Archaeologica.org

Now this could upset a few applecarts!

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/ ... 111108.php

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Discovery of the most intact female pelvis of Homo erectus may cause scientists to reevaluate how early humans evolved to successfully birth larger-brained babies. "This is the most complete female Homo erectus pelvis ever found from this time period," said Indiana University Bloomington paleoanthropologist Sileshi Semaw. "This discovery gives us more accurate information about the Homo erectus female pelvic inlet and therefore the size of their newborns."

A reconstruction of the 1.2 million-year-old pelvis discovered in 2001 in the Gona Study Area at Afar, Ethiopia, that has led researchers to speculate early man was better equipped than first thought to produce larger-brained babies. The actual fossils remain in Ethiopia.

What's this?

Reconstructing pelvis bone fragments from the 1.2 million-year-old adult female, Semaw and his co-workers determined the early ancestor's birth canal was more than 30 percent larger than earlier estimates based on a 1.5-million-year-old juvenile male pelvis found in Kenya. The new female fragments were discovered in the Gona Study Area in Afar, Ethiopia, in 2001 and excavation was completed in 2003.

Do these people not use common sense.

How could the size of juvenile male pelvis ever tell us anything about the ability of a female to produce a larger headed baby?

We have "child bearing hips" for a reason.

Men and women are designed differently... has no-one told them that? And the male in question was not even an adult, but a boy.

How much are these people being paid?

Reconstructing pelvis bone fragments from the 1.2 million-year-old adult female,

I'd say the second team agrees with you. It also demonstrates the danger of trying to read too much in to what is found. There are probably known relationships between pelvic size of male/female in any species. Still, there are a lot of variables and it is probably better to use a female pelvis for these determinations than a male one...juvenile or not.

Their only excuse is that they didn't have the female pelvis and were trying to force a theory out of the available bones.

Minimalist wrote:
Their only excuse is that they didn't have the female pelvis and were trying to force a theory out of the available bones.

Sure .. but isn't that so often what happens and how quickly a 'forced theory out of the available bones' is seen as so much more than that, and accepted as fact if not by the scientists on the ground themselves, then by others.

It would be much safer just to say 'we don't know' not just with this example, but in a generic sense.

I don't know, Ish.... I don't think that is exactly "unfair" but I do think it is "unrealistic." The problem with fossil hunting (or artifact hunting, for that matter) is that you know what you have and you can only wish for what you want.

Kenneth Kitchen, of "absence of evidence" mantra fame, complains that theories are advanced on incomplete evidence and this is true without a doubt. If scholars waited until all evidence had been uncovered then no one would ever publish anything. The trick is to be willing to discard outdated models based on new evidence.

Now, it is also true, and we have seen with the Clovis-First doctrine, that some of these ideas take on a life of their own and the proponents dismiss evidence that they have been wrong. Time seems to have a way of solving that problem in that the evidence can not be suppressed for long.

In the present case, the scholars who studied the earlier male HE pelvis had no way of knowing that a female pelvis would be found. I don't think it is wrong that they speculated about what they had in their hands. Just as long as they are now willing to consider what the new evidence means for their original hypothesis. Time will tell on that, I suppose.

In the present case, the scholars who studied the earlier male HE pelvis had no way of knowing that a female pelvis would be found. I don't think it is wrong that they speculated about what they had in their hands. Just as long as they are now willing to consider what the new evidence means for their original hypothesis. Time will tell on that, I suppose.

Here is a different article that compares early hominid pelvis finds:

http://blog.case.edu/case-news/2008/11/ ... infindings

Min, I agree with your assessment; however, those "scholars" are still retarded. The key word is "speculation". That word creates false hypotheses that occasionally become theories based on general assent (see your comments about Clovis first).

Ish has a point about common sense. I can tell when a woman has had children by scoping out her anatomy. I am only surprised, rarely, when the hips are not as wide as they should be postpartum. For some reason, these scholars decided that H. erectus females were not sexually dimorphic like Hss in the birthing area even though male/female size differentials are clearly documented in the fossil record. This was flawed thinking due to prejudice - another pet idea bites the dust. My bitch with the article posted here is the following comment:

One million years ago burial of the dead was not practiced, and so the female may have died from being attacked by a carnivore, which would frequent the swampy area because of the water and plentiful food source, of disease or old age.

How on earth would we ever know whether H. erectus buried their dead, cremated them, or did nothing? Are we making the assumption that they did not understand what death was, or that they had no feelings for those who had recently died? If so, get ready for another shock.

Ish has another great point - people who lack common sense for whatever reason are being paid decent money to promote stupid ideas. To make matters worse, they probably think they are important and germane to the issues. As Dogbert would say:

I don't see any real harm in speculation with a couple of caveats. The first is that one has to disclose what evidence one is using and the second is that one cannot hold to sheer speculation in the face of new and better evidence to the contrary.. The second point is dismissed in your link in the headline.

Findings About Homo Erectus Overturn Prior Thinking About Human Brain Evolution

This is good. In fact, it puts another stake in the heart of the idea that HE was an apeman. I don't think ape men could develop boats.
(Sorry, Ish.)

I don't see anything wrong with putting ideas out there to be picked apart by other scholars. As long as one doesn't get wedded to the idea the way the Clovis-Firsters did.


Your second point is unassailable.

One million years ago burial of the dead was not practiced, and so the female may have died from being attacked by a carnivore, which would frequent the swampy area because of the water and plentiful food source, of disease or old age.

But by the position of her fossilized bones in the soil, Simpson said she was rapidly covered by soil deposits most likely from a sudden flood.

Colorful but why could she just as easily not have been killed in the flood? Unlike the initial example which is based on a male pelvis this idea is based on air. I submit there is a difference.

One million years ago burial of the dead was not practiced, and so the female may have died from being attacked by a carnivore, which would frequent the swampy area because of the water and plentiful food source, of disease or old age.

Thanks, Min. The genius scholar's speculation was that she died from either:

1. Being attacked by a carnivore, or
2. Disease, or
3. Old age.

Brilliant. Let's throw out #3 since she was in her 20s. Erectus men grew to 6 feet tall (aka Turkana Boy) and women were dimorphically similar in ratio to us, so let's assume everything else is comparable. Disease? Maybe. Carnivore? Maybe. Based on pelvic remains, there is no evidence for either. However, I submit to you:

This female was a rather young nymphomaniac who died from an overdose of sex at an early age (Ish, is that possible?). After all, they didn't call those guy erectus for no reason! My evidence is the fact that she had already borne children, apparent from the width of her pelvis. Possible cause: brain aneurism during orgasm. Seems far more logical to me.

This female was a rather young nymphomaniac who died from an overdose of sex at an early age (Ish, is that possible?). After all, they didn't call those guy erectus for no reason! My evidence is the fact that she had already borne children, apparent from the width of her pelvis. Possible cause: brain aneurism during orgasm. Seems far more logical to me.

Cogs

Honestly! That’s your most blatant attempt yet to get me to talk about sex. Now why is that? Is it because it’s

Another Saturday night and you ain’t got no body
You’ve got some money ‘cause you just got paid
How you wish you had someone to talk to
Or at least that you could get laid?

(Apologies to Jimmy Buffet)

Well, OK then. I will talk about this .... But only because you couldn’t be more wrong about why that young woman died, and so I have to correct you.

Despite what religionists have been telling us for the past God knows how long, sex is good for us — VERY GOOD for us — as is obvious from just looking at this young lady:






She has at least 200 orgasms a day, according to this article from the News of the World (yes, we’re leaving no intellectual stone unturned tonight!). But she’s look absolutely thriving and a wonderful picture of blossoming womanhood.

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/article5651.ece

PRETTY Sarah Carmen is a 200-a-day orgasm girl who gets good, good, GOOD vibrations from almost anything.

The rumble of a train on the tracks, the purr of a hairdryer, the rhythmic drone of a photo-copier are all enough to make her go oh oh oh, ahhhhh.

She had FIVE orgasms during our 40-minute interview. But I can't take the credit—it was just talking about her sex life that set her off.

Sarah, 24, suffers from Permanent Sexual Arousal Syndrome (PSAS), which increases blood flow to the sex organs.

She said: "Sometimes I have so much sex to try to calm myself down I get bored of it. And men I sleep with don't seem to make as much effort because I climax so easily."

As she chatted, Sarah became increasingly flustered.

"Sorry, you'll have to excuse me for a minute. I'll be with you in a sec," she mumbled before letting out a long sigh.

You couldn’t make it up, could you?

Anyway, pretty Sarah Carmen , the 200-a-day orgasm girl who gets good, good, GOOD vibrations from almost anything, will probably live well into her hundreds, as this Wiki article confirms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orgasm

Orgasm, and indeed sex as a whole, are physical activities that can require exertion of many major bodily systems. A 1997 study in the British Medical Journal[36] based upon 918 men age 45-59 found that after a ten year follow-up, men who had fewer orgasms were twice as likely to die of any cause as those having two or more orgasms a week. A follow-up in 2001 which focused more specifically on cardiovascular health found that having sex three or more times a week was associated with a 50% reduction in the risk of heart attack or stroke. (Note that as a rule, correlation does not imply causation).

So sex is good for us, and good for our health, Cogs. But I think you knew that, didn’t you?

Next time you want me to talk dirty to you, just ring me up. It will be simpler.

Now, tell me about Homo Erectus again ....

All -

Yeee-up.

Just figured out the Missing Link,

Which ties - lo - all these disparate threads together.

The Missing Link is

Homo eroticus sylvanii.

(A crippled memory of the ancient oral tradition is

Commonly expressed in present times

As, "Hooray, hooray,

The First of May,

Outside screwing begins today.......")

But, damn o dear

The expression of love is a Quantum Event.............

No wonder Das Klub and Religion and Politics and Power

Are still wandering around in the Euclidian/Newtonian latrine

Of fornication

Bleating and Bible-ing and making unbelievably vicious

War about the finer points of mores and morals.

"Darwin delenda est."


hoka hey


john

To All:

I have been searching for a reason to explain the sudden expansion of Hss populations OOA beginning circa 50Kya. A previous "pulse" into the Levant at about 100Kya, as discussed on this forum earlier, was not successful. Last night I read an article in Science that made sense. In essence:

H erectus and H neanderthalis young matured early. Initially, so did H sapiens. However, culturally, a change took place where women began to wait beyond initial fertility to have children. This occurred as extended families became culturally important - in other words, grandparents began assisting in the raising of children, thereby allowing more of them to be borne and cared for than before.

Result? A rapid and sustained population increase. According to the article, Hss simply outbred their competition.

Cogs, this is an interesting. But it wasn't clear to me.... is there evidence for this cultural change, or is just an idea of what could have happened?

Thanks

Ish

Here is the article (go to page 1043 for the discussion):

http://ksjtracker.mit.edu/wp-content/up ... ibbons.pdf

It all seems somewhat speculative to me, but Min says that's alright!

Speculation is vital.....as long as one does not start to believe it in spite of all evidence to the contrary.