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Re: Who Killed the Australopithecines?
BARD (bard@netcom.com)
Sun, 2 Apr 1995 08:29:29 GMT
In article <3lkim9$dmb@portal.gmu.edu>,
HARRY R. ERWIN <herwin@osf1.gmu.edu> wrote:
>Re: BARD's comments.
>
>He's making the assumption that evolution is directional. A bit silly. It
>would just as appropriate to ask what killed off H. erectus. H. erectus
>survived (with no directionality in terms of feature evolution) for about
>1.7 MY, a long survival period for a species. The australopithecines were
>also very successful and stable in their niches. The answer is probably a
>combination of competition and niche contraction. A. species were
>dependent on trees. H. erectus was adapted to the hot savanna and lacked
>the climbing adaptations seen in A. species and in H. habilis. If there
>was a major contraction in the area of the wooded savanna around 1.9 MY BP
>with an increase in the unwooded areas, we would expect to see the pattern
>of replacement we actually see.
>
>Cheers,
>Harry Erwin
>Internet: herwin@gmu.edu
>Doctoral student in computational neuroscience
Re: Erwin's Comments
Yeah, but, H. habilis minus H. erectus, equals A. species plus or
minus an error factor of .05 MY.
Get it?
BARD
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