…While AoS took this Tuesday off, for some reason,
maybe we can talk about something else?
... Well, what is there else, really? How about ‘Dawn
of Humanity’ documentary that I had also seen last week? It is a very interesting,
two-hour-long, program about the discovery of two new species –
Australopithecus sediba and Homo naledi.
From the scientific point of view, the issue is this.
There are ancient hominins, ancient humans, sort of like us, but are, (or
were), our ancestors, rather than us (from a biological angle, etc.). And then
there were the australopithecines, who were the ancestors and the predecessors
of these hominins, they – basically – were apes, albeit ones that walked like humans
do: it seems that bipedalism has evolved first; other features, such as the big
brains and tool making came later.
So far so good. And?
‘Dawn of Humanity’ makes a BIG emphasis about the
missing link; in this case between the australopithecines and the first of the
hominins. When I was studying anthropology, this niche was given to Homo
habilis, the ‘handy man’, but many anthropologists grew dissatisfied with
habilis – some think that this was just another australopithecine, while others
are just doubtful, period.
This is probably the appropriate time to re-introduce
one of Impossible Pictures’ special series – Walking with Cavemen – and what is
basically its’ literary counterpart, the book ‘Dawn of Man’. The former is
two-hour series dedicated to the entire human evolution; the latter is the same
thing, just discussing the prehistoric human evolution in eight chapters. The
information may be outdated in some aspects – for example, it does not talk
about sediba or naledi because they were not discovered back then – but, basically,
this information is still good, actual, and reliable. Is there a problem?
With WWC the issue is that it isn’t a documentary
series, but more of a docu-drama, discussing various aspects of human evolution
in a rushed manner (each episode is about 30 minutes long and feels kind of
rushed, especially the 3rd and the last episodes). Bipedalism,
tool-making and adaptability, intelligence, imagination and the spiritual
dimension of human lives is what being really discussed in WWC, rather than
human evolution per se, as it was in ‘Dawn of Humanity’…sort of. In reality, ‘Dawn
of Humanity’ depicted the discovery of the two aforementioned species with some
discussion where did they fit into the evolution from australopithecines to
early humans: Homo naledi may be one of the first humans; Australopithecus
sediba, on the other hand, is too chronologically old to be the direct ancestor
of humans; but-
However, the entire early African stage of evolution
that led to humanity is a mess. The documentary made it sound as if it was
South Africa that was the cradle of humanity, but in reality, so was the East
Africa, and then there is Australopithecus bahrelghazali. It was yet another
species of Australopithecus, but it was also found in the jungles of Central
Africa, rather than in the African east or south. Indeed, Central Africa is the
place where some of the oldest ape fossils – Sahelantropus, Orrorin, and the
others – were found.
How is that for a theory? There were several versions
of Australopithecines in Africa, maybe species, or maybe – regional variants,
(more like subspecies). Eventually, some of these subspecies/variants/species
gave rather to the first hominins (naledi, or habilis, or even rudolfensis,
which is discussed even less so than the habilis is, apparently), while the
others gave rise to Paranthropus boisei and its relatives. It has happened,
after all, when a single species gave to rise to several new ones; for example,
Homo heidelbergensis gave rise both to the Neanderthals and to the Cro-Magnons,
the modern humans. Why couldn’t the australopithecines do that?
In any case, ‘Dawn of Humanity’ was still a very fun
and exciting documentary to watch, which I did, and I advise you to watch it as
well, especially if you like anthropology. For now, though – bye!
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