Lee Olsen <paleoc...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> "Findings point to common ancestry to explain genetic similarities
> New research raises questions about the theory that modern humans and
> Neanderthals at some point interbred, known as hybridisation.
It's not a theory.
It's not that Neanderthals and modern humans share some
common DNA, it's that Neanderthals and modern humans
OUTSIDE OF AFRICA share this DNA. If it was all about a
common ancestor than SubSaharan Africans should share
it as well.
What, you think they would lake the same "common ancestor"?
It that were the case than it would be "Common" to everybody,
now would it?
And it was never limited to "Just" DNA evidence. The morphological
evidence was beyond compelling.
And t was never about "Just" Neanderthals, either. There's also
Denisovan DNA outside of Africa.
In other words, as per your usual you're focused in on a
stupid opinion (one that ignores most of the evidence) and
you're pretending it's a fact.
"JTEM" <j_deerfi...@hotmail.com>
Jack Teehan <deerfieldproducti...@gmail.com>
Seth Dwight <deerfieldproducti...@gmail.com>
Seth Dwight: NNTP-Posting-Host: 71.232.83.153
In His Glory: NNTP-Posting-Host: 71.232.83.153
On Oct 30, 3:36 am, JTEM <jte...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Lee Olsen <paleoc...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > "Findings point to common ancestry to explain genetic similarities
> > New research raises questions about the theory that modern humans and
> > Neanderthals at some point interbred, known as hybridisation.
> It's not a theory.
Yes it is.
> It's not that Neanderthals and modern humans share some
> common DNA, it's that Neanderthals and modern humans
> OUTSIDE OF AFRICA share this DNA.
> On Oct 29, 5:51 am, Paul Crowley <dsfdsfd...@sdfsfsfs.com> wrote:
> > Claudius Denk wrote on Oct 27
> > (recovered from Google)
> > >> I see from Google groups that there are 40 posts in this
> > >> thread. I can see only three on my computer -- all from
> > >> Rich Travsky. How fortunate I am ! It's not luck; the
> > >> other posters are in my kill-file, and long will they remain
> > >> there. But, even though I know it's pointless, I'll ask those
> > >> twerps to take a look at the endless Ya-Boo garbage
> > >> they post. Who do they think they are impressing?
> > >> Silly question. They don't think. They are incapable
> > >> of thought. But they make this newsgroup a most
> > >> unattractive place to visit.
> > > Declaration of a killfile is a declaration of the weakness of
> > > your thinking. You are, literally, saying that you can't deal
> > > with people having opinions that differ from your own.
> > I don't object to your opinions, or their expression,
> > I do object to your BEHAVIOUR.
> > Read those 37 posts and see how much of
> > them express any opinion on a PA issue.
> > I can't see how you think anyone would
> > waste their time reading ANY of that shit.
> > Why don't you and Olsen exchange your
> > worthless abuse of each other in emails?
> > I would NEVER read such posts. And
> > since, like Olsen, you post ONLY endlessly
> > repetitive boring abuse, you belong in a
> > kill-file.
> > Paul,
Your thing about earliest hominids only being able to survive on
predator free islands is obvious nonsense.
> >>> Our results, however, reveal statistically significant differences
> >>> between the mortality profiles of smaller and larger bovid mortality profiles
> >>> at FLK Zinj and the profiles of modern leopard and lion prey, respectively.
> >>> Unlike leopard prey, smaller bovids at FLK Zinj are predominantly old adult
> >>> males. Unlike lion prey, larger bovids at FLK Zinj are predominantly prime
> >>> adults. This falsifies scavenging as a viable explanation at FLK Zinj. For
> >>> larger bovids, the prime adult-dominated pattern is also inconsistent with
> >>> first-access scavenging of natural, non-carnivore deaths, and with endurance
> >>> running hunting. That leaves selective ambush hunting by early Homo as the
> >>> most reasonable working hypothesis.
> >> A much more reasonable hypothesis is trapping.
> >> Those hominids probably dug deep pits, put sharp
> >> stakes in the bottom, and covered them over with
> >> some kind of matting, disguised with mud or
> >> whatever was appropriate. The prey animals fell
> >> onto the stakes and died. Consequently selection
> >> was largely random, although enabling smaller,
> >> lighter-footed animals to escape more readily.
> >> Ambush hunting of large bovids by a group of
> >> bipeds would be crazily dangerous -- for the
> want to charge at a cape buffalo, armed only
> with a spear? Would you want to charge
> at a group of cape buffalo -- picking out one
> of the largest and fittest bulls?
> If your tribe was to adopt an ambush strategy
> and mine had one of making traps (by digging
> pits and putting in staves) which would have
> the better life-expectancy?
What would they dig with?
> >> bipeds. It would be even crazier to select fit
> >> adults. Further, these animals move around in
> >> large groups . . . . for safety against large
> >> specialist predators, all of which fear to attack
> > Lions take down elephants. And cape buffalo. You were saying?
> They take down weak animals -- weakened
> by age, injury or illness. They leave fit adults
> alone, especially herds of fit adults. Buffalo
> routinely chase lions away. Can you see a
> group of hominids (with females with babies
> and small infants) being able to run away
> faster than the buffalo?
Claudius Denk wrote:
> On Oct 29, 5:51 am, Paul Crowley <dsfdsfd...@sdfsfsfs.com> wrote:
> > Claudius Denk wrote on Oct 27
> > (recovered from Google)
> > >> I see from Google groups that there are 40 posts in this
> > >> thread. I can see only three on my computer -- all from
> > >> Rich Travsky. How fortunate I am ! It's not luck; the
> > >> other posters are in my kill-file, and long will they remain
> > >> there. But, even though I know it's pointless, I'll ask those
> > >> twerps to take a look at the endless Ya-Boo garbage
> > >> they post. Who do they think they are impressing?
> > >> Silly question. They don't think. They are incapable
> > >> of thought. But they make this newsgroup a most
> > >> unattractive place to visit.
> > > Declaration of a killfile is a declaration of the weakness of
> > > your thinking. You are, literally, saying that you can't deal
> > > with people having opinions that differ from your own.
> > I don't object to your opinions, or their expression,
> > I do object to your BEHAVIOUR.
> > Read those 37 posts and see how much of
> > them express any opinion on a PA issue.
> > I can't see how you think anyone would
> > waste their time reading ANY of that shit.
> > Why don't you and Olsen exchange your
> > worthless abuse of each other in emails?
> > I would NEVER read such posts. And
> > since, like Olsen, you post ONLY endlessly
> > repetitive boring abuse, you belong in a
> > kill-file.
> > Paul,
> Your thing about earliest hominids only being able to survive on
> predator free islands is obvious nonsense.
> >>> Our results, however, reveal statistically significant differences
> >>> between the mortality profiles of smaller and larger bovid mortality profiles
> >>> at FLK Zinj and the profiles of modern leopard and lion prey, respectively.
> >>> Unlike leopard prey, smaller bovids at FLK Zinj are predominantly old adult
> >>> males. Unlike lion prey, larger bovids at FLK Zinj are predominantly prime
> >>> adults. This falsifies scavenging as a viable explanation at FLK Zinj. For
> >>> larger bovids, the prime adult-dominated pattern is also inconsistent with
> >>> first-access scavenging of natural, non-carnivore deaths, and with endurance
> >>> running hunting. That leaves selective ambush hunting by early Homo as the
> >>> most reasonable working hypothesis.
> >> A much more reasonable hypothesis is trapping.
> >> Those hominids probably dug deep pits, put sharp
> >> stakes in the bottom, and covered them over with
> >> some kind of matting, disguised with mud or
> >> whatever was appropriate. The prey animals fell
> >> onto the stakes and died. Consequently selection
> >> was largely random, although enabling smaller,
> >> lighter-footed animals to escape more readily.
> >> Ambush hunting of large bovids by a group of
> >> bipeds would be crazily dangerous -- for the
> want to charge at a cape buffalo, armed only
> with a spear? Would you want to charge
> at a group of cape buffalo -- picking out one
> of the largest and fittest bulls?
> If your tribe was to adopt an ambush strategy
> and mine had one of making traps (by digging
> pits and putting in staves) which would have
> the better life-expectancy?
What would they dig with?
> >> bipeds. It would be even crazier to select fit
> >> adults. Further, these animals move around in
> >> large groups . . . . for safety against large
> >> specialist predators, all of which fear to attack
> > Lions take down elephants. And cape buffalo. You were saying?
> They take down weak animals -- weakened
> by age, injury or illness. They leave fit adults
> alone, especially herds of fit adults. Buffalo
> routinely chase lions away. Can you see a
> group of hominids (with females with babies
> and small infants) being able to run away
> faster than the buffalo?
>>>>> Bovid mortality profiles and early hominin meat-foraging
>>>>> capabilities at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania
>>> Does this mean you'll finally answer why those poor lions
>>> didn't starve to death waiting out those pesky hominids?
>> I answered it several times. Poor lions do
> Lie.
>> regularly starve to death. They have a high
>> reproduction rate, and a high death rate,
>> most of which is due to starvation.
> Predators have lower reproduction rates than prey.
Not true. Lion females often have four cubs.
Antelope typically have one calf each year
>> But populations can survive lean times by
>> feeding on whatever prey they can find.
> You mean like huge herds of animals?
As I have told you before, such huge herds
move on. Only a small proportion get predated. As you probably don't know, droughts often
result in the starvation of millions of wilde-
beeste and gazelles.
> As opposed to primates small in size and number?
Your understanding of animal ecology would
disgrace an eight-year-old. Prey animals co-
evolve with their predators over millions of
years, and can cope with them. Juvenile
predators (e.g. young lions) those that are
injured or sick or old, often can't catch their
regular prey, and will go for 'easier' targets. A foolish primate, just down from the trees,
would be very tempting, being hopelessly
slow on open ground. When it has 'forgotten'
how to run for trees and climb up them
quickly (with infants clinging to their mothers'
bellies) it becomes an apparently ridiculously
easy target.
It is the task of paleo-anthropology to explain
how and why hominids were not an easy
target. It has conspicuously failed to do so. All it can do (and all it ever has done) is try
to pretend that the question does not exist.
>> Hominids would have made a very easy
>> lunch -- if they were available within that
>> pride's territory. Every last one would have
> What did they eat if there weren't any primates
> around?
Wart-hog, small antelope, porcupine, tortoise.
None of them easy.
>> been gobbled up. That's why, for the first
> Every last one? then how did the lions survive?
Many don't.
>> few million years of hominid evolution, they
>> could only live in safe predator-free habitats,
>> mostly off-shore islands.
> Geological evidence for these islands ->
Eh? Do you deny that eustatic sea-levels
constantly (over geological time-scales) go
up and down? And that at every stage --
based on irregularities and undulations in
the terrestrial firmament, islands appear and
disappear?
> Fossil evidence for hominids on these islands ->
As I have explained, numerous times, as the sea
moves in to cover (and as it later moves out from)
these islands, it creates coast-lines. These grind
up the ground and pulverise (and re-pulverize and
re-re-pulverize) potential fossils.
> How did they get there ->
Walking on dry land (rising seas then creating
islands).
> How did they get back ->
By walking on dry land (falling seas re-joining
islands to the mainland), or by wading, or by
swimming.
I accept that it's only about 90 years since it
was realised that 'ice-ages' caused sea-levels
to rise and fall over geological time-scales, and
that we should not expect PA to absorb such
radically new ideas within so short a period.
So nothing about the creation and elimination
of such islands would ever have appeared in
any of your text-books.
>> Of course, they got off the islands at some
>> point, and that is where the story gets
>> interesting. I'll post on that separately
>> at some time.
> Oh, PLEASE do ;)
Done. See thread
Re: "Early Humans Doomed Large Carnivores Two Million Years Ago,Scientists Say"
You might have missed it -- amid all the
useless pointless Ya-Boh postings that
constitute this (supposedly scientific)
news-group.
>>>> A much more reasonable hypothesis is trapping.
>>>> Those hominids probably dug deep pits, put sharp
>>>> stakes in the bottom, and covered them over with
>>>> some kind of matting, disguised with mud or
>>>> whatever was appropriate. The prey animals fell
>>>> onto the stakes and died. Consequently selection
>>>> was largely random, although enabling smaller,
>>>> lighter-footed animals to escape more readily.
>>>> Ambush hunting of large bovids by a group of
>>>> bipeds would be crazily dangerous -- for the
Goats? Don't you think that they might be a bit too
fast and agile? If they can avoid being ambushed by
cats at night, what chance does a hominid have at
trying to do it by day?
>> If your tribe was to adopt an ambush strategy
>> and mine had one of making traps (by digging
>> pits and putting in staves) which would have
>> the better life-expectancy?
> What would they dig with?
Animal horn (for 'picks') and brain-cases, or
rib-cages, for 'shovels',
> Ge back to us after you watch the videos.
As I say, you have a seven-year-old's conception
of animal ecology. Groups of fit lions can take
down large adult prey, but usually only when
weakened by age or injury. In any case, one
old injured sick lion could take out half-a-dozen
adult humans without thinking about it.
On Nov 22, 4:24 am, Paul Crowley <dsfdsfd...@sdfsfsfs.com> wrote:
> On 20/11/2012 00:50, RichTravsky wrote:
> It is the task of paleo-anthropology to explain
> how and why hominids were not an easy
> target. It has conspicuously failed to do so.
> All it can do (and all it ever has done) is try
> to pretend that the question does not exist.
True. A pattern we see with all paleoanthropological pretenders is
that they focus on the aspects of hominid characteristics that their
model explains and then pretend that the aspects that their model
fails to explain do not exist. Aquatic apist go into great detail
about how hominids are the best swimmers amongst the apes.
Conventional dodos go into great details about the "amazing" long
distance running abilities of hominds. The pattern is very distinct.
Talks about the things your model explains and ignore (minimize) those
it does not.
But, Paul, are you really any different? Tell us the selective
origins of hominid social adaptations or go away.
> evolve with their predators over millions of
> years, and can cope with them. Juvenile
> predators (e.g. young lions) those that are
> injured or sick or old, often can't catch their
> regular prey, and will go for 'easier' targets.
> A foolish primate, just down from the trees,
> would be very tempting, being hopelessly
> slow on open ground. When it has 'forgotten'
> how to run for trees and climb up them
> quickly (with infants clinging to their mothers'
> bellies) it becomes an apparently ridiculously
> easy target.
And hominids would have been quickly wiped out then. But guess what -
that didn't happen. Oh, and guess further:
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/11/07/1204209109.full.pdf+html Isotopic evidence for an early shift to C4 resources by Pliocene hominins in
Chad
Julia Lee-Thorp, Andossa Likius, Hassane T. Mackaye, Patrick Vignaud,
Matt Sponheimer, and Michel Brunet ...
The Chadian australopithecines occupied a largely open landscape
dominated by C4 plants, in which traditional hominoid woodland or
forest-derived resources were sparse, so a significant C4 dietary
component might be considered unsurprising.
...
Our data show that by ~3.5 Ma A. bahrelghazali was fully
engaged in exploiting C4 biomass. The results imply that australopithecines
had become broad generalists foraging opportunistically
for locally abundant resources that included significant
quantities of savanna resources, unlike chimps.
...
> It is the task of paleo-anthropology to explain
> how and why hominids were not an easy
> target. It has conspicuously failed to do so.
> All it can do (and all it ever has done) is try
> to pretend that the question does not exist.
On the contrary, they have indeed considered the issue. Go look
up Kortlandt, for example.
> >> Hominids would have made a very easy
> >> lunch -- if they were available within that
> >> pride's territory. Every last one would have
> > What did they eat if there weren't any primates
> > around?
> Wart-hog, small antelope, porcupine, tortoise.
> None of them easy.
Gazelles, wildebeest, etc. Huge herds of them, one moves on,
another moves in. That's how predators there today live. DUH
> >> been gobbled up. That's why, for the first
> > Every last one? then how did the lions survive?
> Many don't.
What, not enough hominids to eat?
> >> few million years of hominid evolution, they
> >> could only live in safe predator-free habitats,
> >> mostly off-shore islands.
> > Geological evidence for these islands ->
> Eh? Do you deny that eustatic sea-levels
> constantly (over geological time-scales) go
> up and down? And that at every stage --
> based on irregularities and undulations in
> the terrestrial firmament, islands appear and
> disappear?
Eh? Do you have any geologic AND fossil evidence for these Fantasy Islands?
Boss boss, the hominids!
> > Fossil evidence for hominids on these islands ->
> As I have explained, numerous times, as the sea
> moves in to cover (and as it later moves out from)
> these islands, it creates coast-lines. These grind
> up the ground and pulverise (and re-pulverize and
> re-re-pulverize) potential fossils.
And yet we do find fossils in such environments. Try again.
> > How did they get there ->
> Walking on dry land (rising seas then creating
> islands).
What, those mean ol lions didn't get them before they could make it?
> > How did they get back ->
> By walking on dry land (falling seas re-joining
> islands to the mainland), or by wading, or by
> swimming.
What, those mean ol lions didn't get them before they could make it?
> I accept that it's only about 90 years since it
> was realised that 'ice-ages' caused sea-levels
> to rise and fall over geological time-scales, and
> that we should not expect PA to absorb such
> radically new ideas within so short a period.
> So nothing about the creation and elimination
> of such islands would ever have appeared in
> any of your text-books.
Good heavens, geology has never considered that islands come and
go? Since when? Heard of Pangea? Whole continents coming and going...
> >> Of course, they got off the islands at some
> >> point, and that is where the story gets
> >> interesting. I'll post on that separately
> >> at some time.
> > Oh, PLEASE do ;)
> Done. See thread
> Re: "Early Humans Doomed Large Carnivores Two Million Years Ago,Scientists Say"
> You might have missed it -- amid all the
> useless pointless Ya-Boh postings that
> constitute this (supposedly scientific)
> news-group.
Saw it when it came out. That's a popular press rendition. Better
> >>>> A much more reasonable hypothesis is trapping.
> >>>> Those hominids probably dug deep pits, put sharp
> >>>> stakes in the bottom, and covered them over with
> >>>> some kind of matting, disguised with mud or
> >>>> whatever was appropriate. The prey animals fell
> >>>> onto the stakes and died. Consequently selection
> >>>> was largely random, although enabling smaller,
> >>>> lighter-footed animals to escape more readily.
> >>>> Ambush hunting of large bovids by a group of
> >>>> bipeds would be crazily dangerous -- for the
> >>> No. What do you think "ambush" means?
> >> 1. The act of lying in wait to attack by surprise.
> >> 2. A sudden attack made from a concealed position.
> >> http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ambush
> >> How is that supposed to help? Would you
> > You go after smaller bovids. Duh.
> Goats? Don't you think that they might be a bit too
> fast and agile? If they can avoid being ambushed by
Gee, they can catch gazelles...
> cats at night, what chance does a hominid have at
> trying to do it by day?
Could you make less sense? First you claim they were easy prey, then
that they wiped out predators.
> >> If your tribe was to adopt an ambush strategy
> >> and mine had one of making traps (by digging
> >> pits and putting in staves) which would have
> >> the better life-expectancy?
> > What would they dig with?
> Animal horn (for 'picks') and brain-cases, or
> rib-cages, for 'shovels',
A pit big enough for large bovids? > koff koff <
> > Ge back to us after you watch the videos.
> As I say, you have a seven-year-old's conception
> of animal ecology. Groups of fit lions can take
> down large adult prey, but usually only when
> weakened by age or injury. In any case, one
> old injured sick lion could take out half-a-dozen
> adult humans without thinking about it.
>>>>>>> Bovid mortality profiles and early hominin meat-foraging
>>>>>>> capabilities at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania
>> Not true. Lion females often have four cubs.
>> Antelope typically have one calf each year
> How many survive? Esp. when a new alpha male takes over?
> Now, for extra credit, how does that compare with herds of
> THOUSANDS of animals?
If those _thousands_ of herd animals were
regularly available to predators, then there would
be thousands of predators. But, of course, they
are NOT regularly available.
>>>> But populations can survive lean times by
>>>> feeding on whatever prey they can find.
>>> You mean like huge herds of animals?
>> As I have told you before, such huge herds
>> move on. Only a small proportion get predated.
> Other herds move in.
As I say, you have a small child's understanding
of animal ecology.
The huge herds arrive (or congregate) only after
the rains, when there is lush growth of grass.
They rapidly eat it up, and move on, following
the rains, or (sometimes) dispersing to forage
elsewhere.
>> As you probably don't know, droughts often
>> result in the starvation of millions of wilde-
>> beeste and gazelles.
> And hominids were immune from drought? Doubtful. There
> would be even fewer of them as prey.
Insofar as hominids were present in that kind of
habitat, they were much less vulnerable to drought.
They did not (and could not) live in the open, on
high (and often dry) plains. Unlike the bovids,
their numbers did not expand rapidly when there
was a succession of good years (i.e. those with
plentiful rainfall). So their (tiny) numbers would
not be liable to catastrophical collapses when
bad years arrived (i.e. those with little or no
rainfall).
> ....
> The Chadian australopithecines occupied a largely open
> landscape dominated by C4 plants, in which traditional
> hominoid woodland or forest-derived resources were sparse, so
> a significant C4 dietary component might be considered
> unsurprising..... Our data show that by ~3.5 Ma A.
> bahrelghazali was fully engaged in exploiting C4 biomass. The
> results imply that australopithecines had become broad
> generalists foraging opportunistically for locally abundant
> resources that included significant quantities of savanna
> resources, unlike chimps.
The 'researchers' found 'data' that exactly
matched their assumptions and reinforced
conventional thinking.
What a surprise!
If they had found anything else, (a) they would not
have been allowed to write it up; (b) it would not
have got published. So (somewhat 'surprisingly')
they did not look for it, let alone 'find' it.
>> It is the task of paleo-anthropology to explain
>> how and why hominids were not an easy
>> target. It has conspicuously failed to do so.
>> All it can do (and all it ever has done) is try
>> to pretend that the question does not exist.
> On the contrary, they have indeed considered the issue.
> Go look up Kortlandt, for example.
He showed that chimps disliked leopards, and
were prepared to chase them away. Amazing!
That did NOT begin to constitute any kind of
explanation of how hominids could LIVE AND
SLEEP ON THE GROUND and survive predation
-- by day and by night -- from leopards and from
much larger carnivores.
>>>> Hominids would have made a very easy
>>>> lunch -- if they were available within that
>>>> pride's territory. Every last one would have
>>> What did they eat if there weren't any primates
>>> around?
>> Wart-hog, small antelope, porcupine, tortoise.
>> None of them easy.
> Gazelles, wildebeest, etc. Huge herds of them, one moves
> on, another moves in. That's how predators there today
> live. DUH
You have not got a clue about ecology. Prey
species LIKE to be in herds, the bigger the
better -- since for each animal it reduces the
likelihood of predation. But the grazing animals
are then competing more intensely for the food
(here the grass). It will be consumed rapidly
and the herd will have to move on. The local
predators have a few good weeks, but must
starve for the rest of the year -- until the rain
comes back, the grass grows again and the
huge herds return.
>> Eh? Do you deny that eustatic sea-levels
>> constantly (over geological time-scales) go
>> up and down? And that at every stage --
>> based on irregularities and undulations in
>> the terrestrial firmament, islands appear and
>> disappear?
> Eh? Do you have any geologic AND fossil evidence for
> these Fantasy Islands?
Look at a globe. You will see numerous islands
(like Britain, or Borneo, or Sulawesi, or Papua
NG) that were not islands 12 kya. They were
then joined to large continents. OK, if you are
a Creationist -- and believe in the Biblical Flood
-- or are just plain ignorant, you may deny this.
But no real scientist regards them as fantasies.
>>> Fossil evidence for hominids on these islands ->
>> As I have explained, numerous times, as the sea
>> moves in to cover (and as it later moves out from)
>> these islands, it creates coast-lines. These grind
>> up the ground and pulverise (and re-pulverize and
>> re-re-pulverize) potential fossils.
> And yet we do find fossils in such environments. Try
> again.
The most that can be found are fossils of marine
animals tossed up on to beaches immediately
after their latest re-creation (and then covered
by sand or mud).
>>> How did they get there ->
>> Walking on dry land (rising seas then creating
>> islands).
> What, those mean ol lions didn't get them before they
> could make it?
In the first instance, they were 'chimps' in the
trees. The relatively few large carnivores died
off, as they have on Borneo, Sulawesi, and on
all other large islands, within the last 12 kya.
The numbers and genetic pool gets too small.
The 'chimps' then became bipeds, and a few
hundred thousand years later were so strange
so rare and so peculiar that mainland carnivores
did not know what to make of them. So -- for a
very limited time -- they could get around on the
mainland, and a few of them found other off-
shore refuges.
>> I accept that it's only about 90 years since it
>> was realised that 'ice-ages' caused sea-levels
>> to rise and fall over geological time-scales, and
>> that we should not expect PA to absorb such
>> radically new ideas within so short a period.
>> So nothing about the creation and elimination
>> of such islands would ever have appeared in
>> any of your text-books.
> Good heavens, geology has never considered that islands
> come and go? Since when? Heard of Pangea? Whole
> continents coming and going...
I'm not talking about Geology, but about that
vastly more ignorant specialism, called Paleo-
Anthropology -- one that has not the slightest
awareness of relevant changes in the landscape.
>>>> Of course, they got off the islands at some
>>>> point, and that is where the story gets
>>>> interesting. I'll post on that separately
>>>> at some time.
>>> Oh, PLEASE do ;)
>> Done. See thread
>> Re: "Early Humans Doomed Large Carnivores Two Million Years Ago,Scientists Say"
>> You might have missed it -- amid all the
>> useless pointless Ya-Boh postings that
>> constitute this (supposedly scientific)
>> news-group.
The ignorant fools (i.e. PA types) who wrote that
(a) have no clue as to how hominids managed to
cope with the predators at the time they were
supposedly taking their prey off them;
(b) have no clue as to how hominids of 2.5 mya
could actually capture large bovids and antelope;
(c) have no clue as to where the hominids were
before that, and how they managed to escape
the large (or any) predators when they had
recently come down from the trees;
(d) have no clue as to how the bipeds survived
sleeping on the ground at night at any stage of
their existence (before they invented guns, trucks
and lights).
> Next?
An explanation of (a) to (d) above, please.
And saying "we survived, so we must have
survived somehow" does NOT constitute an
'explanation'.
>>>>> No. What do you think "ambush" means?
>>>> 1. The act of lying in wait to attack by surprise.
>>>> 2. A sudden attack made from a concealed position.
>>>> http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ambush
>>>> How is that supposed to help? Would you
>>> You go after smaller bovids. Duh.
>> Goats? Don't you think that they might be a bit too
>> fast and agile? If they can avoid being ambushed by
> Gee, they can catch gazelles...
Yeah, yeah. Yer hominids run really
REALLY fast. You jest love paleo-fantasy,
don'tcher? You and the wet-ape theorists
have exactly the same SORT of 'theories'.
each with as little connection to any reality,
and each with as much awareness of
evolutionary theory (such as the concept
of 'niche', or as much understanding of
recent geological change, e.g. eustatic
changes in sea-level).
In any case, the original paper (referred to
in the title of this thread) specifically makes
the point that there was NO selection for
smaller prey animals in the fossil assemblage.
They were of all ages and larger ones were
more common than the smaller.
> Paul Crowley wrote:
> > On 20/11/2012 00:50, RichTravsky wrote:
> > A foolish primate, just down from the trees,
> > would be very tempting, being hopelessly
> > slow on open ground. When it has 'forgotten'
> > how to run for trees and climb up them
> > quickly (with infants clinging to their mothers'
> > bellies) it becomes an apparently ridiculously
> > easy target.
> And hominids would have been quickly wiped out then. But guess what -
> that didn't happen. Oh, and guess further:
Hominid fossils are *always* found at locations with easy access to
fresh water and trees (which themselves are found near access to fresh
water). So all this intellectual hand-wringing about how early
hominids ("early" hominids being, in this instance, anything prior to
about 12 kya) persisted in treeless savanna habitat is nonsense.
> The Chadian australopithecines occupied a largely open landscape
> dominated by C4 plants, in which traditional hominoid woodland or
> forest-derived resources were sparse, so a significant C4 dietary
> component might be considered unsurprising.
You are, typically, over-interpreting the "C4 plant" evidence. All
this evidence does is differentiate the habitat from a closed canopy
rainforest--an environment where sunlight never reaches the ground,
without which "C4" grasses can't grow. "C4" grasses grow abundantly
in the monsoon forest habitat where the earliest hominids first
emerged. Thus this is a non-issue.
Obviously hominid resided in the treed, well-watered zones of a
monsoon/savanna habitat. Not only did they have little chance of
surviving predation out in treeless habitat but there was nothing for
them to eat or drink out there. And there was no shortage of hunting
opportunities in the communal setting of their treed, well-watered
community sites.
> ...
> Our data show that by ~3.5 Ma A. bahrelghazali was fully
> engaged in exploiting C4 biomass. The results imply that australopithecines
> had become broad generalists foraging opportunistically
> for locally abundant resources that included significant
> quantities of savanna resources, unlike chimps.
> ...
> > It is the task of paleo-anthropology to explain
> > how and why hominids were not an easy
> > target. It has conspicuously failed to do so.
> > All it can do (and all it ever has done) is try
> > to pretend that the question does not exist.
> On the contrary, they have indeed considered the issue. Go look
> up Kortlandt, for example.
Your imagination notwithstanding, there is nothing in Kortlandt that
suggests hominids did not reside in treed habitat. Nothing.
> > >> Hominids would have made a very easy
> > >> lunch -- if they were available within that
> > >> pride's territory. Every last one would have
> > > What did they eat if there weren't any primates
> > > around?
> > Wart-hog, small antelope, porcupine, tortoise.
> > None of them easy.
> Gazelles, wildebeest, etc. Huge herds of them, one moves on,
> another moves in. That's how predators there today live. DUH
The biggest clue of all: hominids do not live there today.
> > > Every last one? then how did the lions survive?
> > Many don't.
> What, not enough hominids to eat?
> > >> few million years of hominid evolution, they
> > >> could only live in safe predator-free habitats,
> > >> mostly off-shore islands.
> > > Geological evidence for these islands ->
> > Eh? Do you deny that eustatic sea-levels
> > constantly (over geological time-scales) go
> > up and down? And that at every stage --
> > based on irregularities and undulations in
> > the terrestrial firmament, islands appear and
> > disappear?
Paul, do you deny that these, "eustatic sea-level irregularities and
undulations" only began about 2 mya? Do you deny this? (Answer the
question you evasive jackass.)
> Eh? Do you have any geologic AND fossil evidence for these Fantasy Islands?
> Boss boss, the hominids!
> > > Fossil evidence for hominids on these islands ->
> > As I have explained, numerous times, as the sea
> > moves in to cover (and as it later moves out from)
> > these islands, it creates coast-lines. These grind
> > up the ground and pulverise (and re-pulverize and
> > re-re-pulverize) potential fossils.
> And yet we do find fossils in such environments. Try again.
This is a valid point, Paul. And frankly we've seen nothing from you
that amounts to much more than sweeping the issue under the rug.
Hominid fossils are often found in proximity of many of the species
associated with the Ethiopian Fauna, including some very formidable
predators: feline, hyena, dog/wolf, even otters as big as a small
bear. This evidence completely contradicts your supposition that
early hominids could not survive predatory pressure from apex
predators during the late Miocene, Pliocene, and Pleistocene.
Paul, IMO your tendency to ignore issues that contradict your scenario
puts you in the same category of the conventional theorist to whom for
which you are, rightly, so critical.
> > > How did they get there ->
> > Walking on dry land (rising seas then creating
> > islands).
> What, those mean ol lions didn't get them before they could make it?
Stupid question.
> > > How did they get back ->
> > By walking on dry land (falling seas re-joining
> > islands to the mainland), or by wading, or by
> > swimming.
> What, those mean ol lions didn't get them before they could make it?
> > I accept that it's only about 90 years since it
> > was realised that 'ice-ages' caused sea-levels
> > to rise and fall over geological time-scales,
Paul, the ice ages didn't start until 2mya (Pleistocene). By this
time hominids had been in existence for 2 to 4 mya.
> >>>>>>> Bovid mortality profiles and early hominin meat-foraging
> >>>>>>> capabilities at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania
> >> Not true. Lion females often have four cubs.
> >> Antelope typically have one calf each year
> > How many survive? Esp. when a new alpha male takes over?
No answer
> > Now, for extra credit, how does that compare with herds of
> > THOUSANDS of animals?
> If those _thousands_ of herd animals were
> regularly available to predators, then there would
> be thousands of predators. But, of course, they
> are NOT regularly available.
Wrong again. Prey always outnumbers predators in the wild. Otherwise,
the prey would be wiped out.
> >>>> But populations can survive lean times by
> >>>> feeding on whatever prey they can find.
> >>> You mean like huge herds of animals?
> >> As I have told you before, such huge herds
> >> move on. Only a small proportion get predated.
> > Other herds move in.
> As I say, you have a small child's understanding
> of animal ecology.
> The huge herds arrive (or congregate) only after
> the rains, when there is lush growth of grass.
> They rapidly eat it up, and move on, following
> the rains, or (sometimes) dispersing to forage
> elsewhere.
> >> As you probably don't know, droughts often
> >> result in the starvation of millions of wilde-
> >> beeste and gazelles.
> > And hominids were immune from drought? Doubtful. There
> > would be even fewer of them as prey.
> Insofar as hominids were present in that kind of
> habitat, they were much less vulnerable to drought.
Really? Your evidence? Do you know about savanna chimps?
> They did not (and could not) live in the open, on
> high (and often dry) plains. Unlike the bovids,
> their numbers did not expand rapidly when there
> was a succession of good years (i.e. those with
> plentiful rainfall). So their (tiny) numbers would
> not be liable to catastrophical collapses when
> bad years arrived (i.e. those with little or no
> rainfall).
Abstract
Foods derived from C4 plants were important in the dietary ecology
of early Pleistocene hominins in southern and eastern Africa,
but the origins and geographic variability of this relationship remain
unknown. Carbon isotope data show that Australopithecus
bahrelghazali individuals from Koro Toro in Chad are significantly
enriched in 13C, indicating a dependence on C4 resources.
As these sites are over 3 million years in age, the results extend the
pattern of C4 dependence seen in Paranthropus boisei in East Africa
by more than 1.5 million years. The Koro Toro hominin fossils were
found in argillaceous sandstone levels along with abundant grazing
and aquatic faunal elements that, in combination, indicate the
presence of open to wooded grasslands and stream channels associated
with a greatly enlarged Lake Chad. In such an environment,
the most abundant C4 plant resources available to A. bahrelghazali
were grasses and sedges, neither of which is usually considered as
standard great ape fare. The results suggest an early and fundamental
shift in hominin dietary ecology that facilitated the exploitation
of new habitats.
...
Relative abundances of bovids at KT13 show a
predominance of open-country grazers, including Reduncini
indicative of edaphic grasslands.
...
Together, the paleoenvironmental data indicate a northern Chad Basin
landscape with extensive grasslands and sparser trees, bordering an
expanded lake and associated stream channels.
Hence, A. bahrelghazali survived in an environment more open
than that inhabited by most other Pliocene taxa including its
contemporary A. afarensis in eastern Africa. Their
survival in such a habitat was possibly facilitated by dietary niche
expansion to include novel C4 resources, the exploitation of
which is uncommon among extant great apes including savannadwelling
chimpanzees, although more common among
many savanna baboons.
...
The Chadian australopithecines occupied a largely open landscape
dominated by C4 plants, in which traditional hominoid woodland or
forest-derived resources were sparse, so a significant C4 dietary
component might be considered unsurprising.
...
Our data show that by ~3.5 Ma A. bahrelghazali was fully
engaged in exploiting C4 biomass. The results imply that australopithecines
had become broad generalists foraging opportunistically
for locally abundant resources that included significant
quantities of savanna resources, unlike chimps.
...
> > ....
> > The Chadian australopithecines occupied a largely open
> > landscape dominated by C4 plants, in which traditional
> > hominoid woodland or forest-derived resources were sparse, so
> > a significant C4 dietary component might be considered
> > unsurprising..... Our data show that by ~3.5 Ma A.
> > bahrelghazali was fully engaged in exploiting C4 biomass. The
> > results imply that australopithecines had become broad
> > generalists foraging opportunistically for locally abundant
> > resources that included significant quantities of savanna
> > resources, unlike chimps.
> The 'researchers' found 'data' that exactly
> matched their assumptions and reinforced
> conventional thinking.
> What a surprise!
No, they researched and THEN drew conclusions. Feel free to post references to counter evidence...
> If they had found anything else, (a) they would not
> have been allowed to write it up; (b) it would not
Not allowed by WHO? LOL
> have got published. So (somewhat 'surprisingly')
> they did not look for it, let alone 'find' it.
Pollie, posting from Conspiracy Land. How are you and Ed Conrad getting
along?
> >> It is the task of paleo-anthropology to explain
> >> how and why hominids were not an easy
> >> target. It has conspicuously failed to do so.
> >> All it can do (and all it ever has done) is try
> >> to pretend that the question does not exist.
> > On the contrary, they have indeed considered the issue.
> > Go look up Kortlandt, for example.
> He showed that chimps disliked leopards, and
> were prepared to chase them away. Amazing!
> That did NOT begin to constitute any kind of
> explanation of how hominids could LIVE AND
> SLEEP ON THE GROUND and survive predation
> -- by day and by night -- from leopards and from
> much larger carnivores.
Leopards climb trees - ooops, can't sleep in the trees now!
> >>>> Hominids would have made a very easy
> >>>> lunch -- if they were available within that
> >>>> pride's territory. Every last one would have
> >>> What did they eat if there weren't any primates
> >>> around?
> >> Wart-hog, small antelope, porcupine, tortoise.
> >> None of them easy.
> > Gazelles, wildebeest, etc. Huge herds of them, one moves
> > on, another moves in. That's how predators there today
> > live. DUH
> You have not got a clue about ecology. Prey
> species LIKE to be in herds, the bigger the
Hominids are in herds? LOL
> better -- since for each animal it reduces the
> likelihood of predation. But the grazing animals
> are then competing more intensely for the food
> (here the grass). It will be consumed rapidly
> and the herd will have to move on. The local
> predators have a few good weeks, but must
> starve for the rest of the year -- until the rain
> comes back, the grass grows again and the
> huge herds return.
So now you're claiming the herds shrink to nothing????? LOL
> >> Eh? Do you deny that eustatic sea-levels
> >> constantly (over geological time-scales) go
> >> up and down? And that at every stage --
> >> based on irregularities and undulations in
> >> the terrestrial firmament, islands appear and
> >> disappear?
> > Eh? Do you have any geologic AND fossil evidence for
> > these Fantasy Islands?
> Look at a globe. You will see numerous islands
> (like Britain, or Borneo, or Sulawesi, or Papua
> NG) that were not islands 12 kya. They were
> then joined to large continents. OK, if you are
Goodness! And those predators didn't go there either?
> a Creationist -- and believe in the Biblical Flood
> -- or are just plain ignorant, you may deny this.
> But no real scientist regards them as fantasies.
> >>> Fossil evidence for hominids on these islands ->
> >> As I have explained, numerous times, as the sea
> >> moves in to cover (and as it later moves out from)
> >> these islands, it creates coast-lines. These grind
> >> up the ground and pulverise (and re-pulverize and
> >> re-re-pulverize) potential fossils.
> > And yet we do find fossils in such environments. Try
> > again.
> The most that can be found are fossils of marine
> animals tossed up on to beaches immediately
> after their latest re-creation (and then covered
> by sand or mud).
Marine fossils are found well inland too. Keep trying!
> On Nov 25, 9:03 pm, RichTravsky <traRvEskyM...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> Paul Crowley wrote:
>>>> Geological evidence for these islands ->
>>> Eh? Do you deny that eustatic sea-levels
>>> constantly (over geological time-scales) go
>>> up and down? And that at every stage --
>>> based on irregularities and undulations in
>>> the terrestrial firmament, islands appear and
>>> disappear?
> Paul, do you deny that these, "eustatic sea-level
> irregularities and undulations" only began about 2
> mya? Do you deny this?
To say that they began 2 mya is like saying
that weather began 2 mya. Ice-ages certainly
magnified them, but they were always present.
>>>> Fossil evidence for hominids on these islands ->
>>> As I have explained, numerous times, as the sea
>>> moves in to cover (and as it later moves out from)
>>> these islands, it creates coast-lines. These grind
>>> up the ground and pulverise (and re-pulverize and
>>> re-re-pulverize) potential fossils.
>> And yet we do find fossils in such environments. Try again.
> This is a valid point, Paul.
How can it be a valid point? It's like saying that
fossils can be found in the cement that makes
up buildings -- in the ground up sand, gravel
and cement powder. Of course nothing of more
than microscopic size can be found it it. The
most you will get is the very occasional body
(e.g.of Jimmy Hoffa) encased in it.
> And frankly we've seen nothing from you that amounts
> to much more than sweeping the issue under the rug.
> Hominid fossils are often found in proximity of many
> of the species associated with the Ethiopian Fauna,
> including some very formidable predators: feline,
> hyena, dog/wolf, even otters as big as a small bear.
If there are any such, I'd suggest that
(a) before about 3.5 mya hominids were very
thin on the ground in such places (i.e. the
predators out-numbered them 1,000 to one
-- or more) but that hominids deliberately buried
their deceased, for all the usual reasons, but
especially since they did not want animals
getting a taste for human flesh; and
(b) after about (very roughly) 3.5 mya, local
predators had good reasons to avoid the
hominids. The latter had found effective ways
to poison the predators, and keeping their
numbers down.
> This evidence completely contradicts your supposition
> that early hominids could not survive predatory
> pressure from apex predators during the late Miocene,
> Pliocene, and Pleistocene.
You have to say how and why. Waving your
arms in the dark at large predators is not going
to make them go away.
> Paul, the ice ages didn't start until 2mya (Pleistocene).
> By this time hominids had been in existence for 2 to 4
> mya.
Ice-ages introduced rises (and falls) of 100 metres
or so. Before then rises and falls of 20 to 40 metres
were common. Go to any coast, and see what
effect a rise (or fall) of 20 metres would have.
Nearly all modern cities would become un-
inhabitable with a rise. Many existing islands
would be destroyed; many new ones would
be created.
Such processes have been a constant feature
of every geologic era.
> On 30/11/2012 20:22, Jim McGinn wrote:
> >>> As I have explained, numerous times, as the sea
> >>> moves in to cover (and as it later moves out from)
> >>> these islands, it creates coast-lines. These grind
> >>> up the ground and pulverise (and re-pulverize and
> >>> re-re-pulverize) potential fossils.
> >> And yet we do find fossils in such environments. Try again.
> > This is a valid point, Paul.
> How can it be a valid point? It's like saying that
> fossils can be found in the cement that makes
> up buildings -- in the ground up sand, gravel
> and cement powder. Of course nothing of more
> than microscopic size can be found it it. The
> most you will get is the very occasional body
> (e.g.of Jimmy Hoffa) encased in it.
How is this relevant?
Hominid fossils are found at inland locations. Facts are facts.
> > And frankly we've seen nothing from you that amounts
> > to much more than sweeping the issue under the rug.
> > Hominid fossils are often found in proximity of many
> > of the species associated with the Ethiopian Fauna,
> > including some very formidable predators: feline,
> > hyena, dog/wolf, even otters as big as a small bear.
> If there are any such,
So, you are admitting that you don't know?
> I'd suggest that
> (a) before about 3.5 mya hominids were very
> thin on the ground in such places (i.e. the
> predators out-numbered them 1,000 to one
> -- or more) but that hominids deliberately buried
> their deceased, for all the usual reasons, but
> especially since they did not want animals
> getting a taste for human flesh; and
> (b) after about (very roughly) 3.5 mya, local
> predators had good reasons to avoid the
> hominids. The latter had found effective ways
> to poison the predators, and keeping their
> numbers down.
Your assertion is out of touch with statistical reality. If you find
a fossil you have to assume it was a "one in a million" (rare) and
that, therefore "millions" of other individual existed. We've found
hundreds if not thousands of hominid fossils (though most of them
consist of a piece of a single bone). If hominids were as rare as you
suggest then statistical reality suggests we would never find even one
fossil.
> > This evidence completely contradicts your supposition
> > that early hominids could not survive predatory
> > pressure from apex predators during the late Miocene,
> > Pliocene, and Pleistocene.
> You have to say how and why. Waving your
> arms in the dark at large predators is not going
> to make them go away.
We may never know exactly how and why, and that's an argument for a
different thread, AFAIC. But we do know that they must have had some
means of escaping annihilation from predators in that if they didn't
then their fossil wouldn't have been found where they've been found.
>>>>>>>>> Bovid mortality profiles and early hominin meat-foraging
>>>>>>>>> capabilities at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania
>> The huge herds arrive (or congregate) only after
>> the rains, when there is lush growth of grass.
>> They rapidly eat it up, and move on, following
>> the rains, or (sometimes) dispersing to forage
>> elsewhere.
>> He showed that chimps disliked leopards, and
>> were prepared to chase them away. Amazing!
>> That did NOT begin to constitute any kind of
>> explanation of how hominids could LIVE AND
>> SLEEP ON THE GROUND and survive predation
>> -- by day and by night -- from leopards and from
>> much larger carnivores.
> Leopards climb trees - ooops, can't sleep in the trees now!
When did humans (or their ancestral bipeds) last
regularly sleep in trees? Our primate relatives
(including chimps) can cope with leopard attacks
by night -- but not without difficulty; i.e. they take
much care and trouble to manage their sleeping
arrangements. Chimps have four prehensile
(grasping) limbs. The mother holds on to four
fairly thin branches, and her infant holds on to
her. So she can go higher in the tree than the
leopards, which need larger (about 6 4 inch
diameter) branches along which they can creep.
Males sleep lower down, providing protection.
(Leopards are not after adults, knowing that
adults can inflict severe injuries on them; they
are trying to get the young and babies.)
When our ancestors lost their four prehensile
limbs (i.e. when they adapted to bipedalism)
they also lost the ability to sleep in trees . . .
and lost the ancient (and predominant among
primates) means of avoiding nocturnal predation. This could only have happened in a location
where there were no such predators.
>> You have not got a clue about ecology. Prey
>> species LIKE to be in herds, the bigger the
>> better -- since for each animal it reduces the
>> likelihood of predation. But the grazing animals
>> are then competing more intensely for the food
>> (here the grass). It will be consumed rapidly
>> and the herd will have to move on. The local
>> predators have a few good weeks, but must
>> starve for the rest of the year -- until the rain
>> comes back, the grass grows again and the
>> huge herds return.
> So now you're claiming the herds shrink to nothing????? LOL
> These move in an annual pattern which is fairly predictable.
All migratory herds (as well as migratory flocks
(or birds) and shoals (of fish)) move move around
in an annual pattern that is fairly predictable.
They do it for two reasons -- (A) to find seasonally
available food, and (B) to minimise predation.
Their predators simply can't keep up with them.
You don't know this (after all, why should a PA
type know anything at all about natural history?) but it is a theoretically necessary and routinely
observed fact that -- from these migratory herds,
flocks and shoals -- local predators have a few
good weeks, but must then starve for the rest
of the year, or survive on relatively meagre
stocks of permanently-resident prey.
>>>>> Geological evidence for these islands ->
>>>> Eh? Do you deny that eustatic sea-levels
>>>> constantly (over geological time-scales) go
>>>> up and down? And that at every stage --
>>>> based on irregularities and undulations in
>>>> the terrestrial firmament, islands appear and
>>>> disappear?
>>> Eh? Do you have any geologic AND fossil evidence for
>>> these Fantasy Islands?
But why should a PA type know anything at all
about routine geology?
>> Look at a globe. You will see numerous islands
>> (like Britain, or Borneo, or Sulawesi, or Papua
>> NG) that were not islands 12 kya. They were
>> then joined to large continents. OK, if you are
> Goodness! And those predators didn't go there either?
There were plenty of tigers on (what were)
Borneo and Sulawesi 12 kya. The sea-levels
rose, and they became islands. The populations
of tigers (and other large predators) became too
small, with too limited a genetic pool to survive for
more than a few thousand years.
But why should a PA type know anything at all
about basic genetics?
>> In the first instance, they were 'chimps' in the
>> trees. The relatively few large carnivores died
>> off, as they have on Borneo, Sulawesi, and on
>> all other large islands, within the last 12 kya.
> Worthless. 12 kya would involved MODERN HUMANS. DUH
Are you seriously claiming that stone-age H/G on
Borneo, Papua NG and Sulawesi, ELIMINATED
every last tiger on those islands?
> Can't believe you've made such a STUPID mistake.
I can't believe that you are so stupid as to
think it was a mistake.
> So what about the time period of millions of years ago UP TO
> 12kya???????????????????
God help us! I am _referring_ to the last 12 Kyr
as ONE EXAMPLE of what happens when sea-
levels rise. I was (quite foolishly) expecting that
you might have some slight awareness of the
events of the last 12 kya.
But, in any case, such events have been common
(indeed, almost routine) throughout geological
and evolutionary history. Islands like Borneo and
Zanzibar have been created (and later destroyed)
time and time again within the last 10 or 100 or
1000 million years.
>> The numbers and genetic pool gets too small.
>> The 'chimps' then became bipeds, and a few
> Why did they become bipeds on these magic islands?
Because they could come down from the trees
and sleep on the ground -- there being no large
predators around. That made possible (and
essential) the bearing of weapons and tools,
which, in turn, needed better bipedalism.
>> hundred thousand years later were so strange
>> so rare and so peculiar that mainland carnivores
>> did not know what to make of them. So -- for a
> They would not see them as anything different. Predators go
> after humans today. Your argument about them being confused
> is crap.
Nonsense. If sharks routinely saw humans as
their prey, deaths would be in their millions every
year -- or people would stop swimming in the sea.
As it is, human deaths almost invariably occur
because the sharks mistake the swimmer (often
on a surf-board) for a seal, or one of their usual
prey.
>> I'm not talking about Geology, but about that
>> vastly more ignorant specialism, called Paleo-
>> Anthropology -- one that has not the slightest
>> awareness of relevant changes in the landscape.
> HAHHAH - paleo ecology and landscape changes are highly
> central in paleo anth. What do think drives evolutionary
> scenarios???
You must have read this in a book sometime.
Shame that you don't actually know anything
relevant from those disciplines. (But don't be
downhearted. Every other PA type is just as
ignorant as you.)
>> (a) have no clue as to how hominids managed to
>> cope with the predators at the time they were
>> supposedly taking their prey off them;
> And you do? Oh that's right - the magic islands. As opposed
> to work by Kortlandt.
What did Kortlandt say -- "the predators
must have preferred to ignore bipeds" . . ?
>> (b) have no clue as to how hominids of 2.5 mya
>> could actually capture large bovids and antelope;
> Scavenging. Taking down the weak and injured. Plain old
> hunting. DUH
Sure -- hominids are just as good at this as
lions, leopards and hyena. WE are GOOD
at EVERYTHING. We are really really great,
We are the best thing since sliced bread.
(That WAS in the Garden of Eden, wasn't it?
After all, how else could Adam and Eve have
enjoyed Paradise?)
>> (c) have no clue as to where the hominids were
>> before that, and how they managed to escape
>> the large (or any) predators when they had
>> recently come down from the trees;
> Predators climb trees too. Ooops.
All other primates get a good night's sleep
-- almost every night -- in trees. When did
you last sleep in a tree?
>> (d) have no clue as to how the bipeds survived
>> sleeping on the ground at night at any stage of
>> their existence (before they invented guns, trucks
>> and lights).
> Predators climb trees too. Double oops.
All other primates get a good night's sleep
-- almost every night -- in trees. When did
you last sleep in a tree?
>> And saying "we survived, so we must have
>> survived somehow" does NOT constitute an
>> 'explanation'.
> That is actual proof
And you regard THIS as a statement in Science?
PA clearly makes you stupid -- especially as
regards questions within your own 'discipline'.
On Dec 5, 10:06 am, Paul Crowley <dsfdsfd...@sdfsfsfs.com> wrote:
> On 03/12/2012 04:31, RichTravsky wrote:
> When our ancestors lost their four prehensile
> limbs (i.e. when they adapted to bipedalism)
> they also lost the ability to sleep in trees . . .
> and lost the ancient (and predominant among
> primates) means of avoiding nocturnal predation.
> This could only have happened in a location
> where there were no such predators.
The inner regions of a community site in my Ecological Gatekeeper
Hypothesis would have been predator free most of the time.
> Because they could come down from the trees
> and sleep on the ground -- there being no large
> predators around. That made possible (and
> essential) the bearing of weapons and tools,
> which, in turn, needed better bipedalism.
Excellent observation.
> >> I'm not talking about Geology, but about that
> >> vastly more ignorant specialism, called Paleo-
> >> Anthropology -- one that has not the slightest
> >> awareness of relevant changes in the landscape.
> > HAHHAH - paleo ecology and landscape changes are highly
> > central in paleo anth. What do think drives evolutionary
> > scenarios???
> You must have read this in a book sometime.
Travsky is such an obvious phoney. Note how he tries to claim to have
superior understanding of "what drives evolutionary scenarios" to draw
attention away from the fact that, by his own admission, he has no
scenario whatsoever. Nor can he point to anything from the (always
silent) professional PA's other than his vague, and plainly silly,
long distance running notions.
> Shame that you don't actually know anything
> relevant from those disciplines. (But don't be
> downhearted. Every other PA type is just as
> ignorant as you.)
They are totally committed to maintaining vagueness.
> >> (a) have no clue as to how hominids managed to
> >> cope with the predators at the time they were
> >> supposedly taking their prey off them;
> > And you do? Oh that's right - the magic islands. As opposed
> > to work by Kortlandt.
> What did Kortlandt say -- "the predators
> must have preferred to ignore bipeds" . . ?
Note how Travsky keeps dropping the name, Kortlandt, but he won't
explicate what it is that he, supposedly, finds so significant about
Kordtlands work? It' shows how desperate they are to maintain the
veil of vagueness.
> >> (b) have no clue as to how hominids of 2.5 mya
> >> could actually capture large bovids and antelope;
> > Scavenging. Taking down the weak and injured. Plain old
> > hunting. DUH
> Sure -- hominids are just as good at this as
> lions, leopards and hyena. WE are GOOD
> at EVERYTHING. We are really really great,
> We are the best thing since sliced bread.
> (That WAS in the Garden of Eden, wasn't it?
> After all, how else could Adam and Eve have
> enjoyed Paradise?)
> >> (c) have no clue as to where the hominids were
> >> before that, and how they managed to escape
> >> the large (or any) predators when they had
> >> recently come down from the trees;
> > Predators climb trees too. Ooops.
> All other primates get a good night's sleep
> -- almost every night -- in trees. When did
> you last sleep in a tree?
> >> (d) have no clue as to how the bipeds survived
> >> sleeping on the ground at night at any stage of
> >> their existence (before they invented guns, trucks
> >> and lights).
> > Predators climb trees too. Double oops.
> All other primates get a good night's sleep
> -- almost every night -- in trees. When did
> you last sleep in a tree?
> >> And saying "we survived, so we must have
> >> survived somehow" does NOT constitute an
> >> 'explanation'.
> > That is actual proof
> And you regard THIS as a statement in Science?
> PA clearly makes you stupid -- especially as
> regards questions within your own 'discipline'.
Sorry, Paul, but the location that hominid fossils are found is
inconsistent with the "predator free islands" aspects of your
scenario. You need to confront this fact head on. Don't fall into
the trap of using vagueness to make your case for you. Don't become
like them.
> Sorry, Paul, but the location that hominid fossils are found
> is inconsistent with the "predator free islands" aspects of
> your scenario.
It is not inconsistent in any way, as I have
explained time and time again.
It is inept to regard the location of fossils as a
reliable guide to the usual habitat of the living
species. The survival of a corpse after death
and its long-term fossilisation depend, more
than anything, on the immediate conditions in
which the body was placed, on or immediately
after, death (i.e. in effect it has to be buried)
and the nature of that ground -- it has to
remain substantially undisturbed, and not be
subject to leaching from heavy rainfall.
Many species, known or assumed to have
been numerous, leave no or very few fossils. Take chimpanzees and gorilla, for example; our two closest cousins. They leave no fossils.
Let's say that a few are found in some
unexpected location -- such as, say, high in
some paleo-desert. No one would (I hope)
maintain that they lived in such a place. It
would merely indicate that a few individuals
died in a place where their were quickly
covered by sand or earth, and thus preserved,
and then became fossilized.
Coastal regions are the most hostile to such
preservation, as (over geological periods)
coasts move backwards and forwards over
the landscape, grinding up the ground to
depths of many metres, dispersing it along
the coast, and usually re-grinding it up again
many times.
> You need to confront this fact head on.
I have -- numerous times.
> Don't fall into the trap of using vagueness to
> make your case for you. Don't become like them.
The vagueness is often in your own head.
The word does not mean 'disagrees with my
ideas'.
> >>>>>>>>> Bovid mortality profiles and early hominin meat-foraging
> >>>>>>>>> capabilities at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania
> >> The huge herds arrive (or congregate) only after
> >> the rains, when there is lush growth of grass.
> >> They rapidly eat it up, and move on, following
> >> the rains, or (sometimes) dispersing to forage
> >> elsewhere.
> >> He showed that chimps disliked leopards, and
> >> were prepared to chase them away. Amazing!
> >> That did NOT begin to constitute any kind of
> >> explanation of how hominids could LIVE AND
> >> SLEEP ON THE GROUND and survive predation
> >> -- by day and by night -- from leopards and from
> >> much larger carnivores.
> > Leopards climb trees - ooops, can't sleep in the trees now!
> When did humans (or their ancestral bipeds) last
> regularly sleep in trees? Our primate relatives
Tell us. We await your evidence wih baited breath.
> (including chimps) can cope with leopard attacks
> by night -- but not without difficulty; i.e. they take
> much care and trouble to manage their sleeping
> arrangements. Chimps have four prehensile
> (grasping) limbs. The mother holds on to four
Humans only have two grasping limbs. Hmmm!
> fairly thin branches, and her infant holds on to
> her. So she can go higher in the tree than the
> leopards, which need larger (about 6 4 inch
> diameter) branches along which they can creep.
> Males sleep lower down, providing protection.
> (Leopards are not after adults, knowing that
> adults can inflict severe injuries on them; they
> are trying to get the young and babies.)
> When our ancestors lost their four prehensile
> limbs (i.e. when they adapted to bipedalism)
> they also lost the ability to sleep in trees . . .
Humans can sleep in trees quite fine if they want.
> and lost the ancient (and predominant among
> primates) means of avoiding nocturnal predation.
> This could only have happened in a location
> where there were no such predators.
Pollie - you DO know that chimps and gorillas build nests???
> >> You have not got a clue about ecology. Prey
> >> species LIKE to be in herds, the bigger the
> >> better -- since for each animal it reduces the
> >> likelihood of predation. But the grazing animals
> >> are then competing more intensely for the food
> >> (here the grass). It will be consumed rapidly
> >> and the herd will have to move on. The local
> >> predators have a few good weeks, but must
> >> starve for the rest of the year -- until the rain
> >> comes back, the grass grows again and the
> >> huge herds return.
> > So now you're claiming the herds shrink to nothing????? LOL
> > These move in an annual pattern which is fairly predictable.
> All migratory herds (as well as migratory flocks
> (or birds) and shoals (of fish)) move move around
> in an annual pattern that is fairly predictable.
> They do it for two reasons -- (A) to find seasonally
> available food, and (B) to minimise predation.
> Their predators simply can't keep up with them.
> You don't know this (after all, why should a PA
> type know anything at all about natural history?)
> but it is a theoretically necessary and routinely
> observed fact that -- from these migratory herds,
> flocks and shoals -- local predators have a few
> good weeks, but must then starve for the rest
> of the year, or survive on relatively meagre
> stocks of permanently-resident prey.
So, you have evidence of starving 90% of the year? You
know, actual numbers???
> >>>>> Geological evidence for these islands ->
> >>>> Eh? Do you deny that eustatic sea-levels
> >>>> constantly (over geological time-scales) go
> >>>> up and down? And that at every stage --
> >>>> based on irregularities and undulations in
> >>>> the terrestrial firmament, islands appear and
> >>>> disappear?
> >>> Eh? Do you have any geologic AND fossil evidence for
> >>> these Fantasy Islands?
> But why should a PA type know anything at all
> about routine geology?
Why would a kook dream things up without evidence?
> >> Look at a globe. You will see numerous islands
> >> (like Britain, or Borneo, or Sulawesi, or Papua
> >> NG) that were not islands 12 kya. They were
> >> then joined to large continents. OK, if you are
> > Goodness! And those predators didn't go there either?
> There were plenty of tigers on (what were)
> Borneo and Sulawesi 12 kya. The sea-levels
> rose, and they became islands. The populations
> of tigers (and other large predators) became too
> small, with too limited a genetic pool to survive for
> more than a few thousand years.
> But why should a PA type know anything at all
> about basic genetics?
Twelve kya? Modern humans? DUH?
But why should a kook type know when genetically modern humans were around?
> >> In the first instance, they were 'chimps' in the
> >> trees. The relatively few large carnivores died
> >> off, as they have on Borneo, Sulawesi, and on
> >> all other large islands, within the last 12 kya.
> > Worthless. 12 kya would involved MODERN HUMANS. DUH
> Are you seriously claiming that stone-age H/G on
> Borneo, Papua NG and Sulawesi, ELIMINATED
> every last tiger on those islands?
You are.
> > Can't believe you've made such a STUPID mistake.
> I can't believe that you are so stupid as to
> think it was a mistake.
Those were modern humans. Quite capable of hunting and
defending themselves. DUH
> > So what about the time period of millions of years ago UP TO
> > 12kya???????????????????
> God help us! I am _referring_ to the last 12 Kyr
> as ONE EXAMPLE of what happens when sea-
> levels rise. I was (quite foolishly) expecting that
> you might have some slight awareness of the
> events of the last 12 kya.
> But, in any case, such events have been common
> (indeed, almost routine) throughout geological
> and evolutionary history. Islands like Borneo and
> Zanzibar have been created (and later destroyed)
> time and time again within the last 10 or 100 or
> 1000 million years.
> >> The numbers and genetic pool gets too small.
> >> The 'chimps' then became bipeds, and a few
> > Why did they become bipeds on these magic islands?
> Because they could come down from the trees
> and sleep on the ground -- there being no large
> predators around. That made possible (and
> essential) the bearing of weapons and tools,
> which, in turn, needed better bipedalism.
Predators climb trees. DUH
> >> hundred thousand years later were so strange
> >> so rare and so peculiar that mainland carnivores
> >> did not know what to make of them. So -- for a
> > They would not see them as anything different. Predators go
> > after humans today. Your argument about them being confused
> > is crap.
> Nonsense. If sharks routinely saw humans as
> their prey, deaths would be in their millions every
They do see humans as prey. DUH The difference is that there's more
hunting territory and prey out in the open water. DUH
> year -- or people would stop swimming in the sea.
> As it is, human deaths almost invariably occur
> because the sharks mistake the swimmer (often
> on a surf-board) for a seal, or one of their usual
> prey.
> >> I'm not talking about Geology, but about that
> >> vastly more ignorant specialism, called Paleo-
> >> Anthropology -- one that has not the slightest
> >> awareness of relevant changes in the landscape.
> > HAHHAH - paleo ecology and landscape changes are highly
> > central in paleo anth. What do think drives evolutionary
> > scenarios???
> You must have read this in a book sometime.
> Shame that you don't actually know anything
> relevant from those disciplines. (But don't be
> downhearted. Every other PA type is just as
> ignorant as you.)
> lions, leopards and hyena. WE are GOOD
> at EVERYTHING. We are really really great,
> We are the best thing since sliced bread.
> (That WAS in the Garden of Eden, wasn't it?
> After all, how else could Adam and Eve have
> enjoyed Paradise?)
> >> (c) have no clue as to where the hominids were
> >> before that, and how they managed to escape
> >> the large (or any) predators when they had
> >> recently come down from the trees;
> > Predators climb trees too. Ooops.
> All other primates get a good night's sleep
> -- almost every night -- in trees. When did
> you last sleep in a tree?
>>>>>>>>>>> Bovid mortality profiles and early hominin meat-foraging
>>> Leopards climb trees - ooops, can't sleep in the trees now!
>> When did humans (or their ancestral bipeds) last
>> regularly sleep in trees? Our primate relatives
> Tell us. We await your evidence wih baited breath.
You'll find the first item of evidence breathtaking --
and never noticed (nor noted) in any standard PA
publication. It's this: Out of every 24 hours on
this planet, there are, on average, 12 hours of
darkness. You don't know this because you are
asleep for most of them, as are your colleagues.
A second fact, of which you are probably unaware,
is that modern hominids (i.e. us) sleep in a different
manner from that of all other primates; i.e. we do
not sleep in trees. A third fact is that this change
in behaviour in the hominid line took place at some
quite definite time, for a distinct reason.
A fourth fact is that the sleeping behaviour, with
sleeping posture, is a crucial aspect of the niche
of every species. (You don't know about this, nor
does any other PA person, since you have never
grasped the concept of niche with regards to
humans/hominids.) A drastic change in that
behaviour or posture will be reflected in its
anatomy. The last major change in the anatomy
of the hominid line came with the adoption of
bipedalism around 6 mya. THAT was around
the time our ancestors stopped sleeping in trees.
>> (including chimps) can cope with leopard attacks
>> by night -- but not without difficulty; i.e. they take
>> much care and trouble to manage their sleeping
>> arrangements. Chimps have four prehensile
>> (grasping) limbs. The mother holds on to four
> Humans only have two grasping limbs. Hmmm!
Yes. I'm glad to see that you have noticed that.
It means that they cannot sleep in trees while
holding on to branches while also holding on
to their infants. As you so sagely remark,
leopards can climb trees too. Hominids could
never sleep in trees, let alone above the height
at which a leopard could easily hunt.
>> fairly thin branches, and her infant holds on to
>> her. So she can go higher in the tree than the
>> leopards, which need larger (about 6 4 inch
>> diameter) branches along which they can creep.
>> Males sleep lower down, providing protection.
>> (Leopards are not after adults, knowing that
>> adults can inflict severe injuries on them; they
>> are trying to get the young and babies.)
>> When our ancestors lost their four prehensile
>> limbs (i.e. when they adapted to bipedalism)
>> they also lost the ability to sleep in trees . . .
> Humans can sleep in trees quite fine if they want.
See above. Also tell us (a) when you last slept
in a tree; (b) when someone you personally
know last slept in a tree; (c) how a human
mother would hold on to an infant when up a
tree, and manage to get a night's sleep? and
(d) which tribes are known to do this
routinely -- or regularly -- or ever.
>> and lost the ancient (and predominant among
>> primates) means of avoiding nocturnal predation.
>> This could only have happened in a location
>> where there were no such predators.
> Pollie - you DO know that chimps and gorillas build nests???
They build nests at whatever height they find safe
(in the time and circumstances) and comfortable.
In the presence of hunting leopards they will sacrifice
comfort for safety.
>> You don't know this (after all, why should a PA
>> type know anything at all about natural history?)
>> but it is a theoretically necessary and routinely
>> observed fact that -- from these migratory herds,
>> flocks and shoals -- local predators have a few
>> good weeks, but must then starve for the rest
>> of the year, or survive on relatively meagre
>> stocks of permanently-resident prey.
> So, you have evidence of starving 90% of the year? You
> know, actual numbers???
It is well known, and commonly observed, that
predators starve. Do you find that hard to believe?
Are you under the impression that predators
expand their numbers indefinitely? Or do they
exercise contraception unless they are certain
their infants will prosper?
>>>> In the first instance, they were 'chimps' in the
>>>> trees. The relatively few large carnivores died
>>>> off, as they have on Borneo, Sulawesi, and on
>>>> all other large islands, within the last 12 kya.
>>> Worthless. 12 kya would involved MODERN HUMANS. DUH
>> Are you seriously claiming that stone-age H/G on
>> Borneo, Papua NG and Sulawesi, ELIMINATED
>> every last tiger on those islands?
> You are.
I am claiming no such thing. I could not be as
ignorant as your bog-standard PA type.
>>> Can't believe you've made such a STUPID mistake.
>> I can't believe that you are so stupid as to
>> think it was a mistake.
> Those were modern humans. Quite capable of hunting and
> defending themselves. DUH
So the stone-age natives of Borneo, Sulawesi, the
Philippines, Taiwan, etc., etc., went into thick jungle
to hunt tigers, and were so successful that they got
every last one of them? And on every one of those
islands . . ?
>>> They would not see them as anything different. Predators go
>>> after humans today. Your argument about them being confused
>>> is crap.
>> Nonsense. If sharks routinely saw humans as
>> their prey, deaths would be in their millions every
> They do see humans as prey. DUH The difference is that there's more
> hunting territory and prey out in the open water. DUH
> Twenty nine million plus hits. Connect the dots there, DUH
That must make it true. Btw, 'God' produces
1,820,000,000 hits. So HIS / HER existence
is 60 times more true.
> Let's see - you rely on magical islands that someone
> hominids went to without ANY predators following them...
Fact (unknown to PA) large predators go extinct
on islands. (There are a few thousand in the world,
so it's easy to check the rule.)
Fact (unknown to PA) A primate that loses its
ability to move quickly, AND to shin up trees,
AND to carry its young while running, fighting,
climbing, etc., and which has yet to acquire
sophistication in running or walking bipedally,
would be exceedingly vulnerable to predation.
It would not (and could not) change its behaviour
and its anatomy unless it was in a predator-free
environment.
On Dec 12, 3:16 pm, Paul Crowley <dsfdsfd...@sdfsfsfs.com> wrote:
> On 10/12/2012 04:42, RichTravsky wrote:
> It would not (and could not) change its behaviour
> and its anatomy unless it was in a predator-free
> environment.
Hominid's relationship and strategy of dealing with predation upon
themselves changed significantly over millions of years as they
gradually evolved the social and communal adaptations that define
hominids. Ground sleeping probably evolved gradually over millions of
years and probably, especially at first, only involved sleeping on the
ground part of the year and/or involved sleeping close to trees so
that when the alert was sounded they could quickly scramble to the
trees.
As I've explained previously, it was their success in pest control
agriculture that allowed them some degree of stealth from predation in
that predators tended to target localities that had starving or
weakened prey and a community's pest control agricultural practices
brought insurance that their locality would not have starving or
weakened prey. So, hominid's pest control agricultural practices had
the additional benefit of taking them off the radar screen of
predators, in general.
It's important to understand that hominid predator avoidance strategy
was very much a communal endeavor. A community that failed to
maintain its wealth would lose it's stealth from predation and could
very well draw the attention of predators which could result in the
extinction of the whole community as the predators moved in and stayed
for weeks at a time (during the depths of the dry season), picking
them off one individual at a time.
The communal selection indicated in the above paragraph was the
selective engine underlying the emergence of symbolic thought and the
other social adaptations that are so unique to our species.
Paul, the problem with taking predators out of the picture altogether
(ala your predator free islands) is it eliminates the one thing that
can possibly explain the selective emergence of the highly social,
communal, communicative, and intellectually sophisticated species that
hominids are: predatory massacres during the dry season. IOW, without
predatory massacres that eliminated the less cooperative, dumber, less
communicative, and less socially sophisticated communal entities then
those that were more cooperative, smarter, more communicative, and
more socially sophisticated--our ancestors--would not have had a
selective advantage.
The most important thing to understand about human evolution is that
the level of selection shifted away from that of the individual or
breeding group to that of the community as a whole. In the manner
described above, only if predators were a part of that equation would
it be possible to shift the unit of selection up to that of the
community, without which humans could not have and would not have
evolved.
So, in short, predators are essential to understanding how human
evolved from chimpanzee-like creatures into the socially adept
creature that we actually are.
> On Dec 5, 10:06 am, Paul Crowley <dsfdsfd...@sdfsfsfs.com> wrote:
> > On 03/12/2012 04:31, RichTravsky wrote:
> > When our ancestors lost their four prehensile
> > limbs (i.e. when they adapted to bipedalism)
> > they also lost the ability to sleep in trees . . .
> > and lost the ancient (and predominant among
> > primates) means of avoiding nocturnal predation.
> > This could only have happened in a location
> > where there were no such predators.
> The inner regions of a community site in my Ecological Gatekeeper
> Hypothesis would have been predator free most of the time.
> >>>>>>>>>>> Bovid mortality profiles and early hominin meat-foraging
> >>> Leopards climb trees - ooops, can't sleep in the trees now!
> >> When did humans (or their ancestral bipeds) last
> >> regularly sleep in trees? Our primate relatives
> > Tell us. We await your evidence wih baited breath.
> You'll find the first item of evidence breathtaking --
> and never noticed (nor noted) in any standard PA
> publication. It's this: Out of every 24 hours on
> this planet, there are, on average, 12 hours of
> darkness. You don't know this because you are
> asleep for most of them, as are your colleagues.
> A second fact, of which you are probably unaware,
> is that modern hominids (i.e. us) sleep in a different
> manner from that of all other primates; i.e. we do
> not sleep in trees. A third fact is that this change
> in behaviour in the hominid line took place at some
> quite definite time, for a distinct reason.
> A fourth fact is that the sleeping behaviour, with
> sleeping posture, is a crucial aspect of the niche
> of every species. (You don't know about this, nor
> does any other PA person, since you have never
> grasped the concept of niche with regards to
> humans/hominids.) A drastic change in that
> behaviour or posture will be reflected in its
> anatomy. The last major change in the anatomy
> of the hominid line came with the adoption of
> bipedalism around 6 mya. THAT was around
> the time our ancestors stopped sleeping in trees.
A fifth fact - you still haven't produced any scientific evidence.
> >> (including chimps) can cope with leopard attacks
> >> by night -- but not without difficulty; i.e. they take
> >> much care and trouble to manage their sleeping
> >> arrangements. Chimps have four prehensile
> >> (grasping) limbs. The mother holds on to four
> > Humans only have two grasping limbs. Hmmm!
> Yes. I'm glad to see that you have noticed that.
> It means that they cannot sleep in trees while
> holding on to branches while also holding on
> to their infants. As you so sagely remark,
> leopards can climb trees too. Hominids could
> never sleep in trees, let alone above the height
> at which a leopard could easily hunt.
Chimps build nests. They didn't have to hang on. Duh.
> >> fairly thin branches, and her infant holds on to
> >> her. So she can go higher in the tree than the
> >> leopards, which need larger (about 6 4 inch
> >> diameter) branches along which they can creep.
> >> Males sleep lower down, providing protection.
> >> (Leopards are not after adults, knowing that
> >> adults can inflict severe injuries on them; they
> >> are trying to get the young and babies.)
> >> When our ancestors lost their four prehensile
> >> limbs (i.e. when they adapted to bipedalism)
> >> they also lost the ability to sleep in trees . . .
> > Humans can sleep in trees quite fine if they want.
> See above. Also tell us (a) when you last slept
> in a tree; (b) when someone you personally
> know last slept in a tree; (c) how a human
> mother would hold on to an infant when up a
> tree, and manage to get a night's sleep? and
> (d) which tribes are known to do this
> routinely -- or regularly -- or ever.
I said they can - not that they do. DUH
Oh, and once again, chimps build nests - no hanging on needed.
> >> and lost the ancient (and predominant among
> >> primates) means of avoiding nocturnal predation.
> >> This could only have happened in a location
> >> where there were no such predators.
> > Pollie - you DO know that chimps and gorillas build nests???
> They build nests at whatever height they find safe
> (in the time and circumstances) and comfortable.
> In the presence of hunting leopards they will sacrifice
> comfort for safety.
> >> You don't know this (after all, why should a PA
> >> type know anything at all about natural history?)
> >> but it is a theoretically necessary and routinely
> >> observed fact that -- from these migratory herds,
> >> flocks and shoals -- local predators have a few
> >> good weeks, but must then starve for the rest
> >> of the year, or survive on relatively meagre
> >> stocks of permanently-resident prey.
> > So, you have evidence of starving 90% of the year? You
> > know, actual numbers???
> It is well known, and commonly observed, that
> predators starve. Do you find that hard to believe?
> Are you under the impression that predators
> expand their numbers indefinitely? Or do they
> exercise contraception unless they are certain
> their infants will prosper?
And yet, they survive quite fine without eating hominids. Wow!
Perhaps you make a mountain out of a mole hill...
Not to mention flunking math. Hominids would have to exist in huge numbers
to carry allllllllllllllllllllllllllll those predators through a season.
How many hominids would be needed to satisfy a hungry group of predators, eh?
> >>>> In the first instance, they were 'chimps' in the
> >>>> trees. The relatively few large carnivores died
> >>>> off, as they have on Borneo, Sulawesi, and on
> >>>> all other large islands, within the last 12 kya.
> >>> Worthless. 12 kya would involved MODERN HUMANS. DUH
> >> Are you seriously claiming that stone-age H/G on
> >> Borneo, Papua NG and Sulawesi, ELIMINATED
> >> every last tiger on those islands?
> > You are.
> I am claiming no such thing. I could not be as
> ignorant as your bog-standard PA type.
> >>> Can't believe you've made such a STUPID mistake.
> >> I can't believe that you are so stupid as to
> >> think it was a mistake.
> > Those were modern humans. Quite capable of hunting and
> > defending themselves. DUH
> So the stone-age natives of Borneo, Sulawesi, the
> Philippines, Taiwan, etc., etc., went into thick jungle
> to hunt tigers, and were so successful that they got
> every last one of them? And on every one of those
> islands . . ?
> >>> They would not see them as anything different. Predators go
> >>> after humans today. Your argument about them being confused
> >>> is crap.
> >> Nonsense. If sharks routinely saw humans as
> >> their prey, deaths would be in their millions every
> > They do see humans as prey. DUH The difference is that there's more
> > hunting territory and prey out in the open water. DUH
> > Twenty nine million plus hits. Connect the dots there, DUH
> That must make it true. Btw, 'God' produces
> 1,820,000,000 hits. So HIS / HER existence
> is 60 times more true.
> > Let's see - you rely on magical islands that someone
> > hominids went to without ANY predators following them...
> Fact (unknown to PA) large predators go extinct
> on islands. (There are a few thousand in the world,
> so it's easy to check the rule.)
> Fact (unknown to PA) A primate that loses its
> ability to move quickly, AND to shin up trees,
> AND to carry its young while running, fighting,
> climbing, etc., and which has yet to acquire
> sophistication in running or walking bipedally,
> would be exceedingly vulnerable to predation.
> It would not (and could not) change its behaviour
> and its anatomy unless it was in a predator-free
> environment.
>>>>>>>>>>>>> Bovid mortality profiles and early hominin meat-foraging
>>>>> Leopards climb trees - ooops, can't sleep in the trees now!
>>>> When did humans (or their ancestral bipeds) last
>>>> regularly sleep in trees? Our primate relatives
>>> Tell us. We await your evidence wih baited breath.
>> You'll find the first item of evidence breathtaking --
>> and never noticed (nor noted) in any standard PA
>> publication. It's this: Out of every 24 hours on
>> this planet, there are, on average, 12 hours of
>> darkness. You don't know this because you are
>> asleep for most of them, as are your colleagues.
>> A second fact, of which you are probably unaware,
>> is that modern hominids (i.e. us) sleep in a different
>> manner from that of all other primates; i.e. we do
>> not sleep in trees. A third fact is that this change
>> in behaviour in the hominid line took place at some
>> quite definite time, for a distinct reason.
>> A fourth fact is that the sleeping behaviour, with
>> sleeping posture, is a crucial aspect of the niche
>> of every species. (You don't know about this, nor
>> does any other PA person, since you have never
>> grasped the concept of niche with regards to
>> humans/hominids.) A drastic change in that
>> behaviour or posture will be reflected in its
>> anatomy. The last major change in the anatomy
>> of the hominid line came with the adoption of
>> bipedalism around 6 mya. THAT was around
>> the time our ancestors stopped sleeping in trees.
> A fifth fact - you still haven't produced any scientific evidence.
You don't know what 'scientific evidence' is. You imagine that it must be produced by some-
one in a white coat, and consist of masses of
detailed tables of figures. But what 'scientific
evidence' did Einstein have when he wrote those
earth-shattering papers in 1904? What 'scientific
evidence' did Copernicus have? Or Galileo?
Or Robert Boyle? Or Newton? Or any of the
truly great?
They had a few facts, not different in principle or
style from those I list above. But, for the first
time in history, they considered them carefully
and objectively; they ignored ancient myths and
came to logical conclusions.
>> Yes. I'm glad to see that you have noticed that.
>> It means that they cannot sleep in trees while
>> holding on to branches while also holding on
>> to their infants. As you so sagely remark,
>> leopards can climb trees too. Hominids could
>> never sleep in trees, let alone above the height
>> at which a leopard could easily hunt.
> Chimps build nests. They didn't have to hang on. Duh.
Note the non-answer. (Not deliberate, of course,
You are so dumb that you don't know what a
question is, let alone how to answer it, and
you don't begin to be aware of when you are
failing to provide an answer.)
Could humans/hominids EVER sleep in a tree
above the height a leopard could reach?
Lets put the question in another way: Before
they had huts, enclosures, dogs, fire, etc.,
could humans/hominids routinely occupy
the same territory as leopards?
> Chimps build nests. They didn't have to hang on. Duh.
Read, before you splurge. Chimps make fresh
nests every night by bending over SMALL
branches. Those nests support their weight,
but often they will still have to hang on with
their hands and feet, especially mothers with
small infants when they need to go high to
avoid leopard predation (of those infants).
>>>> fairly thin branches, and her infant holds on to
>>>> her. So she can go higher in the tree than the
>>>> leopards, which need larger (about 6 4 inch
>>>> diameter) branches along which they can creep.
>>>> Males sleep lower down, providing protection.
>>>> (Leopards are not after adults, knowing that
>>>> adults can inflict severe injuries on them; they
>>>> are trying to get the young and babies.)
>>>> When our ancestors lost their four prehensile
>>>> limbs (i.e. when they adapted to bipedalism)
>>>> they also lost the ability to sleep in trees . . .
>>> Humans can sleep in trees quite fine if they want.
>> See above. Also tell us (a) when you last slept
>> in a tree; (b) when someone you personally
>> know last slept in a tree; (c) how a human
>> mother would hold on to an infant when up a
>> tree, and manage to get a night's sleep? and
>> (d) which tribes are known to do this
>> routinely -- or regularly -- or ever.
> I said they can - not that they do. DUH
Yeah, yeah. Billions of humans in millions
of communities, and you cannot quote one
that EVER sleeps in trees. Pigs can fly --
it's just that you will never see it happening
(except in your dreams).
> Oh, and once again, chimps build nests - no hanging on
> needed.
Read, before you splurge. Chimps make fresh
nests every night by bending over SMALL
branches. Those nests support their weight,
but they will still have to hang on with their
arms and feet, especially mothers with
small infants who need to go high to avoid
leopard predation.
>>>> and lost the ancient (and predominant among
>>>> primates) means of avoiding nocturnal predation.
>>>> This could only have happened in a location
>>>> where there were no such predators.
>>> Pollie - you DO know that chimps and gorillas build nests???
>> They build nests at whatever height they find safe
>> (in the time and circumstances) and comfortable.
>> In the presence of hunting leopards they will sacrifice
>> comfort for safety.
> Well finally Pollie mentions nests...
Read, before you splurge. Chimps make fresh
nests every night by bending over SMALL
branches. Those nests support their weight,
but they will still have to hang on with their
arms and feet, especially mothers with
small infants who need to go high to avoid
leopard predation.
>> It is well known, and commonly observed, that
>> predators starve. Do you find that hard to believe?
>> Are you under the impression that predators
>> expand their numbers indefinitely? Or do they
>> exercise contraception unless they are certain
>> their infants will prosper?
> And yet, they survive quite fine without eating hominids. Wow!
Usually they barely survive, and then only by
scraping the bottom of the barrel -- to catch and
eat the likes of mice and rats.
> Perhaps you make a mountain out of a mole hill...
Yeah, yeah. Lions are essentially nice animals,
large pussy-cats who just want to be loved.
Much the same applies to hyenas, and other
large carnivores. Just give them some milk
and rub behind their ears and, even if they
are starving, they'll just purr.
> Not to mention flunking math. Hominids would have to
> exist in huge numbers to carry allllllllllllllllllllllllllll those
> predators through a season.
God help us. Do you think I'm claiming that
a special breed of lion -- which lived ONLY
off hominids -- had to exist?
Here's a simple analogy -- although I know
that you won't get it. Lions _sometimes_
catch and eat baboons. It's not often, and
baboons probably make up less than 1% of
their diet. But baboons take a lot of care not
to be caught by them. In the dry season,
they dig for roots (something chimps don't do
btw). They feed with antelope, which have a
better sense of smell and see differently (not
having the full colour range of primates). Together they are better at detecting a
skulking lion. Baboons don't go far from
trees, and avoid clumps of high grass where
a lion might hide. No one suggests that lions
could survive ONLY on baboons. But they
make huge areas uninhabitable by baboons
-- open areas of grass that lack 'escape-
trees'.
Lions would make huge areas uninhabitable
by humans or hominids -- even bigger areas
than those barred to baboons, since hominids
are:
(a) very much slower at running, and
(b) quite hopeless at climbing, especially when
trying to carry young.
And, given that hominids can't sleep in trees in
any event, there is NO WAY -- no way whatever
-- that they could have routinely survived on the
ground in the presence of large predators.
> How many hominids would be needed to satisfy a hungry
> group of predators, eh?
How ignorant and unscientific is it possible to get?
