The Panda's Thumb Legacy Archive — pandasthumb.net

A superb new fossil from Dmanisi, Georgia

Posted 29 October 2013 by Jim Foley

D4500-oblique.jpg A new paper was recently published, and widely reported in the media, about a hominid skull discovered at the Dmanisi site in Georgia in 2005 (Lordkipanidze et al, 2013, Gibbons 2013). The fossil, D4500, is believed to belong to the same individual as a lower jaw fossil, D2600, previously found at the site. The combined skull, designated by the authors as "Skull 5" (the 5th skull from Dmanisi) is almost completely and perfectly preserved, making it one of the most spectacular finds in the entire hominid fossil record. And Dmanisi is rapidly becoming one of the most important sites ever found in the study of human evolution. Skull 5's brain volume of 546 cm3 is very small. The other Dmanisi skulls are between 600 cm3 and 730 cm3. (Earlier papers gave the size of the largest one as 780 cm3, but that estimate appears to have been reduced. By comparison, the average modern human brain size is 1350 cm3.) However the fossil also has a large and robust jaw bone, and a large and projecting face. This combination of a very small brain and a large face differs from all other known Homo fossils. The fossil is of a mature adult, and because of the robustness of the skull it is thought to belong to a male. Scientists are naturally delighted at the discovery of such a superb fossil, but the real impact of Skull 5 comes from the conclusions that the authors have drawn from it. The Dmanisi fossils are different enough from each other that had they been found at different locations, they might have been classified into different species. Similar differences have been used to create species such as Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis in the past. The authors believe that the Dmanisi fossils all belong to one species, both because they all come from the same time and place, and because the pattern and amount of variability found between the skulls is similar to that found in populations of modern humans, chimpanzees, and bonobos. Following that line of reasoning, they conclude that since a similar pattern of variation exists for all early Homo fossils in Africa, and in the absence of any evidence that the supposed different species of Homo were adapted to different ecological niches, the default and most parsimonious assumption should be that all of these fossils belong to a single highly variable lineage (though they recognize that this claim remains to be tested, and alternative scenarios exist). This would mean that Homo habilis, Homo rudolfensis, Homo ergaster and some other more obscure names did not really exist as separate species. The name of that single species would, for reasons of priority, be Homo erectus. Specimens allocated to H. ergaster would then be called Homo erectus ergaster, as a time-limited subspecies. The Dmanisi scientists had previously named a new species, Homo georgicus, for the Dmanisi fossils, but now retract that name and suggest that because the Dmanisi fossils arose from an ergaster population, they should be called Homo erectus ergaster georgicus. Most scientists appear to accept the claim that all the Dmanisi skulls all belong to the same species, but even that is not a given - Ian Tattersall of the American Museum of Natural History, for example, believes that Dmanisi could include more than one species, and that Skull 5 could be a new species (Gibbons 2013). And Donald Johanson, the discoverer of Lucy, disagrees with the Dmanisi scientists on one of their points, and argues that

the entire collection of specimens of early Homo species from East Africa shows "considerably more variation than you see in this sample [from Dmanisi], which is not surprising, because you're looking at fossils from very different regions."

He, and a number of other scientists quoted in various online articles, either disagree with or are still withholding judgement on whether all early Homo fossils should be merged into Homo erectus. For example Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in London believes the Dmanisi scientists may well be proven right that some early Homo fossils could join a variable Homo erectus, but doubts that all of them will, given the vastness of Africa, the depth of its fossil record, and evidence of species-level diversity prior to two million years ago. If the Dmanisi scientists win the day on this argument, it really will be a significant change in the way that scientists view the details of the history of human evolution. If nothing else, it will certainly be a shot in the arm to the multiregional model of human evolution, which in recent years has fallen out of favor compared to the competing Out-of-Africa model. What have creationists had to say about this skull? Not much. The young-earth creationist organizations Answers in Genesis and the Institute for Creation Research seem to have ignored it, but a couple of Intelligent Design sites have addressed it. This is the reasoning in an extraordinarily clueless article from Uncommon Descent:

Here's the kicker: The level of variation between the skull remains at Dmanisi could well be matched among modern humans waiting for the bus in a multicultural city. What makes the find controversial is that much ideology around human evolution depends on a variety of not-quite-human species that once walked the Earth (but one rose above its fellows or prevailed over them). If there is no real evidence for more than one human species, ever, well, the unity of the human race is more consistent with traditional non-materialist assumptions than modern materialist ones.

— News
Even if there is no evidence for more than one Homo species at any given time, that doesn't mean that that species has stayed static though time. And if there was only ever one Homo species, it clearly has changed through time, rather dramatically. Even though the Dmanisi fossils show quite a bit of variability, none of them comes close to being looking like a modern human skull, and no modern humans look like, or are found at the time of, the Dmanisi fossils. The claim that human evolution "depends" on having multiple species is also nonsense - it doesn't require multiple species for evolution to happen. As the Dmanisi authors explictly pointed out:

The hypothesis of phyletic evolution within a single but polymorphic lineage raises a classificatory but not evolutionary dilemma ... (my emphasis)

— Lordkipanidze et al. 2013
And quite why anyone would think that the similar level of variation of the Dmanisi fossils and modern humans is a "kicker" is a puzzle. One might find a similar level of variations in populations of mice and capybaras too, but I don't think creationists would argue for "the unity of the rodent race" as a consequence. The News writer appears, in arguing for "the unity of the human race", to be suggesting that the Dmanisi fossils are actually human. If so, he/she should perhaps ponder why it is that the Dmanisi fossils look so much more similar to australopithecine fossils than they do to modern humans. Casey Luskin's article at Evolution News and Views is hardly any better. There is little explanation of the significance of the Dmanisi fossils, and what there is mostly comes from the lengthy quotes he included. He misrepresents Donald Johanson by claiming that that he "disagree(s) that these [Dmanisi] skulls all represent one species", when what Johanson actually did was to express doubt that all early Homo fossils should be merged into Homo erectus. Luskin has adopted a "small target" (indeed, "microscopic target") strategy. Although he makes plenty of criticisms, and drops in words like "spotty", "sketchy", and "gap(s)" as frequently as possible, he avoids saying anything about how the Dmanisi fossils should be classified. He says that the qualified statements of scientists "hardly inspire confidence", though if they had made confident assertions I'm sure that he would have complained about that too. Luskin may like to talk about "gaps", but look at Figure 4 from the Dmanisi paper: Dmanisi2013Fig4.png The horizontal axis of the chart goes from projecting (prognathic) faces on the left to vertical (orthognathic) faces on the right, and from small brains on the bottom to large brains on the top. Modern humans are in the polygons on the top right; chimps and bonobos are in the polygons on the bottom left. There certainly is a sizable gap between modern apes and humans. The trouble, for Luskin, is that it is filled with specimens from the hominid fossil record. In particular, the Dmanisi skulls (the circles containing the numbers 2, 3, 4, and 5) are scattered fairly widely throughout that gap. Luskin has, in the past, argued that the Dmanisi hominids are apelike, but he was only able to make that claim by dint of serious cherry-picking and misrepresentation of the evidence. So my question for Casey Luskin is: you claim there is a gap between humans and apes. If so, this should be a really easy question to answer: on what side of that gap do you classify the Dmanisi fossils? The Dmanisi fossils, and other similar fossils from Africa are very powerful evidence of creatures that are transitional between earlier apelike creatures and modern humans. This remains the case regardless of how many species all these specimens are classified into. Further reading Paleoanthropologist John Hawks has a long and thoughtful post: The new skull from Dmanisi. Science writer Carl Zimmer: Christening the Earliest Members of Our Genus has an interesting discussion of population structure in widespread species/groups of species, and points out that resolving such questions can be difficult even for modern groups for which we have vastly more data than we will ever have for fossil humans. References Gibbons, A. (2013): Stunning skull gives a fresh portrait of early humans. Science, 342:297. Lordkipanidze D, Ponce de Leon M. S., Margvelashvili A., Rak Y., Rightmire G.P., Vekua A., Zollikofer C. P. E. (2013): A complete skull from Dmanisi, Georgia, and the evolutionary biology of early Homo. Science, 342:326. Previous Panda's Thumb posts about the Dmanisi fossils:
Dmanisi skulls and creationism (2005)
Dmanisi fossils - more transitional than ever (2008)
Dmanisi and Answers in Genesis (2008)
Dmanisi in the news (2009)

79 Comments

eyeonicr · 29 October 2013

The young-earth creationist organizations Answers in Genesis and the Institute for Creation Research seem to have ignored it
I don't know about AiG, but the ICR tends to take two or more weeks before getting to a story like this - they will likely have an article on the way.

https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad · 29 October 2013

Praise the Designer!

That pretty much sums up the creationist response, including the ID response when no "materialist" is supposed to be looking.

Why and how are always known, before scientists even bother with any evidence. Because god wanted it that way, and by design.

Glen Davidson

John Harshman · 29 October 2013

Two little points:

1. This discovery and its interpretation don't pose any threat to evolution, but they do for punctuated equilibria, if there's still anyone who's into that.

2. This also is a fine poster child for the difficulty of identifying and demarcating species in the fossil record, especially (but by no means only) when we try to extend a species very far in either space or time.

Steve Schaffner · 29 October 2013

Why would this be a shot in the arm for multiregionalism? The decisive evidence the mostly-but-not-entirely Out of Africa model comes from genetics, and isn't affected by this find.

eamon.knight · 29 October 2013

At UD, I believe "News" is Denyse O'Leary. The apparent confusion displayed there is pretty typical for her.

Jim Foley · 29 October 2013

eamon.knight said: At UD, I believe "News" is Denyse O'Leary. The apparent confusion displayed there is pretty typical for her.
As is the fixation on materialism. I assumed it was probably her, but don't know for sure.

ksplawn · 29 October 2013

Think of all the Wikipedia edit fights that are going to go on over whether to keep, delete, or merge all the articles for each Homo "species." It'll make the back-and-forth between anthropological lumpers and splitters seem like unanimity!

Nick Matzke · 29 October 2013

Steve Schaffner said: Why would this be a shot in the arm for multiregionalism? The decisive evidence the mostly-but-not-entirely Out of Africa model comes from genetics, and isn't affected by this find.
I guess it would help the argument that Homo erectus was a widespread species across Africa and Eurasia that gradually evolved into later forms. However, yeah, the genetics is overwhelming that most of our genes came from an African population, whether or not that population was in the "same" or "different" species from the hominids that were widespread 0.5 Ma ago.

Robert Byers · 29 October 2013

Actually the reasoning to reduce them to a single species is better then the old ideas. Creationists welcome that.
Is it a primate or man looking.
They bring up about brain size and so the old assumption brain size defines relationship in primates/man because of indicating smartness.
I don't agree brain size is relevant to smartness.
If the average human brain size is a number then what aboyt the spectrum? what about this fossils spectrum. Could there not be overlapping by the extremes in both populations? who has the smallest human brain on record and who in this fossil group had the biggest brain?
If this fossil is a person I'm sure they are within the ranges.
The thing to note also is how only NOW are they correcting old misunderstandings of how variable skulls can be in species. A important point for creationists to stress here. Better investigation will correct former wrong ideas.

pngarrison · 29 October 2013

Joel Duff has a post on the context of the Dmanisi fossils at Naturalis Historia. He had done a lot of posts on geological context and the trouble that it would create for the young earthers if they bothered to look. http://thenaturalhistorian.com/

Rhazes · 30 October 2013

John Harshman said: 1. This discovery and its interpretation don't pose any threat to evolution, but they do for punctuated equilibria, if there's still anyone who's into that.
Why is that? Is it because they show gradual change in the physical form of hominids?

Dave Luckett · 30 October 2013

Is it possible that in these fossils we see the competing effects of two different selection pressures both working in the same population?

It's plain that there was selection pressure towards greater intelligence in our nearest ancestors. That means, physically, towards larger brains and hence larger crania. But there's selection pressure against that, too: larger crania means greater birth difficulty, and hence higher birth mortality.

In modern humans, this is met with a typical evolutionary kludge - human neonates are born in a far less developed state, and take far longer to reach independence than our nearest relatives. This necessitates a much greater input from parents - both parents. Other adults, too. In that fact lies the germ of the human family unit, and of much of human society. It also means that larger brains and the somewhat different fetal development pattern must evolve simultaneously.

Is it possible that for many generations, we might expect to see the expression of both pressures? That only a relatively small proportion of larger-brained individuals would survive, at first, and that only slowly would their post-childhood advantage of greater intelligence confer natural selection, while other, smaller-headed, smaller-brained cousins might persist because of their advantage of easier birth and quicker development?

Andy White · 30 October 2013

Are they sure this fossil belongs to a human? The size of it is too small in comparison with current human brain. Maybe it belongs o an animal which doesn't exist yet?

Dave Lovell · 30 October 2013

Andy White said: Are they sure this fossil belongs to a human? The size of it is too small in comparison with current human brain. Maybe it belongs o an animal which doesn't exist yet?
Perhaps you could rephrase your comment to removed the implication of time travel! Did you mean to say "Maybe it belongs to a previously unknown but long extinct species of ape" If so can I ask you the question proposed for Casey Luskin in the original post. If you are trying to claim there is a gap between humans and apes, on what side of that gap do you classify the Dmanisi fossils? And why?

Mark Sturtevant · 30 October 2013

Andy White said: Are they sure this fossil belongs to a human? ... Maybe it belongs to an animal which doesn't exist yet?
This is one of several skulls found in Dmanisi, and I think bones from the lower skeleton and associated stone tools were also found [someone please correct me if I am wrong on those points]. One can conclude that members of this population walked erect b/c of several features, including the forward position of foramen magnum opening under the skull. The convention is that if an upright walking primate has a certain minimum brain size and uses stone tools, then it is placed in the genus Homo and is also referred to as 'human'. The specimens should meet these criteria. Members of our genus also have a face that is smaller and less projecting than other genera like Australopithecus, and these had faces and brains like other members of our genus from Africa. There is no compelling need to create a new species name for the Dmanisi fossils.

eric · 30 October 2013

Great chart. I can certainly see how the SC1 "distance' between points 4 and 5 is arguably comparable to the SC1 range amongst modern humans (eyeballing, I get a deltaSC1 of 0.1 for both groups). So I can see the authors' argument as somewhat persuasive, at least as far as skulls are concerned. Still, with only a few skulls and lots of other body parts to consider, I don't think this is the final nail in the coffin.

You know what this is? A great area for additional research. :)

daoudmbo · 30 October 2013

I've been following this story in various media outlets with enormous interest. I really can't wait for further finds and analysis, man I wish they find dozens of such well-preserved skulls not just Dmanisi but also throughout East Africa and Asia, this is such a dramatic development, correct me if I'm wrong, but from my layperson reading, the trend *had* been towards thinking there were a lot of overlapping hominid species.

I'm also surprised the creationists haven't jumped all over it, besides the canard that "scientists change their minds all the time so you can't trust any of it", you'd think they'd use a ridiculously skewed reading of this to support their claim that "see? they [hominid fossils] are ALL really one species, i.e. Homo Sapiens"

DS · 30 October 2013

Rhazes said:
John Harshman said: 1. This discovery and its interpretation don't pose any threat to evolution, but they do for punctuated equilibria, if there's still anyone who's into that.
Why is that? Is it because they show gradual change in the physical form of hominids?
Well since there are many examples of gradualism, one more wouldn't be a problem for punctuated equilibrium. If OTOH someone had claimed that human evolution followed a PE model, I guess this would be a problem for them. Of course there would still be all of the other fossil evidence to explain as well, so it would be just one more problem among many for such a hypothesis. EIther way, it doesn't seem to be an issue for the Out of Africa hypothesis.

Dave Lovell · 30 October 2013

John Harshman said: 1. This discovery and its interpretation don't pose any threat to evolution, but they do for punctuated equilibria, if there's still anyone who's into that.
Could you elaborate on that please John. Does "punctuated equilibria" have a more specific meaning to a professional than it does to me? As I understand it, it is the idea that in a stable environment evolutionary change would be slow, but could potentially become rapid as environmental change opened up new niches. But that environmental change would not exclude intensified competition from a near cousin that had rapidly evolved (without fossilisation) in a niche at a remote location. If humans became extinct would not the next intelligent species, knowing only of European fossil hominids, conclude that modern humans evolved rapidly from Neanderthals. A text book example of punctuated equilibrium.

eric · 30 October 2013

DS said: If OTOH someone had claimed that human evolution followed a PE model, I guess this would be a problem for them.
I'm not sure. PE is a tempo argument, right? Fig.4 (above) is a comparison of two physical features, not a chronology, so I don't draw any 'tempo' info from it. To test PE vs. gradualism, I guess the thing to do is to come up with a single 'physical variability' metric and plot it vs. time (on Y-axis). Gradualism should give one or more deep Vs, with relatively continuous slopes. PE should give one or more horizontal lines or shallow Vs, with sudden slope changes between them.

60187mitchells · 30 October 2013

Dave Luckett said: Is it possible that in these fossils we see the competing effects of two different selection pressures both working in the same population? It's plain that there was selection pressure towards greater intelligence in our nearest ancestors. That means, physically, towards larger brains and hence larger crania. But there's selection pressure against that, too: larger crania means greater birth difficulty, and hence higher birth mortality. In modern humans, this is met with a typical evolutionary kludge - human neonates are born in a far less developed state, and take far longer to reach independence than our nearest relatives. This necessitates a much greater input from parents - both parents. Other adults, too. In that fact lies the germ of the human family unit, and of much of human society. It also means that larger brains and the somewhat different fetal development pattern must evolve simultaneously. Is it possible that for many generations, we might expect to see the expression of both pressures? That only a relatively small proportion of larger-brained individuals would survive, at first, and that only slowly would their post-childhood advantage of greater intelligence confer natural selection, while other, smaller-headed, smaller-brained cousins might persist because of their advantage of easier birth and quicker development?
I've also seen it suggested that a selection pressure/influence is ability/reliance on cooking. Brain size and jaw size appear to be mutually exclusive - tool use/fire/cooking allowed for broader diet (a broader niche), reduced tooth/jaw size (and the muscles needed to power them). I've also seen it suggested that that suite of traits (allowed for by the technology of fire) that should define the genus Homo. I wonder where in that spectrum of hominoids on the graph we first see language/complex social interactions developing (intuitively I want to assume that we need to see a more gracile jaw for smaller/fine motor musculature required for speech and brain size that correlates to the cognition required to 'drive' language/formation of societies.

DS · 30 October 2013

eric said:
DS said: If OTOH someone had claimed that human evolution followed a PE model, I guess this would be a problem for them.
I'm not sure. PE is a tempo argument, right? Fig.4 (above) is a comparison of two physical features, not a chronology, so I don't draw any 'tempo' info from it. To test PE vs. gradualism, I guess the thing to do is to come up with a single 'physical variability' metric and plot it vs. time (on Y-axis). Gradualism should give one or more deep Vs, with relatively continuous slopes. PE should give one or more horizontal lines or shallow Vs, with sudden slope changes between them.
You are correct. A chart with a time axis is needed. Of course ancient DNA sequences would help as well.

Don Luigi · 30 October 2013

According to Creation Ministries International (creation.com) the "New Dmanisi Skull Threatens to Bring the House Down."

John Harshman · 30 October 2013

Rhazes said:
John Harshman said: 1. This discovery and its interpretation don't pose any threat to evolution, but they do for punctuated equilibria, if there's still anyone who's into that.
Yes, but mostly because it's change without speciation. Since according to PE change is coincident with speciation, that's a problem. Why is that? Is it because they show gradual change in the physical form of hominids?

John Harshman · 30 October 2013

I seem to be having trouble with blockquote lately. Let's try again: Rhazes said:
John Harshman said: 1. This discovery and its interpretation don’t pose any threat to evolution, but they do for punctuated equilibria, if there’s still anyone who’s into that.
Why is that? Is it because they show gradual change in the physical form of hominids?
Yes, but mostly because it’s change without speciation. Since according to PE change is coincident with speciation, that’s a problem.

John Harshman · 30 October 2013

Dave Lovell said:
John Harshman said: 1. This discovery and its interpretation don't pose any threat to evolution, but they do for punctuated equilibria, if there's still anyone who's into that.
Could you elaborate on that please John. Does "punctuated equilibria" have a more specific meaning to a professional than it does to me? As I understand it, it is the idea that in a stable environment evolutionary change would be slow, but could potentially become rapid as environmental change opened up new niches. But that environmental change would not exclude intensified competition from a near cousin that had rapidly evolved (without fossilisation) in a niche at a remote location. If humans became extinct would not the next intelligent species, knowing only of European fossil hominids, conclude that modern humans evolved rapidly from Neanderthals. A text book example of punctuated equilibrium.
The central idea of PE is that significant evolution occurs mostly during speciation events, in small populations peripheral to the main population. If there is only a single lineage of hominins (which is what is being proposed here), then there's no speciation and should be no evolution. PE has nothing to do with stability of the environment, though that might be an alternate explanation for the phenomenon of stasis. I don't know what the rest of your post (starting with "But that environmental change...") means.

John Harshman · 30 October 2013

eric said:
DS said: If OTOH someone had claimed that human evolution followed a PE model, I guess this would be a problem for them.
I'm not sure. PE is a tempo argument, right? Fig.4 (above) is a comparison of two physical features, not a chronology, so I don't draw any 'tempo' info from it. To test PE vs. gradualism, I guess the thing to do is to come up with a single 'physical variability' metric and plot it vs. time (on Y-axis). Gradualism should give one or more deep Vs, with relatively continuous slopes. PE should give one or more horizontal lines or shallow Vs, with sudden slope changes between them.
No, PE is not a tempo argument, at least not mostly. The central ideas are 1) species spend most of the time in stasis; 2) they undergo rare episodes of rapid evolution ("punctuations"); and 3) punctuations are coincident with speciation, meaning the splitting of one species into two. Of these, the third is the crucial element that makes PE different from other theories. Without the third we have a competing idea, punctuated anagenesis. Your test would separate "gradualism" (a caricature of constant rates of change that nobody believes in) from stasis and punctuation, but is irrelevant to PE itself. PE is falsified, at least in this case, if there is a single evolving lineage.

John Harshman · 30 October 2013

DS said: If OTOH someone had claimed that human evolution followed a PE model, I guess this would be a problem for them.
This is in fact what S. J. Gould claimed about the human fossil record.

eric · 30 October 2013

John Harshman said: No, PE is not a tempo argument, at least not mostly. The central ideas are 1) species spend most of the time in stasis; 2) they undergo rare episodes of rapid evolution ("punctuations"); and 3) punctuations are coincident with speciation, meaning the splitting of one species into two. Of these, the third is the crucial element that makes PE different from other theories.
Ah, thanks for the explanation. I was indeed thinking more about 1 and 2 and was not aware of 3.

Childermass · 30 October 2013

Casey Luskin has for a long time said that Homo habilis is obviously an ape and Homo erectus is obviously human. As anyone who has read Mr. Foley's prior article on the Panda's Thumb as well as what he wrote his Fossil Hominids site knows that he has been pointing out for a long time how the Dmanisi finds are transitional between H. habilis and H. erectus. Now we have a study which suggests that they should be lumped together. If Luskin has any consistency then he must utterly deny this conclusion.

If creationists want to consider H. habilis as a mere race of humans, then they conceded an enormous amount of evolution. I don't see anyone today walking around with a brain less than 600 cc with those eyebrow ridges. Nothing even remotely close. And then how to then say H. habilis has is unrelated to austalopithicines even after many creationists, including Luskin, having long claimed they are similar or the same. As it is Todd Wood thinks that Australopithecus sediba is part of the human "baramin."

It must be a horrible time to be a creationist on human evolution. They are facing years of results from Dmanisi and Malapa (the A. sediba site) which are producing high-quality fossils that can't be dismissed as scraps or the imaginations of scientists. The Little Foot skeleton will eventually be published even if it does seem to take forever. Of course other sites will continue to generate results. Make a few years worth of popcorn because this is going to be good.

Childermass · 30 October 2013

Don Luigi said: According to Creation Ministries International (creation.com) the "New Dmanisi Skull Threatens to Bring the House Down."
It is pathetic to say the least. They are taking a page from arguments of the fossils from Flores and suggesting that the Dmanisi fossils suffered from cretinism.

Mark Sturtevant · 30 October 2013

Childermass said: ... If creationists want to consider H. habilis as a mere race of humans, then they conceded an enormous amount of evolution. I don't see anyone today walking around with a brain less than 600 cc with those eyebrow ridges. Nothing even remotely close.
It should be troubling for creationists, but one must have complete faith in their ability to spin, dismiss, and misinterpret new evidence. They will never admit to human evolution. Ever. Australopithicines are not a problem b/c they are clearly apes. All small brained varieties of Homo may be humans (though some have been lumped into apes as well), but if they do not look like us then they are "fallen" humans. Obviously.

Just Bob · 30 October 2013

Mark Sturtevant said: but if they do not look like us then they are "fallen" humans. Obviously.
Wait... I thought WE were supposed to be fallen. And if humans with modern appearance are fallen, then very ancient humans with a very different appearance obviously weren't fallen! Maybe they were residents of Nod, whence Cain found a wife who was not a descendant of Eve, and thus not under the curse on her descendants. Or no... no... wait! They must be some of those sons of god who got it on with the daughters of men. They wouldn't be fallen, and thus would look different from fallen people. Following creationist logic always leads to conclusions creationists DON'T want.

Tenncrain · 30 October 2013

Mark Sturtevant said:
Childermass said: ... If creationists want to consider H. habilis as a mere race of humans, then they conceded an enormous amount of evolution. I don't see anyone today walking around with a brain less than 600 cc with those eyebrow ridges. Nothing even remotely close.
It should be troubling for creationists, but one must have complete faith in their ability to spin, dismiss, and misinterpret new evidence. They will never admit to human evolution. Ever. Australopithicines are not a problem b/c they are clearly apes. All small brained varieties of Homo may be humans (though some have been lumped into apes as well), but if they do not look like us then they are "fallen" humans. Obviously.
As is rather well known, anti-evolutionists (especially those of human evolution) often can't even get their own stories straight Hey creationists, here is another link for you to ignore.

Pierce R. Butler · 30 October 2013

On further study of the (photo above of the) skull in question, particularly of the somewhat anomalous feature just to the left of the apparent missing tooth in the lower jaw, I now feel ready to declare without equivocation that this individual was a direct ancestor of Humphrey Bogart.

Scott F · 30 October 2013

John Harshman said:
eric said:
DS said: If OTOH someone had claimed that human evolution followed a PE model, I guess this would be a problem for them.
I'm not sure. PE is a tempo argument, right? Fig.4 (above) is a comparison of two physical features, not a chronology, so I don't draw any 'tempo' info from it. To test PE vs. gradualism, I guess the thing to do is to come up with a single 'physical variability' metric and plot it vs. time (on Y-axis). Gradualism should give one or more deep Vs, with relatively continuous slopes. PE should give one or more horizontal lines or shallow Vs, with sudden slope changes between them.
No, PE is not a tempo argument, at least not mostly. The central ideas are 1) species spend most of the time in stasis; 2) they undergo rare episodes of rapid evolution ("punctuations"); and 3) punctuations are coincident with speciation, meaning the splitting of one species into two. Of these, the third is the crucial element that makes PE different from other theories. Without the third we have a competing idea, punctuated anagenesis. Your test would separate "gradualism" (a caricature of constant rates of change that nobody believes in) from stasis and punctuation, but is irrelevant to PE itself. PE is falsified, at least in this case, if there is a single evolving lineage.
Hang on a minute. Is this a definition of punctuated equilibrium? Your point #2, that there are rare episodes of rapid evolution, doesn't seem on the face of it to imply that #3 follows. I can see several other possibilities. Maybe the rapid evolution could lead to: 3a) Two different species, each of which survives (for a time) (your definition of "punctuated equilibrium"); or 3b) Two different species, one of which dies out quickly before leaving any fossil remains; or 3c) One species that is reproductively distinct from its previous ancestor population, but one in which all of the members of the species have evolved together in the same "direction", leaving no one "behind" (so to speak). Options 3b and 3c might be indistinguishable to us, at this remove. If so, 3b would fit your criteria of a "splitting of one species into two", yet we wouldn't know the difference. Even if option 3c were proven (or even just assumed), wouldn't the "episodes of rapid evolution" followed by a new species (different than the one before it) be sufficient to define "punctuated equilibrium"? Wouldn't that even fit your definition? Where the "two" species are the "parent" and "daughter" species?? It's still evolutionary change occurring at a non-uniform (perhaps even a bi-modal) rate over time. Isn't it?

John Harshman · 30 October 2013

Scott F said:
John Harshman said:
eric said:
DS said: If OTOH someone had claimed that human evolution followed a PE model, I guess this would be a problem for them.
I'm not sure. PE is a tempo argument, right? Fig.4 (above) is a comparison of two physical features, not a chronology, so I don't draw any 'tempo' info from it. To test PE vs. gradualism, I guess the thing to do is to come up with a single 'physical variability' metric and plot it vs. time (on Y-axis). Gradualism should give one or more deep Vs, with relatively continuous slopes. PE should give one or more horizontal lines or shallow Vs, with sudden slope changes between them.
No, PE is not a tempo argument, at least not mostly. The central ideas are 1) species spend most of the time in stasis; 2) they undergo rare episodes of rapid evolution ("punctuations"); and 3) punctuations are coincident with speciation, meaning the splitting of one species into two. Of these, the third is the crucial element that makes PE different from other theories. Without the third we have a competing idea, punctuated anagenesis. Your test would separate "gradualism" (a caricature of constant rates of change that nobody believes in) from stasis and punctuation, but is irrelevant to PE itself. PE is falsified, at least in this case, if there is a single evolving lineage.
Hang on a minute. Is this a definition of punctuated equilibrium?
Why, yes it is.
Your point #2, that there are rare episodes of rapid evolution, doesn't seem on the face of it to imply that #3 follows.
You are correct. It doesn't follow, which is why you need #3 explicitly stated. Without #3, as I've said, you have punctuated anagenesis, not PE.
I can see several other possibilities. Maybe the rapid evolution could lead to: 3a) Two different species, each of which survives (for a time) (your definition of "punctuated equilibrium"); or 3b) Two different species, one of which dies out quickly before leaving any fossil remains; or 3c) One species that is reproductively distinct from its previous ancestor population, but one in which all of the members of the species have evolved together in the same "direction", leaving no one "behind" (so to speak). Options 3b and 3c might be indistinguishable to us, at this remove. If so, 3b would fit your criteria of a "splitting of one species into two", yet we wouldn't know the difference.
You're talking about something other than what PE is. You're now talking about what we could or could not distinguish from PE using the fossil record. And I agree. You have not by any means exhausted the possibilities of what could not be distinguished from PE. But that's another question.
Even if option 3c were proven (or even just assumed), wouldn't the "episodes of rapid evolution" followed by a new species (different than the one before it) be sufficient to define "punctuated equilibrium"? Wouldn't that even fit your definition? Where the "two" species are the "parent" and "daughter" species?? It's still evolutionary change occurring at a non-uniform (perhaps even a bi-modal) rate over time. Isn't it?
No, it isn't. To repeat: PE is not just evolution happening at a non-uniform rate. It requires that evolution usually happens during speciation. And speciation is defined at one species splitting into two species, not as one species changing. If you have any questions, you could consult Eldredge and Gould 1972, in which PE was first explained. It's easy to find on the web. Eldredge, N., and S. J. Gould. 1972. Punctuated equilibria: an alternative to phyletic gradualism. Pages 82-115 in Models of Paleobiology (T. J. M. Schopf, ed.).

harold · 31 October 2013

Nick Matzke said:
Steve Schaffner said: Why would this be a shot in the arm for multiregionalism? The decisive evidence the mostly-but-not-entirely Out of Africa model comes from genetics, and isn't affected by this find.
I guess it would help the argument that Homo erectus was a widespread species across Africa and Eurasia that gradually evolved into later forms. However, yeah, the genetics is overwhelming that most of our genes came from an African population, whether or not that population was in the "same" or "different" species from the hominids that were widespread 0.5 Ma ago.
Although the "multiregionalism" thing overlapped in time with modern understanding of genetics, modern genetics make it absurd. All modern humans are closely related genetically. There are different allele frequencies (for some loci) in different geographical areas, but humans are extremely closely related to one another. We're actually genetically less diverse than many species with a much smaller population. Multiregionalism is roughly the equivalent of expecting New World monkeys and Old World monkeys to be extremely closely related to each other, and fully able to interbreed with each other, with completely fertile offspring, despite having evolved in isolation with one another for a long period of time. After all, they evolved in different regions from similar ancestors. If multiregionalism works for humans, why doesn't it work for monkeys? The idea that close genetic similarity is more likely to have arisen by some other mechanism, than by relatively recent sharing of major common ancestry, is silly. "Multiregionalism", in its pure form, is the result of unconscious bias. It reflects a desire to deny close genetic relationship to culturally different humans.

John Harshman · 31 October 2013

Nick,

The modern version of multiregionalism, as I understand it, merely claims that there was a single, mutually interbreeding population (or perhaps metapopulation) of Homo throughout Eurasia and Africa that evolved into H. sapiens more or less as a unit. No magic involved. And of course that grades into out-of-Africa depending on the details of gene flow.

Joe Felsenstein · 1 November 2013

In this discussion I haven't seen yet a link to the table of creationist (and "ID theorist") opinions about whether particular human fossils are really "Ape" or "Human". They disagreed with each other, hilariously. I gather the table is basically due to Jim Foley. Here it is as Jim Foley posted it at Talk Origins Archive. I believe that it was republished here in a post by Nick Matzke a few years ago, but [grrr...] the PT search facility does not return results more than a few years old. It would be a hoot to have that updated.

Joe Felsenstein · 1 November 2013

John Harshman said: Nick, The modern version of multiregionalism, as I understand it, merely claims that there was a single, mutually interbreeding population (or perhaps metapopulation) of Homo throughout Eurasia and Africa that evolved into H. sapiens more or less as a unit. No magic involved. And of course that grades into out-of-Africa depending on the details of gene flow.
That is a correct characterization of multiregionalism. Before the molecular evidence for Out Of Africa, the default expectation of most evolutionary biologists was the multiregional view. It is not true that when a lineage of species A evolves over time into species B, that there must necessarily be some very local population of A that is the true ancestor of B. Individual innovations (or individual new alleles) can occur in different places and spread throughout the species. Out Of Africa was therefore a surprise to most evolutionary biologists. That of course was the change from archaic humans to modern humans. The new fossils from Georgia suggest that the earlier origin of Homo erectus / Homo ergaster was more multiregional.

eric · 1 November 2013

Joe Felsenstein said: Out Of Africa was therefore a surprise to most evolutionary biologists. That of course was the change from archaic humans to modern humans. The new fossils from Georgia suggest that the earlier origin of Homo erectus / Homo ergaster was more multiregional.
So, just making sure I have this straight: Earlier we had 'multiregional hypothesis:' our ancestral species spread out to different areas, evolved slightly differently in different areas Replaced by 'Out of Africa hypothesis:' our ancestral species evolved into modern humans in Africa, then spread out (note this doesn't deny the existence of other hominids already in existence when we spread out) Now in play is the 'New multiregional hypothesis:' our ancestral species spread out, then collectively evolved into a single modern human because we are a very mobile animal (same note as above). I expect that even in the new multiregional hypothesis, the evolution from ancestral to modern occurred before we populated the Americas. Thus, the new multiregional hypothesis could also be called the 'out of [the] Old World" hypothesis. ;)

gussopk · 1 November 2013

John Harshman said: Nick, The modern version of multiregionalism, as I understand it, merely claims that there was a single, mutually interbreeding population (or perhaps metapopulation) of Homo throughout Eurasia and Africa that evolved into H. sapiens more or less as a unit. No magic involved. And of course that grades into out-of-Africa depending on the details of gene flow.
i also agree him. u can check it out this site for no magic http://www.soloyun.com/category/savas-oyunlari-oyna/ i need to know how can we do it!

harold · 1 November 2013

John Harshman said: Nick, The modern version of multiregionalism, as I understand it, merely claims that there was a single, mutually interbreeding population (or perhaps metapopulation) of Homo throughout Eurasia and Africa that evolved into H. sapiens more or less as a unit. No magic involved. And of course that grades into out-of-Africa depending on the details of gene flow.
I was going to comment that something like this is reasonable. However, the mutual interbreeding has to be considerable to make this model work. So it's more a variant of "Out of Africa" than a variant of old style "multi-regionalism".

Henry J · 1 November 2013

I suppose that whether humanoids of the past shared genes across continental boundaries is a separate question from whether modern survivors of the genus are descended from one local region of Africa, i.e., separate from tribes that live/lived in other regions of Africa.

Today it would I guess be rather difficult for people without technology to travel between lower Africa and Europe/Asia, but the Sahara hasn't always been like it is now.

Marilyn · 1 November 2013

I don't think this link has been mentioned but I think it's a good post that mentions the Dmanisi skulls but it gives a human skull to compare http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2009/12/telling-ape-humans.html There is a definate difference in them, I can tell they are from different species.

Just Bob · 1 November 2013

Marilyn said: There is a definate difference in them, I can tell they are from different species.
It's not so easy to tell such things from a couple of skulls. For instance, unless you have a whole group of very similar skulls, you can't be sure that the one you're looking at is not highly anomalous for his species: did they all look like that, or was he just an especially ugly one? And if you didn't know they were the same species, would you ever guess that the skulls of a pug and a greyhound belonged to the same species? Problems like these give anthropologists headaches. (And of course creationists get all the mileage out of them that they can.)

Carl Drews · 1 November 2013

Thanks for the reference, Marilyn. Unfortunately the link URL lost a letter somewhere. Here is the earlier post:

Telling apes from humans

By Jim Foley on December 29, 2009 6:41 PM | 128 Comments

http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2009/12/telling-apes-humans.html

diogeneslamp0 · 1 November 2013

ID creationist Casey Luskin has been thoroughly skull-fucked.

[Tweeted from DiogenesLamp0, a twitter feed for wit related to science & pseudoscience]

diogeneslamp0 · 1 November 2013

You've noted that Creation Ministries International's recent article by Peter Line attributes the tiny skull sizes at Dmanisi to "cretinism", this backed up by no analysis, no properties of the skulls at all. Let's compare this to what the very same author, Peter Line, said about Dmanisi in 2005, prior to the discovery of Skull 5 (though its jawbone had been found.) Here Peter Line argues that all the Dmanisi fossils are one population, that they made the stone tools found associated with them, and that they're fully human-- he makes no mention of disease states or cretinism, insinuating that a brain size of 600 cc (the smallest known at that time) was within the range of modern humans. The lower jaw he mentions, D2600, was later paired with the tiny skull 5. Oops! Poor creationist! When jaw D2600 was paired with a skull, it was the smallest at Dmanisi found yet, brain size 550 cc. As for skull D2280, which was then regarded as brain size 775 cc, that has been revised down to 730 cc. These numbers are much larger than any ape, and far outside the range of modern humans. D'oh! So, back in 2005 Peter Line and AIG didn't mention a thing about disease states or cretinism. Now that the skull sizes are revised downward, they're skull-fucked. They can't just say, duh, sorry, we were wrong, they're apes. Now the skull-fucked creationists have to say, duh, they're modern humans but, uh, cretinism, that's the ticket.
Peter Line, 2005, wrote: The table of erectus cranial capacities by Rightmire did not include the ‘older subadult or young adult’ Dmanisi cranium D2282 (~650 cm3)47 and the most recent Dmanisi cranium D2700 (~600 cm3),48 the age of which is stated as lying between the juvenile KNM-WT 15000 and D2282.49 Although still not adult, the cranial capacity of these two Dmanisi specimens, assigned to erectus, would not be expected to expand significantly more. The other Dmanisi cranium (D2280) has a measured cranial capacity of 775 cm3. However, there is also a lower jaw (D2600), unearthed in 2000, that has been described as ‘enormous’ and ‘far too large to fit comfortably with any of the crania yet discovered’.50 [Diogenes notes: Jaw D2600 would later be fit to Skull 5, which has the SMALLEST of all brain sizes at Dmanisi, 550 cc.] This large variation in size has led to suggestions that more than one species is represented by the Dmanisi fossils (dated by evolutionists to 1.75 Ma), but as the fossils were found in the same stratigraphic layer, it is more likely that they are all members of the same population.51 Stone tools52 found at the Dmanisi site indicate a human presence, and the Dmanisi specimens most likely represent the makers of the tools. That there appears to be a large difference in cranium size within the Dmanisi human population, assuming that the enormous mandible D2600 belonged to a much larger cranium than the others, is consistent with the enormous variation in cranium size that exists in extant humans. A similar, or perhaps larger, degree of size variation than the Dmanisi fossils appears to be present in the Klasies River Mouth human fossils from South Africa (dated from about 0.12 to .09 Ma), regarded by evolutionists as ‘near modern’, as indicated by variation in lower jaw sizes, with one mandible (KRM 16424) described by Klein as ‘among the smallest adult human jaws ever recorded’. [Line, Peter. “Fossil evidence for alleged apemen”, Journal of Creation [formerly Technical Journal] 19(1):22-42, 2005.]

diogeneslamp0 · 1 November 2013

Our Creationist score-card so far, on Dmanisi transitional fossils:

Denyse O'Leary at Uncommon Descent: All Dmanisi fossils modern humans.

Casey Luskin of Discovery Insitute: All Dmanisi fossils totally ape. Including below the waist-- leg bones and foot bones are ape-like. Nothing like humans. I ain't kin to no monkeys.

AIG/Peter Line 2005: All Dmanisi fossils modern humans. No mentions of diseases or cretinism. http://creation.com/fossil-evidence-for-alleged-apemen-part-1-the-genus-homo.

CMI/Peter Line 2013: All Dmanisi fossils "robust" humans with obvious cretinism. http://creation.mobi/a/8301

YEC Marvin Lubenow: Most skulls at Dmanisi just "apes", except largest skull, which is totally modern human (thought then to have brain size 780 cc, now revised to 730 cc, far below and outside human brain size range.) [Lubenow M.L.: "Bones of contention" (2nd edition): a creationist assessment of human fossils, Grand Rapids,MI:Baker Books, 2004.]

Joe Felsenstein · 1 November 2013

eric said:
Joe Felsenstein said: Out Of Africa was therefore a surprise to most evolutionary biologists. That of course was the change from archaic humans to modern humans. The new fossils from Georgia suggest that the earlier origin of Homo erectus / Homo ergaster was more multiregional.
So, just making sure I have this straight:
No, you don't have it straight,
Earlier we had 'multiregional hypothesis:' our ancestral species spread out to different areas, evolved slightly differently in different areas
You missed the important point that there is gene flow between the different areas, so that innovations in one area can spread to another. Anyway are you talking about evolution at the time of the Dimansi specimen, or the multiregional hypothesis for the evolution of modern humans?
Replaced by 'Out of Africa hypothesis:' our ancestral species evolved into modern humans in Africa, then spread out (note this doesn't deny the existence of other hominids already in existence when we spread out)
OK, if you're not talking about Dimansi but about the much later evolution of modern humans.
Now in play is the 'New multiregional hypothesis:' our ancestral species spread out, then collectively evolved into a single modern human because we are a very mobile animal (same note as above).
The new discussion is about Dimansi, not about the evolution of modern humans. You missed the point that this happened earlier, long before the evolution of modern humans. At a completely different, and much earlier, stage of the evolution of the human lineage.
I expect that even in the new multiregional hypothesis, the evolution from ancestral to modern occurred before we populated the Americas. Thus, the new multiregional hypothesis could also be called the 'out of [the] Old World" hypothesis. ;)
Nobody is even talking about the Americas. Dimansi is 1.8 million years ago. Try to get that straight.

eric · 1 November 2013

Joe, Thanks for the clarification.
Joe Felsenstein said: Anyway are you talking about evolution at the time of the Dimansi specimen, or the multiregional hypothesis for the evolution of modern humans?
I was specifically talking about the hypotheses. Trying to summarize the differences between the multiregional hypothesis held by most people before the out-of-Africa hypotheses, the out-of-Africa hypothesis, and multiregional hypothesis supported by the new Dmanisi paper. But my timescale was all wrong.
You missed the point that this happened earlier, long before the evolution of modern humans. At a completely different, and much earlier, stage of the evolution of the human lineage.
Got it. Thanks!

Jim Foley · 1 November 2013

There have been a few questions/comments about my statement that "it will certainly be a shot in the arm to the multiregional model of human evolution". I don't dispute the genetic evidence that shows all humans are descended from a migration out of Africa in the last 100,000 years or so. But multiregionalism does argue that erectus consisted of widespread rather variable populations that maintained their identity as a single species because of gene flow between populations. That seems very similar to me to the model that the Dmanisi scientists are promoting for H. erectus, at least until the last half million years or so.

Jim Foley · 1 November 2013

diogeneslamp0 said: Our Creationist score-card so far, on Dmanisi transitional fossils: Denyse O'Leary at Uncommon Descent: All Dmanisi fossils modern humans. Casey Luskin of Discovery Insitute: All Dmanisi fossils totally ape. Including below the waist-- leg bones and foot bones are ape-like. Nothing like humans. I ain't kin to no monkeys. AIG/Peter Line 2005: All Dmanisi fossils modern humans. No mentions of diseases or cretinism. http://creation.com/fossil-evidence-for-alleged-apemen-part-1-the-genus-homo. CMI/Peter Line 2013: All Dmanisi fossils "robust" humans with obvious cretinism. http://creation.mobi/a/8301 YEC Marvin Lubenow: Most skulls at Dmanisi just "apes", except largest skull, which is totally modern human (thought then to have brain size 780 cc, now revised to 730 cc, far below and outside human brain size range.) [Lubenow M.L.: "Bones of contention" (2nd edition): a creationist assessment of human fossils, Grand Rapids,MI:Baker Books, 2004.]
To add to the fun, here's David Menton of Answers in Genesis, in a radio interview: http://issuesetc.org/2013/10/18/2-the-discovery-of-an-ancient-skull-and-human-evolution-dr-david-menton-101813/ (starting at 1:30). Menton hadn't even read the new paper yet, so was operating in the dark a bit. But looking at a picture of the five skulls lined up, he thought "one of them looks distinctively human to me" (7:55), that the others were "pretty questionable", especially the new one: "the jaw is positively massive". Menton and the interviewer go on at some length about "all we have are skulls", so how do scientists know they walked upright? He does eventually admit that maybe there are skeletal bones that he doesn't know about, and that is indeed the case. We covered them here in 2008, when Casey Luskin decided the postcranial bones were apelike. Menton doesn't come out of this interview looking good, and he clearly hadn't done his homework. I guess that will be his excuse if he needs to backtrack some of these early assessments later. I expect Menton wishes these fossils would go away. If you look at an earlier article of his here, he talks about erectus, Neandertals, australopithecines, even Piltdown. But the habiline fossils are totally ignored - wouldn't want to confuse the faithful by mentioning their existence, I guess.

mattiaspachnoda · 2 November 2013

A brief question regarding copyright issues. I am very interested in displaying graphs like figure 4 from the Science paper e.g. on my blog as an illustration to a blog post (as is done here), but I don't have a clue about (formal or informal) copyright rules in cases like these. Does anyone know the limits of what is permissible, or at least not pursued by the big publishing companies? Did you apply for permission before posting this?

Joe Felsenstein · 2 November 2013

Jim Foley said: There have been a few questions/comments about my statement that "it will certainly be a shot in the arm to the multiregional model of human evolution". I don't dispute the genetic evidence that shows all humans are descended from a migration out of Africa in the last 100,000 years or so. But multiregionalism does argue that erectus consisted of widespread rather variable populations that maintained their identity as a single species because of gene flow between populations. That seems very similar to me to the model that the Dmanisi scientists are promoting for H. erectus, at least until the last half million years or so.
The Multiregionalism and the Out Of Africa hypotheses are rather similar in the two cases. But of course there is no requirement that the same hypothesis be true in both cases. People were getting mixed up as to whether the case we were discussing was the one 100,000 years ago or the one 1.8 million years ago. (And I was mixed up about how you spell Dmanisi -- it was not Dimansi).

harold · 2 November 2013

Although it is extremely terse, this section of a Wikipedia article helps clarify the "multiregionalism" situation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiregional_origin_of_modern_humans#History

The original, mainly pre-WWII, hypotheses of multiregionalism implicitly or explicitly denied the close genetic relationship between all humans, and over-emphasized ostensible biological differences as explanation for cultural differences. Cultural differences that were greater at that time, as East Asia was much less industrially developed. These hypotheses were developed before molecular genetics was understood. They implicitly or explicitly suggested relatively little gene flow between different cultures.

Even at the time, there was blazingly strong evidence against this concept of multiregionalism. The ease with which fertile humans from different cultural backgrounds can and do mate and produce healthy, fertile children should have been a clue that there is little genetic difference between humans. However, such evidence tended to be ignored, and as we all know, Fascist era pseudoscience drew on but went even further than multiregionalism in absurdly ascribing cultural differences to imaginary vast genetic differences.

(I'm not suggesting here that important genetic traits can't correlate with recognizable cultural or ethnic traits. They can and that can be medically important. People of mainly long time Greek ancestry are much more likely to have certain types of thalassemia than people of long time Danish origin, for example. However, overall, Greeks and Danes are, like all modern humans, very closely related genetically. Hypotheses which attempt to minimize this fact are incorrect.)

A pure "Out of Africa" hypothesis may suffer from a cultural bias, too, though. Simultaneous with the old style "multiregionalism" train of thought was a tendency, in anthropology and archaeology, to ascribe almost all historical culture shifts to the near extermination of one group of people by another. To some degree these are opposite ideas - old style multiregionalism argues that people have different cultures because they didn't interact enough to mix genes for massive periods of times, whereas the "waves to total replacement by conquerors" idea implies something of the opposite (everybody should be very closely related to a few conquering groups). However, both appealed to the biases of the time. In my mind, this "replacement of the conquered" bias occurred because nineteenth century Europeans did witness one example of this in history, the settlement of the United States and Canada by Europeans, which did result in a massive decrease in the number of people with substantial Amerindian ancestry. Again, though, a more astute observer might have noted that south of the Rio Grande, European culture, language, and religion were imposed, yet the population retains a very significantly Amerindian genetic character in many areas. Likewise a more astute observer might have noted that, for example, there are millions of self-identified Mayan people alive today - plausibly more than ever - even though classical Mayan civilization "collapsed", and Mayan speaking people were conquered by Europeans several centuries after that (two massive cultural shifts but the people are still around). Or they could have noted that much of the middle east now speaks Arabic and observes Islam even though there was never a huge replacement of original populations of places like Egypt by people from the Arabian Peninsula. The idea that cultural changes always indicate replacement of a pre-existing population is false.

Of course, a pure "late comers out of Africa took over" hypothesis has an advantage over the superficially similar "replacement by conquerors" line of thought - "out of Africa" is one possible explanation of current genetic data.

The current "multiregionalism" idea, in which human groups evolve in parallel - but with sufficient constant inter-breeding to maintain very close genetic relationship between all humans - may make sense, too, though.

Frank J · 2 November 2013

My 2c:

I reluctantly accept the fact that ~99% of the people, including ~99% that have no problem with evolution, have zero interest in findings such as these. So the pressure to sell, sell, sell, makes otherwise reasonable people spin headlines that are sensationalist but misleading. Pseudoscience peddlers love that and exploit to the fullest.

If I were to distill a finding like this to the public, the first thing I would note is the age of the fossil. I think it's 1.8 million years (?), but if it's noted above it's well-hidden. Also well-hidden, here and everywhere else is that all the major disagreements debates about "when" in natural history completely within the anti-evolution movement, and that the subset that "challenges" the mainstream timeline curiously directs their "challenges" to "Darwinists" 99+% of the time, even though they're fully aware that at least half of evolution deniers finds their timeline absurd (but also keeps quiet for the sake of the big tent).

The next think I'd emphasize out is that healthy disagreements like these, that scientists rarely try to cover up, do not challenge the basic "tree" of common descent one bit, much less support any of the mutually-contradictory "lawn" models. I'd add that common descent is so well supported that even prominent evolution-deniers concede it. And that evolution-deniers who seem to deny it know better than to "challenge" them directly and publicly.

The last thing I'd say is to remember all that the next time some evolution-denier has the outrageous chutzpah to accuse "Darwinists" of "censorship."

Marilyn · 3 November 2013

Is it possible with fossil bones that they could become contaminated from the surrounding substances such as soil or rock that is much older or younger than the fossil so that when a fossil bone is carbon dated it takes on the age of the surrounds rather than the actual date of the bone. Has anyone ever analyzed the soil around fossils for one thing to see if it contains anything that could be associated with the fossil. I haven't noticed any mention of any other body parts been found.

stevaroni · 3 November 2013

Marilyn said: Is it possible with fossil bones that they could become contaminated from the surrounding substances such as soil or rock that is much older or younger than the fossil so that when a fossil bone is carbon dated it takes on the age of the surrounds rather than the actual date of the bone. Has anyone ever analyzed the soil around fossils for one thing to see if it contains anything that could be associated with the fossil. I haven't noticed any mention of any other body parts been found.
Actually, Marilyn, true fossils aren't carbon dated, since they seldom contain much of the original organic material and in any case classical "carbon dating" only really works well out to about 50-75,000 years ago. Past that there's too little C14 left to accurately measure. There's a lot of really good information on radioisotope dating on Wikepedia, including a long list of factors that can lead a reading astray and how to correct for them. But as for fossils, far from being contaminated by the surrounding soil and rock, fossils are often explicitly dated by their surroundings, since you can usually assume that a fossil cleanly entombed in a rock layer has been there since that layer formed, and there are a variety of dating schemes (many of which use other isotopic decay chains with longer time scales) which can be applied to old rocks. There are, of course, ways for younger samples to be imbedded in older rocks (the classic examples are fossil packrat middens in the desert southwest) but enough work has been done (and enough researchers have been burned) that dating errors of the scale you're speculating about just don't happen any more.

Tenncrain · 3 November 2013

Marilyn said: Is it possible with fossil bones that they could become contaminated from the surrounding substances such as soil or rock that is much older or younger than the fossil so that when a fossil bone is carbon dated it takes on the age of the surrounds rather than the actual date of the bone. Has anyone ever analyzed the soil around fossils for one thing to see if it contains anything that could be associated with the fossil. I haven't noticed any mention of any other body parts been found.
As stevaroni touched on, the overwhelming majority of fossils are much too old for direct Carbon 14 measurements. In these cases, other forms of radiometric dating are used, although not on the fossils themselves but rather on strata adjacent to the fossils. Actually, geophysicists have discovered over three dozen different types of radiometric dating besides Carbon 14 dating. This allows multiple ways of crosschecking the different radiometric dating methods. If the different methods gave widely varied results, that could put radiometric dating in question. The fact that the different methods tend to strongly agree gives geophysicists high confidence that radiometric dating is highly accurate. Yes, radiometric dating can be cantankerous to use. Carbon 14 dating in particular can be contaminated by outside elements. But these contaminates are well know thus such results can be safely discarded. Furthermore, Carbon 14 dating can often be crosschecked by non-radiometric dating methods such as tree ring chronology, lake varve chronology, and even items of known ages like the wood from King Tut's coffin. Marilyn, you might find this link helpful as it explains the mainstream view of radiometric dating. It is written by a physicist that is also a Christian; the article is posted via ASA which is an organization of Christian scientists. http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/wiens.html

TomS · 4 November 2013

Tenncrain said: Actually, geophysicists have discovered over three dozen different types of radiometric dating besides Carbon 14 dating. This allows multiple ways of crosschecking the different radiometric dating methods. If the different methods gave widely varied results, that could put radiometric dating in question. The fact that the different methods tend to strongly agree gives geophysicists high confidence that radiometric dating is highly accurate.
And there are yet other methods which do not depend on the measurement of the products of radioactive decay. See the Wikipedia article "Geochronology" for a survey of the main methods.

Henry J · 4 November 2013

And of course one can figure out the ordering and order of magnitude of geological time intervals, without having exact measurements of their lengths. That's what they did before radio dating was invented.

TomS · 5 November 2013

Henry J said: And of course one can figure out the ordering and order of magnitude of geological time intervals, without having exact measurements of their lengths. That's what they did before radio dating was invented.
I believe that there were estimates made on processes like weathering and deposition. Didn't Leonardo Da Vinci make some estimates like that?

Roland · 8 November 2013

The point I would like to see made more about punctuated equilibrium is that even during these suggested "rapid" periods of evolution, the speed of change is still imperceptibly slow at a human scale. It's only *relatively* rapid. I think referring to this still glacially slow speed of change as "rapid" is a bit misleading.

eyeonicr · 13 November 2013

If you're interested, the latest from the Institute for Creation Research is that Dmanisi skull 5 is really that of an Australopithecine that anthropologists are fraudulently claiming is human.

DS · 13 November 2013

So first creationists claim it's a human, then they claim it's an ape, all the while still claiming that there is a "gap"! And they don't see how this corresponds precisely to what is predicted if humans evolved. The big tent flap just whipped around and smacked them in the face and they still don't seem to realize it. How do these clowns sleep at night?

Dave Luckett · 13 November 2013

DS said:How do these clowns sleep at night?
In the case of Thomas of the ICR, very soundly, I have no doubt. Unless, while getting into his pajamas, he should happen to drop his wallet on his foot.

DS · 13 November 2013

Dave Luckett said:
DS said:How do these clowns sleep at night?
In the case of Thomas of the ICR, very soundly, I have no doubt. Unless, while getting into his pajamas, he should happen to drop his wallet on his foot.
Maybe we should ask him if he is willing to debate the author of his previous paper.

DS · 13 November 2013

DS said:
Dave Luckett said:
DS said:How do these clowns sleep at night?
In the case of Thomas of the ICR, very soundly, I have no doubt. Unless, while getting into his pajamas, he should happen to drop his wallet on his foot.
Maybe we should ask him if he is willing to debate the author of his previous paper.
Since he appears to have no formal training or any real publications in anthropology or paleontology, I think he could wipe the floor with him.

eric · 13 November 2013

DS said: So first creationists claim it's a human, then they claim it's an ape, all the while still claiming that there is a "gap"!
Not only that, but in each instance they claim the answer they're supporting (at the time) is reasonably clear. It wasn't just a human, it was obviously a human. And now it's not just an ape, but there are seven "basic obvervations" which show it must be an ape; any other answer is a result of some evolutionary assumption: "The assumption that skull 5 represents an ancient human permeates the original report and the news, but it ignores the seven basic observations that refute it." Its amusingly similar to the way fundies talk about biblical meaning: each sect asserts they understand the true meaning of the text (while others that disagree with them don't)...and every single one of them claims the meaning is clear. ;)

DS · 13 November 2013

Well that nonsense might work in Sunday school, but do they really think it is going to fool the real experts. You know, the guys who do this for a living, the guys who have been doing this professionally for decades, the guys who actually discovered and described the fossils? Even the rubes who want to be fooled must realize that this is just so much contradictory hogwash.

Tenncrain · 13 November 2013

DS said:
Dave Luckett said:
DS said:How do these clowns sleep at night?
In the case of Thomas of the ICR, very soundly, I have no doubt. Unless, while getting into his pajamas, he should happen to drop his wallet on his foot.
Maybe we should ask him if he is willing to debate the author of his previous paper.
Or see if he will debate other anti-evolutionists that can't get their own stories straight about which skulls are "clearly human" and those that are "clearly ape"....

Jim Foley · 13 November 2013

eyeonicr said: If you're interested, the latest from the Institute for Creation Research is that Dmanisi skull 5 is really that of an Australopithecine that anthropologists are fraudulently claiming is human.
Thanks for the heads-up, eyeontheicr (and for the link to your commentary, which I thoroughly recommend). I had seen the already released articles on Dmanisi by ICR and AIG, but not this one yet. Thomas and Sherwin's earlier effort on Dmanisi was already markedly incompetent even compared to AIG's response, but this new article is diving to the Earth's core when it comes to plumbing new depths of cluelessness. Responding to these is going to be so much fun...

stevaroni · 13 November 2013

eyeonicr said: If you're interested, the latest from the Institute for Creation Research is that Dmanisi skull 5 is really that of an Australopithecine that anthropologists are fraudulently claiming is human.
Ummm... so it can't be a million year old human that was almost an ape because it was actually an million year old ape that was almost a human? Riiigghhtt... Now I understand.

apokryltaros · 14 November 2013

stevaroni said:
eyeonicr said: If you're interested, the latest from the Institute for Creation Research is that Dmanisi skull 5 is really that of an Australopithecine that anthropologists are fraudulently claiming is human.
Ummm... so it can't be a million year old human that was almost an ape because it was actually an million year old ape that was almost a human? Riiigghhtt... Now I understand.
It doesn't matter if the creationists don't make a fragment of a parvo of sense in their denial of evidence for evolution, all that matters to creationists is that they deny that there is any evidence for evolution, logic, coherency, or common sense be literally damned.

Henry J · 14 November 2013

So they deny logic and coherency as well as evolution? ;)

ksplawn · 14 November 2013

apokryltaros said: ... or common sense be literally damned.
And to show just how literal this can be, it may be instructive to look to the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology's Paul Broun. See this video. Whenever someone is said to 'demonize' a thing, you can usually take that as a figurative description of their vehement opposition. Here it's very literal. He's demonizing evolution.