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Funny-sounding names and their referents (was: Anyone Remember Alan Og?)
Cameron Laird (claird@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM)
23 Aug 1996 06:37:07 -0500
In article <russ_smith-2208961518110001@magic-388.macip.genmagic.com>,
Russ Smith <russ_smith@genmagic.com> wrote:
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>Cro Magnon is a caveman whose remains were first discovered in caves in
>France, was the earliest known human before Mrs. Leakey found
>Australopithecus.
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Kind of. I'll add a few words to this, then offer it to
the s.a.p experts; that's also where I've re-directed
follow-ups.
Cro Magnon is a place in France. A fossil from 28,000
years B.P. was found there in 1868. Fossils of *H.
sapiens sapiens* have been found back to about 120,000
years B.P. "Cro-Magnon" is the epithet for the cultural
complex first known about 40,000 BP in what is now Europe,
and also for the skeletal phenotype (just barely distin-
guishable from our own, being slightly more robust, with
larger teeth) for which examples have been found from
35,000 to 10,000 BP. Cro-Magnon left remains in caves,
and some certainly camped and practiced rites there for
extended periods, but I'm not sure they fit the popular
notion of "cavemen".
Mary Leakey found the type specimen for Zinjanthropus,
or *Australopithecus boisei*, in 1959 at Olduvai Gorge.
This appears to date from 1.8 million years BP. I'm not
sure what you mean by Cro-Magnon being "the earliest
known human before" her discovery; there was, for
example, Dart's 1924 *A. africanus* "Taung baby", ap-
pearaing to date from 2+ million BP. Going the other
way, we have Dubois's 1893 discovery of the 700,000
BP *H. erectus* "Java man".
I see no direct connections between these points, and
any of the professional Florida sports teams.
--
Cameron Laird http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/home.html
claird@NeoSoft.com +1 713 623 8000 #227
+1 713 996 8546 FAX
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