Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race

It was not only new evidence such as OH 62 that challenged the long-accepted picture of Homo habilis. Previously discovered fossil evidence relating to Homo habilis, originally interpreted by some authorities as very humanlike, was later characterized by others as quite apelike.

11.7.3.1 The OH 8 Foot

As mentioned earlier (Section 11.4.2), a fairly complete foot skeleton, labeled OH 8, was found in Bed I at Olduvai Gorge. Dated at 1.7 million years, the OH 8 foot was associated with other fossils classified by L. Leakey as Homo habilis (OH 7) and was also attributed to this species (Lewis 1980, pp. 275, 290).

M. H. Day and J. R. Napier (1964) said the OH 8 foot very much resembled that of Homo sapiens, thus contributing to the overall humanlike picture of Homo habilis. According to Day and Napier, the OH 8 foot showed that Homo habilis walked upright.

But O. J. Lewis (1980, p. 291), anatomist at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical College in London, wrote: “The attribution of these remains to the taxon Homo has been a source of controversy.” He showed the functional morphology of the OH 8 foot was more like that of chimpanzees and gorillas (Table 11.4).

TABLE 11.4

1. Articulations between the metatarsals “are like the chimpanzee” ( p. 294).

2. Ankle joint surfaces “retain the apelike form” ( p. 291).

3. Form of the talus (ankle bone) is like that “seen in the extant African apes” ( p. 291).

4. Disposition of the heel similar to that of gorillas and chimpanzees ( p. 291).

5. Hallux (large toe) capable of being extended sideways, with some “residual grasping functions” ( p. 293).

Apelike Features of the oh 8 Foot Reported by o. j. lewis (1980)

Commenting on the 1964 study by Day and Napier, Lewis (1980, p. 294) noted that “conservative arboreal features of the tarsus [ankle] . . . escaped comment.” The suggestion that the OH 8 ankle manifested arboreal features is intriguing. It certainly does not serve the propaganda purposes of evolutionists to have the public visualizing a supposed human ancestor like Homo habilis climbing trees with an aboreally adapted foot rather than walking tall and brave across the African savannahs. When the owner of the OH 8 foot did walk on the ground, it probably did so in a chimpanzeelike manner, said Lewis (1980, p. 296).

From Lewis’s study of the OH 8 foot, one could therefore conclude that Homo habilis was much more apelike than most scientists have tended to believe. The OH 62 discovery supports this view. Another possible conclusion: the OH 8 foot did not belong to Homo habilis but to an australopithecine. This view was favored by Wood (1974b) and Lewis (1980, p. 295). A related conclusion is that Homo habilis itself was, as Oxnard (1975b) proposed, simply a variant of Australopithecus. Oxnard, said Lewis (1980, p. 295), thought “the australopithecines (including OH 8) were at least partially arboreal primates retaining efficient climbing capabilities associated with a bipedal capacity probably of a type no longer seen.” Of course, the proposal that Australopithecus was even partially arboreal defies the conventional view that this creature was humanlike from the neck down and walked fully upright on the ground. In Section 11.8, we give a detailed discussion of this issue.

Over the years, scientists have described the OH 8 foot skeleton as humanlike ( Day and Napier 1964), apelike ( Lewis 1980), intermediate between human and ape ( Day and Wood 1968), distinct from both human and ape (Oxnard 1972), and orangutanlike ( Lisowski et al. 1974). This demonstrates once more an important characteristic of paleoanthropological evidence — it is often subject to multiple, contradictory interpretations. Partisan considerations often determine which view prevails at any given point in time

11.7.3.2 The OH 7 Hand

The OH 7 hand was also found at Olduvai Gorge (Section 11.4.2), as part of the type specimen of Homo habilis. Napier (1962, p. 409) described the hand as quite human in some of its features, especially the finger tips. As in the case of the OH 8 foot, subsequent studies showed the OH 7 hand to be very apelike, calling into question either its attribution to Homo habilis or the generally accepted humanlike picture of Homo habilis, which the original interpretation of the OH 7 hand helped create.

C. E. Oxnard (1984, p. 334-ii) was highly critical of Napier’s original study of the Homo habilis hand: “being convinced that he was looking at a pre-human hand that made tools, he interpreted three features in which that hand was similar to a human hand as more weighty than ten in which he found it similar to those of apes.” Oxnard identified evolutionary bias (seeing a fossil as “pre-human”) as the key factor in Napier’s attempt to characterize an essentially apelike structure as human.

Randall L. Susman and Jack T. Stern noted that the OH 7 finger bones had large areas for the insertion of a muscle (the flexor digitorum superficialis) that apes use when hanging from branches. “The impressions for this muscle are greater in relative area than in any living ape or modern humans,” they said (Susman and Stern 1979, p. 572).

Susman and Stern (1979, p. 565) therefore concluded: “Prominent markings for insertions of these muscles in a fossil hand (such as O.H. 7) suggest use of the forelimb in suspensory climbing behavior.”

Susman and Stern (1979, p. 572) noted in addition that the finger bones of the OH 7 hand were thick and curved like those of chimpanzees, indicating, like the flexor digitorum superficialis muscle, a degree of arboreal suspensory behavior.

In others words, Homo habilis, or whatever creature owned the OH 7 hand, may have spent much of its time hanging by its arms from tree limbs. This apelike image differs from the very humanlike portrait of Homo habilis and other supposed human ancestors one usually encounters in Time-Life picture books and National Geographic Society television specials.

11.7.4 Cultural Level of Homo Habilis

A reevaluation of the cultural evidence at Homo habilis sites also casts doubt on the conventional humanlike interpretation of Homo habilis.

Louis and Mary Leakey designated the Homo habilis sites at Olduvai as “living floors.” They viewed particular combinations of hominid and animal fossils, along with stone tools, as signs of permanent or semipermanent habitation. From such interpretations of the evidence came detailed paintings, showing Homo habilis families living in base camps, with hunting parties returning with animal carcasses to be butchered with stone tools.

But according to Binford (1981, p. 252), the Leakeys’ characterization of Homo habilis sites as “living floors” was the result of wishful thinking: “the researchers have a generalized idea as to what the past was like and they have then accommodated all the archaeological-geological facts to this idea. This is not exactly science.” Binford went on to criticize the notion of living floors in terms of their “integrity” and “resolution.”

Binford believed the Homo habilis sites were of low integrity. By this he meant there was no certainty that Homo habilis was in fact responsible for the animal bones found at the sites. The bones could very well have been the result of natural deaths, which would have occurred fairly often on the shores of the ancient lake that deposited the sediments at Olduvai. The bones might also have been brought to their resting places by carnivorous animals rather than hominids.

For Binford, the term “resolution” meant the time during which the faunal remains and artifacts were deposited. For the concept of a “living floor” to be meaningful, the resolution should be quite high—that is to say, the faunal remains and artifacts should have been deposited over a relatively short period of time. But Binford believed that the resolution at the Homo habilis sites at Olduvai Gorge was low, and that the faunal remains and artifacts were deposited over very long periods of time. This would decrease the certainty that hominid behavior was responsible for the association of a particular assemblage of bones and artifacts.

If, for example, one interprets a scatter of stones and bones as having been deposited simultaneously, one might talk of a habitation site. But if the bones and artifacts were deposited one by one over the course of hundreds or thousands of years, as animals chanced to die, and scavenging hominids chanced to drop stone tools, the supposition that one has found a habitation site becomes far less likely.

About the reputed living floor at the famous Zinjanthropus site at Olduvai, where remains of Homo habilis were also found nearby, Binford (1981, p. 282) said: “given its demonstrably low integrity and resolution, arguments about base camps, hominid hunting, sharing of food, and so forth are certainly premature and most likely wildly inaccurate. The only clear picture obtained is that of a hominid scavenging the kills and death sites of other predator-scavengers for abandoned anatomical parts of low food utility, primarily for purposes of extracting bone marrow. Some removal of marrow bones from kills is indicated, but there is no evidence of ‘carrying food home.’ Transport of the scavenged parts away from the kill site to more protected locations in a manner identical to that of all other scavengers is all that one need imagine to account for the unambiguous facts preserved in Olduvai.”

Thus, according to Binford, Homo habilis was definitely not a hunter. In fact, Binford has concluded that hunting is an activity exclusively characteristic of modern Homo sapiens. “There are many people,” he said, “who are just outraged because I’ve suggested that early men, including the Neanderthals, weren’t hunters” (A. Fisher 1988a, p. 37).

There are some scientists, such as Henry Bunn of the University of Wisconsin (A. Fisher 1988a, p. 38), who have disputed Binford’s conclusions about the Olduvai sites. Nevertheless, Binford’s analysis provides a refreshing alternative to the usual overly humanized presentation of “Homo” habilis.

“There were all these wonderful renderings in popular magazines and books of little bands of bushmanlike people sitting around with daddy off hunting and momma gathering plant foods and grandma teaching the baby. But that was just a projection of modern man onto ancient man,” declared Binford in an interview (A. Fisher 1988a, p. 37). “We have had far too much of what I tend to think of as the National Geographic approach to research,” said Binford (1981, p. 297).

Binford’s revised view of the cultural evidence at Homo habilis sites, together with the revised view of Homo habilis anatomy, raises many questions about how humanlike Homo habilis really was.

Finally, we should remember that Homo habilis is not the only creature that could have been responsible for the stone tools found at sites yielding Homo habilis fossils. The same is true of the circle of stones found at Olduvai site DK, interpreted by some as part of a shelter. Mary Leakey said that living African tribal people make and use the same kinds of tools and erect the same kinds of shelters (Section 3.7.3). This suggests that beings like modern Homo sapiens, rather than Homo habilis, could have made both the tools and the shelter about 1.5 million to 2.0 million years ago in the Early Pleistocene.

11.7.5 Does Homo Habilis Deserve To Exist?

In light of the contradictory evidence connected with Homo habilis, some researchers have proposed that there was no justification for “creating” this species in the first place.

Doubts about the taxonomic reality of Homo habilis arose right from the start. Even Tobias and Napier, who had joined Louis Leakey in proposing the new species in April of 1964, expressed caution. Tobias and Napier wrote in a letter to the Times of London on June 5, 1964 that “anatomy alone could not tell us whether the creature was a very advanced australopithecine or the lowliest hominine” (Cole 1975, p. 256). In making this statement, Tobias and Napier presumably meant that stone tools and broken animal bones associated with the creature’s ambiguous skeletal remains justified designating it the earliest representative of the genus Homo.

The dental evidence was a cause of concern among some researchers, including T. J. Robinson. Johanson wrote: “He said that one could find greater shape differences in a population of modern humans than Leakey had found between habilis and the australopithecines— or, in fact, between habilis and Homo erectus. Robinson’s point was that on dental evidence alone there was too narrow a slot between Australopithecus and Homo erectus to yield room for another species” (Johanson and Edey 1981, p. 102). As we have seen, however, there are, aside from the teeth, significant differences between Homo habilis, as represented by the small OH 62 individual, and Homo erectus.

Wilfred Le Gros Clark said: “‘Homo habilis’ has received a good deal of publicity since his sudden appearance was announced, and it is particularly unfortunate that he should have been announced before a full and detailed study of all the relevant fossils can be complete. . . . From the brief accounts that have been published, one is led to hope that he will disappear as rapidly as he came” ( Fix 1984, p. 143). Le Gros Clark consistently maintained his early opposition to Homo habilis.

And C. Loring Brace wrote: “Homo habilis is an empty taxon inadequately proposed and should be formally sunk” (Fix 1984, p. 143).

If the bones attributed by some workers to Homo habilis were not to be interpreted as a new species, then what did they represent? T. J. Robinson argued that Homo habilis had been mistakenly derived from a mixture of skeletal elements belonging to Australopithecus africanus and Homo erectus. Even Louis Leakey suggested that Homo habilis might actually have embraced two Homo species, one giving rise to Homo sapiens and the other to Homo erectus ( Wood 1987, p. 187).

Concerning the new OH 62 discovery, Wood pointed out that this hominid individual had been classified as Homo habilis by Johanson and his coworkers primarily because its craniodental remains resembled those of the habilis-like Stw 53 skull from the Sterkfontein site in South Africa. But Wood (1987, p. 188) observed: “The logical ‘trail’ becomes tenuous because Stw 53 has merely been likened to H. habilis, and not formally attributed to it, even though more than a decade has elapsed since its discovery.” Wood appeared to suggest, though somewhat indirectly, that OH 62 might in fact be attributed to Australopithecus africanus, which he said was “the most likely alternative taxonomic attribution for Stw 53” ( 1987, p. 188).

According to Wood (1987, p. 187), one interpretation of the OH 62 find is that it “confirms that the range of variation within material from the early Pleistocene of East Africa assigned to early Homo is now too great to be sensibly encompassed within one taxon.” Wood himself favored this view.

So in the end, we find that Homo habilis is about as substantial as a desert mirage, appearing now humanlike, now apelike, now real, now unreal, according to the tendency of the viewer. Taking the many conflicting views into consideration, we find it most likely that the Homo habilis material belongs to more than one species, including a small, apelike, arboreal australopithecine (OH 62 and some of the Olduvai specimens), an early species of Homo ( ER 1470 skull), and anatomically modern humans (ER 1481 and ER 1472 femurs).

11.8 Oxnard’s Critique of Australopithecus

According to most paleoanthropologists, Australopithecus was a direct human ancestor, with a very humanlike postcranial anatomy. Advocates of this view have also asserted that Australopithecus walked erect, in a manner practically identical to modern human beings. But right from the very start, some researchers objected to this depiction of Australopithecus. Influential English scientists, including Sir Arthur Keith (1931), said that the Australopithecus was not a hominid but a variety of ape (Sections 11.3.1–3).

This negative view persisted until the early 1950s, when the combined effect of further Australopithecus finds and the fall of Piltdown man created a niche in mainstream paleoanthropological thought for a humanlike Australopithecus.

But even after Australopithecus won mainstream acceptance as a hominid and direct human ancestor, opposition continued. Louis Leakey (1960d, 1971) held that Australopithecus was an early and very apelike offshoot from the main line of human evolution (Section 11.4.3). Later, his son Richard Leakey (1973b) took much the same stance (Section 11.6.2).

In the early 1950s, Sir Solly Zuckerman (1954) published extensive biometric studies showing Australopithecus was not as humanlike as imagined by those who favored putting this creature in the lineage of Homo sapiens. From the late 1960s through the 1980s, Charles E. Oxnard of the University of Chicago, employing multivariate statistical analysis, renewed and amplified the line of attack begun by Zuckerman.

In this section, we shall focus on Oxnard’s studies of Australopithecus, except those dealing specifically with Australopithecus afarensis (Lucy). The latter are included in our general discussion of Australopithecus afarensis (Section 11.9).

11.8.1 A Different Picture of Australopithecus

In Uniqueness and Diversity in Human Evolution, Oxnard (1975a, p. vii) wrote: “Whereas the conventional wisdom about human evolution depends upon the (apparent) marked similarity between modern man and the various australopithecine fossils, the studies here indicate that these fossils are uniquely different from modern man in many respects.”

Oxnard’s interpretation of the fossil evidence profoundly unsettles the evolutionary status of Australopithecus. According to Oxnard (1975b, p. 394), “it is rather unlikely that any of the Australopithecines . . . can have any direct phylogenetic link with the genus Homo.”

In Table 11.5, we review the observations that led Oxnard to this conclusion. The table also includes material from Zuckerman’s studies.

Oxnard believed there is much that remains to be known about Australopithecus, and that what we do know does not conform to the customary image of this creature. Oxnard (1975a, p. 123) observed: “All of this makes us wonder about the usual presentation of human evolution in encyclopedias and popular publications, where not only are the australopithecines described as being of known bodily size and shape, but where, in addition, such characteristics as bipedality . . . and even facial features are happily reconstructed.”

TABLE 11.5

Anatomical Features cited by s. Zuckerman and c. e. oxnard Indicating that Australopithecines Were not human Ancestors

Brain:

“endocranial casts of the Australopithecinae . . . do not appear to diverge in any material way from existing apes” (Zuckerman 1954, p. 305).

“estimates of endocranial volume do not depart from the range of size met with in the great apes” (Zuckerman 1954, p. 304).

“suggestions that the Australopithecinae may have had higher relative brain weights than, say, chimpanzees” have not been substantiated (Zuckerman 1954, p. 304).

Teeth and jaws:

“with the exception of their incisors and canines, the size and general shape of the [australopithecine] jaws and teeth . . . were very much more like those of the living apes than like acknowledged members of the Hominidae, either living or extinct” (Zuckerman 1954, pp. 306–307).

Shape of skull:

“resembles. . . . the ape—so much so that only detailed and close studies can reveal the difference between them” (Zuckerman 1954, p. 307).

Shoulder Bone (sterkfontein sts 7 scapula):

“does not resemble that of man to any degree. . . . almost as well-adapted structurally for suspension of the body by the limbs as is the corresponding part of

the present-day gibbon. . . . more specialized in this respect than in even the highly specialized chimpanzee” (Oxnard 1968, p. 215). Oxnard dismissed suggestions that the Sterkfontein scapula was too distorted to yield accurate measurements. He also rejected accusations that the scapula was nonhominid.

Has an abnormally large area for attachment of the biceps muscle, which must have been extraordinarily well developed, as it is in the gibbons (Oxnard 1968, p. 215).

Collar Bone (olduvai oh 48 Homo habilis clavicle):

“whereas in humans the clavicle is scarcely twisted at all, in the various apes, as in the Olduvai clavicle, it is heavily twisted. This particular feature does not fit with the idea that the fossils are functionally close to man” (Oxnard 1984, p. 323). Oxnard, like others (Section 11.7.5), considered Homo habilis to be an australopithecine.

Hand Bones:

“quite different from those of humans. . . . evidence seems to relate to abilities for grasping with power reminiscent of what we find in the orang-utan. . . . some are curved enough that they must have operated in this arboreal-grasping mode” (Oxnard 1984, p. 311, citing Susman 1979, Susman and Creel 1979, Susman and Stern 1979).

Engineering stress analysis showed Australopithecus fingers were inefficient in the chimpanzee knuckle-walking mode but “efficient in the hanging-climbing mode as also is the orang-utan” (Oxnard 1984, p. 313). Human finger structure was “inefficient in both modes” (Oxnard 1984, p. 314).

Pelvis (including sterkfontein Sts 14):

“although there is no doubt about the similarity in shape of the iliac bones of man and Sterkfontein pelvis . . . it is also clear that this blade is positioned quite differently in man and the fossil” (Oxnard 1975a, p. 52).

Joint structure in the australopithecine hip “apparently not inconsistent with quadrupedalism” (Zuckerman et al. 1973, p. 152).

Muscle attachments not “inconsistent with . . . an occasional or habitual quadrupedal gait” (Zuckerman et al. 1973, p. 152).

Pelvic structure points to hindlimb capable of “an ‘acrobatic’ function” (Zuckerman et al. 1973, p. 156).

Pubis and ischium (bones of the lower part of the pelvis) chimpanzeelike (Zuckerman 1954, p. 313).

Femurs:

“show the small heads and inclined femoral necks that might be expected in animals capable of quadrupedal activities” (Oxnard 1975b, p. 394).

Talus (ankle bone):

“the general morphological similarity . . . is with the aboreal ape Pongo” (Oxnard 1975a, pp. 86–87). Pongo is the orangutan.

“in the shape of their talus, the . . . fossils may be reflecting functions of the foot that may relate to acrobatic aboreal climbing such as is reminiscent of the extant species Pongo” (Oxnard 1975a, p. 89).

conclusion:

“Pending further evidence we are left with the vision of intermediately sized animals, at home in the trees, capable of climbing, performing degrees of acrobatics and perhaps of arm suspension” (Oxnard 1975a, p. 89). See our Figure 11.11, p. 714.

Figure 11.11. Most scientists describe Australopithecus as an exclusively terrestrial biped, humanlike from the head down. But according to some studies by S. Zuckerman and C. E. Oxnard, Australopithecus was more apelike. Although capable of walking on the ground bipedally (left), Australopithecus was also “at home in the trees, capable of climbing, performing degrees of acrobatics [right] and perhaps of arm suspension” (Oxnard 1975a, p. 89). The unique functional morphology of Australopithecus led Zuckerman and Oxnard to doubt it is a human ancestor. Illustrations by Miles Tripplett.

11.8 .2 The Pelvis of Australopithecus

Of particular interest is the Australopithecus pelvis. Scientists who believe humans evolved from australopithecines often assert that the Australopithecus pelvis is similar to that of modern Homo sapiens. In both humans and australopithecines, the ilium, the broad upper part of the pelvis, is of roughly the same shape. The ilium of the chimp is more narrow (Figure 11.12). Some researchers have taken the visual resemblance between the human ilium and that of Australopithecus as proof that Australopithecus stood upright and walked very much like modern human beings.

But the impact of this demonstration is reduced when one considers the orientation of the ilium to the rest of the pelvis in apes, humans, and australopithecines. The comparison can best be made when the hip sockets are turned toward the viewer (Figure 11.13).

As can be seen, the ape ilium is situated in a manner different from that of a human being. The ape’s iliac blade is oriented so that only the edge is visible.

In Australopithecus, the ilium is oriented like that of apes rather than humans (Oxnard 1984, p. 311). To Oxnard and Zuckerman, this suggested apelike or uniquely nonhuman elements in the musculature, posture, and locomotor pattern of Australopithecus.

The typical visual presentation of the human ilium and that of Australopithecus, showing both to be of the same shape, is therefore somewhat deceptive, in that their different orientations are usually not mentioned.

Even the claimed similarity in shape of the ilium in Australopithecus and human beings is not complete in all respects. Zuckerman (1954, p. 345) observed: “When the least breadth of the ilium is expressed as a percentage of the greatest breadth. . . . the [australopithecine] fossils are pongid [apelike].”

Figure 11.12. In Australopithecus (right) and a modern human (center), the broad iliac blade of the pelvis is of similar shape. Some have taken this as proof that australopithecines walked upright in human fashion. A chimpanzee ilium (left) is shaped differently. After Oxnard (1975a, p. 53), not to scale.

Figure 11.13. When the pelvis is viewed with the hip socket toward the observer, the ilium of Australopithecus (left) is oriented like that of the chimpanzee (right) and not like that of the human being (center). This, and other features of the australopithecine pelvis, indicated to Oxnard and Zuckerman that Australopithecus was capable of quadrupedal and tree-climbing behavior similar to that of the orangutan. After Oxnard (1975a, p. 55), not to scale.

There are other significant differences. Zuckerman (1954, pp. 344–345) said about the specimens of Australopithecus pelvis that he studied: (1) “in their maximum iliac breadth they were smaller than in man, but of the size usual in apes”; (2) “the extent of the gluteal [muscle] areas was significantly smaller than in the chimpanzee and man, but of the size found in the gorilla, and . . . in the orang”; (3) “The size of the auricular surface, the area with which the sacrum [tail bone] articulates, was significantly smaller than in man, but similar to that in apes.”

Regarding the size of the auricular surface and that of the iliac tuberosity (the large rounded prominence for the attachment of muscles and ligaments on the upper part of the ilium), Zuckerman (1954, p. 346) stated: “Schultz (1930) has shown that the great relative size of these two areas in man is related to the erect attitude, and to the transmission of the weight of the trunk, head, and upper limbs on the sacroiliac articulations. Their smaller size in the great apes can be related to the more quadrupedal posture and gait of these animals. In view of their equally small size in the fossil specimens, it is difficult not to believe that the Australopithecines walked in the same way as do apes.” Modern proponents of a more humanlike view of Australopithecus consistently and vehemently deny this possibility.

According to Zuckerman, features of the Australopithecus pelvis identified by some as decidedly human were subject to alternate interpretations. One of these humanlike features, according to Broom, Robinson, and Schepers (1950), was “the presence of a well-developed anterior inferior iliac spine.” Zuckerman (1954, pp. 343–344), however, observed: “Such a spine may imply a ligament whose development is normally associated with the maintenance of the erect posture. On the other hand the spine is also well developed in many quadrupedal animals, e.g. the menotyphlous insectivores, and many carnivores and rodents (Straus 1929).”

In a set of drawings, Oxnard showed the hips and lower limbs of a human, an ape, and an australopithecine placed as if all three were quadrupedal. Oxnard (1975a, p. 57) noted: “The similarities of the ape and Australopithecus are most evident.” This could be taken to indicate that Australopithecus was well adapted for quadrupedal locomotor behavior.

In 1973, Oxnard assisted Zuckerman and other researchers in conducting an extensive multivariate statistical analysis comparing the pelvis of Australopithecus with the pelvises of 430 primates, representing 41 genera.

The pelvis study considered 4 measurements relating to joints and 5 relating to muscular attachments. When all 9 features of the pelvis were considered together, Australopithecus proved to be unique, differing from both human beings and the nonhuman primates.

Zuckerman and Oxnard therefore concluded that it was “conceivable that the habitual posture and gait of Australopithecus might have been unique by displaying a combination of quadrupedalism and bipedalism” (Zuckerman et al. 1973, p. 153).

Amplifying this suggestion, Zuckerman and Oxnard further stated: “the locomotor use of the hindlimb might have been composite, involving possibly quadrupedalism, bipedalism, and maybe other types of activity, such as an ‘acrobatic’ function” (Zuckerman et al. 1973, p. 156). Their comparative studies demonstrated that among sub-human primates “the group approximating most closely to Australopithecus comprises genera in which the hindlimb sometimes supports, sometimes suspends the animal, and generally operates in many planes of space” (Zuckerman et al. 1973, p. 159). It is difficult to overstate how strongly this contradicts the conventional picture of Australopithecus, which is never shown hanging from a tree limb by its legs.

11.8.3 Zuckerman and Oxnard on Suppression Of Evidence

The paper by Zuckerman and Oxnard on the pelvic study was originally presented at a symposium of the Zoological Society of London in 1973. At the conclusion of the symposium, Zuckerman made some important remarks. He said: “for more than 25 years anatomists and anthropologists—I am talking about physical anthropologists now—have been turning themselves inside out, persuading themselves and others that the obviously simian characteristics of the australopithecine fossils could be reconciled with the model of some assumed protohuman type. Over the years I have been almost alone in challenging the conventional wisdom about the australopithecines—alone, that is to say, in conjunction with my colleagues in the school I built up in Birmingham—but I fear to little effect. The voice of higher authority had spoken, and its message in due course became incorporated in text books all over the world” (Zuckerman 1973, pp. 450–451).

The situation has not changed since Zuckerman spoke in 1973. The voices of authority in paleoanthropology and the scientific community in general have managed to keep the humanlike view of Australopithecus intact. The extensive and well-documented evidence contradicting this favored view remains confined to the pages of professional journals, where it has little or no influence on the public in general, even the educated public.

Zuckerman (1973, p. 451) also stated: “in my view what above all has denied the study of the palaeontology of the higher Primates the right to be regarded as a serious science is the fact that over the years ex cathedra pronouncements about what constitutes a unique human characteristic in a bone have usually proved nonsense. My belief is that they will always do so.”

Zuckerman (1973, p. 451) explained: “It could well be that some feature or group of features in a fossil bone—maybe those having some definable mechanical significance—proves to be more like the corresponding features in man than in the living apes. Almost invariably other features in the same region would be likely to turn out far more ape-like than human. In combination, we end up with something that differs from both men and apes, and which would thus be unique. What conclusion does one then draw, one might well ask. Are we to suppose that the fossils are ancestral to one group, or to the other, or neither? This is the kind of question people try to answer, but we have to recognize that it is at the same time the sort of question which is not amenable to any answer which would be scientifically final.”

Oxnard believed that much of the evidence required to find an answer had dropped out of sight. Reviewing the decades-long controversy about the nature of Australopithecus, Oxnard (1984, pp. 317–318) said: “In the uproar, at the time, as to whether or not these creatures were near ape or human, the opinion that they were human won the day. This may well have resulted not only in the defeat of the contrary opinion but also in the burying of that part of the evidence upon which the contrary opinion was based. If this is so, it should be possible to unearth this other part of the evidence. This evidence may actually be more compatible with the new view; it may help open the possibility that these particular australopithecines are neither like African apes nor humans, and certainly not intermediate, but something markedly different from either.”

Of course, this is exactly the point we have been making throughout this book. Evidence has been buried. We ourselves have uncovered considerable amounts of such buried evidence relating to the antiquity of the modern human type.

11.8.4 Opposition to Statistical Studies

Some have claimed that the statistical approach employed by Oxnard and Zuckerman is inappropriate and misleading.

For example Robert Broom said: “I regard all biometricians in the field of morphology as fools” (Johanson and Edey 1981, p. 76). Donald Johanson, discoverer and defender of Lucy, ridiculed Zuckerman, accusing him of “kicking up more and more biometric dust” and firing off “statistical salvos” (Johanson and Edey 1981, p. 76).

Johanson noted: “To give Zuckerman his due, there were resemblances between ape skull and australopithecine skulls. The brains were approximately the same size, both had prognathous (long, jutting) jaws, and so on. What Zuckerman missed was the importance of some traits that australopithecines had in common with men” (Johanson and Edey 1981, p. 76).

In this regard, Johanson cited Charles A. Reed, of the University of Illinois, who said: “No matter that Zuckerman wrote of such characters as being ‘often inconspicuous’; the important point was the presence of several such incipient characters in functional combinations. This latter point of view was one which, in my opinion, Zuckerman and his co-workers failed to grasp, even while they stated that they did. Their approach . . . was extremely static in that they essentially demanded that a fossil to be considered by them to show any evidence of evolving toward living humans, must have essentially arrived at the latter status before they would regard it as having begun the evolutionary journey” (Johanson and Edey 1981, p. 76).

In citing Reed against Zuckerman in this way, Johanson was being somewhat hypocritical. Johanson and others sharing his views certainly did not characterize Australopithecus as an apelike creature with “incipient” human features. Rather they said Australopithecus was practically human from the neck down, especially in terms of humanlike bipedal locomotion. In other words, Johanson and others were themselves guilty of insisting that a distant ancestor of living humans had “essentially arrived at the latter status.” Reacting to this exaggerated claim, Zuckerman, and later Oxnard, were just saying it was wrong, and that the anatomy and locomotor behavior of Australopithecus were essentially apelike.

Johanson, Reed, and others have also ignored the implications of findings by Oxnard and Zuckerman that Australopithecus had anatomical features that were uniquely different from those of apes and modern humans (Section 11.8.5). Contrary to the usual view, Australopithecus was not, according to Oxnard and Zuckerman, morphologically intermediate between humans and apes. Thus it is unlikely that Australopithecus was a human ancestor, unless one wants to invoke an evolutionary path that took the human line on a big australopithecine detour.

One point that Oxnard made in response to critics of his somewhat complicated mathematical approach was that simple visual evidence also established his conclusion that Australopithecus had a significant degree of quadrupedal, acrobatic, and suspensory capability.

For example, Oxnard observed that the articular, or joint, surfaces of the lower limbs of human beings are large relative to the articular surfaces of the upper limbs. Oxnard (1984, p. 316) stated: “This befits their bipedal status in which the lower limb takes all the body weight.”

Simple visual inspection also revealed that in African apes the articular surfaces of the upper and lower limbs are more equal in size. According to Oxnard (1984, p. 316), this indicates a pattern of behavior “in which both limbs participate in bearing the body weight (and the upper limbs somewhat more than the lower, however that may be, whether through quadrupedal knuckle-walking on the ground or through quadrumanal climbing in the trees).” Quadrumanal (fourhanded) climbing involves use of grasping hands and handlike feet by arboreal primates such as the gibbon and orangutan. In fact, in the gibbon and orangutan, which move through the trees mainly by using their arms, the articular surfaces of the upper limbs are larger than those of the lower limbs.

Oxnard (1984, p. 316) noted that as far as Australopithecus is concerned, “the fossils . . . resemble most, among living primates, the equivalent parts from apes (and among the apes, the orang-utan) more closely than they do humans.” Like orangutans, Australopithecus has larger articular surfaces in the upper limbs than the lower (Oxnard 1975a, pp. 117–119). “These facts should be set alongside the comment of Richard Leakey (1973c), who reports that preliminary indications point to a relatively short lower limb and a long upper limb for the australopithecines,” said Oxnard (1984, p. 316). Such proportions are decidely apelike and, along with the proportions of the articular surfaces, suggest a component of orangutanlike forelimb suspension in the locomotor repertoire.

Oxnard did not deny that Australopithecus manifested bipedal behavior. After all, apes can also walk on two legs in some fashion. Nevertheless, Oxnard (1984, p. 316) concluded about the australopithecines: “however able these creatures were at walking on two legs, they were also convincing quadrupeds and perhaps excellent climbers, feats denied to man today.” Oxnard (1984, p. 316) warned: “Such findings must make us wonder whether the australopithecine pattern of bipedal adaptation really reflects a transitional phase to man.” In other words, he doubted the common belief that Australopithecus is a human ancestor.

11.8.5 Implications of Uniqueness

Summarizing his findings, Oxnard (1975b, p. 393) stated: “Between the very early Miocene apes and ancient man is the tantalizing set of fossils known as Australopithecus. . . . most workers feel that the overall position of these fossils is adequately fixed, with a taxonomic label as clearly Hominidae, an evolutionary label as on the line to man or very close to it, and a functional label as a human type of biped. . . . But our current studies are providing very different ideas. In the multivariate investigations reported here, the various australopithecine fossils are usually quite different from both man and the African apes. . . . Viewed as a genus, they are a mosaic of features unique to themselves and features bearing some resemblance to those of the orang-utan.”

Let us consider one example of uniqueness in the australopithecine anatomy—the talus, or ankle bone. The multivariate statistical technique employed by Oxnard involves measuring a fixed number of features on a bone, in this case the talus. The results of such a study can be visually represented, for each bone, as a point in multidimensional space. For example, if one is measuring three features of a bone, the combination of these features can be displayed as a point in a three-dimensional space. Four features would require a four-dimensional space, and so on. The relationships between bones or sets of bones can thus be examined. Points clustered together represent bones that are morphologically similar. Figure 11.14 shows the morphological relationships of the ankle bones of modern humans, African apes, orangutans, and Australopithecus. As can be seen, the point representing the talus of Australopithecus lies in its own domain, distant from modern humans and African apes, and close to orangutans. Oxnard found the same to be true of other parts of the australopithecine anatomy.

According to modern theory, the African apes, particularly the chimpanzees, are the closest relatives of modern humans. Scientists hypothesize that the hominids split from the ancestors of modern chimpanzees several million years ago. Since, according to this view, modern humans and chimpanzees share a common (though as yet undiscovered) ancestor, then Australopithecus, as a hominid predecessor of modern humans, should be morphologically intermediate between humans and chimpanzees. Oxnard’s finding that the morphology of the australopithecines is uniquely different from that of modern humans and chimpanzees calls into question their supposed evolutionary relationship.

Figure 11.14. This display (after Oxnard 1975a, p. 82) depicts the results of a multivariate statistical analysis of the talus (ankle bone) in various hominids and apes. The talus of Australopithecus and that of Homo habilis (considered by Oxnard to be an australopithecine) are morphologically distant from those of modern humans and African apes. Given the view that humans and African apes such as the chimpanzee share a common ancestor, one would expect the australopithecine talus to occupy an intermediate position. Instead, it occupies a unique position, close to that of the orangutan. The same is true of other australopithecine bones. To Oxnard, this raised doubts about the status of Australopithecus as a human ancestor.

That the anatomy of Australopithecus, although unique, resembles that of Pongo (the orangutans) is particularly troubling.Accepting this, evolutionists would have to say that the hominids developed an orangutanlike functional morphology in the australopithecine stage (independently, however, from the orangutans) and then veered back toward the modern human condition. Of course, given the flexibility of evolutionary theorizing, anything is possible. But the view of Australopithecus emerging from the studies of Oxnard and Zuckerman introduces vexing complications.

Considering the anatomical uniqueness of the australopithecines, Oxnard (1975b, p. 394) said: “If these estimates are true, then the possibility that any of the australopithecines is a direct part of human ancestry recedes.” Groves(1989,p.307),

After reviewing studies by Oxnard and others, agreed that “the locomotor system of Australopithecus africanus was unique— not simply an intermediate stage between us and apes.” He found the same to be true of other species of Australopithecus. This fact, along with other aspects of the hominid fossil record, caused him to suggest that “non-Darwinian” principles were required to explain an evolutionary progression from Australopithecus to modern human beings (Groves 1989, p. 316).

11.8.6 Oxnard on the Antiquity of Homo

Like Louis and Richard Leakey, Oxnard believed that the Homo line was far more ancient than the standard evolutionary scenario allows. In this connection, Oxnard called attention to some of the fossils we have previously discussed, such as the humanlike ER 813 talus, over 1.5 million years old (Section 11.6.4). “Description and examination using multivariate methods [Wood 1974a] confirms that it is indeed similar to modern man and unlike the australopithecine specimens,” said Oxnard (1975b, p. 394). He also mentioned the Kanapoi humerus, perhaps

4 or more million years old. Citing research by B. Patterson and W. W. Howells (1967), Oxnard (1975b, p. 394) said the Kanapoi humerus had been “shown to be very similar to that of modern man.” His own research backed up that judgement (Oxnard 1975a). From such evidence, Oxnard (1984, p. 332) concluded that the genus Homo was 5 or more million years old.

Oxnard (1975b, p. 395) predicted that “more evidence of earlier forms that are more like man than australopithecines will be found.” He held that such “fossil remnants will be discovered outside Africa because . . . human or prehuman populations must have existed in other places, with migrations, and with multiple evolutionary lines.” But as we have seen in Part I, much evidence for completely humanlike forms existing at very early times has already been found, in Europe and the Americas as well as Africa. Such evidence is so extensive that talk of evolutionary lines, either single or multiple, becomes problematic.

All one can say with certainty is that various humanlike and apelike creatures seem to have coexisted for millions of years into the past. Oxnard (1975b, p. 395) approached this interpretation when he suggested: “We may have to accept that the australopithecine form (or forms) of locomotion, tool using, and tool making may be merely one (or more) unsuccessful evolutionary experiments existing in parallel with those of man.” Here the mention of tool using and making refers to Homo habilis, which Oxnard regarded as an australopithecine.

Elsewhere, Oxnard (1984, p. 1) gave this succinct statement of his principal conviction: “the conventional notion of human evolution must now be heavily modified or even rejected . . . new concepts must be explored.”

11.9 Lucy in the Sand with Diatribes

Donald Johanson studied anthropology at the University of Chicago, under F. Clark Howell. As a young graduate student, eager to learn the romantic business of hominid fossil hunting, Johanson accompanied Howell to Africa, working at the Omo site in Ethiopia.

After two seasons work at Omo, Johanson found himself in Paris. There he met Maurice Taieb, a French geologist, who told him about Hadar, a promising Plio-Pleistocene site in the Afar desert, in northeastern Ethiopia. In 1972, Johanson surveyed the region with Taieb, and after returning to the United States received a National Science Foundation grant to explore it more thoroughly. Johanson hoped to find hominid fossils.

In 1973, Johanson returned to Africa, but before going to Hadar he attended a conference of paleoanthropologists in Nairobi. There he met Richard Leakey, who had captured everyone’s attention with skull ER 1470 (Section 11.6.1), said to be 2.9 million years old. Leakey, by then quite famous, asked Johanson, still an unknown, what he was up to. Johanson replied that he would soon be hunting for hominids at Hadar in northern Ethiopia. “Do you really expect to find hominids there?” asked Leakey. Johanson replied yes, adding “older than yours.” He bet Leakey a bottle of wine he would do it. “Done!” said Leakey (Johanson and Edey 1981, pp. 134–135). Right from the start, it seems, Johanson was motivated by glamor. Finding hominids is special. It gets one headlines, interviews, and foundation grants, as well as recognition from one’s colleagues.

11.9.1 The Hadar Knee (Al 129)

By the end of his first season at Hadar, Johanson was in trouble. His National Science Foundation grant money, which was supposed to have lasted two years, was almost gone. Johanson worried he would be labeled incompetent. Furthermore, he had not found any of those glamorous hominid fossils. Johanson noted: “I had not exactly promised hominids when I put in my request for funds from the National Science Foundation, but I knew when I wrote up my grant proposal that if I did not include a strong pitch for hominids I would get no money at all; the likelihood of being sent to Ethiopia to collect pig’s teeth was remote” (Johanson and Edey 1981, p. 154).

Despite his financial problems, Johanson continued scouting for fossils. One afternoon, he found the upper portion of a tibia, a long bone between the knee and the ankle. The bone was obviously from some kind of primate. Nearby, Johanson found a distal femur, the lower end of a thighbone. From the way the femur and tibia fit together, Johanson believed he had found the complete knee joint not of some ancient monkey but of a hominid, an ancestor of modern humans. The deposits yielding the fossils were over 3 million years old, making this one of the oldest hominid finds ever made (Johanson and Edey 1981, p. 155).

Johanson felt that “his whole reason for being there, the core of his own most secret motivation” had been justified (Johanson and Edey 1981, p. 159).

In scientific publications that followed, Johanson reported that the Hadar knee (AL 129) was 4 million years old and belonged to a primitive australopithecine with a fully human bipedal gait (Johanson and Coppens 1976).

In support of his contention that AL 129 was characteristically human in structure, Johanson cited the presence of a valgus knee. A valgus knee is one in which the femur slants outward from the knee to the hip, at an angle from the lower part of the leg. Humans have a valgus knee. In African apes, the femur rises straight from the knee to the hip, in line with the lower part of the leg.

At 15 degrees from vertical, the angle of valgus in AL 129 was, however, much higher than the adult human mean of 9 degrees (Stern and Susman 1983, p. 296). This suggests that the locomotor behavior of AL 129, even if terrestrial and bipedal, might have been quite different from that of adult humans. In human children 3 to 4 years of age, the degree of valgus is as great as that in the AL 129 femur (Stern and Susman 1983, p. 296). The high angle is reflected in a child’s knock-kneed stance and somewhat awkward gait. The creature with the AL 129 knee may have stood and walked in similar fashion.

Furthermore, Jack T. Stern and Randall L. Susman of the State University of New York at Stony Brook noted that the presence of a valgus knee is not exclusively associated with terrestrial bipeds. Orangutans and spider monkeys, both of which spend most of their time in trees, have valgus knees (Stern and Susman 1983, p. 298).

As we have seen (Section 11.8.5), C. E. Oxnard and others have found that the functional morphology of the australopithecines has orangutan affinities. The valgus knee in AL 129 could thus represent yet another orangutanlike feature in Australopithecus. The totality of orangutan resemblances suggests arboreal behavior in Australopithecus, which Oxnard, Zuckerman, and the Leakeys did not consider ancestral to modern humans.

In his account of the discovery of AL 129, Johanson did not mention that primates other than humans have a valgus knee. It seems there are two possible explanations why he did not. Either he was unaware that orangutans and spider monkeys have the same outward slanting femur as humans, or he was aware of this but deliberately neglected to mention it because it would have complicated the case he was trying to make.

According to Brigitte Tardieu (1979), key features of the AL 129 femur and tibia, other than the degree of valgus, fell outside the modern human range. “These traits . . . led her to conclude that despite clear adaptations to terrestrial bipedality in the small Hadar hominid, the precise mechanism of this bipedality could not be specified and that it must have occurred along with some degree of arboreal behavior,” said Stern and Susman (1983, p. 298).

Stern and Susman (1983, pp. 298–299) themselves concluded: “Since, aside from the degree of valgus, the knee of the small Hadar hominid possesses no modern trait to a pronounced degree, and since many of these traits may not serve to specify the precise nature of the bipedality that was practiced, we must agree with Tardieu that the overall structure of the knee is compatible with a significant degree of arboreal locomotion.”

It is intriguing that the views of scientists like Tardieu, Stern, and Susman, though appearing in scientific journals, are rarely encountered in popular presentations or general textbooks. This points to the existence of a pattern of knowledge filtration in the scientific community that tends, consciously or unconsciously, to suppress information that would complicate the relatively simple picture of human evolution presented to the public in general and to students at all levels of the educational system, except, perhaps, graduate students working directly in the field of physical anthropology.

Be that as it may, Johanson’s lucky find saved the day for him, sparing him the embarrassment of leaving Ethiopia fundless and fossilless. Johanson said of the Hadar knee find: “It had brought me up a step; in my dealings with other scientists I was standing taller. I now had a unique hominid fossil of my own” (Johanson and Edey 1981, p. 165).

The glamor factor won Johanson 25,000 dollars from supporters in Cleveland, where Johanson held a post at the Museum of Natural History. The new funds allowed Johanson to return for a second year of work at Hadar.

11.9.2 Alemayehu’s jaws

Alemayehu Asfaw was an employee of the Ethiopian Ministry of Culture, and by the terms of Johanson’s agreement with the Ethiopian government, he was working at the Hadar site. In October of 1974, Alemayehu found a fossil jaw that he thought belonged to a baboon, but Johanson said it was hominid. Other similar jaws soon turned up. Classifying them proved difficult. Johanson asked Richard Leakey to come and have a look at them. Leakey took up the invitation, and arrived accompanied by his mother Mary Leakey and wife Meave. Together with Johanson they examined the jaws and judged them to be Homo, making them the oldest Homo fossils yet found (Johanson and Edey 1981, pp. 172–176).

11.9.3 Lucy

On November 30, 1974, Donald Johanson and Tom Gray were searching Locality 162 at the Hadar site, collecting bits of mammalian bone. After some time, Gray was ready to call it quits and go back to the camp. Johanson, however, suggested they check out a nearby gully. Other members of the expedition had already thoroughly searched it, but Johanson, who had been feeling “lucky” all day, decided to have one more look. Gray and Johanson did not find much. But as they were about to leave, Johanson spotted a piece of arm bone lying exposed on the surface. He thought it was hominid. Gray disagreed, saying it was probably from a monkey. Then Gray found a piece of skull and a part of a femur. They seemed definitely hominid. As they looked around, they could see scattered on the surface other bones—apparently from the same hominid individual. Johanson and Gray started jumping and howling in the 110-degree heat, celebrating what was obviously an extremely significant find. Finally they calmed down, realizing their boots were probably smashing some of the precious bones. After collecting a few hominid fossils, they headed back to camp. That evening Johanson and his coworkers partied while a Beatles song, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” blared repeatedly from the camp sound system. From the lyrics of that song, the female hominid received her name, Lucy (Johanson and Edey 1981, pp. 16–18).

By a combination of potassium-argon, fission track, and paleomagnetic dating methods, Johanson determined that Lucy was 3.5 million years old (Johanson and Edey 1981, pp. 200–203).

11.9.4 The First Family

In 1975, Johanson was back at Hadar, this time with a National Geographic photographer, who recorded another important discovery. On the side of a hill, Johanson and his team found the fossil remains of 13 hominids, including males, females, and children. The group was called the First Family. They were the same geological age as Lucy, about 3.5 million years old.

Stone tools were also found at the First Family site. They were made of basalt, and Johanson said they were “of somewhat better workmanship” than tools from the lower levels of Olduvai Gorge (Johanson and Edey 1981, p. 231).

How old were the tools? The fact that they were found on the surface made dating them somewhat difficult. In his book Lucy, Johanson reported the views of John Harris, a tool expert, who had worked at Lake Turkana: “He said that it was really impossible to date a surface-found tool at Lake Turkana because modern humans who needed rough blades to chop animals were making similar implements in profusion as recently as a thousand years ago, and that there were even a few people who were making them there today” (Johanson and Edey

1981, pp. 229–230). In Harris’s opinion, the surface-found tools at Hadar could also have been recent.

To remove their doubts about the age of the stone tools found on the surface at the First Family site, Harris and Johanson conducted some excavations and were rewarded by discovering a number of tools in situ. They judged the level at which they were found to be 2.5 million years old (Johanson and Edey along with these tools. Because Australopithecus was not known to have manufactured stone tools, Johanson speculated that Homo habilis was the toolmaker. But the oldest Homo habilis fossils were only about 2 million years old. Johanson simply proposed that habilis remains of the same age as the tools would eventually be found. As we have seen, there are, however, fossil remains resembling the modern human type from Early Pleistocene and Pliocene contexts in Africa (Sections 11.1, 11.2, 11.5, 11.6.3, and 11.6.4) and elsewhere (Section 6.2). It is thus possible that anatomically modern

humans could have made the Hadar tools.

With the First Family, the major discoveries at Hadar, which also included the Hadar knee, Alemayehu’s jaws, and Lucy, were completed. We shall now examine how these fossils were interpreted and reinterpreted by various parties.

11.9.5 Two Hominids at Hadar?

In classifying his finds, Johanson initially relied heavily upon the judgement of Richard and Mary Leakey that the Alemayehu jaws and First Family specimens were Homo (Johanson and Edey 1981, p. 217). If Lucy and the AL 129 femur and tibia were australopithecine, as Johanson believed, then there were two kinds of hominids at Hadar.

In a December 1976 National Geographic article, Johanson made a clear distinction between the First Family, which he thought represented Homo, and Lucy, which he thought represented an early Australopithecus (Fix 1984, p. 70). This two-species view was reflected in a number of scientific papers published by Johanson and various coauthors.

Richard Leakey later said that Lucy, with her V-shaped jaw and other primitive features represented “a late Ramapithecus” (Johanson and Edey 1981, p. 279). Ramapithecus, as previously noted (Section 3.9), was an extremely primitive apelike creature living in the Miocene and Pliocene. It may be recalled that Ramapithecus, originally considered the root of the hominid line, was later reclassified as nonhominid and ancestral to the orangutans.

Given the orangutan affinities of Australopithecus, as detailed by Oxnard (Section 11.8.5), maybe Leakey’s idea that Lucy was a ramapithecine was right.

11.9.6 Johanson and White Decide On a Single Hadar Species

Johanson was later influenced to change his mind about the number of species at Hadar. The person who convinced him to do so was Timothy D. White, a paleontologist who had worked at Lake Turkana with Richard Leakey. White, on faunal grounds, disputed Leakey’s dating of the KBS tuff (Section 11.6.5.2). Eventually, he left Lake Turkana and for a time worked at Laetoli, Kenya, where Mary Leakey had found hominid jaws similar to those at Hadar.

Johanson and White first met briefly in Africa. In the summer of 1977, when Johanson was back at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History studying his Hadar fossils, he asked White to bring samples of the Laetoli fossils.

White came and convinced Johanson to accept the following points: (1) the U-shaped jaws discovered at Hadar by Johanson and those discovered at Laetoli by Mary Leakey were of the same species; (2) the species was not Homo, as Johanson and the Leakeys had originally thought, but a new kind of australopithecine; (3) the V-shaped jaw of Lucy was also of the same species, being a female sexual variant of the other U-shaped jaws. Referring to a scientific paper in which he had advocated the two-species concept, Johanson said: “I would withdraw that paper today if I could” (Johanson and Edey 1981, p. 209).

Johanson and White (1979) soon announced their new species, calling it Australopithecus afarensis, after the Afar region of Ethiopia where most of the specimens were found.

According to Johanson and White, Australopithecus afarensis gave rise to two lineages. The first led by way of Australopithecus africanus to the robust australopithecines. The second lineage led by way of Homo habilis to Homo erectus and thence to Homo sapiens. In constructing this phylogenetic hypothesis, Johanson relied primarily upon dental evidence. The molars of A. afarensis were the smallest of all the australopithecines. The molars of A. africanus were larger, and those of the robust australopithecines larger still. This, to Johanson, indicated an evolutionary development. In Lucy’s Homo offspring, the molars grew progressively smaller, representing a separate, parallel line of evolutionary development. It all seemed to fit together quite nicely.

11.9.7 A. Afarensis: Overly Humanized?

Johanson said that Australopithecus afarensis individuals had “smallish, essentially human bodies” (Johanson and Edey 1981, p. 275). But several scientists have strongly disagreed with Johanson’s picture of Australopithecus afarensis. These dissenters have painted a far more apelike portrait of Lucy and her relatives. In most cases, their views on Lucy parallel the earlier work of Oxnard, Zuckerman, and others on Australopithecus. If the dissenting view is correct, as it appears to be, then Johanson’s description of Australopithecus afarensis can only be considered as misleading.

It seems that Johanson imposed a humanlike interpretation upon Lucy’s essentially apelike anatomy for the propaganda purpose of enhancing her evolutionary status as a human ancestor. Johanson himself said: “There is no such thing as a total lack of bias. I have it; everybody has it. The fossil hunter in the field has it. . . . In everybody who is looking for hominids there is a strong urge to learn more about where the human line started. If you are working back at around three million, as I was, that is very seductive, because you begin to get an idea that that is where Homo did start. You begin straining your eyes to find Homo traits in fossils of that age” (Johanson and Edey 1981, p. 257). Johanson gave this confession to explain why he originally characterized the First Family fossils and the Alemayehu jaws as Homo, but it also applies to his insistence on seeing in Lucy traits of a creature well on the way to becoming human.

The Hadar fossils did not include a complete skull of an A. afarensis individual, but Tim White managed to pull together a partial reconstruction, using cranial fragments, pieces of upper and lower jaw, and some facial bones from several First Family individuals. According to Johanson, the reconstructed skull “looked very much like a small female gorilla” (Johanson and Edey 1981, p. 351). The forehead was low, the large jaw projected far beyond the upper part of the face, and there was no chin. The general apelike appearance was also reflected in anatomical details such as the mandibular fossa (the place where the lower jaw attaches to the skull), the tympanic plate, and the mastoid process. All of these were apelike, not humanlike (Johanson and Edey 1981, pp. 272–273). Furthermore, the cranial capacity of A. afarensis (380– 450 cc) overlapped that of chimpanzees (330–400 cc) and other apes. Here there was no dispute between Johanson and his critics. Both agreed that the afarensis head was apelike.

Johanson and White believed the skull was, however, different from that of previously known australopithecines. But W. W. Ferguson (1984) and P. Schmid (1983) pointed out that White’s reconstruction of the Australopithecus afarensis skull was incorrect. Correcting the mistake “makes the resulting construction a great deal more like A. africanus,” said Groves (1989, p. 263). P. V. Tobias (1980) said all the Hadar and Laetoli fossils were not a new species but were just subspecies of Australopithecus africanus. According to Tobias, Australopithecus africanus was the ancestor of Homo, while for Johanson and White Australopithecus africanus was the ancestor of only the robust australopithecines.

Originally, Johanson thought the A. afarensis U-shaped jaws were humanlike and like the Leakeys assigned them to the genus Homo. Later Johanson said they were “distinct from apes and from any of the later hominids” (Johanson and Edey 1981, p. 271). But his detailed descriptions showed the Hadar jaws to be in fact quite apelike.

In humans, the teeth in the jaw are arrayed in a parabolic curve. In the Hadar jaws, such as AL 200, the teeth on either side of the jaw are set in straight, parallel rows, as in the apes, although the rearmost molars are sometimes slightly displaced (Johanson and Edey 1981, pp. 267–268). Both in apes and the Hadar fossils the palate is flat (Johanson and Edey 1981, p. 270). In humans it is arched.

TABLE 11.6

Evidence for Arboreality in Postcranial Anatomy of A. Afarensis

1. General anatomy of Lucy’s shoulder blade was characterized as “virtually identical to that of a great ape and had a probability of 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 upward (Oxnard 1984, p. 334-i; Stern and Susman 1983, p. 284). This would allow “use of the upper limb in elevated positions as would be common during climbing behavior” (Stern and Susman 1983, p. 284).

3. A. 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, p. 282).

4. A. afarensis metacarpals (the bones in the palm region 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, 283).

5. The finger bones are even more curved than in chimpanzees and are morphologically chimpanzeelike (Stern and Susman 1983, pp. 282–284; Susman et al. 1984, p. 117; Marzke 1983, p. 198).

6. A. afarensis humerus (upper arm bone) has features that are “most likely related to some form of arboreal locomotion” (Oxnard 1984, p. 334-i; see also Senut 1981, p. 282).

7. One of the long bones in the forearm, the ulna, resembles that of the pygmy chimpanzee (Feldesman 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. The thighbone of Lucy “probably comes from an individual with the ability to abduct the hip in the manner of pongids,” allowing for “movement in the trees” (Stern and Susman 1983, p. 296).

12. Knee joint is loose, as in gibbon. “The mobility and prehensility of the foot are greatly complemented” (Tardieu 1981, p. 76), making it good for climbing.

13. Lucy had valgus knee, as do humans. But “the orang-utan and the spider monkey . . . are extremely able arborealists that have similar valgus angles as humans” (Oxnard 1984, p. 334-ii; see also Prost 1980).

14. Lucy had “a relatively short hindlimb . . . comparable to that seen in apes of similar body size.” This “would clearly facilitate climbing” (Susman et al. 1984, pp. 115, 116).

15. Feet have long, curved toes and a mobile ankle joint, making them well suited for grasping limbs and climbing in trees (Susman et al. 1984, p. 125). Also, the big toe is divergent, as in the apes (Susman et al. 1984, pp. 137–138).

As in the apes, the canines of the Hadar jaws were conical. In humans, the inner surface of the canine is flattened. In order to accommodate the projecting lower canine of A. afarensis, the upper jaw has a noticeable gap between the incisor and the canine. Other australopithecines also have the same gap. This gap, called a diastema, is also present in apes but not in humans.

Departures from the ape condition were minor. In an ape, the first premolar has a single cusp. In humans, the first premolar has a prominent second cusp. In all of the Hadar specimens except Lucy, the first premolar has a slightly developed second cusp (Johanson and Edey 1981, p. 270).

All in all, the apelike condition of the Hadar jaws is so pronounced that even Johanson admitted: “If David Pilbeam were to find any of them in Miocene deposits without any associated long bones, he would surely say it was an ape” (Johanson and Edey 1981, p. 376).

11.9.7.2 Postcranial Anatomy

Now we move on to the postcranial anatomy of A. afarensis, particularly Lucy. Several workers have found A. afarensis to be rather apelike, thus challenging Johanson’s view that Lucy was terrestrially bipedal in human fashion. Table 11.6 summarizes the evidence for arboreality in the postcranial anatomy of A. afarensis, and we shall amplify some of the points in this section.

Oxnard (1968) called attention to features of the Sterkfontein scapula suggesting that australopithecines probably engaged in holding the arms over the head in hanging behavior (Section 11.8.1, Table 11.5). A. afarensis has the same kind of scapula. Stern and Susman (1983, p. 284) concluded that the shoulder joint of A. afarensis was “directed far more cranially than is typical of modern humans and that this trait was an adaptation to use of the upper limb in elevated positions as would be common during climbing behavior.”

Johanson (1976, p. 808) had said that the Hadar hands bore “an uncanny resemblance to our own—in size, shape, and function.” But this appears to be incorrect.

Stern and Susman (1983, p. 284) concluded: “A summary of the morphologic and functional affinities of the Hadar hand fossils leads inexorably to an image of a suspensory adapted hand, surprisingly similar to hands found in the small end of the pygmy chimpanzee–common chimpanzee range.” M. W. Marzke (1983, p. 198), sharing this view, stated that the curved bones of the A. afarensis hand “recall the the bony apparatus which accommodates the well developed flexor musculature in living apes and positions it for efficient hooklike grip of the branches by the flexed fingers during arboreal climbing and feeding.”

So thus far we have in A. afarensis a gorillalike head, an upward-pointing shoulder joint indicating that the arm was used for suspensory behavior, and a hand with a powerful wrist and curved fingers, suitable for climbing. One can just imagine the effects of a painting or model of Lucy engaged in suspensory or other arboreal behavior. This would surely detract from her image as a creature well on the way to human status. Even if one believes Lucy could have evolved into a human being, one still has to admit that her anatomical features appear to have been misrepresented for propaganda purposes.

The distal humerus, the elbow region of the upper arm bone, fits the apelike pattern already established. Brigitte Senut, a physical anthropologist at the French Museum of Natural History, conducted a study of the outlines of cross sections of the distal humerus in living primates, including human beings, and fossil hominids. Senut (1981a, p. 282) discovered that the distal humerus of Lucy (AL 288-1M) was “pongid-like.” Pongids are the anthropoid apes, such as chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans. Senut (1981a, p. 282) concluded: “The scheme in the Afar specimen [Lucy] would suggest . . . its apelike pattern might be a result of a kind of suspension.”

Senut (1981a, p. 282) went on to say: “From our point of view, we would say that this specimen may be too pongid-like (i.e. specialized) to be in our ancestry.” From the standpoint of mainstream paleoanthropological thought, this is an extremely heretical view.

Feldesman (1982a, p. 91) found Lucy’s humerus to be most closely related to the pygmy chimpanzee, Pan paniscus.

As far as the bones of the lower arm are concerned, Feldesman (1982b, p. 187) found that “‘Lucy’ (AL 288) clearly resembles Pan paniscus in proximal ulnar morphology.” The ulna is the innermost of the two bones making up the forearm (the radius is the other). The proximal, or upper, part of the ulna joins the humerus at the elbow.

In 1985, Della Collins Cook, an anthropologist, and three coauthors, among them Donald Johanson, published a study of the vertebral column of Australopithecus afarensis.

Cook and Johanson claimed: “The AL-288 vertebrae correspond to those of modern humans in remarkable detail” (Cook et al. 1983, p. 84). They noted, however, that the “Hadar vertebrae depart from the morphological pattern found in modern humans in a few details that may have functional significance” (Cook et al. 1983, p. 86). These “few details” were not trivial. For example, according to Cook and Johanson, the spinous processes of the A. afarensis neck and upper back vertebrae were quite long. The spinous process, a bony projection on the back side of the vertebrae, serves as a point of attachment for muscles. According to Cook and Johanson, the length and surface features of the spinous processes indicated that in A. afarensis the back and shoulder muscles were “massive relative to their size in modern humans” (Cook et al. 1983, p. 86).

Oxnard (1984, p. 334-i) stated that the features of the A. afarensis vertebrae reported by Cook and Johanson “are likely to have provided the stress bearing structures necessary to support the actions of very powerful shoulder muscles in climbing and arboreal activities suggested by our prior studies of the scapula and clavicle of other australopithecines.”

C. Owen Lovejoy, a supporter of Johanson, claimed that the afarensis hip was suitable only for upright walking (Johanson and Edey 1981, pp. 347–348). But the afarensis hip structure is significantly different from that in human beings. In particular, Lucy’s iliac blade, like that of other australopithecines, is positioned as in apes (Section 11.8.2, Figure 11.13). Susman said: “Therefore, we are of the opinion that the orientation of the iliac blades in the Hadar species is well-suited for a part-time climber” (Susman et al. 1984, p. 132).

In Scientific American, Lovejoy (1988) reasserted his familiar claims that Lucy’s pelvic structure and musculature were very similar to those of humans. We will not here repeat the detailed demonstrations by Zuckerman, Oxnard, Stern, Susman, and others that the pelvic morphology of A. afarensis had quite a bit in common with arboreal primates, and was better suited for climbing than walking (Section 11.8.2).

What is perhaps most significant about Lovejoy’s presentation is that he does not once directly mention his opponents and their arguments. This adds to our suspicions that the views of Zuckerman, Oxnard, Stern, Susman, Prost, and others are being suppressed for propaganda purposes on the level of secondary presentations for the wider scientific community, educational institutions, and the public in general. The views of the advocates of arboreality for A. afarensis are represented almost solely in the primary level of publication, in the obscure pages of scientific journals intended for specialists. They are, however, not at all well represented in publications like Scientific American, college textbooks on anthropology, and popular books and television programs dealing with the topic of human evolution. Arboreal habits would not look well in the hominid advertised as the oldest known creature directly ancestral to modern humanity.

Femurs from Lucy and the First Family group challenge claims by Johanson and Lovejoy that the lower limb of A. afarensis was distinctly human in morphology and function. Stern and Susman (1983, p. 296) concluded that the proximal (upper) part of Lucy’s femur “probably comes from an individual with the ability to abduct the hip in the manner of pongids,” allowing for “movement in the trees.”

Measurements of several features of the lower (distal) end of the AL 333-4 First Family femur showed it to be outside the human range and within the ranges of chimpanzees, gibbons, and several species of monkeys. In fact “the distal end of the AL 333-4 femur actually appears less human-like than that of a woolly monkey” (Stern and Susman 1983, p. 297).

Christine Tardieu, an anthropologist at the Museum of Natural History in Paris, gave a slightly different assessment of the AL 333-4 distal femur, finding it barely within the modern human range, at “the extreme end closest to the apes” (Stern and Susman 1983, p. 299). Thus, as often happens, we find ourselves confronted with contradictory interpretations of the same fossil material, but on the whole, the femurs in question appear to be apelike.

Tardieu, in addition to measuring the AL 333-4 femur of the First Family group, also conducted studies of the distal femur of Lucy. She gave special attention to the notch in the femur that holds the upper end of the tibia, the larger of the two bones of the lower leg. In humans, the spine of the tibia fits tightly into the notch of the femur. In apes, the fit is looser. In this regard, Lucy is in the range of the gibbon. Tardieu (1981, p. 76) stated: “The loose fit of the articular surfaces . . . and the consequent laxity of the knee joint signify that the leg and the foot can be placed on the substrate in a much freer fashion than in Man.” This would be good for climbing, but unsatisfactory for extensive walking on the ground.

Commenting on Tardieu’s study of Lucy’s knee, Oxnard (1984, p. 334-ii) said she was led to “conclude that . . . its locking mechanism was not developed, implying that full extension of the leg in walking, a key point of human bipedality, was lacking.” Such features “suggested to Tardieu that ‘Lucy’ spent a considerable period of time climbing in the trees” (Oxnard 1984, p. 334-ii).

One can just imagine Lucy, hanging lazily from a tree limb by one of her arms, bending a small, dangling foot back from the ankle, while rotating her lower leg from the knee to bring the backward reaching foot in contact with a nearby limb.

The knee of Lucy (AL 288), like the original Hadar knee complex (AL 129), had a significant degree of valgus. Johanson, Lovejoy, and others held this to be an indication of humanlike posture and terrestrial bipedal gait. But, as we have seen, the orangutan and spider monkey have similar valgus angles, and they are arboreal.

In our anatomical survey, we have now progessed to the controversial feet of A. afarensis. Even Johanson had a difficult time disguising the manifestly apelike condition of Lucy’s foot. He wrote: “The afarensis phalanges are arched, and proportionally a good deal longer than those in modern feet. They might almost be mistaken for finger bones” (Johanson and Edey 1981, p. 345). Johanson also noted that the A. afarensis foot had “very large muscles whose presence is betrayed by markings along the sides of the phalanges” (Johanson and Edey 1981, p. 345). Such muscles would have been useful in hindlimb grasping.

It is amazing that Johanson could so candidly acknowledge the very apelike morphology of the afarensis foot and yet refuse to draw the obvious conclusion that it was used in arboreal behavior. Instead, Johanson stated: “Although similarly curved phalanges and muscle markings are found in the chimpanzee — reflecting the chimp’s ability to climb trees—Latimer warns that this does not mean that afarensis was a tree climber too” (Johanson and Edey 1981, p. 346 ). Bruce Latimer was one of Johanson’s graduate students and worked with him quite closely in Ethiopia on the Hadar finds, so his impartiality is suspect. He was later employed by Johanson to help with the reconstruction of A. afarensis. It is not unexpected that Latimer would agree with his professor, mentor, and employer that afarensis was a fully terrestrial biped. But researchers operating from more detached and independent standpoints have reached totally different conclusions, which seem to be more in harmony with the evidence.

In studying the most complete A. afarensis foot, AL 333-115 from the First Family group, Stern and Susman (1983, p. 306) found that the proximal phalanges (the bones at the base of each toe) had a “strikingly pongid morphology.” This was true in terms of both their length and curvature.

Susman, reporting the conclusions of an investigation into the curvature of proximal phalanges in a variety of apes, stated that the chimpanzee and bonobo, or pygmy chimpanzee, had “the most curved toe bones of any ape plotted” (Susman et al. 1984, p. 125). And the proximal phalanges of AL 333-115 were “more curved than in the average bonobo” (Susman et al. 1984, p. 125). In other words, A. afarensis was apparently more apelike, in this respect, than any of the living apes. Human proximal phalanges are nearly straight.

Like the proximal phalanges, the other toes bones of A. afarensis also displayed apelike features. Altogether, the long, curved toes of A. afarensis, accompanied by powerful grasping muscles, would have been well suited for arboreal behavior.

Susman concluded: “at the very least the small individuals should have been able to grab with their toes as well as 2-year old children grab with their fingers. The large Hadar individuals probably could use their toes for simple grasping as effectively as considerably older human children use their fingers. . . . the strength of the grip may have well exceeded the strength of hand grip in young humans” (Susman et al. 1984, p. 124). Lending support to this conclusion, the A. afarensis fibula (the smaller of the two bones of the lower leg) was quite robust, indicating the presence of powerful muscles for flexing the foot (Susman et al. 1984, p. 124).

According to Johanson, Latimer, who was opposed to arboreality, concluded that “afarensis was an exceptionally strong walker, and that its elongated toes may have been of service to it when moving over rough stony ground, or in mud, where some slight gripping ability would have been useful” (Johanson and Edey 1981, pp. 345–346).

Stern and Susman (1983, p. 308) found this notion “untenable,” observing that “curved toes are found only in species that engage in arboreal behavior.”

Stern and Susman (1983, p. 308) further stated: “There is no evidence that any extant primate has long, curved, heavily muscled hands and feet for any purpose other than to meet the demands of full or part-time arboreal life.”

Another apelike feature of the A. afarensis foot can be found in the hallux, or big toe. Studies by Susman showed that the A. afarensis hallux could be extended sideways, like the human thumb (Susman et al. 1984, pp. 137–138).

The hallux of A. afarensis was relatively smaller than that of some arboreal primates, causing Latimer to suggest that A. afarensis was not well suited for climbing trees. But Susman pointed out that the highly arboreal gibbon also has a small hallux (Susman et al. 1984, p. 137). Altogether, the picture that emerges of the afarensis foot is extremely apelike—a foot with long, curved, fingerlike toes and a highly mobile, thumblike big toe.

Tim White, one of the promoters of A. afarensis, has responded negatively to attempts to characterize Lucy as fully, or even partially, arboreal. White stated: “We are wary of this approach which makes the interpretive leap from curved phalanges into the trees” (White and Suwa 1987, p. 512). As we have seen, wariness is always required in approaching empirical treatments of human origins and antiquity. But we should perhaps be more wary of the interpretive leap from curved phalanges out of the trees, since greatly curved phalanges in extant primates are an exclusively arboreal adaptation. This is especially true of curved phalanges existing in combination with an upward pointing shoulder joint and other signs of arboreal capability.

From the toes, let us now move on to the A. afarensis ankle, including its articulations with the tibia and fibula, the bones of the lower leg.

Regarding the articular surfaces of the fibula of A. afarensis, Stern and Susman (1983, p. 305) wrote that they provide “evidence for a significant component of arboreality in the behavior of A. afarensis.” Johanson’s supporters such as Latimer disagreed with this analysis (Latimer et al. 1987). In overall appearance, however, the lower part of Lucy’s fibula, the part that connects with the ankle, is different from that of a human being and almost identical to that of the pygmy chimpanzee (Susman et al. 1984, p. 130).

Stern and Susman (1983, p. 302) argued that Lucy’s foot could be bent back further than in humans. “This trait would seem to be useful in reaching for branches with the feet and in hindlimb suspension,” they noted (Stern and Susman 1983, p. 299). According to Stern and Susman (1983, p. 300), Lucy’s ankle was structured so that she would have “had difficulty in maintaining a vertical orientation of the trunk and might have progressed bipedally in a manner unlike that of humans and more like that of an African ape.”

Johanson’s supporters took a completely opposite position, namely, that the ankle of A. afarensis was almost totally adapted for a humanlike, terrestrial bipedal gait, making impossible any substantial arboreal behavior. Latimer and Lovejoy in particular have published several articles micro-analyzing every curve of the A. afarensis foot and ankle bones as proof of exclusive terrestrial bipedalism (Gomberg and Latimer 1984, Latimer et al. 1987, Latimer and Lovejoy 1990a, Latimer and Lovejoy 1990b).

We note, however, that an author of a recent survey (Groves 1989) takes the side of Stern, Susman, Tardieu, Oxnard, and others who have argued for a substantial component of arboreality in Australopithecus afarensis and the australopithecines generally. Groves (1989, p. 310) said that in the australopithecines “bipedal locomotion was only part of a pattern which also incorporated sophisticated climbing ability.”

J. H. Prost (1980) of the University of Chicago concluded that the australopithecines, including Lucy, were primarily quadrupedal vertical climbers. “Quadrupedal vertical climbing produced a large number of . . . traits which have incorrectly assumed to have been bipedal adaptations,” stated Prost (1980, p. 186).

According to Prost (1980, p. 175), the australopithecines, including A. afarensis, would have possessed, in addition to their aboreal capabilities, the capacity for “facultative terrestrial bipedalism.” The word facultative means “optional” or “taking place under some conditions but not under others.” In other words, the predominantly arboreal australopithecines, if the situation demanded, would have been able to move bipedally on the ground, perhaps in running from one tree to another some distance away. This type of behavior is observed in many primates, including chimpanzees, orangutans, and gibbons. So the fossil evidence in no way obligates one to attribute to A. afarensis any specifically human locomotor behavior. According Prost (1980, p. 188), the first true terrestrial bipedal hominid was Homo habilis (as understood before the discovery of the apelike OH 62 individual) or early Homo erectus.

R. H. Tuttle posited the existence of preaustralopithecine hominids displaying a kind of arboreal bipedalism. He called them hylobatians, after the genus Hylobates, which includes the modern gibbon. Tuttle (1981, p. 90) stated: “Vertical climbing on tree trunks and vines and bipedalism on horizontal boughs were conspicuous components of their locomotor repertoire. They commonly stood bipedally while foraging in trees . . . Short bursts of bipedal running and hindlimbpropelled leaps may have been important for the manual capture of insects and small vertebrates with which they supplemented their vegetable fare.”

According to Tuttle (1981, p. 89), the Hadar hominids “had curved fingers and toes, strong great toes and thumbs, and other features that suggest they were rather recently derived from arboreal hominids [his hylobatians] and that they probably continued to enter trees, perhaps for night rest and some foraging.”

Studies of primate behavior apparently support the arboreal implications of the fossil morphology of A. afarensis. Susman stated: “We feel, based on extensive literature on free-ranging primates, that creatures such as represented by A.L. 288-1 could not have survived full-time on the ground. Today, all primates from common chimpanzees (which range from 27 up to 70 kg [59 to 154 lb.]), to vervet monkeys and baboons (which range from less than 3 to over 40 kg [7 to over 88 lb.]), are obliged at least to sleep in trees (or on rocky cliff-faces). They all feed in trees” (Susman et al. 1984, pp. 150–151). Susman pointed out that pollen studies showed the presence of trees at the Hadar site (Susman et al. 1984, p. 151).

Having completed our review of the anatomy of Australopithecus afarensis, we conclude that Johanson was incorrect in stating that Lucy and her relatives were predominantly terrestrial bipeds and had “essentially human bodies” (Johanson and Edey 1981, p. 275). The picture that emerges is one of an arboreally adapted creature with long, curved toes and fingers, a long, heavily muscled arm equipped with an upward-pointing shoulder joint, a pelvis structured like that of apes, and a knee complex resembling that of the orangutan.

This view is not, however, very well represented in popular presentations. In order to maintain a believable human evolutionary sequence, the scientific community apparently requires, for propaganda purposes, a credible human ancestor in the Late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene. The erect, bipedal, nonarboreal hominid, with apelike head and humanlike body, as portrayed by Johanson and his disciples, satisfies this requirement far better than the almost totally apelike and wholly or partially arboreal creature that emerges from the studies of Stern, Susman, Oxnard, and others. This judgement is supported by the fact that the views of Johanson, Latimer, and Lovejoy make their way into college textbooks, popular books on evolution, televisions specials, and so on, with hardly a hint of any serious opposing conception. This, we believe, is not an accident. The informal gatekeepers and guardians of scientific orthodoxy are apparently quite careful about what reaches the public.

11.9.8 Opposition to the Single Species Hypothesis

The idea that the large and small hominid individuals from Hadar and Laetoli represent a single sexually dimorphic species (Australopithecus afarensis) has not won universal acceptance among scientists.

Adrienne Zihlman (1985, p. 214) of the University of California (Santa Cruz) stated: “The interpretation of extreme sexual dimorphism for these fossils has been a mere assertion from the beginning . . . and has continued to be so.”

In one of her reports, Zihlman (1985, pp. 216–217) supplied some data on sexual dimorphism in human beings, various apes, and A. afarensis. She found: “The Hadar fossils suggest even greater dimorphism than exists in orangutans, a species where males may be more than three times the body weight of females. This means that ‘A. afarensis’ is more sexually dimorphic than any living hominoid. From the point of view of size, more than one species is strongly implied.”

In the human species, males average only about 20 percent heavier than females. So even if, for the sake of argument, one accepts that A. afarensis, with males more than three times heavier than females, did represent one species, the extreme degree of dimorphism argues strongly in support of apelike rather than humanlike morphology and behavior. And if Zihlman is right, and there were two species, not one, at Hadar, then Tim White sold Donald Johanson an illusion.

Todd Olson, an anthropologist at the City College of New York, concluded from cranial evidence that more than one species was present at the Hadar site. Olson discovered that the mastoid process in the larger Hadar individuals (such as AL 333–45) was “pneumatized” with small air pockets. The mastoid process is a bony projection behind the ear. A pneumatized mastoid is characteristic of Australopithecus robustus. The mastoid in the small Hadar individuals (Lucy), A. africanus, and Homo sapiens is nonpneumatized. The difference in mastoid structure between the large and small Hadar individuals, along with dental evidence, convinced Olson that two species rather than one were found at Hadar (Herbert 1983, pp. 10 –11). The larger individuals were, according to Olson, a population related to Australopithecus robustus, and the smaller individuals, including Lucy, were the earliest members of the Homo line. This is an interesting variation of the original two-species interpretation of the Hadar fossils, as proposed by Richard Leakey, who placed the larger individuals in the Homo line and characterized the smaller Lucy as a surviving Ramapithecus. Johanson and his supporters “took great exception to Olson’s analysis, showing that the AL 333-45 basicranium is distorted and, if anything, is Homo-like” (Groves 1989, p. 262 ).

Dental evidence has also caused some workers to question the the view that a single species was present at Hadar. In Lucy, the first premolar has a single cusp, but in the other Hadar jaws, the premolars, like those of modern humans, have a double cusp. Science News reported: “Yves Coppens, director of the Musee de l’Homme in Paris . . . and an original cosigner on the paper identifying A. afarensis as a species has now reversed himself based on the dental evidence — specifically the existence of both single-cusp and bicuspid premolars in the sample — he says there must have been two species coexisting at Hadar” (Herbert 1983, p. 11). Johanson and White, however, said that in an evolving line, some individuals would have the single cusp and others the bicuspid tooth.

Stern and Susman, like Johanson, originally believed the Hadar fossils represented the males and females of a single species exhibiting a high degree of sexual dimorphism. According to their view, the small females, including Lucy, would have been quite arboreal, the larger males less so.

Stern, however, eventually backed down from the sexual dimorphism concept. Science News reported in 1983: “he argues that the finger bones clearly sort themselves into two groups; one group [the small individuals] has strongly curved fingers — exactly like African apes — and the other [the large individuals] has less curved . . . fingers, halfway between gorillas and humans” (Herbert 1983, p. 9).

Stern said: “The finger bones pushed me over the edge. Taken in conjunction with the differences in the ankles and leg bones, I had to ask myself: Do you ever see such difference in living animals? And the answer is no — never. It’s just too big a difference to be sexual dimorphism” (Herbert 1983, p. 9). Apparently, both species would have manifested arboreal behavior. Even the large First Family specimens had finger bones curved more than those of humans. They also had, as we have seen, long curved toes and a femoral anatomy similar to that of apes.

Where does all this leave us regarding our understanding of Australopithecus afarensis? Johanson and White and their supporters say A. afarensis, a terrestrial biped, was ancestral to A. africanus and the robust australopithecines, a line that finished in extinction. They also said A. afarensis was ancestral to the line leading from Homo habilis to Homo sapiens. Others say A. afarensis was a variety of A. africanus, which gave rise to the Homo line. Still others take a two-species approach. Tardieu (1981), studying the postcranial evidence, particularly the femurs, concluded that the larger individuals at Hadar represented the Homo line and the smaller individuals, like Lucy, something else. Y. Coppens, from studies of the dental evidence, reached a similar conclusion (Weaver 1985, pp. 592, 595). Richard Leakey also took the multiple-species approach, claiming that Lucy was a surviving Ramapithecus whereas the larger Hadar specimens represented the Homo line. Olson, studying features of the cranial anatomy, concluded that the larger Hadar individuals were like Australopithecus robustus, whereas Lucy was the first species in the Homo line (Herbert 1983, pp. 10–11). Susman felt the large and small Hadar types represented a single, partly arboreal species. Stern originally agreed with this, but later adopted a two-species view, as a result of his studies of the finger anatomy. Finally, Oxnard and others believed A. afarensis to be an apelike arboreal creature with no direct relation to the human line.

This brief review does not, however, exhaust the various opinions about the phylogenetic status of A. afarensis. “For Ferguson (1983, 1984) the Hadar sample contains three different taxa: Sivapithecus sp., Australopithecus africanus, and Homo antiquus (new species),” noted Groves (1989, p. 262). Groves himself (1989, p. 263), in his comprehensive taxonomic survey of the hominids, said: “Certainly the post-cranial data are absolutely clear, and split the Hadar sample into two divisions.” Groves (1989, p. 263) classified one Hadar group as early Homo and the other as an unnamed new hominid genus. Under the species designation Australopithecus afarensis, he kept only the Laetoli jaws. So Groves, like Ferguson, found three species instead of one in the A. afarensis fossils of Johanson and White.

Within the scientific community there is as of yet no unanimous picture of what the australopithecines, including A. afarensis, were really like, both in terms of their morphology and their phylogenetic relation with modern humans. The field is still wide open and full of conflicting views.

Nevertheless, we find the argument for a substantial component of arboreality in the locomotor behavior of A. afarensis more credible than that for exclusive terrestrial bipedalism. There also appears to be good reason to suppose the Hadar hominid fossils represent more than one species. Furthermore, we favor the view, espoused by Louis and Richard Leakey, that no australopithecine, including A. afarensis, warrants being labeled a human ancestor.

Just as today we find true humans coexisting with various categories of apes, some more humanlike than others, the same was true in the past, as far back as our research can carry us. In fact, an objective review of the evidence yields signs of anatomically modern human beings tens of millions of years ago, a fact distinctly incompatible with any current evolutionary model.

11.10 The Laetoli Footprints

The Laetoli site is located in northern Tanzania, about 30 miles south of Olduvai Gorge. Laetoli is the Masai word for red lily. The area was first explored by the Leakeys in 1935. Later, Mary Leakey returned to Laetoli and discovered some hominid jaws, which she regarded as early Homo.

One day in 1979, Dr. Andrew Hill of the Kenya National Museum and several other members of Mary Leakey’s expedition were playing around, throwing pieces of elephant dung at each other. In the course of this sport, Hill noticed some marks on the ground. They proved to be fossil footprints of animals. Subsequently, Peter Jones and Philip Leakey, the youngest son of Louis and Mary Leakey, discovered among the footprints some that appeared to have been made by hominids. The prints had been impressed in layers of volcanic ash, dated by Garniss Curtis, using the potassium-argon method, at from 3.6 to 3.8 million years old.

National Geographic magazine featured an article by Mary Leakey titled “Footprints in the Ashes of Time.” A caption to a photo of some hominid prints read: “The best-preserved print shows the raised arch, rounded heel, pronounced ball, and forward-pointing big toe necessary for walking erect. Pressures exerted along the foot attest to a striding gait” (M. Leakey 1979, p. 452). Dr. Louise Robbins, a footprint expert from the University of North Carolina, observed: “They looked so human, so modern, to be found in tuffs so old” (M. Leakey 1979, p. 452).

Readers who have accompanied us this far in our intellectual journey will have little difficulty in recognizing the Laetoli footprints as potential evidence for the presence of anatomically modern human beings over 3.6 million years ago in Africa. We were, however, somewhat astonished to encounter such a striking anomaly in the unexpected setting of the more recent annals of standard paleoanthropological research. What amazed us most was that scientists of worldwide reputation, the best in their profession, could look at these footprints, describe their humanlike features, and remain completely oblivious to the possibility that the creatures that made them might have been as humanlike as ourselves.

Their mental currents were running in the usual fixed channels. Mary Leakey (1979, p. 453) wrote: “at least 3,600,000 years ago, in Pliocene times, what I believe to be man’s direct ancestor walked fully upright with a bipedal, free-striding gait. . . . the form of his foot was exactly the same as ours.”

Who was the ancestor? Here we once more confront the debate, between the Leakeys on one hand and Johanson and White on the other, about the number and type of species represented by the fossil materials from Hadar and Laetoli.

Taking the Leakeys’ point of view, the Laetoli footprints would have been made by a nonaustralopithecine ancestor of Homo habilis. Taking the JohansonWhite point of view, the Laetoli footprints would have been made by Australopithecus afarensis. In either case, the creature who made the prints would have had an apelike head and other primitive features.

But why not a creature with fully modern feet and fully modern body? There is nothing in the footprints that rules this out. Furthermore, we have compiled in this book quite a bit of fossil evidence, some of it from Africa, that is consistent with the presence of anatomically modern human beings in the Early Pleistocene and the Late Pliocene.

The most prominent set of tracks at Laetoli represented the footprints of three hominids, one larger than the others. Applying an anthropological rule of thumb that a hominid’s foot length represents 15 percent of the creature’s height, Mary Leakey (1979, p. 453) calculated that the largest hominid stood 4 feet, 8 inches tall, whereas the next largest stood 4 feet tall. The smallest would have been still shorter. Leakey hypothesized that the largest individual was an adult male, the next largest an adult female, and the smallest a child. Admitting this was only a guess, she suggested the alternative possibility that the second largest set of prints might represent a juvenile male (M. Leakey 1979, p. 453). One cannot, however, be certain that the largest tracks represent a fully adult form either. Even so, the heights of the creatures that made the two larger sets of tracks, as estimated by Mary Leakey, fall within the modern human adult range.

Are we perhaps exaggerating the humanlike features of the Laetoli footprints? Let us see what various researchers have said. Louise M. Robbins, who provided an initial evaluation of the Laetoli prints to Mary Leakey in 1979, later published a more detailed report. Several sets of tracks, identified by letters, were found at Laetoli. In examining the “G” trails, representing the three individuals described by Mary Leakey as a possible family group, Robbins (1987, p. 501) found that the prints “share many features that are characteristic of the human foot structure.”

Robbins (1987, p. 501) noted: “Each hominid has a non-divergent great toe, or toe 1, and that toe is about twice as large as toe 2 beside it.” She found the spacing between toes 1 and 2 “no greater than one finds in many people today, including individuals who habitually wear shoes” (1987, p. 501). Robbins also found “the ball region of the hominids’ feet is of human form” and added that the feet displayed “a functionally stable longitudinal arch structure” (1987, p. 501). Finally, she observed that “the heel impressions in the hominids’ footprints appear human in their form and in their locomotory performance” (Robbins 1987, p. 501).

Robbins (1987, p. 501) therefore concluded that “the four functional regions—heel, arch, ball, and toes—of the hominids’ feet imprinted the ash in a typically human manner” and that “the hominids walked across the ash surface in characteristic human bipedal fashion.”

Concerning the size of the prints, Robbins (1987, p. 502) stated: “The assumed dimensions of the G-2 footprints do indeed fall well within the adult male range of a sample of American subjects, and the measurements of G-3’s footprints fall in the lower portion of the range for adult females in the American sample. The dimensions of the G-1 footprints, however, are well below dimensional ranges for American adults but within foot length and width ranges for a small sample of immature individuals. . . . Nonetheless, it is mere conjecture at this stage of hominid footprint investigation to suggest that the Site G hominids may have been a male, a female, and an offspring who were walking from an area of falling volcanic ash.”

M. H. Day studied the prints using photogrammetric methods. Photogrammetry is the science of obtaining exact measurements through the use of photography. Photogrammetric methods are extensively used by cartographers in making accurate contour maps from aerial photographs. Day (1985, p. 121), having found the same techniques useful on the miniature geography of footprints, stated: “What these footprints, and their photogrammetric analysis, show is that bipedalism of an apparently human kind was established 3.6 million years ago. The mechanism of weight and force transmission through the foot is extraordinarily close to that of modern man.” His study showed the prints had “close similarities with the anatomy of the feet of the modern human habitually unshod; arguably the normal human condition” (Day 1985, p. 121).

Typically, Day (1985, p. 125) concluded: “There is now no serious dispute as to the upright stance and bipedal gait of the australopithecines.”

But what proof did he have that an australopithecine made the Laetoli footprints? There is no reason to rule out the possibility that some unknown creature, perhaps very much like modern Homo sapiens, was the cause of them.

R. H. Tuttle (1981, p. 91) stated: “The shapes of the prints are indistinguishable from those of striding, habitually barefoot humans.”

Tuttle (1987, p. 517) concluded: “Strictly on the basis of the morphology of the G prints, their makers could be classified as Homo sp. because they are so similar to those of Homo sapiens, but their early date would probably deter many palaeoanthropologists from accepting this assignment. I suspect that if the prints were undated, or if they had been given younger dates, most experts would probably accept them as having been made by Homo.” Tuttle (1987, p. 517) also stated: “They are like small barefoot Homo sapiens.”

Furthermore, Tuttle held that the A. afarensis foot could not have made the prints. Of the AL 333-115 foot, he said: “The shafts of the proximal phalanges are markedly curved ventrally. This feature is characteristic of certain full-time and part-time arboreal apes and monkeys. . . . It is difficult to imagine a foot with such markedly curved phalanges fitting neatly into the footprints at Laetoli” (Tuttle 1981, p. 91). The same would be true of any australopithecine foot.

Stern and Susman (1983) objected to this. Convinced that the apelike A. afarensis foot had made the Laetoli footprints, they proposed that the ancient hominids had walked across the volcanic ash with their long toes curled under their feet, as chimpanzees have sometimes been observed to do. Curled-under toes would explain why the A. afarensis footprints at Laetoli so much resembled those made by the relatively short-toed human foot.

Could an australopithecine walking with curled toes have made the humanlike prints? Tuttle (1985) found this extremely unlikely. If the Laetoli hominid had long toes, then, said Tuttle, one would expect to find two patterns of toe impressions—long extended toes and short curled toes, with extra-deep knuckle marks. Tuttle (1985, p. 132) observed: “Neither pattern exists at Laetoli G so we can infer that their lateral toes were quite short.” This meant the long-toed afarensis foot could not have made the prints.

Even Tim White, who believed Australopithecus afarensis made the footprints, stated: “The Stern and Susman (1983) model of toe curling ‘as in the chimpanzee’ predicts substantial variation in lateral toe lengths seen on the Laetoli prints. This prediction is not borne out by the fossil prints” (White and Suwa 1987, p. 495).

Stern and Susman did in fact claim that a few of the Laetoli footprints gave signs of toes longer than in humans. Tuttle (1985, p. 132) admitted that “the right foot of G-1 sometimes left peculiar marks distal to the toe tips.” To Stern and Susman, the marks forward of the “toe tips” represented the actual toe tips of uncurled toes. But Tuttle had another explanation for the marks. He wrote: “These are best explained by . . . the tendency for G-1 to drag its foot on lift off probably due to pathology of the lower limb” (Tuttle 1985, p. 132). The fact that the peculiar markings appeared only on one foot of one individual, and then only sometimes, lends support to Tuttle’s explanation.

Stern and Susman (1983) also suggested that the Laetoli prints did not have a deep rounded impression at the base of the big toe, representing the ball of the foot in humans. They regarded this as evidence that the foot that made the prints was not human. But Tuttle (1985, p. 132) observed that “humans commonly leave prints devoid of these features as may be seen in prints on the beach.” And, as we have seen, Robbins (1987, p. 501) said the prints she studied did have a “humanlike” ball region.

Directly challenging Johanson, White, Latimer, and Lovejoy, who asserted Australopithecus afarensis made the Laetoli prints, Tuttle (1985, p. 130) said: “Because of digital curvature and elongation and other skeletal features that evidence aboreal habits . . . it is unlikely that Australopithecus afarensis from Hadar, Ethiopia, could make footprints like those at Laetoli.” Such statements have provoked elaborate counterattacks from Johanson and his followers, who have continued to promote the idea that A. afarensis could have made the tracks.

Tim White, for example, published a study (White and Suwa 1987) of the Laetoli prints in which he disputed Tuttle’s contention that their maker was a hominid more advanced than A. afarensis.

White asserted: “there is not a single shred of evidence among the 26 hominid individuals in the collection of over 5,000 vertebrate remains from Laetoli that would suggest the presence of a more advanced Pliocene hominid at this site” ( White and Suwa 1987, p. 496). But, as we have seen in our review of African hominid fossils, there are in fact a few “shreds” of evidence for the presence of sapiens-like creatures in the Pliocene, some not far from Laetoli. Also, it is well known that human skeletal remains are quite rare, even at sites where there are other unmistakable signs of a human presence.

Like Tuttle, White rejected the curled-toe hypothesis of Stern and Susman. Instead, White tried to fit the foot of A. afarensis to the Laetoli prints. This was very difficult because no complete foot skeleton of A. afarensis had been found at the Hadar site. A partial foot skeleton, however, had been recovered. This was the AL 333-115 foot skeleton, which included only bones from the front part of the foot—phalanges and metatarsal heads.

According to White, the best tracks at Laetoli were in the G-1 trail, representing the smallest of the three individuals of the G group. Even White admitted that the phalanges of AL 333-115 were “obviously incompatible with the G-1 tracks” (White and Suwa 1987, p. 497). Stern and Susman, and Tuttle, found them incompatible with any of the tracks. White, however, pointed out that the AL 333-115 individual represented one of the larger, presumably male, members of the First Family group and proposed that the foot of Lucy, one of the smaller, female individuals, might have fitted the G-1 Laetoli prints.

But the only bones recovered from Lucy’s foot were an ankle bone and two toe bones. White therefore decided to use a partial Homo habilis foot skeleton (OH 8) from Olduvai Gorge to reconstruct the rear part of Lucy’s foot. White reduced the OH 8 foot by 10 percent to bring it down to the size of Lucy’s ankle bone (talus). He then scaled the large AL 333-115 toes bones down to the size of Lucy’s few toe bones, and used them to make up the rest of the foot ( White and Suwa 1987, p. 502). According to White, this speculatively reconstructed foot matched the prints.

White predicted that “the discovery of a complete foot skeleton at Hadar or Laetoli will conform in its basic proportions with the reconstruction described in this paper” ( White and Suwa 1987, p. 512). But this prediction remains to be fulfilled. It is interesting that the most complete afarensis foot skeleton now available (AL 333-115) definitely does not fit any of the prints.

White also predicted that “the Laetoli prints will eventually be shown to be subtly distinct from those left under analogous conditions by anatomically modern humans” (White and Suwa 1987, pp. 510, 512). But as far as anyone can see now, they are indistinguishable from those of modern humans. Even White himself once 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 wellshaped modern heel with a strong arch and a good ball of the foot in front of it. The big toe is in a straight line. It doesn’t stick out to the side like an ape toe” (Johanson and Edey 1981, p. 250).

And Tuttle (1985, p. 130) noted: “in all discernible morphological features, the feet of the individuals that made the G trails are indistinguishable from those of modern humans.”

11.11 Black Skull, Black Thoughts

In 1985, Alan Walker of Johns Hopkins University discovered west of Lake Turkana a fossil hominid skull stained dark by minerals. Called the Black Skull, it raised questions about Donald Johanson’s view of hominid evolution.

According to Johanson, Australopithecus afarensis gave rise to two lines of hominids. This arrangement can be visualized as a tree with two branches. The trunk is Australopithecus afarensis. On one branch is the Homo line, proceeding from Homo habilis to Homo erectus to Homo sapiens. On the second branch are the australopithecines arising from Australopithecus afarensis.

Johanson and White claimed that Australopithecus afarensis gave rise to Australopithecus africanus, which in turn gave rise to Australopithecus robustus. The trend was toward larger teeth and jaws, and a larger skull with a ridge of bone, the saggital crest, running lengthwise along the top. The saggital crest served as a point of attachment for the powerful jaw muscles of robust australopithecines. Australopithecus robustus then supposedly gave rise to the superrobust Australopithecus boisei, which manifested all the above-mentioned features in an extreme form.

In an article titled “Baffling Limb on the Family Tree,” Walker’s wife Pat Shipman, also of Johns Hopkins University, explained the evolutionary significance of the Black Skull, designated KNM-WT 17000.

The first specimens of Australopithecus robustus were, it was thought, about 2 million years old (Johanson and Edey 1981, p. 283). But the Black Skull, with its Australopithecus boisei features, including the largest cranial crest of any hominid (Shipman 1986, p. 91), was 2.5 million years old. Shipman believed this meant that Australopithecus boisei and the boisei-like Black Skull could not be descended from Australopithecus robustus, as believed by Johanson and others.

So where does that leave us? Here is one possibility suggested by Shipman. On our hominid family tree, we could now go from Australopithecus afarensis up one branch to Australopithecus africanus. Then from Australopithecus africanus could come two separate branches. On one branch is Australopithecus robustus and on the other Australopithecus boisei and the boisei-like Black Skull. In other words, instead of deriving Australopithecus boisei from Australopithecus robustus, both originate from Australopithecus africanus.

But perhaps not. “All known africanus skulls share many features that are derived, i.e, advanced, relative to those of the new skull, such as a moderate flexion or angling of the base of the cranium and a deep jaw joint with a bony lump in front of it,” said Shipman (1986, p. 91).

So, according to Shipman, another possibility now emerges—that Australopithecus africanus, although ancestral to Australopithecus robustus, might not have been ancestral to Australopithecus boisei and the boisei-like Black Skull.

This leaves us with a three-branched family tree. Down at the bottom we still have Australopithecus afarensis. Above are three branches—the Homo line on the first, Australopithecus boisei and the Black Skull on the second, and then Australopithecus africanus on the third, leading to Australopithecus robustus.

But Shipman pointed out that it then becomes difficult to account for the fact that Australopithecus boisei and Australopithecus robustus are so similar. If Australopithecus robustus came from Australopithecus africanus and Australopithecus boisei from Australopithecus afarensis, then Australopithecus boisei and Australopithecus robustus would have had to develop their robust similarities independently by parallel evolution, something that is possible but unlikely.

According to Shipman, another way to explain the similarities between Australopithecus boisei and Australopithecus robustus is to propose that Australopithecus robustus was not descended from Australopithecus africanus and that Australopithecus robustus and Australopithecus boisei had a common ancestor besides Australopithecus africanus—perhaps Australopithecus afarensis.

So now we have a four-branched tree, with Australopithecus afarensis at the bottom. Above are the Homo line, Australopithecus africanus, Australopithecus robustus, and Australopithecus boisei, all separate from each other.

Shipman found it very hard to believe that a single species, Australopithecus afarensis, could have given rise to four separate lineages. So where did the four new species come from?

Shipman suggested that one should take a very hard look at the idea that Australopithecus afarensis represents just one sexually dimorphic species. She pointed out, as we have discussed in Section 11.9.8, that some scientists have concluded that “at least two species of Australopithecus and possibly Homo are mistakenly lumped together into afarensis” (Shipman 1986, p. 90).

Walker said it is likely that “the specimens identified as Australopithecus afarensis include two species, one of which directly gives rise to Australopithecus boisei” (Walker et al. 1986, p. 522).

How did Johanson respond to the discovery of the boisei-like Black Skull? He admitted that the Black Skull complicated things, making it impossible to arrange Australopithecus africanus, Australopithecus robustus, and Australopithecus boisei in a single line of succession coming from Australopithecus afarensis. Johanson proposed 4 possible arrangements of these species, along the lines we have been discussing, without suggesting which one was correct (Johanson and Shreeve 1989, p. 126). There was, he said, not yet enough evidence to decide among them.

The uncertainty about the number of species at Hadar, combined with the confused relationships among the successor species (Australopithecus africanus, Australopithecus robustus, Australopithecus boisei, and Homo habilis), create problems for evolutionists attempting to construct a phylogenetic tree for these hominids. Shipman (1986, p. 92) stated: “the best answer we can give right now is that we no longer have a very clear idea of who gave rise to whom.” Walker warned that the discovery of KNM 17000 suggested “that early hominid phylogeny has not yet been finally established and that it will prove to be more complex than has been stated” (Walker et al. 1986, p. 522).

In the midst of the new complexity, one question is especially important— the origin of the Homo line. Shipman told of seeing Bill Kimbel, an associate of Johanson, attempt to deal with the phylogenetic implications of the Black Skull. “At the end of a lecture on Australopithecine evolution, he erased all the tidy, alternative diagrams and stared at the blackboard for a moment. Then he turned to the class and threw up his hands,” wrote Shipman (1986, p. 93). Kimbel eventually decided the Homo line came from Australopithecus africanus ( Willis 1989). Johanson and White continued to maintain that Homo came directly from Australopithecus afarensis.

After she considered various phylogenetic alternatives and found the evidence for all of them inconclusive, Shipman (1986, p. 93) stated: “we could assert that we have no evidence whatsoever of where Homo arises from and remove all members of the genus Australopithecus from the hominid family. . . . I’ve such a visceral negative reaction to this idea that I suspect I am unable to evaluate it rationally. I was brought up on the notion that Australopithecus is a hominid.” This is one of the more honest statements we have heard from a mainstream scientist involved in paleoanthropological research.

In the foregoing discussion, we have considered only the evidence that is generally accepted by most scientists. Needless, to say, if we were to also consider the evidence for anatomically modern humans in very ancient times that would complicate the matter even further.

Having reviewed the history of African discoveries related to human evolution, we can make the following summary observations. (1) There is a significant amount of evidence from Africa suggesting that beings resembling anatomically modern humans were present in the Early Pleistocene and Pliocene. (2) The conventional image of Australopithecus as a very humanlike terrestrial biped appears to be false. (3) The status of Australopithecus and Homo erectus as human ancestors is questionable. (4) The status of Homo habilis as a distinct species is questionable. (5) Even confining ourselves to conventionally accepted evidence, the multiplicity of proposed evolutionary linkages among the hominids in Africa presents a very confusing picture. Combining these findings with those from the preceding chapters, we conclude that the total evidence, including fossil bones and artifacts, is most consistent with the view that anatomically modern humans have coexisted with other primates for tens of millions of years.

Permission credits:

Figure 2.4, “Patterns of grooves and ridges produced by a serrated shark tooth

moving along the surface of a whale bone,” is from Journal of Paleontology

(1982, 56:6). Used with permission.

Figure 5.11, “A Folsom blade embedded in the lower surface of a travertine crust

from Sandia Cave, New Mexico,” is reprinted by permission of the Smithsonian

Institution Press from Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections; Vol. 99,

no. 23. c Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C. October 15, 1941. plate 7.

Figures 3.5, 3.29. and 4.12, the drawings of stone tools from Olduvai Gorge,

Tanzania, are from Olduvai Gorge by Mary Leakey (1971) and are reprinted by

permission of the Cambridge University Press.

Figure 5.15 (left), “Stone bowl from Nakura, Kenya,” is from The Stone Age

Cultures of Kenya Colony, by Louis Leakey (1931) and is used by permission

of the Cambridge University Press.

Figures 5.5–7, and 5.9, the drawings of stone tools from Sheguiandah, Canada, are

from The Canadian Field-Naturalist (1957, vol. 71). Used with permission.

Readers interested in the subject matter of this book are invited to correspond with

Michael A. Cremo at mail@mcremo.com.

First edition: 1993

First edition, revised: 1996, 1998

Twelfth printing: 2005

Thirteenth printing: 2008

Fourteenth printing: 2010

Copyright © 1993, 1996, 1998 by Bhaktivedanta Book Publishing, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reprinted in any form, or by any

means reproduced, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Distributed by Torchlight Publishing, Badger CA

Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cremo, Michael A.

Forbidden Archeology: the hidden history of the human race / by Michael

Cremo and Richard Thompson.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Preassigned LLCCN: 92-76168.

ISBN 978-0-89213-294-2

1. Man, Prehistoric. 2. Human evolution. I. Thompson,

Richard L., 1947-2008 II. Title.

GN720.C74 1993 573.3

QBI93-573