Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
the general body plan for robust australopithecines remains a question mark.
According to Wood and Lonergan's definition, archaic hominins included, in
chronological order,
Australopithecus anamensis, Australopithecus afarensis, Kenyan-
thropus platyops, Australopithecus bahrelghazali,
and
Australopithecus africanus.
24. Alemseged et al. (2006) date the baby to about 3.3 million years ago.
25. Zeresenay quoted in Sloan 2006, 156.
26. Haile-Selassie et al. 2010.
27. Gibbons 2010.
28. Because of the fragmentary limb bones, the suggestion of Haile-Selassie
et al. (2010) that
A. afarensis
spent little, if any, time in trees must be taken with a
large grain of salt—especially in light of evidence from Dikika. The argument
that
A. afarensis
was completely modern in its bipedalism is not accepted by most
researchers today. It emerged in the 1970s in association with the hypothesis
that Lucy was likely to be the direct ancestor of
Homo
(i.e., “the mother of us
all”). The assertion that
Australopithecus afarensis
was completely committed
to terrestrial bipedalism has recently been reaffirmed by Ward, Kimbel, and
Johanson (2011) on the questionable basis of one foot bone.
29. Clarke and Tobias 1995; Clarke 2008.
30. Much more information will eventually be forthcoming from this trea-
sure of a skeleton. To date, Clarke's team has uncovered StW 573's skull, left and
right arms and hands, right scapula, right clavicle, a number of ribs and vertebrae,
pelvis, sacrum, both legs, and some foot bones. See Clarke 2008 for other details.
31. Clarke 2008.
32. Clarke and Tobias 1995, 524.
33. Clarke and Tobias 1995, 524.
34. Berger et al. 2010. Berger's nine-year-old son, Matthew, discovered the
first specimen of this new species.
35. See, for instance, Balter 2010.
36. Richmond, Aiello, and Wood 2002; Collard and Wood 2007.
37. Johanson et al. 1987.
38. Wood and Collard 1999; Wood and Lonergan 2008; Clarke 2008.
39. Dates from Wood and Lonergan 2008. Another earlier genus,
Ardipithecus,
believed by some to be a primitive hominin, lived in East Africa from approx-
imately 5.8 million to 4.3 million years ago. A relatively complete skeleton of
a 4.4-million-year-old female from this genus (nicknamed Ardi) was recently
described and interpreted with much fanfare (White et al. 2009). Although this
specimen is a most welcome addition to the fossil record, it is not directly rel-
evant to the current discussions about Hobbit.
