakey and Zinj, paleoanthropology once
again became both popular and "respectable" after a long period of disrepute following
the Piltdown hoax. Today, Zinjanthropus is considered by everyone to be just another
robust Australopithecine - just as Lewis Leaky originally said it was.10
Australopithecines are considered by many to be hominids because they are
believed to have been bipedal and thus walked upright. Until the 70s, the upright and
bipedal posture was based on the position of the foramen magnum in the skull and very
fragmentary finds of pelvis, limb and foot bones. Then, Richard Leakey found several
more nearly complete remains that threw considerable doubt on the idea of an upright
posture. In Science News Leakey concluded that, "The Australopithecines were long-
armed short-legged knuckle-walkers, similar to existing African apes." 12
These setbacks did not stop Leakey. In 1964, he found four more specimens in
Olduvai Gorge. These, he claimed, had bigger brains
than Australopithecus and surely deserved to be
classified as Homo habilis. Measurements of the cranial
capacities were difficult since the skulls were so badly
crushed. Nonetheless, it was concluded that they
averaged 642cc, or 200cc larger than Australopithecus
and he considered that enough to make them "Homo."
Several such finds are discussed blow.
OH 7 is a collection of 23 fragments of bone to
include a jawbone and teeth thought to be from a male
hominid who lived some 1.75 million years old. These
fragments were also found at Olduvai gorge in Tanzania.
The problem, like many of the rest of the other
fragmentary evidence, is that there really isn't much to interpret here. And, what there
is, looks much more like the ape condition than it does the human condition. Consider
that the shape of the jawbone is the ape-like U-shape - not the parabolic human shape.
 OH 24 is a pieced together skull
of a "female" hominid thought to have
lived some 1.8 million years ago. She
was given the nickname "Twiggy",
after the famous flat-chested British
model, because of the compressed
and flatted condition of the skull

when it was first discovered with its fragments cemented together in limestone. When
the hundreds of fragments were pieced together, the size of the brain case was quite
large at just under 600cc. Since modern human brains can be this small, the finding of
Twiggy, with such a large brain, was thought to be a very good missing link, and gave
support to the rather weak classification of OH 7 as "Homo". Also note that more than
100 fragments of skull were not used in the final reconstruction of Twiggy.
KNM-ER 1813 is said to be an adult cranium from an individual who lived some 1.9
million years ago. Some have classified it as Homo habilis, but this classification is
controversial. Donal Johanson said, ". . . we have opted to include KNM-ER 1813 in
Homo habilis, following the classification of Bernard Wood. Richard Leakey . . . has
recently avoided putting a taxonomic label on 1813 other than to say that it should not
be called Homo habilis . . . ". 71 The skull capacity is a bit small than that purported for
OH 24 (510cc for KNM-ER 1813 vs. just under 600cc
for OH 24).
OH 62 has been interpreted as a partial adult
skeleton from a hominid who lived about 1.8 million
years ago. The initial find was a fragment of proximal
right ulna (arm bone). After this, the search for
additional parts of this skeleton was on - and quite
successful. Over 18,000 fragments of bone and teeth
were found over an area of about 40 square meters.
Most were classified as non-hominid remains, but 302
fragments were "identified" as belonging to OH 62. I'd
say that's quite impressive detective work!
The problem was that even with the 302
fragments available, they were too fragmented to build
a cranial vault or skull with any "accuracy". However,
portions of the right arm, including most of the
humerous and parts of the ulna and radius, as well as portions of the left femur and
most of the maxilla (32 original fragments) were reconstructed. From this reconstruction
it is estimated that the adult OH 62 stood just one meter is stature - very short for a
hominid ancestor. On top of this, OH 62 has very long arms compared to its legs, similar
to the ape ratio today. The humerous-femur ratio of OH 62 is 95%, while in apes it is
100% and in modern humans it is 70%.
Such apelike proportions for Homo habilis were quite unanticipated - a bit of a
shock actually. If H. habilis was to be considered an ancestor to H. ergaster/erectus by
1.6 million years before present, then not only would body size have to increase rather
considerably, but the relationship between upper and lower limbs would also have to
change quite dramatically. Would a mere 200,000 years be enough time for such
changes to be realized? I mean really, from the evolutionist perspective, 200,000 years
just isn't that much time. Even if such changes were possible, such differences between
H. habilis and modern humans make it quite difficult to use H. habilis as any sort of
convincing "missing link". In fact, the finding of OH
62 has only added to the confusion over how to
interpret the very fragmented remains of these "early
hominids".
So, obviously, not everyone was as enthusiastic
as Leakey was about his new "handymen." For a
time, Homo habilis was considered an empty taxon
that was inadequately proposed.10 Then, in 1972,
very interesting skull fragments were unearthed by
Leakey's field hand, Bernardo Ngeneo. This
discovery was to shake up the world of
paleoanthropology. Richard Leakey and his team
had found the toolmaker his father, Louis Leakey,
had long sought in vain. The fossilized bone fragments of this skull were found near
Lake Turkana, Kenya. Leakey's wife, Meave (a palaeontologist), assembled the
fragments to make a nearly complete skull minus the lower jaw (a human-like femur
was also found a few kilometers away, but associated with the skull since they were
both found within the same sedimentary layer).66,67 The skull was named KNM-ER 1470
for its registration at the Kenya National Museum in East Rudolf.
The skull capacity was difficult to measure because of the condition of the
assemblage, but was estimated to be around 800cc (later lowered to 750cc). This large
cranial capacity was much larger than so-called ape-men skulls. Also, KNM-ER 1470
had only small eyebrow ridges, no crest, and a domed skull. These traits were thought
to be more typical of the human condition. Indeed, it appeared to have at least four
major human-like traits to include:

• Large endocranial volume (~800cc)

• A high forehead with a dome-shaped cranial vault relative to the fairly flat and low
forehead of australopithecines and modern apes
 • Lack of prominent brow ridges
• A "flat" face lacking the usual "protruding prognathous" of australopithecines
• As an extra - Associated femur and leg bones very similar to that of modern
humans (found a few kilometers away in the same layer)

The problem here, of course, is that the original reconstruction started to be

doubted, even by evolutionists, because it did not seem to fit with prevailing beliefs
about human origins. Such a modern looking skull, as the original reconstruction of
KNM-ER 1470 came out, was being dated at an older age than many other much older
looking australopithecines. This just ran at odds with the prevailing paradigm. So,
interestingly enough, KNM-ER 1470 began to evolve! In the period between 1977 and
1995 various reconstructions started to emphasize the ape-like characteristics of KNM-
ER 1470 more and more and de-emphasize the human characteristics. If you really
want to see subjective manipulation at work, consider the following illustrated evolution
of the profile of KNM-ER 1470 over the years.61
 Notice how the reconstruction of this fossil skull evolved based on subjective
interpretations of where this fossil should fit in the evolutionary tree. Also note that
Richard Leakey himself revised his original reconstruction by 1995. As it turns out, the
1992 reconstruction by Tim Bromage, an expert in hominid bone development, is
probably the most objective reconstruction of all. Before beginning his study of 1470,
Bromage expected to find that 1470 was probably going to be similar to Dart's famous
"Taung child". But to his surprise, he found that the deposition and resorption patterns
of bone growth of the 1470 skull were typical of monkeys and apes. Bromage explained
that when 1470 was first reconstructed that its face was fitted to the cranium almost
vertically - giving it a more human-like appearance. Yet, Bromage's studies
demonstrated that the face really jutted out considerably, much like
australopithecines.61,63 In the 1992 issue of New Scientist, Bromage noted the following
about KNM-ER 1470:

"When it [KNM-ER 1470] was first reconstructed, the face was fitted to the cranium
in an almost vertical position, much like the flat faces of modern humans. But recent
studies of anatomical relationships show that in life the face must have jutted out
considerably, creating an ape-like aspect, rather like the faces of Australopithecus." 63

Of course, Bromage does not totally reject Skull 1470 as possibly belonging to the
genus Homo, but this opinion seems to be mostly based on the larger size of the skull in
comparison with other australopithecines. Yet, it is also possible that the latest
estimates of 752 cm3 may still be too large for Skull 1470 - given the view of its more
enhanced "ape-like" skull morphology and its long forward-jutting jaws and non-existent
forehead. Considering the subjective nature of interpreting this skull and its changing
reconstructions over time, it seems less than solid to hold it up as any sort of definite
"missing link" between apes and humans - especially given the rather marked
similarities of KNM-ER 1470 with the Turkana Boy skull, which was found in the very
same region (see below)
 In any case, it is interesting to see how scientists interpreted and reinterpreted this
skull over the past 30 years. For example, Professor A. Cave, who first suggested that
Neanderthal Man was completely human, examined 1470 in London and concluded,
"As far as I can see, typically human." In addition, Leakey found two complete femurs,
a part of a third femur, and parts of a tibia and fibula near the skull, which he said,
"cannot be readily distinguished from Homo sapiens."10 However, as previously
discussed, the problem for 1470 being interpreted as completely human, even at with its
original construction, was its relatively small brain size of only 750cc - which is too
small for humans and yet very large for an ape. Modern humans average about
1350cc. Some scientists suggested early on that 1470 might have been a human child.
But, it was argued that although the cranium was small, that the face is relatively large
and developed and therefore unlikely that of a child. Some others argued that it may
have been a pygmy human since the lowest known cranial capacity for a non-pathologic
human is 790cc7 and that pygmies also have other similar facial features such as jutting
teeth and face and a relatively small chin. 18

The Dating Game

Then, of course, the biggest problem was the fact that 1470 did not fit the dating
scheme of the day. The skull itself was found under a layer of volcanic ash. Since
volcanic material can be "dated" using potassium-argon and other radiometric dating
techniques, it was thought that the skull itself should be as old or older than this ash.
Before this testing was done, Richard Leakey had assumed an age of approximately 2.9
million years (Ma) for KNM-ER 1470. If supported by radiometric analysis, this age
would make him the discover of the oldest hominid fossil found up to that time.
Certainly this would be quite a feather in his cap. In 1969, samples of ash were sent to
Cambridge University for potassium-argon dating. Three different tests returned an age
of about 220 Ma,13,62 which would certainly make this hominid discovery very old
indeed! Of course, this was impossible and thus obviously "wrong" given the stratum
that the ash came from. So, these errors were blamed on inappropriate sampling.
It is argued that the KBS Tuff is an example of the redeposition of volcanic ash.
Therefore, the old dates returned by the Cambridge laboratory on three different
occasions were the result of the analysis of old sediment that had been mixed in with
the new and deposited atop the relatively young fragments of KNM-ER 1470. It was
recommended that new samples be collected from which suitable individual crystals
could be separated. These new samples were dated at 2.61 +/- 0.26 Ma, based on the
40
Ar/39Ar ("Argon-Argon") dating method (thought to be more accurate than the original
Potassium - Argon dating technique).13 However, over the following decade, the rocks
surrounding 1470 were dated many times using various methods - to include the
40
Ar/39Ar method. The different tests gave widely varying results. For example, two
specimens from the same layer were analyzed by the same people (Fitch and Miller)
using the same technique during the same analysis. One specimen was dated at 0.52
to 2.64 Ma. The other was dated at 8.43 to 17.5 Ma. 24, 62 Fitch and Miller attributed the
spread to reheating of the crystals after deposition (reheating is no longer thought to
have occurred). Paleomagnetic studies also gave ambiguous results. Many many tests
were done, and the “best” or “most acceptable date” was placed at about 2.61 Ma.13, 62, 72
This, of course, did not impress Richard Leakey. In June of 1973, in an interview
with National Geographic, he said,

"Either we toss out the 1470 skull or we toss out all our theories of early man. It
simply fits no previous models of human beginnings. 1470 leaves in ruin the notion that
all early fossils can be arranged in an orderly sequence of evolutionary changes."

What was the problem? The problem, given the age of 2.61 Ma, made 1470
contemporaneous with Australopithecus, if not older, and yet 1470 was assembled by
Leakey's wife to looked quite similar to modern man. Given such a reconstruction, this
human-like appearance absolutely unseated Australopithecus as an ancestor of modern
man.
 In later lectures, Richard Leakey rarely made reference to 1470. However, in a PBS
documentary in 1990 he stated,

"If pressed about man's ancestry, I would have to unequivocally say that all we have
is a huge question mark. To date, there has been nothing found to truthfully purport as a
transitional specie to man, including Lucy, since 1470 was as old and probably older. If
further pressed, I would have to state that there is more evidence to suggest an abrupt
arrival of man rather than a gradual process of evolving." 10

Now that is a very startling statement coming from a man who has devoted his
whole life to finding the evolutionary remnants along the pathway towards modern
humans.
The human-like appearance of 1470 coupled with its age of 2.6 Ma was also a very
big problem for Johanson who considered his A. afarensis (Lucy) to be an important
evolutionary link between apes and man. With a more human appearing 1470 around
that was either a contemporary of A. afarensis, or even slightly older (an age range for
Lucy of 2.5 to 3.7 Ma), his fossil was unlikely to be directly ancestral to man. So of
course Johanson wished to have 1470 "re-dated."
Lucy herself had been dated by several radiometric methods whose published
results varied from 2.5 to 3.7 Ma. The age of 2.9 Ma had been chosen as the most
probable age. So, Johanson asked for the help of Basil Cooke, who had assembled a
detailed two million year sequence of fossil pig lineages which he says was consistent
over a wide geographical area. This data was based on what was assumed to be a
constant but rapid rate of evolution in length of the third molar of certain pig fossils
found in southern Ethiopia. These "index pigs" were used to re-date Leakey's 1470 at
less than 2 Ma which placed it on the desired human side of Lucy. Then, Johanson
decided to date Lucy again in an effort to see if he could make her a little older. In his
book “Lucy, The Beginnings of Human Kind,” Johanson said, “That meant turning to
Basil Cooke and his pig sequences. These had already straightened out a dating
puzzle at Lake Turkana and shoved Richard Leakey's 1470 H. habilis skull forward from
2.6 Ma to less than 2.0 Ma. Perhaps they could do it for Lucy too. But, in this case,
they would be stretching her age not shrinking.” Needless to say, Cooke came through
as expected and said that his pig sequence showed that, "an age of 3.0 - 3.4 Ma would
give a better fit than the previous 2.9 Ma age for Lucy."10
To make matters even more confusing, Garnis Curtis, at Berkeley, has used
potassium-argon dating on the KBS tuff and come up with younger dates yet. His first
series of tests showed it to be 1.8 myo and his second series of tests showed it to be
1.6 Ma. Note that initial fission track studies of zircons from the KBS tuff indicated an
age of 2.44 +/- 0.08 Ma (Hurford et al. 1976). Compare this with subsequent fission
track studies of zircons in the same tuff returning dates of 1.87 +/- 0.04 Ma (Gleadow
1980). Another expert, Ian McDougall, was also called in to do independent dating.
Knowing about the controversy and what the desired date should be McDougall came
up with an age of 1.89 +/- 0.01 Ma using K-Ar dating and 1.88 +/- 0.02 Ma using
40
Ar/39Ar dating (McDougall et al. 1980; McDougall 1981, 1985).72

No wonder radiometric dating labs require that samples, which are to be "dated,"
be identified as to their source in the geological column. Approximately 8 out of 10
specimens ("dates") are discarded by radiometric dating labs because they are well out
of range of age they "ought to be" given their source in the geological column.10
Dalrymple and Lanphere sum up the whole circular process of radiometric dating in the
statement, "If the potassium-argon ages of a group of rocks agree with the stratigraphic
sequence, determined on the basis of physical relationships of fossil evidence, then the
probability is good that radiometric ages are reliable..."14

Ancient Bones with

Modern Bones?

Now, we must not forget

about the human-like femur
that was associated with
KNM-ER 1470, even though located several kilometers away from the skull fragments.
Although this femur and leg bones "did not differ from those of modern humans in any
feature related to movement or posture", they were associated with 1470 simply
because they were found in the same layer.66,67 Obviously it is impossible to have
modern humans living with H. habilis creatures since modern humans had not evolved
yet - right? And yet we know now, through the discovery of more reliable indicators of
general posture, that many creatures designated as H. habilis, to include KNM-ER
1470, were not even close to the modern-human bipedal posture. So, what is a
modern-human-looking femur and leg bone fragments doing in the same layer as a
creature that we know did not habitually walk in an upright manner?
Remember the work of Dr. Spoor on the inner ear labyrinths of H. habilis
specimens and his conclusion (based on the angle of these labyrinths as compared with
modern humans, H. erectus, Australopithecus, and many other hominids) that H. habilis
"relied less on bipedal behavior than the australopithecines"? Other specimens, such
as SK 847, have been grossly misclassified, based on weaker morphologic evidence,
as somewhere between H. erectus and H. habilis when there is an "extreme difference"
between the "modern-human-like labyrinth of SK 847 and the australopithecine labyrinth
of Stw 53" (i.e., H. habilis).65 I wonder what the inner ear canals of KNM-ER 1470 would
look like?

How bad do such morphologic interpretations have to get before we start to

suspect that the storytelling of anthropologists about the supposed evolution of humans
from ape-like creatures is not worth the paper that it is written down on? Isn't it all
starting to sound like a lot of fanciful storytelling?

(Back to Top)

A Subjective Mess
 Obviously this whole issue of the placement of KNM-ER 1470 in the evolutionary
sequence of hominids has turned out to be quite a subjective mess for anthropologists.
In fact recently Bernard Wood and Mark Collard published some rather revealing if not
humorous conclusions in the April, 1999 issue of Science where they actually suggest
that the "Homo" genus is "not a good genus" as it currently stands and that some of the
oldest and most significant
fossils assigned to Homo, to
include both H. habilis and H.
rudolfensis, should be
"transferred to the genus
Australopithecus" :

"More recently, fossil

species have been assigned to
Homo on the basis of absolute
brain size, inferences about
language ability and hand function, and retrodictions about their ability to fashion stone
tools. With only a few exceptions, the definition and use of the genus within human
evolution, and the demarcation of Homo, have been treated as if they are
unproblematic. But ... recent data, fresh interpretations of the existing evidence, and the
limitations of the paleoanthropological record invalidate existing criteria for attributing
taxa to Homo....in practice fossil hominin species are assigned to Homo on the basis of
one or more out of four criteria. ... It is now evident, however, that none of these criteria
is satisfactory. The Cerebral Rubicon is problematic because absolute cranial capacity
is of questionable biological significance. Likewise, there is compelling evidence that
language function cannot be reliably inferred from the gross appearance of the brain,
and that the language-related parts of the brain are not as well localized as earlier
studies had implied...
In other words, with the hypodigms of H. habilis and H. rudolfensis assigned to it,
the genus Homo is not a good genus. Thus, H. habilis and H. rudolfensis (or Homo
habilis sensu lato for those who do not subscribe to the taxonomic subdivision of "early
Homo") should be removed from Homo. The obvious taxonomic alternative, which is to
transfer one or both of the taxa to one of the existing early hominin genera, is not
without problems, but we
recommend that, for the time
being, both H. habilis and H.
rudolfensis should be
transferred to the genus
Australopithecus." 64

Even more recently, as of

August 2007, the journal
Nature published the latest
discoveries of Meave Leakey
and her team, to include
Frederick Kyalo Manthi. In
short, they found the complete
skull of Homo erectus within walking distance of an upper jaw of Homo habilis (in 2000),
with both dating from the same general time period. According to their own report, they
concluded that this finding makes it "unlikely that Homo erectus evolved from Homo
habilis."74
Co-author Fred Spoor, professor of evolutionary anatomy at the University College
in London commented:

"The two species lived near each other, but probably didn't interact, each having its
own "ecological niche," Homo habilis was likely more vegetarian while Homo erectus
ate some meat, he said. Like chimps and apes, "they'd just avoid each other, they don't
feel comfortable in each other's company. There remains some still-undiscovered
common ancestor that probably lived 2 million to 3 million years ago, a time that has not
left much fossil record. Overall what it paints for human evolution is a chaotic kind of
looking evolutionary tree rather than this heroic march that you see with the cartoons of
an early ancestor evolving into some intermediate and eventually unto us." 74

Bill Kimbel, science director of the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State
University, notes:

"The more we know, the more complex the story gets. Scientists used to think
Homo sapiens evolved from Neanderthals, he said. But now we know that both species
lived during the same time period and that we did not come from Neanderthals. Now a
similar discovery applies further back in time." 74
 Another co-author, Susan
Anton, a New York University
anthropologist, she expects anti-
evolution proponents to seize on
the new research, but said it
would be a mistake to try to use
the new work to show flaws in
evolution theory.

"This is not questioning the

idea at all of evolution; it is
refining some of the specific
points," Anton said. "This is a
great example of what science
does and religion doesn't do. It's
a continuous self-testing
process." 74

And there you have it. The Theory of Evolution is a self-testing process as long as
it never crosses one's mind to question or subject the basic theory itself to testing and
potential falsification. Despite their claims to the contrary, evolutionary scientists, like
people in general, are quite biased, even dogmatic and religiously fundamental, in their
thinking. Question and challenge anything and everything except the one holy
untouchable doctrine - The Doctrine of Darwinian-style Evolution itself. If the puzzle
pieces don't fit, change, warp, and twist the theory until they do. It doesn't seem to
matter what kind of evidence presents itself, evolutionists have an uncanny ability to
continually modify their theory to meet the new data.
The Theory of Evolution is a truly wonderful theory - a theory that is so fluid that it
can explain any and all data, not matter how contrary to previous notions of reality. Oh
no, creationists and intelligent design theorists have nothing on evolutionists when it
comes to subjective manipulation of a pet theory to fit whatever comes along.
 (Back to Top)

Turkana
Boy -- In
July 1984, a
nearly
complete
fossilized
skeleton, of
an obviously
human 12-year-old boy (some say as young as 9 years old), was discovered at Lake
Turkana in Kenya. It is the most complete skeleton to date to be included as a Homo
erectus. The boy stood 160cm (5' 3'') tall and had a brain capacity of 880cc. It is
estimated that in adulthood, the boy would grow to be 185cm (6' 1'') tall and have a
brain capacity of 910cc. The skeleton of this child is like that of a modern human in all
respects except for certain details of the skull. He had a low forehead and pronounced
brow ridges. Richard Leaky said, "This boy would go unnoticed in a crowd today."
Since this human skeleton was found in strata dated at 1.6 Ma, this supposed age,
combined with some fairly minor skull details, makes it another representative of the
taxon Homo erectus.10
But, there's just one more interesting thought to consider. Remember that another
famous skull was found in this Lake Turkana region. That's right KNM-ER 1470 was
found in this same region. Notice the striking similarities when the reconstruction of
KNM-ER 1470 is put side-to-side with the Turkana Boy skull (see below). Now isn't that
just most interesting? - or is it just me?

(Back to Top)
Peking Man: The current story is that the remains
of Sinanthropus pekinensis, known as Peking Man
and dating back to 400,000 BC, were excavated in
1923 at Zhoukoudianzhen near Peking, China.
Peking Man was closely related to Pithecanthropus
of Java and "lived during the Old Stone Age."
An almost complete skullcap was discovered in
1929 in a filled-in limestone cave near Peking,
China (now Beijing). This ape-like skullcap was
similar to Java man. The cave continued to be
investigated until the beginning of World War II.
(All original fossil remains have since been lost in
transport to America to "save them" from the
Japanese
invasion of WWII. However, some relatively good
casts of portions of skulls remain.) Fragments of
14 skulls, 12 lower jaws and 147 teeth were
found. Also, several skeletons of "Homo
erectus" were found slightly higher (Not called
Homo sapien only because of their assumed
ages of > 1my even though very similar to
modern man). Once again, bone fragments were
assembled from various places to form a skull
where the jawbone came from a level 85 feet
higher than the skullcap and face bones. After hiring a sculptor to model a woman's
face from the made-up skull, the result was named "Nellie." The very "attractive" Nellie
has appeared in almost all modern textbooks concerning the evolution of man.10
 The most complete fossils found in the cave, all of which were braincases or
skullcaps, are:

• Skull III, discovered

at Locus E in 1929
is an adolescent or
juvenile with a brain
size of 915 cc.
• Skull II, discovered
at Locus D in 1929
but only recognized
in 1930, is an adult
or adolescent with a
brain size of 1030
cc.
• Skulls X, XI and XII
(sometimes called
LI, LII and LIII) were
discovered at Locus
L in 1936. They are
thought to belong to
an adult man, an
adult woman and a
young adult, with
brain sizes of 1225
cc, 1015 cc and
1030 cc
respectively. (Weidenreich 1937)
• Skull V: two cranial fragments were discovered in 1966, which fit with (casts of)
two other fragments found in 1934 and 1936 to form much of a skullcap with a
brain size of 1140 cc. These pieces were found at a higher level, and appear to
 be more modern than the other skullcaps. They were given a different name of
"Upper Cave Man". (Jia and Huang 1990)

At the site where "she" was found there were also numerous stone tools and
evidence of butchery and fires. Recently, Chinese scientists have found over 1,000
stone tools, the skulls of over 100 modern day animals, and 6 modern human skulls
(Upper Cave Man). The skulls and many fragments showed evidence of being at least
possibly shattered or broken-in at the occipital area. Perhaps humans were butchering
and eating apes? Perhaps, but some argue that this area is the weakest area of the
skull. Therefore, the finding of shattered occipital
regions it is not proof of butchery.
In addition, a layer of ashes nearly three
meters thick was found. Even so, little
consideration seems to be given to the possible
creation of fires and tools by actual Homo
sapiens.10 Once again, it is felt that since most of
the skulls seem to have been very large, and
similar to Java Man and other Homo Erectus
fossils, that these must be intermediates to
humans? despite the many similarities to apes,
which, according to Boule and Vallois, include three
jaw characteristics of apes and one of human and
three teeth characteristics of apes and one of
human.22 Again, knowing that many modern
animals have gigantic counterparts in the fossil
record, this might be like saying that a Great Dane is an intermediate between a
Chihuahua and a horse. There might be more anatomic similarities including larger
head and cranium and even shape of head? but what does this prove? Do the
similarities in anatomy prove this theory of dog-horse evolution and negate the
differences in anatomy? Beginning with the idea that modern apes start out with a great
deal of similarities to modern humans, establishing an evolutionary connection without
living specimens and on fragmentary fossil evidence, involves at best, more than its fair
share of guesswork and just-so story telling. In fact, this sort of story telling sounds very
similar to the stories of the "First Frenchmen" that were invented to explain the various
remains and artifacts found in different layers at Font 飨 evade Cave (see story below).
(Back to Top)

Java Man
(Pithecanthropus
erectus) - According to
current evolutionary
theory, the earliest
specimens of H.
erectus, found in 1891-92 near Trinil on
the Indonesian island of Java (thus called
Java man), are "about 700,000 years old."
The teeth of Java man, found separately
and which are now thought to belong to an orangutan, were said to be remarkably like
those of H. habilis of eastern Africa, suggesting that "H. erectus might have evolved
from H. habilis." (Compton's Encyclopedia)
The actual story begins shortly after Darwin published his "On the Origin of the
Species." A Dutch physician named Eugene Dubois, who greatly desired to find the
"missing link" between apes and man, went in search of Haechel's "Pithecanthropus" in
Sumatra. (Dubois had been a student of Ernst Haeckel who is famous for his
"Biogenetic Law," which stated that the human embryo went through the sequential
evolutionary stages of its ancestors. It is now well known that this is far from true. What
else is well known is that Haeckel falsified much of his data.) 1 5
 Having failed to get financial assistance from the Dutch government, Dubois
enlisted as a surgeon in the Royal Dutch Army in order to be stationed in Sumatra.
While in Sumatra, he heard about a skull found on the nearby island of Java. He was
able to secure the skull and even found another like it at the same location. However,
these skulls were too human looking to be of any use to someone looking for an ape-
man. In 1891, he found a molar tooth along the Solo River. Later the same year, he
found another molar and an ape-like skullcap. The following year he found a human
femur some yards from where he found the skullcap. Although at first he thought it was
a chimpanzee skull, after consulting with Haeckel, he declared the whole collection to
belong to one and the same creature, stating that it was "admirably suited to the role of
missing link." 10
This missing link arrived just in time to salvage
Darwin's theory, as it was under fire because of the
total lack of transitional fossil evidence. By joining an
ape skull with a human femur he had truly created an
ape-man. He originally claimed that the stratum he
was working in was Pliocene but after discovering his
ape-man, he decided it was really tertiary.10 When
taking his specimen on tour, respected scientists,
such as the great anatomist Rudolph Virchow, refused
to chair any of his meetings. Nonetheless, newspapers and magazines embraced him
wholeheartedly, including many pictures of Dubois's ape-men.
Through association of a human-like femur with a very large gibbon-like skullcap,
Dubois created "Java Man." The leg bone was almost certainly that of a modern
human. The skullcap is still hotly debated as that of an extinct gibbon-like creature or of
a human ancestor. One important fact is that the association of the femur (found a year
later and twelve meters away) and skullcap is not scientifically justified. It was in
recognition of this fact that the restoration of Java Man, paid for by Ernst Haeckel, was
removed from the Leiden Museum to its basement and in the mid 1980s. The exhibit of
Java Man was also removed from public display in the American Museum of Natural
History.7 Dr Rudolph Virchow, Director of the Berlin Society for Anthropology and
founder of the science of pathology, examined Dubois' fossils and wrote, "The skull has
a deep suture between the low vault and the upper edge of the orbits. Such a suture is
found only in apes, not in man. Thus the skull must belong to an ape. In my opinion
this creature was an animal, a giant gibbon in fact. The thigh bone has not the slightest
connection with the skull." 8,20
Eugene Dubois himself appears to have never given up the idea that his "giant
gibbon" was an intermediate between the gibbon and man. Some today continue to
hold onto Java Man as an intermediate. It is argued that Java Man had an intermediate
brain size much larger than that of a modern gibbon (940cc vs. 100cc) and yet smaller
than that of an average modern man (1350cc). It is also said that Java Man obviously
walked upright and is therefore an intermediate. How is it so clear that Java Man
walked upright (bipedal) when all there is, is a skull cap? Well, it is said that the
skullcap is very similar to the skullcap of another "Homo Erectus" skeleton (WT15000)
among several others. Since it is generally agreed that WT15000 walked upright, then
obviously Java Man walked upright too. Despite the fact that there exists, in the fossil
record, evidences of huge animals with much larger heads and brains than their modern
day counterparts, it is still suggested that such a large gibbon could not possibly have
been - Just a gibbon. (Back to Top)

Neandertal (or Neanderthal) Man (Homo

neanderthalensis): This was the first "ape-man" found in
Darwin's day. Of the cases stated above, most tried to make
men out of apes. Now we will see how to make apes out of
men.
In 1856, in the Neander Valley of Germany, a
schoolteacher, Johann Fuhlrott, found a skeleton that
consisted of a skullcap, thighbones, part of a pelvis, some
ribs, and some arm and shoulder bones in a small cave at
Feldhofer. The lower left arm had been broken in life, and as a result the bones of the
left arm were smaller than those of the right. A careful examination and description by
Professor Schaafhausen reported them to be human and normal. Two years later, two
similar skulls were found in Belgium. Subsequently, over 60 parts of skeletons were
found in eleven different countries. (They are still being found today). 10
In 1908, Professor Boule of The Institute of Human Paleontology in Paris declared
Neanderthal an ape-man because of his low eyebrow ridges and the stooped over
posture of some of the specimens. This was to shape opinion and teaching for most of
the 20th century. However, in 1950, things began to change. An embarrassing fact
came out. Neanderthal man's average brain capacity was larger than modern man's by
over 200 cc's. Some also claim that Neanderthal man, at least the stooped over ones,
suffered from
acute
osteoarthritis.10
Many
Neanderthal
skeletons have
been found now,
and not just a few
here and there. In
1872 Dr. Rudolph
Virchow, the father
of pathology,
claimed that these
skeletons were
nothing more than
modern man with
rickets and
arthritis. In 1957
anatomists Straus
and Cave released
a comprehensive study of Neanderthal and concluded that the toes were not prehensile,
the pelvic structure was not at all ape-like, and the bones all showed strong evidence of
severe arthritis. In 1970, medical specialist, Ivanhoe, showed a vitamin-D deficiency in
all Neanderthal samples. This he surmised was the cause of the severe arthritis. Dr. C.
Coring Brace stated that, "West European Neanderthal Man is simply today's West
Europeans." The Chicago Field Museum has since put in a newer exhibition of
Neanderthal man looking more fully human.10
Modern science has finally come up with a ready answer for their problems with
Neanderthal man. He was an "evolutionary dead-end." 10
There are many scientists who say that Neandertal Man did not actually have
rickets, and that pathology was not responsible for their most unique characteristics
such as brow ridges, low vaulted craniums, and very strong stocky builds which
separate them from any known ethnic group living today. Here is a list of the most
distinct characteristics:

• The skull is lower, broader, and elongated in contrast to the higher doming of a
modern skull.
• The average brain size (cranial capacity) is larger than the average modern
human by almost 200 cubic centimetres.
• The forehead is low, with heavy brow ridges curving over each eye.
• There is a slight projection at the rear of the skull (occipital bun).
• The cranial wall is thick compared to modern humans.
• The facial architecture is heavy, with the mid-face and the upper jaw projecting
forward (prognathism).
• The nose is prominent and broad.
• The frontal sinuses are expanded.
• The lower jaw is large and lacks a definite chin.
• The body bones are heavy and thick and the long bones somewhat curved.

Judging from the very wide varieties of ethnic groups living today, especially the
more inbred ones, such characteristics are not too difficult to explain by simple ethnicity
which has since been lost or bred out in modern Europeans. Many modern cultures
have had extreme anatomical features. With subsequent cultural intermixing, such
distinguishing features have often been lost. So, unique anatomical features do not
necessitate Neanderthal Man as being separate from Homo Sapiens. In fact, Thomas
Huxley himself seemed to recognize this problem. Donald Johanson wrote something
very interesting about what Huxley did in setting up a sequence of modern skulls to link
Neanderthals to modern humans.

"From a collection of modern human skulls Huxley was able to select a series with
features leading 'by insensible gradations' from an average modern specimen to the
Neandertal skull. In other words, it wasn't qualitatively different from present-day Homo
Sapiens." 26

This series of skulls could easily be set up today. Obviously therefore, there is no
clear or consistent morphologic difference between Neanderthals and ourselves. Any
variation can be selected out and categorized according to arbitrary rules, but such
categories do not necessitate evolutionary relationships any more than ethnic variations
that exist today suggest such relationships.
Then there is the argument of Neanderthal DNA. On July 11, 1997, the
announcement was made in the journal Cell that Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA
(mtDNA) had been successfully recovered and sequenced by Svante Pääbo and his
team.25 Of course there were statistical differences between Neanderthal DNA and the
DNA of modern humans. These differences were used to calculate the evolutionary
divergence of Neanderthals from a common ancestor to around 550,000 to 690,000
years ago. It is thought that Neanderthals then became extinct without contributing
mtDNA to the modern human genome. In other words, Neanderthals were just one of
many offshoots or splinter groups that became extinct but who were not direct links to
modern humans in our evolutionary branch.
However, there are just a few problems with this theory. One problem has come to
the forefront with movies such as Jurassic Park and with the publicity of the O.J.
Simpson murder trial where DNA technology played a prominent role. Some problems
that were brought more clearly to light by these media events is that DNA does not last
very long. It breaks down fairly rapidly depending on environmental factors. Even
under the most favorable conditions, many scientists believe that DNA cannot remain
identifiably intact beyond a few tens of thousands of years. 27,28 In light of this fact, it is
unlikely that very many Neanderthal skeletons would contain intact DNA, even with
such relatively "young" remains dating to between 30,000 and 50,000 years. The
common explained solution to this problem is that in certain environments, especially
very dry and cold environments, DNA can last much longer than it can in warm wet
environments. However, even in these "protective" environments, DNA still breaks
down at a fairly rapid rate. The rate is so rapid in fact that few scientists believe that it
could last much beyond 50,000 years. Because of these decay problems, the reports of
DNA being recovered from insects trapped in amber that is millions of years old are now
being called into serious question.29 In any case, even for Neanderthal bones that are
thought to be fairly "young", finding DNA that can still be sequenced is turning out to be
quite a rare find indeed. Because of this problem, repeatability is becoming a real issue
in the study of Neanderthal DNA. As it turns out, mtDNA recovery from Neanderthals
has only been done three times. Others have found it very difficult to repeat Pääbo's
results. Since the scientific method is based on repeatability, the whole issue of
Neanderthal mtDNA and its implications comes into question. Consider the following
comment from Pääbo himself:

"Preserved Neandertal DNA is likely to be rare, and the DNA in the type specimen
[the 1856 Neander Valley Neandertal fossil] may result from its unique preservation
conditions. Most Neandertal specimens are therefore unlikely to contain amplifiable
DNA." 30

Despite these problems, Pääbo et al. seemed to have finally overcome them in 1997
when they sequenced the very first mtDNA isolated from a Neanderthal skeleton (Note:
The fact that a given cell has many more copies of mitochondrial DNA than the single
copy of nuclear DNA (nucDNA) is suggested as a reason why mtDNA might be a bit
easier to isolate than nucDNA). Pääbo and his team presented their findings as follows:
 "The Neandertal sequence was compared to 994 contemporary human mitochondrial
lineages, i.e., distinct sequences occurring in one or more individuals, found in 478
Africans, 510 Europeans, 494 Asians, 167 Native Americans and 20 individuals from
Australia and Oceania. Whereas these modern human sequences differ among
themselves by an average of 8.0 (range 1-24) substitutions, the difference between the
humans and the Neandertal sequence is 27.2 (range 22-36) substitutions. Thus, the
largest difference observed between any two human sequences was two substitutions
larger than the smallest difference between a human and the Neandertal." 25

The conclusions drawn were as follows:

"When the comparison was extended to 16 common chimpanzee lineages, the

number of positions in common among the human and chimpanzee sequences was
reduced to 333. This reduced the number of human lineages to 986. The average
number of differences among humans is 8.0 (range 1-24), that between humans and
the Neandertal, 25.6 (range 20-34), and that between humans and chimpanzees, 55.0
(range 46-67). Thus, the average number of mtDNA sequence differences between
modern humans and the Neandertal is about three times that among humans, but about
half of that between modern humans and modern chimpanzees.
To estimate the time when the most recent ancestral sequence common to the
Neandertal and modern human mtDNA sequences existed, we used an estimated
divergence date between humans and chimpanzees of 4-5 million years ago and
corrected the observed sequence differences for multiple substitutions at the same
nucleotide site. This yielded a date of 550,000 to 690,000 years before present for the
divergence of the Neandertal mtDNA and contemporary human mtDNAs. When the age
of the modern human mtDNA ancestor is estimated using the same procedure, a date of
120,000 to 150,000 years is obtained, in agreement with previous estimates. Although
these dates rely on the calibration point of the chimpanzee-human divergence and have
errors of unknown magnitude associated with them, they indicate that the age of the
common ancestor of the Neandertal sequence and modern human sequences is about
four times greater than that of the common ancestor of modern human mtDNAs.
The Neandertal mtDNA sequence thus supports a scenario in which modern
humans arose recently in Africa as a distinct species and replaced Neandertals with
little or no interbreeding." 25

If mtDNA was in fact isolated from the Neanderthal bones, these conclusions might
seem reasonable until one considers a few more facts. The Cell article itself noted that
the range of sequence differences for modern human mtDNA goes from 1 to 24 with an
average of 8 substitutions. The mtDNA sequence differences between modern humans
and the single Neanderthal fossil range from 22 to 36 substitutions, with the average
being 27. In other words, the two most different humans analyzed in this study, as far
as mtDNA substitutions are concerned, are different by 24 substitutions. The closest
that any human in this study was to the single specimen of Neanderthal mtDNA was 22
substitutions. This means that there are some people living today that are closer to
Neanderthals in their mtDNA sequencing than they are to some other modern human
beings. Someone might be found to be only 22 substitutions away from our
Neanderthal, but 24 substitutions away from his own next-door neighbor. Interesting
isn't it? If Neanderthals are classed as separate species because of these differences,
which one of our modern human volunteers should be classify as a separate species?
Perhaps the one who was only 22 substitutions different from the Neanderthal? Or,
maybe his next-door neighbor who is 24 substitutions away from his neighbor as well as
22 substitutions away from our Neanderthal friend? I mean, some of us might have
neighbors that look like Neanderthals (or maybe we might look like Neanderthals
compared to our neighbors), but can a different species really be assumed based on a
difference of 20-some substitutions in a particular hypervariable region of DNA?
 "The computation of pairwise distances between the 171 randomly selected sequences and the
Neandertals rendered 1.6% of human-human comparisons larger than the smallest difference between
Neandertals and humans. Likewise, 27% of the comparisons are lower than the largest human-human
difference. This result suggests that Neandertals sequences are not so different from those of extant
humans, in contrast to the NSG claims." 50

There have been attempts by popular scientists to describe exactly how this
mtDNA evidence turns Neanderthals into separate species. Some describe it as a
group of early Homo sapiens huddled around a fire. Some are shoulder to shoulder
while others, on the other side of the fire might be several feet away... maybe even 24
feet away. However, the average distance that any one person is from any other person
is just 8 feet. Now we notice a dark Neanderthal figure in the shadows far from the
fire. He averages 27 feet away from any given Homo sapien huddled around the fire.
Obviously therefore, he is an outsider, a different species all together.
However closer inspection reveals that some of those huddled around the fire are
closer to the Neanderthal than they are to certain others that are also huddled around
the fire. Does that make them more closely related to Neanderthals, who belong to a
completely different species, than to certain members of their own species? This
sounds rather silly does it not? And yet, this is what must be the obvious conclusion.
For example, what if we started with the Neanderthal specimen and then picked a
person at random out of a crowd. We might get someone who is different by 24
substitutions from our Neanderthal specimen. Now, we pick someone else out of the
crowd who just so happens to also be different by 24 substitutions from our Neanderthal
specimen and by 24 substitutions from our first human volunteer. Which one is the new
species? They are all practically equidistant from each other. In order to visualize the
problem, draw three dots on a piece of paper, one for each of our two volunteers and
the third dot for our Neanderthal "volunteer." Make sure to draw each one on the paper
separated by 24 units of measure from each of the other two dots. Now, pick the one
that is the new species and the two that belong to the same species. Maybe there are
three separate species represented here? However, all one would have to do to
disprove this notion is get two of the volunteers to "produce offspring" so to speak. If
that happened, the entire notion that a separation of 20 or so substitutions makes for a
new species, would have to be... well... revised somewhat.
Some argue that new and more recent information published by Pääbo and his
team in May of 1999, show that my objections to his conclusions are misguided. As it
turns out, the range (1-81) for chimp/bonobo substitutions are even wider than
previously thought. In other words, if one chose a chimp at random, this chimp might be
as many as 81 substitutions different from the chimp swinging on the branches right
next to him. This is interesting because this same chimp might be only 78 substitutions
different from a given human living at the edge of the forest. This more recent paper
also points out that the range between humans (1-35) is also wider than was reported in
the first paper. The range between humans and the Neanderthal sequence was also
altered in the updated paper to (29-43).49 Some see this as clear evidence that my
arguments are flawed, but personally, I fail to see how. This second paper seems to
make it even more clear that substitution differences in a given variable region cannot
be used to absolutely measure the boundary between different species. In fact, using
this method of reason, it seems like some chimps might be more closely related to
certain humans than to certain chimps within their own species. Since this clearly is not
the case, this logic seems flawed. Evolutionary conclusions therefore cannot be
effectively supported using this these methods.
Why this problem has not been more publicly recognized seems rather strange. I
am sure that I am not the first one to wonder about this. And yet, popular scientist seem
not even to be aware that there is this problem. It seems that the statistical average of
8 and 27 are so different that this squelches any suggestion that there might be a
problem. Using this average difference as a basis for their conclusions, Kahn and
Gibbons wrote in the journal Science that these averages put Neanderthal out of the
statistical range of modern human variation.31
This statement is clearly misguided because not only are there humans living
today with wider separations between them than our Neanderthal friend, but it is a
statistical error or pitfall to compare many different entities with just one entity. In other
words, we do not know what the Neanderthal mtDNA average is if there is just one
specimen. How then can we know if this one Neanderthal was not a statistical outlier?
How do we know that if we but had more Neanderthal samples that the average would
not be closer to that of modern humans?
As it turns out, since the first sequence was obtained by Pääbo and his team, there
have been two more Neanderthals found who's mtDNA was intact enough to sequence.
The second sequence was done in 1999 on a baby discovered in Mesmaiskaya Cave in
south-western Russia. This Neanderthal baby is thought to have died 29,000 years
ago. The sequence of this baby differed from the first sequence by 12 substitutions.
The average number of substitutions between the second Neanderthal mtDNA ("Baby
M" for short) and a given human is 22 as compared to 27 from the first Neanderthal
sequence.46,47 In other words, Baby M was "closer to the Homo sapien fire" than the
first shadowy Neanderthal. This means that some living humans might be even closer
to this second Neanderthal than they are to other living humans by quite a fair margin.
Unfortunately however, no figures for the minimum, average, and maximum distances
between the second Neanderthal and modern humans was provided.
The third Neanderthal who's mtDNA was successfully sequenced was found in a
cave at Vindija, Croatia. In 2000, scientists announced the mtDNA sequencing of this
third Neanderthal specimen. This new sequence fell within a 3.75% cluster of the first
two sequences.48 Modern humans cluster at around 3.5%. This is a rather narrow level
of diversity when one compares these clusters to chimps (15%) and gorillas (19%).
Various human ethnic groups also have rather narrow ranges of diversity in their mtDNA
sequencing. Of course, the problem still remains that some humans from certain of
these ethic groups are more closely "related" to Neanderthals than they are to certain
other living humans from other groups. The question remains as to who should be
classed as a separate species?
Maryellen Ruvolo (Harvard University) points out that the genetic variation
between the modern human and Neanderthal sequences is within the range of other
single species of primates. She goes on to say: " there isn't a yardstick for genetic
difference upon which you can define a species." 31
Further confusion comes from the comments in the Cell article that seem to
indicate that Neanderthals are more closely related to the ancestral "chimpanzee" than
modern humans are. This might not have been the actual intention of the authors, but
one could easily get confused by the wording of the article. The fact of the matter is that
the single specimen of Neanderthal mtDNA was actually farther away from chimp
mtDNA than humans are from chimp mtDNA substitutions. Clearly then, Neanderthal
DNA is no closer "related" to chimp DNA than human DNA is. 32
Also, the idea that mtDNA mutations can be used as a molecular clock have been
recently called into question by the journal Science. As it turns out, former ideas about
the timing of this clock might be in error by as much as "20-fold." The famous
"Mitochondrial Eve" once thought to be around 100,000 to 200,000 years old, might now
have to be revised to as young as "6,000" years old. 33,34
D. Melnick and G. Hoelzer (Columbia University) tested the assumptions of mtDNA
based phylogenic relationships and concluded:
 "Our results suggest serious problems with use of mtDNA to estimate 'true' population
genetic structure, to date cladogenic events, and in some cases, to construct
phylogenies." 35

Jonathan Marks (Yale University) declared mtDNA determined relationships to be highly

biased:

"Most analysis of mitochondrial DNA are so equivocal as to render a clear solution

impossible, the preferred phylogeny relying critically on the choice of outgroup and
clustering technique." 36

In August of 2002, Gabriel Guitierrez et al., from the Universidad de Sevilla, Spain,
published a paper in the well known journal, Molecular Biology and Evolution entitled, "A
Reanalysis of the Ancient Mitochondrial DNA Sequences Recovered from Neandertal
Bones." 50 Consider their conclusions from the following abstract:

"Recent reports analyzing mitochondrial DNA sequences from Neandertal bones

have claimed that Neadnertals and modern humans are different species. The
phylogenetic analyses carried out in these articles did not take into account the high
substitution rate variation among sites observed in the human mitochondrial D-loop
region and also lack an estimation of the parameters of the nucleotide substitution
model. The separate phylogenic position of Neandertal-Human and Human-Human
pairwise distance distributions overlap more than what previous studies suggested. We
also show that the most ancient Neandertal HVI region is the most divergent when
compared with modern human sequences. However, the opposite would be expected if
the sequence had not been modified since the death of the specimen. Such
incongruence is discussed in the light of diagenetic modifications in ancient DNA
sequences."

In the body of this paper, there were several other statements of interest:
 "The NSG [The conclusions of Krings et al., based on their "Neandertal sequencing
groups"] reported that the pairwise comparisons between the Neandertal and human
sequences demonstrate that Neandertals are outside of modern human D-loop
variability. In particular, Krings et al., (1997) stated that 'a total of 0.002% of the pairwise
comparisons between human mtDNA sequences were larger than the smallest
difference between the Neandertal and the humans.' We think that this point merits
further analysis. The current database is biased because of the overrepresentation of
some populations and the underrepresentation of others. For instance, the MOUSE
database contains 6,012 entries for the HVI region, but 31% of the entries belong to
only 20 populations out of 206 populations represented (10% of the total populations).
The extreme cases are 306 Koreans, 126 Yaps, 120 Cayapa Amerindians, 119
Mandeka, 115 Palau, and 100 white British. There are also 1,417 entries of
undetermined population (40% of them are from North America and 23% European, but
only 9% are from Africa). Thus, African populations containing the most ancient lineages
and the highest variation are underrepresented in the database.
Because of the database overrepresentation of some human populations, the
distribution of pairwise distances is biased. A large part of pairwise comparisons are
made between individuals belonging to the same population. Likewise, it is expected
that most individuals from a single population will show similar distances to a given
outgroup (Neandertal, in this case). To overcome this problem, we considered another
sample of the human variation. We first sorted the HVI sequences in our data set
according to it uncorrected distance to the reference sequence (Anderson et al. 1981).
Then we grouped them into 171 classes, containing equidistant sequences (considering
four decimals), and chose one sequence at random from each class. The computation
of pairwise distances between 171 randomly selected sequences and the Neandertals
rendered 1.6% of human-human comparisons larger than the smallest difference
between Neandertals and humans. Likewise, 27% of the comparisons are lower than
the largest human-human difference. This result suggests that Neandertals sequences
are not so different from those of extant humans, in contrast to the NSG claims."

Guitierrez et al., went on to note that:

 "The main conclusion can be extracted from our analyses: the phylogenetic position
of the ancient DNA sequences recovered from Neandertal bones is sensitive to the
phylogenetic methods employed. It depends on the model of nucleotide substitution, the
branch support method, and the set of data used. Adcock et al. (2001) recovered HVI
sequences of archaic human bones from Australia, and their phylogenic analysis
showed that two of the specimens were outgroups even for the most ancient African
lineages. They concluded that this is evidence supporting the multiregional hypothesis.
However, a second analysis carried out by Cooper et al. (2001) that took into account
the heterogeneity of rates between sites and a large sample of modern humans,
showed that both HVI sequences are located among extant humans. This case
illustrates the influence of the nucleotide substitution model on the phylogenetic
reconstruction of the human D-loop region.
The NSG studies used poor parameter models of nucleotide substitution for their
analysis, whereas we opted for complex (parameter rich) models following the likelihood
ratio test... We believe that the likelihood mapping values supporting Neandertals as a
different species might be artifactually increased."
 Then problems with DNA sequence analysis are getting so bad that some scientists
are suggesting that variable control regions in DNA not be used at all for reconstructing
human genetic history. It simply has too many problems associated with it.51 One
problem is that mtDNA functions as a single genetic locus, as a single gene does in
nuclear DNA. Studies that work off a single genetic locus are more likely to be affected
by random genetic changes than are studies that include more than one locus (the more
the better). Therefore, single locus studies are less accurate in characterizing a
population. Another problem with mtDNA is that it is strictly limited to maternal
inheritance. Because of this, genetic patterns that are drawn from mtDNA studies can
differ from those that come from nuclear DNA studies. These differences could be quite
misleading.52
Another potential problem is the use of control regions as a "molecular clock".
Some nucleotide regions mutate slowly, while others can mutate relatively rapidly.53
These mutational "hotspots" can mutate fairly rapidly even with a single lifetime and are
intuitively rather common in the aged.54 Of course such "somatic" mutations arise in
mitochondria of various bodily tissues and, unless they involve gametes, they are not
passed on to the next generation. However, they would still affect phylogenetic
interpretations. Scientists have tried to compensate for these problems, but the various
methods have produced divergent results.55 Also, direct comparisons of modern
sequences with historical sequences often yield very difference results from those
estimated by indirect methods that are based on present day sequence differences. For
example, direct comparisons of modern penguins with historically sequenced penguins
have shown that their mtDNA mutation rates are 2 to 7 times faster than had previously
been assumed through indirect methods.56 Direct studies with human mtDNA mutation
rates are even worse, showing a discrepancy with previously estimated rates by as
much as 20 fold. The "mitochondrial Eve", or the common ancestor of modern humans,
was once thought to be about 150,000 years old. Based on the new rates of
mitochondrial mutation, this figure might have to be reduced to as low as 6,500 years.57
Consider the following comments published by Thomas Parsons in the journal Nature
Genetics:
 "The rate and pattern of sequence substitutions in the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA)
control region (CR) is of central importance to studies of human evolution and to
forensic identity testing. Here, we report a direct measurement of the intergenerational
substitution rate in the human CR. We compared DNA sequences of two CR
hypervariable segments from close maternal relatives, from 134 independent mtDNA
lineages spanning 327 generational events. Ten subsitutions were observed, resulting in
an empirical rate of 1/33 generations, or 2.5/site/Myr. This is roughly twenty-fold higher
than estimates derived from phylogenetic analyses. This disparity cannot be accounted
for simply by substitutions at mutational hot spots, suggesting additional factors that
produce the discrepancy between very near-term and long-term apparent rates of
sequence divergence. The data also indicate that extremely rapid segregation of CR
sequence variants between generations is common in humans, with a very small
mtDNA bottleneck. These results have implications for forensic applications and studies
of human evolution.
The observed substitution rate reported here is very high compared to rates
inferred from evolutionary studies. A wide range of CR substitution rates have been
derived from phylogenetic studies, spanning roughly 0.025-0.26/site/Myr, including
confidence intervals. A study yielding one of the faster estimates gave the substitution
rate of the CR hypervariable regions as 0.118 +- 0.031/site/Myr. Assuming a generation
time of 20 years, this corresponds to ~1/600 generations and an age for the mtDNA
MRCA of 133,000 y.a. Thus, our observation of the substitution rate, 2.5/site/Myr, is
roughly 20-fold higher than would be predicted from phylogenetic analyses. Using our
empirical rate to calibrate the mtDNA molecular clock would result in an age of the
mtDNA MRCA of only ~6,500 y.a., clearly incompatible with the known age of modern
humans. Even acknowledging that the MRCA of mtDNA may be younger than the
MRCA of modern humans, it remains implausible to explain the known geographic
distribution of mtDNA sequence variation by human migration that occurred only in the
last ~6,500 years." 57
 On top of this molecular clock problem, scientists are seem to have more problems
agreeing that the mtDNA control regions are in fact "immune" from the pressures of
natural selection. If it turns out that these control regions are not immune from such
selection pressures, some scientists feel that this would allow Neandertals to be directly
or even indirectly ancestor to modern humans.58 In fact, recently published papers are
suggesting that the Mezmaiskaya infant (one of the three Neandertal specimens that
have yielded mtDNA) was actually not a Neandertal at all, but an "early modern
human". 59 If this is true, this suggests that modern humans are just a different from
Neandertals as we are from early modern humans. This supports the view that
Neandertals, as well as early modern humans, were ancestral to us modern humans.
According to this view, the differences between Neandertal mtDNA and our own mtDNA
simply reflect the changes that have occurred in the mitochondrial genome since
Neandertal times less than 50,000 years ago (based on radiometric dating). Of course,
this is a far cry from the ~600,000 year date suggested by those such as Krings et al.
Given all of these findings, what seems most reasonable? Are Neanderthals
anything but human? It seems like they fall well within human ethnic variation. How
then can we say that, based on such variations that Neanderthals belong to a different
group or species than Homo sapiens? (Back to Top)

Wishful Thinking at Fontéchevade

In 1937, Germaine Henri-Martin, a

very well respected archeologist, began
excavations in a cave in southwestern
France called Font 飨 evade and
continued her work here until 1954,
removing over 900 cubic meters of
sediment. When she first started
excavating, the cave was pretty much filled with sediment with only a small crawlspace
left to get into the cave. As she and her crew dug downward they found several layers.
The topmost layers were "Aurignacian" and were thought to be laid down during the
time of anatomically modern humans. Underneath the Aurignacian layers were the
"Mousterian" layers, laid down during the time of the Neandertals. A bit more digging
reveals the "Tayacian" layers within which she found several human skull fragments
that, to her and many others like Henri Vallois (new director of the Institute of Human
Paleontology), looked relatively modern with its lightly built structure and lack of
browridges.
Of course, a modern looking
human skull found in layers older than
Neandertals would be quite something
indeed. It certainly would and did
disturb the paradigm of the day, but
seemed to fit the predictions made by
Marcellin Boule who removed
Neandertals from the human family in
1908 and predicted that the true lineage
leading to modern man would reach
much farther back in time, bypassing
Neandertals altogether. Many, with
Boule, could not tolerate the idea of
Neandertals being "human" because
this would lessen human "specialness".
In any case, Germaine's initial finds
seem to confirm this hypothesis and so
she was strongly encouraged by Vallois
to keep digging to discover more about
the life of the "earliest Frenchman."
Germaine did indeed discover plenty of evidence to very nicely flesh out a very
good story of how the first French people lived. For example, the site is full of flint, which
was interpreted as being worked into tools. Various "hearths" were also found
throughout the site where the first families cooked, prepared their food, and ate.
Evidence of these meals, in the form of animal bones, were everywhere. And, she
found the hominids themselves, or at least their bones. So, the evidence for a rather
complete an intricate life for the earliest French people seemed rather obvious and fairly
easily interpreted.
After the1950s, the years rolled by without any similar finds of modern human
remains below those of Neandertals. In the early 1970s, a young graduate student, Erik
Trinkaus, started asking some questions. He found that the reason the skull fragments
lacked browridges was because that area was completely broken off. Given this
evidence, the interpretation of modern human features seemed to be based on little
more than wishful thinking.
Now, everything was called into
question - even the interpretation of the
Fontéchevade site itself. Shannon
McPherron and Harold Dibble decided
to do some reinvestigation with the aide
of some higher technology - a very
precise digital laser "theodolite"
mapping system. With this system they
were able to record the exact position
and location of every object found
during their dig. Over the next five years
McPherron and Dibble collected and
recorded data on thousands of stone
objects and animal bones. After careful
analysis of all the data sets, their
conclusions were actually quite shocking.
 Germaine had interpreted the flint stones
as very "primitive" tools, even more primitive
than those used by Neandertals. Little did she
know how primitive these tools really were.
As part of their research McPherron and
Dibble noted that known manmade tools all
have certain features, like a sharpened
regular modification of a flint edge. None of
the "tools" found out Fontéchevade had such
features. They were in fact indistinguishable
from naturally broken rocks! The animal
bones were problematic as well. They
showed no signs of deliberate butchering and
they were generally oriented in a parallel or
perpendicular fashion with respect to the
cave walls and to each other. Such
orientation is not consistent with people
randomly dropping these bones on the
ground of the cave-home surface. They
would have to be extraordinarily neat and
unusual people indeed to place the remains
of dinner in such neat alignment. Of course,
such orientation is much more consistent with
a watery deposition, and that is exactly what McPherron and Dibble concluded. When
an object is being moved along by a stream, it either turns sideways and rolls with the
flow or it turns perpendicular to the flow to let the water slip past with little resistance.
After discovering this artifact orientation phenomenon, a source for the flowing water
was searched for and found. The source was a narrow passage at the back end of the
cave that worked to drain water from above, washing debris through the roof into the
cave from the outside.
 Obviously then, Germaine, and many of her colleagues, fell victim to wishful
thinking, interpreting artifacts found in rather obvious fluvial deposition layers as
evidence of the family life of early humans. The narrator of the 2002 PBS documentary,
"Neanderthals on Trial" concluded:

"What made it look real to the archaeologists was an overwhelming desire to see the
past in a certain way.
The urge to distance ourselves from Neanderthals or to pull them closer to us is a
surprisingly powerful force.
Archaeologists Jean Philippe Rigaud and Jan Simek are well aware of the problem."
[Jan Simek added], "I think that we're as guilty of it today, of that kind of preconceived
approach to our data, as anybody has been in the history of archaeology or
anthropology. It's almost inevitable that our own views of the world will be brought to
bear." 68

It is also interesting to consider comments made by the journalist, Mark Davis, who
investigated this story on Neanderthals for NOVA.

"Yes, it's fascinating to see how scientists unravel the story of human evolution. But
if you venture into this world as a journalist, you must be prepared for the fact that
there's a lot more raveling going on than unraveling.
There are many, many arguments in this famously contentious field, not about
whether humans evolved, but how. . . I spoke with many Neanderthal experts in the
course of making this film, and I found them all to be intelligent, friendly, well-educated
people, dedicated to the highest principles of scientific inquiry. I also got the impression
that each one thought the last one I talked to was an idiot, if not an actual Neanderthal.
Because people sometimes believe what they see on TV, especially public TV, the
NOVA producer has an obligation to try to get things right. So which one of the experts
should I have believed? The more people I spoke with, the more confusing it got. . .
Listening to the archeologists and anthropologists talk about their work (and their
colleagues' work), I heard the same frustrations voiced again and again: People are
driven by their preconceptions. They see what they want to see. They find what they're
looking for. . .
I learned that what people see in Neanderthals often has as much to do with
philosophy as it does with science. What does it mean to be human? Some definitions
are broad and inclusive, others are narrow and exclusive. Scholars have been known to
attack one another's views on Neanderthals as "racist" or "politically correct." . . . What I
found most interesting in all this is that every scientist I talked to encouraged me to
explore the issue of self-delusion, and no one claimed to be immune. They are all aware
that the history of the field is littered with brilliant scholars who completely missed the
boat because of the power of their preconceptions." 69

(Back to Top)

Ancient Footprints
 An excellent example of a dating problem in the news appears in an article from
National Geographic magazine. It describes some footprints made in volcanic ash that
are said to be 3.6 million years old.

As I kneel beside the large print and lightly touch its sole, I am filled with quiet awe. It
looks perfectly modern. "I thought that at three and a half million years ago their prints
might be somehow different from ours," says Latimer. "But they aren't. The bipedal
adaptation of those hominids was full-blown." 23

Mary Leakey discovered this 73-foot long trail of

fossilized footprints consisting of 20 prints of an
individual the size and shape of a modern 10-year-old
human and 27 prints of a smaller person. The
paleoanthropologist Timothy White, who was working
with Leakey at the time, said:

"Make no mistake about it, they are like modern

human footprints. If one were left in the sand of a
California beach today, and a four-year old were
asked what it was, he would instantly say that
somebody had walked there. He wouldn't be able to
tell it from a hundred other prints on the beach, nor
would you. The external morphology is the same.
There is a well shaped modern heel with a strong arch and a good ball of the foot in
front of it. The big toe is straight in line. It doesn't stick out to the side like an ape toe"
(Lucy p. 250, Johanson & Edey).

Louis Robins of the University of North Carolina who analyzed the footprints said:
 "The arch is raised, the smaller individual had a higher arch than I do -- the toes grip
the ground like human toes. You do not see this in other animal forms" (Science News
115:196-197, 1979).

In a recent lecture in St. Louis, Mary Leakey pointed out one additional feature of
her footprints that one does not often see mentioned in the literature; all of the larger
footprints of the trail have a smaller footprint superimposed on them! Mary Leakey
herself conceded that it appears that a child was intentionally lengthening its stride to
step in an elder's footprints! In addition there were thousands of tracks of a wide variety
of animals that are similar or identical to animals living in the area today including
antelopes, hares, giraffes, rhinoceroses, hyenas, horses, pigs and two kinds of
elephants. Even several birds' eggs were found and many of these could be easily
correlated with eggs of living species.
Mary Leakey assumes that the footprints were made by some hominid but not by
Homo sapiens because the stratum in which the prints are found is estimated to be 3.5
Ma. That happens to be the current presumed age of A. afarensis and thus it is that
Johanson insists that they simply would have to have been made by his A. afarensis:

"The foot prints would have to be from A. afarensis. They substantiate our idea that
bipedalism occurred very early, and our contention that the brain was too small to
master tools."

Mary Leakey disagrees with Johanson and his claims for A. afarensis as the maker
of her footprints. Mary Leakey is not the only one who questions Johanson's claims for
Lucy. In a recent article, in Science News 122:116 titled, "Was Lucy a Climber", two
groups of scientists, working independently, challenged the claim that Lucy had
completely abandoned the trees and walked fully upright on the ground. Anthropologist
Russel Tuttle from the University of Chicago said that the Laetoli footprints that Leakey
discovered in Tanzania were made by another more human species of ape-man that
coexisted with A. afarensis about 3.7 million years ago and that it was this unknown
hominid that is the direct ancestor to man. After a careful examination of the Laetoli
prints and foot bones of the Hadar A. afarensis, he concluded that, "The Hadar foot is
ape-like with curved toes" whereas the footprints left in Laetoli are "virtually human."
Susman and Stern of the State university of New York at Stony Brook have
concluded that A. afarensis, while capable of walking upright, spent considerable time in
the trees. They base this conclusion on an examination of Lucy's scapula, foot and hand
bones, which they say show, "unmistakable hallmarks of climbing." They also believe
that Lucy's limb proportions did not allow an efficient upright gait.

Dr. David Pilbeam, an anthropologist from Harvard, make some very interesting
comments in a 1978 review of Richard Leakey's book, Origins. Pilbeam said that it
was, "A clear statement of our current consensus view of human evolution, and
remarkably up to date." But, he concluded with the following sobering thoughts: "My
reservations concern not so much this book but the whole subject and methodology of
paleoanthropology. But introductory books - or book reviews - are hardly the place to
argue that perhaps generations of students of human evolution, including myself, have
been flailing about in the dark: that our data base is too sparse, too slippery, for it to be
able to mold our theories. Rather the theories are more statements about us and
ideology than about the past. Paleoanthropology reveals more about how humans view
themselves than it does about how humans came about. But that is heresy." 19

(Back to Top)

The Key Human-Ape Differences

It is becoming more and more clear that the key functional differences between

living things, like humans and apes, are not so much found in protein-coding genes, but

in the non-coding regions of DNA once thought to be functionless "junk-DNA" -

evolutionary remnants of past mistakes that are shared between various creatures.
This notion is starting to be shed with more and more discoveries that show that many

of these same regions are not just functional, they carry the vast majority of the genetic

information. The "genes" that were once thought to be so important for genetic

function are turning out to be equivalent to the most low-level basic building blocks

within the genome, like bricks and motor. Surprisingly, it is the non-coding regions of

DNA control what is done with these building blocks - that determine what kind of

"house" to build so to speak. The following article is very interesting in this regard:

"Seventy-five percent of known human miRNAs [microRNAs] cloned in this study

were conserved in vertebrates and mammals, 14% were conserved in invertebrates,

10% were primate specific and 1% are human specific. The new miRNAs have a
different conservation distribution: more than half of the human miRNAs were

conserved only in primates, about 30% in mammals and 9% in nonmammalian

vertebrates or invertebrates; 8% were specific to humans. We saw a similar distribution

for the chimpanzee miRNAs.

The different miRNA repertoire, as well as differences in expression levels of

conserved miRNAs, may contribute to gene expression differences observed in human

and chimpanzee brain . Although the physiological relevance of miRNAs expressed

at low levels remains to be shown, it is tempting to speculate that a pool of such

miRNAs may contribute to the diversity of developmental programs and cellular

processes . . . For example, miRNAs recently have been implicated in synaptic

development and in memory formation. As the species specific miRNAs described here

are expressed in the brain, which is the most complex tissue in the human body, with an

estimated 10,000 different cell types, these miRNAs could have a role in establishing or

maintaining cellular diversity and could thereby contribute to the differences in human

and chimpanzee brain ... function." 77

General Observations

APES UP FROM?, DONALD JOHANSON, "At any rate, modem gorillas, orangs and
chimpanzees spring out of nowhere, as it were. They are here today; they have no
yesterday...., LUCY, p.363
SUDDEN APPEARANCE: 'Biologists would dearly like to know how modern apes,
modern humans and the various ancestral hominids have evolved from a common
ancestor. Unfortunately, the fossil record is somewhat incomplete as far as the hominids
are concerned, and it is all but blank for the apes. The best we can hope for is that
more fossils will be found over the next few years which will fill the present gaps in the
evidence.' The author goes on to say: 'David Pilbeam [a well-known expert in human
evolution] comments wryly, "If you brought in a smart scientist from another discipline
and showed him the meagre evidence we've got he'd surely say, 'forget it: there isn't
enough to go on'."
(Richard E. Leakey, The Making of Mankind, Michael Joseph Limited, London, 1981, p.
43)

HAZARDOUS SURMISING: "The fossil record pertaining to man is still so sparsely

known that those who insist on positive declarations can do nothing more than jump
from one hazardous surmise to another and hope that the next dramatic discovery does
not make them utter fools ... Clearly some refuse to learn from this. As we have seen,
there are numerous scientists and popularizers today who have the temerity to tell us
that there is 'no doubt' how man originated: if only they had the evidence..."
(William R Fix, The Bone Pedlars, New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1984,
p.150)

PROVEN ANCESTRY: RICHARD C. LEWONTIN, Prof. of Zoology, Harvard, "Look, I'm

a person who says in this book [Human Diversity, 1982 that we don't know anything
about the ancestors of the human species. All the fossils which have been dug up and
are claimed to be ancestors we haven't the faintest idea whether they are ancestors.
....All you've got is Homo sapiens there, you've got that fossil there, you've got another
fossil there...and it's up to you to draw the lines. Because there are no lines.", Harpers,
2/84
RECONSTRUCTIONS: EARNST A. HOOTEN, Harvard, "To attempt to restore the soft
parts is an even more hazardous undertaking. The lips, the eyes, the ears, and the
nasal tip, leave no clues on the underlying bony parts. You can with equal facility model
on a Neanderthaloid skull the features of a chimpanzee or the lineaments of a
philosopher. These alleged restorations of ancient types of man have very little if any
scientific value and are likely only to mislead the public.... So put not your trust in
reconstructions.", UP FROM THE APE, p.332

RECONSTRUCTIONS: W. HOWELLS, Harvard, "A great legend has grown up to

plague both paleontologists and anthropologists. It is that one of; men can take a tooth
or a small and broken piece of bone, gaze at it, and pass his hand over his forehead
once or twice, and then take a sheet of paper and draw a picture of what the whole
animal looked like as it tramped the Terriary terrain. If this were quite true, the
anthropologists would make the F.B.I. look like a troop of Boy Scouts.", MANKIND SO
FAR, p. l38

THEORY DOMINATED DATA, DAVID PILBEAM, YALE, "I am also aware of the fact
that, at least in my own subject of paleoanthropology, "theory" - heavily influenced by
implicit ideas almost always dominates "data". ....Ideas that are totally unrelated to
actual fossils have dominated theory building, which in turn strongly influence the way
fossils are interpreted." Quoted in BONES OF CONTENTION p.127

PARANORMAL ANTHROPOLOGY, LORD SOLLY ZUCKERMAN, "We then move right

of the register objective truth into those fields of presumed biological science, like
extrasensory perception or the interpretation of man's fossil history, where to the faithful
anything is possible and where the ardent believer is sometimes able believe several
contradictory things at the same time." BEYOND THE IVORY TOWER, p.19

BASIS OF "FAMILY TREE". ROGER LEWIN, Editor, Research News, Science, "The
key issue is the ability correctly to infer a genetic relationship between two species on
the basis of a similarity in appearance, at gross and detailed levels of anatomy.
Sometimes this approach....can be deceptive, partly because similarity does not
necessarily imply an identical genetic heritage: a shark (which is a fish) and a porpoise
(which is a mammal) look similar?, BONES OF CONTENTION, 1987, p. 123

"APE MAN" OUT, ROGER LEWIN, Ed., Research News, Science, "The dethroning of
Ramapithecus from putative first human in 1961 to extinct relative of the orangutan in
1982 is one of the most fascinating, and bitter, sagas in the search for human origins."
BONES OF CONTENTION, 1987, p.86

"APES", Robert B. Eckhardt, Penn. State Univ., "...there would appear to be little
evidence to suggest that several different hominoid species are represented among the
Old World dryopithecine fossils... (Ramapithecus, Oreopithecus, Limnopithecus,
Kenyapithecus). They themselves nevertheless seem to have been apes
morphologically, ecologically, and behaviorally.", Scientific American, Vol.226, p.101

SECOND "APE MAN" OUT, ROGER LEWIN, Ed., Research News, Science, Richard
and his parents, Louis and Mary, have held to a view of human origins for nearly half a
century now that the line of true man, the line of Homo large brain, tool making and so
on has a separate ancestry that goes back millions and millions of years. And the
apeman, Australopithecus, has nothing to do with human ancestry." BONES OF
CONTENTION, 1987, p.18

LEAKEY DEFECTION, "Dr. Leakey bases his repudiation of Darwin on the results of his
long search in East Africa for the remains of the original man. The generally accepted
post Darwin view is that man developed from the baboon 3 to 5 million years ago. But
Leakey has found no evidence of a spurt in development at that time.", Chicago
American, 1/25, 1967

DISMISSED APE, LORD SOLLY ZUCKERMAN, "His Lordship's scorn for the level of
competence he sees displayed by paleoanthropologists is legendary, exceeded only by
the force of his dismissal of the australopithecines as having anything at all to do with
human evolution. 'They are just bloody apes', he is reputed to have observed on
examining the australopithecine remains in South Africa.. Zuckerman had become
extremely powerful in British science, being an adviser to the government up to the
highest level...,while at Oxford and then Birmingham universities, he had vigorously
pursued a metrical and statistical approach to studying the anatomy of fossil
hominids....it was on this basis that he underpinned his lifelong rejection of the
australopithecines as human ancestors.", Roger Lewin, BONES OF CONTENTION,
1987, p.164, 165

DEFINITELY AN APE, LORD SOLLY ZUCKERMAN, "The australopithecine skull is in

fact so overwhelmingly simian as opposed to human (figure 5) that the contrary
proposition could be equated to an assertion that black is white.", BEYOND THE IVORY
TOWER, p.78

UNHUMAN, LIKE THE ORANGUTAN, CHARLES E. OXNARD, Dean of Graduate

School, Prof. of Biology & Anatomy, USC, "....conventional wisdom is that the
australopithecine fragments are generally rather similar to humans....the new studies
point to different conclusions. The new investigations suggest that the fossil fragments
are usually uniquely different from any living form: when they do have similarities with
living species, they are as often as not reminiscent of the orangutan, ...these results
imply that the various australopithecines are really not all that much like humans.
....may well have been bipeds, .... but if so, it was not in the human manner. They may
also have been quite capable climbers as much at home in the trees as on the
ground..", The American Biology Teacher, Vol.41, May 1979, pp.273-4

LIKE PYGMY CHIMP, ADRIENNE L ZIHLMAN, U. C. Santa Cruz, "Zihlman compares

the pygmy chimpanzee to "Lucy," one of the oldest hominid fossils known and finds the
similarities striking. They are almost identical in body size, in stature; and in brain
size.... These commonalties, Zihlman argues indicate that pygmy chimps use their
limbs in much the same way Lucy did....", Science News, Vol.123, Feb.5. 1983, p.89
AUSTRALOPITHECINES, William Howells, Harvard, "...the pelvis was by no means
modern, nor were the feet: the toes were more curved than ours; the heel bones lacked
our stabilizing tubercles; and a couple of small ligaments that, in us, tighten the arch
from underneath, were apparently not present. The finger bones were curved as they
are in tree climbing apes." GETTING HERE, 1993, p.79

SHRIVELED STATUS, MATT CARTMILL, Duke; DAVID PILBEAM Harvard; GLYNN

ISAAC Harvard; "The australopithecines are rapidly shrinking back to the status of
peculiarly specialized apes...", American Scientist, (JulyAugust 1986) p.419

BELIEVE IT, SEE IT, ROGER LEWIN, Editor of Research News, Science, "How is it
that trained men, the greatest experts of their day, could look at a set of modern human
bones the cranial fragments and "see" a clear simian signature in them; and see in an
apes jaw the unmistakable signs of humanity. The answers, inevitably, have to do with
the scientist's' expectations and their effects on the interpretation of the data. It is, in
fact, a common fantasy, promulgated mostly by the scientific profession itself, that in the
search for objective truth, data dictate conclusions. If this were the case, then each
scientist faced with the same data would necessarily reach the same conclusion. But as
we've seen earlier and will see again and again, frequently this does not happen. Data
are just as often molded to fit preferred conclusions.", BONES OF CONTENTION,
pp.61, 68

EVOLUTION OR VARIATION? "....a Neanderthaler is a model of evolutionary

refinement. Put him in a Brooks Brothers suit and send him down to the supermarket for
some groceries and he might pass completely unnoticed. He might run a little shorter
than the clerk serving him but he would not necessarily be the shortest man in the
place. He might be heavier-Featured, squattier and more muscular than most, but again
he might be no more so than the porter handling the beer cases back in the stock
room." EVOLUTION, TimeLife Nature Library.
LARGER BRAIN, WILLIAM HOWELLS, Harvard, "The Neanderthal brain was most
positively and definitely not smaller than our own; indeed, and this is a rather bitter pill,
it appears to have been perhaps a little larger.", MANKIND SO FAR, p.165

MODERN CAME FIRST, O. BARYOSEF, Peabody Museum, Harvard, B.

VANDERMEERCH, Univ. Bordeaux, "Modern Homo sapiens preceded Neanderthals at
Mt. Carmel. ...modern looking H. sapiens had lived in one of the caves some 50,000 to
100,000 years ago, much earlier than such people had been thought to exist anywhere.
...The results have shaken the traditional evolutionary scenario, producing more
questions than answers." Scientific American, p.94, April 1993

RUINED FAMILY TREE, "Either we toss out this skull [1470] or we toss out our theories
of early man," asserts anthropologist Richard Leakey of this 2.8 million year old fossil,
witch he has tentatively identified as belonging to our own genus. "It simply fits no
previous models of human beginnings." The author, son of famed anthropologist Louis
S. B. Leakey, believes that the skull's surprisingly large braincase "leaves in ruins the
notion that all early fossils can be arranged in an orderly sequence of evolutionary
change.", National Geographic, June 1973, p.819

HUMAN BRAIN, "Leakey further describes the whole shape of the brain case [1470] as
remarkably reminiscent of modern man, lacking the heavy and protruding eyebrow
ridges and thick bone characteristics of Homo erectus." Science News, 102 (4/3/72)
p.324

HUMAN BRAIN, Dean Falk, St. U. of N.Y. at Albany, "...KNMER 1805 Homo habilis
should not be attributed to Homo... the shape of the endocast from KNMER (basal
view) is similar to that from an African pongid, where as the endocast of KNMER 1470
is shaped like that of a modern human." Science, 221, (9/9/83) p.1073

HUMAN BRAIN "The foremost American experts on human brain evolution Dean Falk
of the State University of New York at Albany and Ralph Holloway of Columbia
University usually disagree, but even they agree that Broca's area is present in a skull
from East Turkana known as 1470. Philip Tobias...renowned brain expert from South
Africa concurs." Anthro Quest: The Leakey's Foundation News. No.43 (Spring 91) p.13

NOT ERECTUS, "According to paleoanthropologist Ian Tattersall of the American

Museum of Natural History in New York the African skulls...assigned to erectus often
lack many of the specialized traits that were originally used to define that species in
Asia, including the long low cranial structure thick skull bones, and robustly built faces.
In his view, the African group deserves to be placed in a separate species..." Discover,
9/94, p.88

"OLD" MODERN MEN, Louis Leakey, 'In 1933 I published on a small fragment of jaw
we call Homo kanamensis, and I said categorically this is not a nearman or ape, this is
a true member of the genus Homo. There were stone tools with it too. The age was
somewhere around 2.5 to 3 million years. It was promptly put on the shelf by my
colleagues, except for two of them. The rest said it must be placed in a 'suspense
account.' Now, 36 years later, we have proved I was right." Quoted in BONES OF
CONTENTION, p.156

'THE OLDEST MAN', "[African Footprints] ....they belonged to the genus Homo (or true
man), rather than to manapes (like Australopithecus, who was once a thought to be the
forerunner of man but is now regarded as a possible evolutionary dead end). ....they
were 3.35 million to 3.75 million years old. ....they would, in Mary Leakeys words, be
people 'not unlike ourselves,'...." Time, Nov. 10, 1975, p.93

TOO HUMAN TOO OLD, Russel H. Tuttle, Professor of Anthropology, University of

Chicago, Affiliate Scientist, Primate Research Center, Emory University, "In sum, the
3.5millionyearold footprint trails at Laetoli sight G resemble those of habitually unshod
modem humans. If the G footprints were not known to be so old, we would readily
conclude that they were made by a member of our genus...in any case we should
shelve the loose assumption that the Laetoli footprints were made by Lucy's kind..."
Natural History, 3/90, p.64.

MODERN & TALL, RICHARD LEAKEY, ....the boy from Turkana was surprisingly large
compared with modern boys his age; he could well have grown to six feet. ....he would
probably go unnoticed in a crowd today. This find combines with previous discoveries of
Homo erectus to contradict a long held idea that humans have grown larger over the
millennia.", National Geographic, p.629, Nov., 1985

CHARLES E. OXNARD Dean, Grad. School, Prof. Bio. and Anat., USC, "...earlier finds,
for instance, at Kanapoi...existed at least at the same time as, and probably even earlier
than, the original gracile australopithecines... almost indistinguishable in shape from
that of modern humans at four and a half million years..." American Biology Teacher,
Vol.41, 5/1979, p.274.

HENRY M. MCHENRY, U. of C., Davis, "The results show that the Kanapoi specimen,
which is 4 to 4.5 million years old, is indistinguishable from modern Homo sapiens..."
Science Vol.190, p.~28.

WILLIAM HOWELLS, Harvard, "...with a date of about 4.4 million, [KP 271] could not be
distinguished from Homo sapiens morphologically or by multivariate analysis by
Patterson and myself in 1967 (or by much more searching analysis by others since
then). We suggested that it might represent Australopithecus because at that time
allocation to Homo seemed preposterous, although it would be the correct one without
the time element.", HOMO ERECTUS, 1981, p.79-80.

EVE KICKED OUT, STEPHEN J. GOULD, "...'mitochondral Eve' hypothesis of modern

human origins in Africa, suffered a blow in 1993, when the discovery of an important
technical fallacy in the computer program used to generate and assess evolutionary
trees debunked the supposed evidence for an African source...disproving the original
claim.", Natural History, 2/94, p.21
(Back to Top)

Concerning Variations in Human Stature, Facial Features and Skull

Capacity

• "Differences due to age are especially significant with reference to the structure
of the skull in apes. Very pronounced changes occur during the transition from
juvenile to adult in apes, but not in Man. The skull of a juvenile ape is somewhat
less different in shape from that of Man. We may remember that the first
specimen of Australopithecus that was discovered by Raymond Dart, the "Tuang
child", was that of a juvenile [ape]. This juvenile skull should never have been
compared to those of adult apes and humans.?16

• A few miles to the east of Olduvai Gorge, in the forests of Zaire, are the Mbuti
people who are on average only four feet to four feet six inches tall. These
people are, in stature, brain capacity, and even way of life, are comparable to
Homo habilis. Yet the Mbuti people are modern men in every sense.? 7

• Small stature in humans is known to produce abnormal anatomical

characteristics, which resemble ape-like characteristics, such as the jaw and
dentition (because the individuals have the same number of teeth as us in a
much more confined space) and the length of the arms. That is why many
pygmy faces look different to ours (often showing prognathous teeth and jaws).
Here is Francis Huxley: "In both types [of pygmy] the eyes tend to bulge, the
upper jaw juts out, and the arms are longer than the legs."17 Here is
anthropologist David Davies: "There are two types [of prognathism] alveolar
prognathism, which is restricted to the tooth region, and facial prognathism,
which affects a much larger area of the face causing it to jut out, so increasing
the facial area. A small chin is characteristic of both conditions. Prognathism is
 considered a primitive feature, particularly as it is most commonly found in apes
and ancient primitive men. The Andamanese [pygmies] have pronounced
prognathism."18 These descriptions are like the Australopithecine characteristic
described above. This thinking lead Huxley and Darwin to mistakenly consider
the Australian Aborigine as "primitive" because they have some of these
features? although they are actually modern humans.7

• One of the most distinguished living palaeoanthropologists, Philip Tobias (1970),

quotes the discoverer of Australopithecus, Raymond Dart, as saying that,
"apparently normal human beings have existed with brain-sizes in the 700s and
800s" and that the smallest cranial capacity ever documented for a non-
pathologic human is 790cc.7

• There is scientifically no basis in evidence for suggesting that intellectual

capacity is correlated with brain size as is sometimes suggested and there is
evidence which indicates such a view is mistaken (the systematic differential
between human male and female brain capacity which is not reflected in the
IQ of the sexes).7

• Different medical anomalies, such as proportionate

dwarfism, can result in very small adult humans with
normal intelligence even though, with a
proportionate head, cranial capacities can be less
than 500 - 600cc. The shortest mature human male,
of whom there is independent evidence, is Gul
Mohammed (born 15 Feb 1957) of New Delhi,
India. On 19 Jul 1990 he was examined at Ram
Manohar Hospital, New Delhi, and found to measure
22 1/2in (57 cm) in height (weight 17kg 371/2lb). The other members of his
immediate family are of normal height. For a time, the shortest ever female was
Pauline Musters ('Princess Pauline'), a Dutch dwarf. She was born at
 Ossendrecht on 26 Feb 1876 and measured 12in 30cm at birth. At nine years of
age she was 55 cm (21.65in) tall and weighed only 1.5kg (3lb 5oz). She died of
pneumonia with meningitis on 1 Mar. 1895 in New York City, USA at the age of
19. A post mortem examination showed her to be exactly 24in (61 cm) (there
was some elongation after death). Her mature weight varied from 7 1/2 - 9lb (3.4
- 4kg) and her 'vital statistics' were 18 1/2 - 19 - 17in (47 - 48 - 43cm), which
suggests she was overweight (Guinness Book of World Records, Page 56). At
the age of 17, "Princess Lucy" stood 21 inches high and weighted 14lbs, and was
proportional in every way. Likewise, at the age of 20, Henrietta Moritz stood
22in. tall and weighed 36lbs. At the age of 32, the proportional CPT Jack Barnett
stood 27in. tall and weighed in at a chubby 28 lbs. All were of at least average
intelligence (Pictures can be seen at www.turtlethought.com -1999).
(Back to Top)

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Note: Since these are my rough thoughts in draft from, I have not personally reviewed all of the above original references for accuracy
of content. If errors are found, notification of such errors would be appreciated at: Seanpit@gmail.com

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