Re: 30,000 year old Homo erectus

Susan S. Chin (susansf@netcom.com)
Tue, 17 Dec 1996 06:40:32 GMT

Paul Kekai Manansala (pmanansala@csus.edu) wrote:
[re: gene flow]
: Or between Solo Man (Neanderthaloid?) of Java and sapiens. If this is the
: case, I really don't see how Wolpoff could argue with the conclusions. If
: indeed the dating turns out to be corrct.

This is what was being implied, that due to the contemporaneous existence
of the Solo specimens, whether they are late Homo erectus or early Homo
sapiens, and anatomically modern H.sapiens known at 30,000yrs ago, there
is a possibility of gene flow between the two lineages. And that
basically in Java, there is a scenario similar to that of Neanderthals
and Homo sapiens in Europe ~40,000yrs ago.

: But some differences of Homo Erectus in Java seem to have been passed on to
: the present population in SE Asia/Pacific. If the replacement theory is correct
: Solo Man of Java, who is probably Homo Sapien, should resemble Homo Erectus
: of Africa more than Java Man. That does not seem to be the case, so the latter
: seems to have at least some part in homo sapiens of Asia. Unless you can argue
: that the shared traits between erectus and sapiens in Asia are actually adaptive to
: the environment.

: Paul Kekai Manansala

The differences between Homo erectus in Africa and Asia, in some current
publications, have been split into several species: Homo ergaster for the
earlier African erectus such as the Turkana boy, Homo heidelbergensis for
Bodo Man (Ethiopia), the Mauer mandible (Germany), the Arago cranium
(France), the Petralona cranium (Greece), the Steinheim cranium
(Germany), Broken Hill cranium (Zambia), and a skull from Atapuerca,
Spain. Homo erectus specimens: Trinil cranium "Java man" (Indonesia),
Peking Man (Choukutien, China), and the Sangiran cranium (Java,
Indonesia).

Overkill? This classificatory scheme was taken out of an excellent new
reference book by Don Johanson and Blake Edgar, "From Lucy to Language"
1996, Simon & Schuster. The color photos depict all major fossil finds in
ACTUAL SIZE, lists the date of the find, specimen, locality, age,
discoverer, and publication of the find. A definite must-have for anyone
interested in paleoanthropology. The life sized photos really gave me a
good sense of how small some of the Australopithecine skulls were!

But I would have to question the necessity of splitting Homo into so many
species. Any comments on this?

Susan 

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                                             susansf@netcom.com