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Re: Savannah strawman
James Shreeve (jshreeve@ids2.idsonline.com)
Fri, 28 Jun 1996 13:15:32 +0000
I'm not sure what all the hoopla is about but a savanna is merely an
area of grassland with scattered trees. It seems to me that much
has
been made of nothing regarding the issue of a savanna environment.
Our ancestors left an arboreal environment and became bipedal.
Surely
people aren't saying that the idea that leaving an arboreal
environment is somehow invalidated because the area in which these
new
bipeds moved into wasn't just like the savanna that exists in Africa
today!!
If by "these people" you mean proponents of the AAH, I don't know
what they are saying. If however you mean scientists who are
questioning the validity of the savannah "hypothesis" (or mentality,
or whatever), what they are suggesting is that it may be a mistake
to link the origin of bipedalism with a move out of an arboreal
environment in the first place. If ramidus proves to be bipedal,
for instance, then at least one hominid may have developed
bipedalism while still adapted to a substantially wooded environment
-- not a grassland, not a mosaic, not anything that could be
categorized under the vague term "savannah."
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