Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
ER 1813 in
Homo habilis,
whereas Clarke (2008, 447) thinks that “the smaller-
brained, more
Australopithecus
-like fossils OH 13, KNM-ER 1813, OH 24 and OH
62 . . . should be removed from the taxon
Homo habilis
as they have no similarity
to
Homo habilis
as represented by the type specimen OH 7.”
85. Argue et al. 2009. This study used a method called cladistic analysis,
which uses advanced (derived) traits to determine the most likely evolution-
ary trees.
86. Again, one must keep in mind that the two
Homo habilis
specimens in-
cluded in Argue et al.'s 2009 analysis were KNM-ER 1813 and OH 24, both of
which Ron Clarke includes in
Australopithecus.
87. Brown and Maeda 2009, 592.
88. Jungers, Harcourt-Smith, et al. 2009.
89. Jungers, Harcourt-Smith, et al. 2009, 83.
90. Brown and Maeda 2009, 593.
91. Morwood and Jungers 2009, 644.
92. Morwood and Jungers (2009, 640), on the other hand, favor the view that
Homo floresiensis
was descended from a very early form of
Homo
rather than
Aus-
tralopithecus
and cite Argue et al.'s 2009 cladistic analysis as corroboration. It is
important to keep in mind that some of the fossils that Argue et al. regard as
Homo habilis
are attributed to
Australopithecus
by some other scientists. In other
words, there is more agreement among scientists about which fossils LB1 most
resembles than first meets the eye. The problem is that different scientists some-
times attribute those fossils to different genera, which muddies the picture.
93. Moore and Brumm 2008.
94. Brumm et al. 2010.
95. Moore and Brumm 2008, 66. The authors also stress that similar techno-
logical simplicity over long periods of time has occurred elsewhere in South-
east Asia and that “the Pleistocene technological patterns identified on Flores
are unexceptional.”
9. bones to pick
The opening epigraph is quoted in Darwin and Darwin 1887, 316. This quota-
tion is originally from a letter that Charles Darwin wrote to W. Graham on
July 3, 1881.
1. Dubois 1894, 1896. The date of Dubois's finds is believed to be approxi-
mately 1.0 million to 0.7 million years ago.
2. Tobias 1984; Shipman 2002.
