Re: Archaic H. sapiens???

debra mckay (debra.mckay@utoronto.ca)
Mon, 6 Jan 1997 23:35:01 GMT

J E Hawcroft <J.E.Hawcroft@shef.ac.uk> wrote:

>
>Lieberman's work was seriously undermined by an article by Hayden (I
>think - anyway it was in AJPA in January 1994) who said that Lieberman's
>reconstruction of the neanderthal pharynx was all wrong. Lieberman had
>shown the pharynx down in the chest, an impossible position, and
>concluded that the neanderthals couldn't possibly have a modern pharynx.
>But he did this calculation with the neanderthal skull in the wrong
>plane, and Hayden (I think) showed that if you put the skull in the
>normal in vivo position a modern-type pharynx could easily have been
>accomodated in the neanderthal throat.

Maybe someone can confirm or deny this, but I heard from a visiting
prof (Yaroch--I forget her first name) that Lieberman's reconstruction
was also based upon the La Chapelle skull, which apparently was not itself
reconstructed correctly, especially in the area of the basicranium. I
think the problem is that the basicranium is not as flat as the original
reconstruction suggested.

Deb

>Jennie