For what time period did 'homo-habilis' live?
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KNM-ER 1813 may be a female and KNM-ER 1470 may be a male of Homo habilis. However, they do not differ from each other in the sort of ways that males and females of modern apes differ from one another. ‘Jonny’s Child’ OH 7 – a 1.8-million-year-old partial skeleton discovered in 1960 by Jonathan Leakey in Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania.
The ‘meatus’ angles for all apes, australopithecines and habilines lie within the range of 46–53°. Humans are clearly different, with even the allegedly ‘primitive’ H. Questions remain over the figures for ER 1470 and ER 1813 because of the reconstruction of the former which could now yield lower figures for brain capacity. This could also apply to ER 1813, making the distinction between the habilines and humans even sharper. Not only are a number of experts at variance with each other, but most have allowed their preconceptions to colour facts to such an extent that an entirely false picture of human origins now dominates the entire world’s educational systems and public media networks. There is no scientific reason for insisting that any of the australopithecines and habilines are ancestral to humans, though they may be the non-evolutionary forbears of modern great apes.
homo habilis
A conspicuously massive proximal femur was recovered from Berg Aukas Mine, Namibia, about 20 km east of Grootfontein. It was originally estimated to have been from a male as much as 93 kg in life, but its exorbitant size is now proposed to be the consequence of an extraordinarily vigorous early-life activity level while an otherwise ordinary person was maturing. If so, the individual from the Berg Aukas Mine would probably have had proportions similar to Kabwe 1. The findings of the team led by Spoor appear to clinch the creationist argument that the australopithecines lie morphologically in the pongid line, and not in the human family line. In many cases the assertions made about the significance of the various fossils have been exaggerated in the first instance. Since the so-called habiline specimens KNM-ER 1470, OH 8 and OH 62 have already been referred to, the discussion here will be restricted to six other ‘best-preserved’ specimens, as set out in Table 2.
Habilis are only known from two highly fragmentary skeletons, and is based largely on assuming a similar anatomy to the earlier australopithecines. Because of this, it has also been proposed H. Habilis be moved to the genus Australopithecus as Australopithecus habilis. Habilis as a small-statured human with inefficient long distance travel capabilities has been challenged. Habilis may have been at least partially arboreal like what is postulated for australopithecines.
The fossil evidence
After description, it was hotly debated if H. Habilis should be reclassified into Australopithecus africanus , in part because the remains were so old and at the time Homo was presumed to have evolved in Asia . Also, the brain size was smaller than what Wilfrid Le Gros Clark proposed in 1955 when considering Homo. Habilis began to receive wider acceptance as more fossil elements and species were unearthed. Africanus was a direct ancestor of Paranthropus and Homo , and that A. Erectus which evolved into modern humans .
He similarly had the age-related maladies lumbar kyphosis , L5–S1 spondylolisthesis , and Baastrup disease on L4 and 5 . These would have produced lower back pain, significantly limiting movement, and may be evidence of group care. My understanding of Gould means that there are no gradual stages by which such a vast change occurred—the onset of human-type bipedalism had to be sudden and huge—an absurd contention. The bipedalism of Lucy/afarensis is of the ape-type opportunistic pattern whereby many apes and even some monkeys occasionally locomote bipedally in a shuffling and uncomfortable manner for short periods. Yet there are a number of evolutionist scientists who have quite important reservations about these claims.
Homo Rudolfensis
Needless to say, we find the robustus features are just as ape-like. In fact, the differences between the various australopithecine species are in most cases so slight that one could lump them all together in one group, except possibly for brain size. The largest ECV recorded for any alleged prehuman is that of skull ER 1470 with a capacity of about 752 cc, compared with Lucy’s estimated size of about 450 cc. In view of Bromage’s reconstruction of ER 1470 , even 752 cc may now be too large an estimate. The Leakey group generally has supported the contention that the genus Homo is very ancient, and is not closely connected to the australopithecines, which they generally regard as being more like close cousins of man. So far, the ‘real’ Homo ancestor is still missing.
Though it is possible fire remnants simply degraded, long and overall undisturbed occupation sequences such as at Arago or Gran Dolina conspicuously lack convincing evidence of fire usage. This pattern could possibly indicate the invention of ignition technology or improved fire maintenance techniques at this time, and that fire was not an integral part of people's lives before then in Europe. In Africa, on the other hand, humans may have been able to frequently scavenge fire as early as 1.6 million years ago from natural wildfires, which occur much more often on Africa, thus possibly regularly using fire.
During the Homo erectus time span, from 1.7 million years ago to 200,000 years ago, tools improved in shape. The early tools were made from flint, and their edges were not sharp like a steak knife. But it makes sense that a species which shaped stones to a point would also have invented a wooden version with a long handle. And a spear can be gripped with two hands, enabling a powerful thrust.
We see the same situation in the illustration provided by Campbell, which compares the skull undersides of a female gorilla, A. Africanus, and a Homo sapiens .32 There is only a slight difference between the australopithecine and the gorilla, although Campbell claims the africanus position is intermediate. A team led by scientists Louis and Mary Leakey uncovered the fossilized remains of a unique early human between 1960 and 1963 at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania.
No doubt the spear served as a defensive weapon against predators, as well as a hunting weapon. Did the neanderthals and the cro-magnons live in the same time period? They lived in the same time of period and Cro-Magnon man killed the neanderthals sadly.
Anthropologists speculate that Homo habilis also may have used the hand ax to sharpen sticks with which to spear animals. We know that present-day chimpanzees chew a point on the end of a stick and use it to kill galagos, also known as bush babies. These small primates, about half a pound, hunt at night. They sleep in trees during the day and are an easy target for the chimps. What period in life did the neanderthals live in?
This partial skeleton belongs to a boy and was selected as the ‘type specimen’ or official representative of this species. The discovery of Homo habilis began in 1959 when two teeth were unearthed at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania by a team led by Louis and Mary Leakey. Parts of a boy’s skeleton were located at the site the next year and additional fossils from other individuals continued to be found.
I have little doubt that after the passage of a few more years anamensis will also be sidelined, only to be replaced by some other dubious fossil find. Although this is the most sensible view, based on all the latest evidence, it is unlikely to be accepted by the evolutionary establishment because it would mean that human ancestry is a mystery, and that would be a severe blow to the neo-Darwinian paradigm. A highly significant example of just such a case is that described by creationist Lubenow. The reason for such frankness has to do with the discovery of the Turkana ‘Boy’, by Richard Leakey in 1984, and classified as Homo erectus. This specimen, called WT 15000, is clearly human and is remarkably complete.
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