Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
more than one species (which is a fascinating problem), but for thinking
about Hobbit's origins this lumpers' chart is fine.
The oldest group on the chart represents Australopithecus, the genus
that Raymond Dart named in 1925. 13 This group is not confined to Dart's
one species (Australopithecus africanus), however, but subsumes numerous
others that have since been discovered, such as Australopithecus afarensis
(Lucy's species). All recognized australopithecines were from Africa. As
detailed below, they tended to be small with apelike body proportions
and, to a greater or lesser degree depending on the species, retained
their ancestors' habit of spending time in trees. The australopithecines
were also at home on the ground, where they moved bipedally.
Homo habilis is a problem, because it seems to be something of a grab
bag that contained too much variation to truly represent only one spe-
cies . 14 (Here, the splitters are right.) The specimens that were initially
assigned to this species all came from Africa (originally, Olduvai Gorge,
in Tanzania), and they may be divided into those who looked a whole
lot like Australopithecus (e.g., OH 62, described below) and others who
resembled Homo erectus from Africa (e.g., a little skull from Kenya with
the museum number of KNM-ER 1813). Even so, some paleoanthropolo-
gists believe that certain fossils should be removed from Homo habilis
but think that the type specimen for this group (OH 7) and a few others
constitute a valid species. 15
Compared with the australopithecines, Homo erectus from Africa was
taller and had a larger body with more humanlike proportions and a
medium-sized brain. Bipedalism was more refined and habitual in this
species than in the australopithecines, and it probably spent less (if any)
time in trees. Small chewing teeth implied that the African form of
Homo erectus either ate different food from that of australopithecines or
that it consumed the same food but was cutting and softening it with
stone tools, or cooking it, or both. 16 Homo erectus from Africa may have
been less specialized in some of the details of its cranial vaults and teeth
than the Asian variants . 17
Genetic studies suggest that hominins originated in Africa between
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