The 4 A's:
many PAs still believe they descend from australopiths...
Perhaps *they* do, but no serious scientist does:
in fact:
- Aquarboreal: Mio-Pliocene Hominoidea were already "bipedal": they lived in swamp forests, wading+climbing vertically, google "aquarboreal" (aqua=water, arbor=tree).
- African australopiths were orthograde fossil relatives of Gorilla or Pan, not of Homo, e.g. Lucy was a fossil relative of gorillas, not of chimps or humans: Plio-Pleistocene Gorilla // Pan became more apelike in parallel.
- Asian origin (afrocentric pre-assumption): Pliocene Homo initially followed the Asiatic coast of the Indian Ocean coasts (as far as Java early-Pleistocene & even Flores).
- Archaic Homo erectus & still neanderthalensis partly (google "pachyosteosclerosis" POS) frequently dived for shellfish: DHA & brain expansion, POS, coastal intercontinental dispersal etc.
Prof.Tobias, already in 1995: "physiologically, biochemically and histologically, we should be hopeless as savanna-dwellers. All of the former savanna supporters must swallow our earlier words".
Me too, I once (>30 yrs ago) believed that we had savanna-running ancestors: it *seemed* logical in Africa at first sight:
- apes="primitive"=quadrupedal=forest,
- humans="derived"=bipedal=open-savanna.
The savanna idea of human evolution (antelope-hunting etc. :-D) is an incredibly ridiculous fantasy.
When will most PAs finally abandon all these just-so fantasies??
What really happened is not so difficult scientifically in great lines:
https://www.gondwanatalks.com/l/the-waterside-hypothesis-wading-led-to-upright-walking-in-early-humans/