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Re: technology and intelligence
Todd N Nims (nimstod@MAIL.AUBURN.EDU)
Thu, 9 Feb 1995 12:44:42 -0600
I may be reading this wrong but do plant eaters need hand choppers to
attack and kill a wild plant? From what I have read the robust A.'s had
no use for tools...and possibly the only connection to hand choppers they
had was at the business end of one. Maybe Im confused about what was
said....let me know.
Todd N. Nims
{nimstod@mallard.duc.auburn.edu}
Auburn University, AL
On Wed, 8 Feb 1995, Mr J.M. Ottevanger wrote:
> further to Dwight Read's recent post re Susman's claims of Paranthropus tool
> use, I'd like to point out that the case for ascribing these bones, a pollical
> matacarpal and distal phalanx and also various other manual elements, to this
> species is rather dodgy. First let it be known that I have no objection to the
> idea that the robusts could make and use the Oldowan tools found at Swartkrans
> in principle, in fact if pushed I'd back the view, but one must be sceptical
> of the evidence. The bones are unassociated and the taphonomy poorly understood.
> This is not the case to go into it in too much detail, but the taxonomic attribu
> tion
> was made largely on thebasis of the relative abundance of Homo cf erectus vs Par
> anthropus
> robustus craniodental remains.This is due to the rarity of postcrania and ignore
> s
> the possibility that the postcrania show a different pattern of abundance due
> to different modes of accumulation. Until the origins of the bones of both
> species and the tools themselves are better understood it would be foolish to
> place these specimens in one taxon or the other on statistical grounds. Sorry
> to have laboured the point, but the issue is as far as I'm concerned totally
> unresolved.
> Discuss, if you got this far.
> Cheers, Jeremy.
>
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