Re: Hair and AAS

• Messages sorted by: [ date ][ thread ][ subject ][ author ]
• Next message: H. M. Hubey: "Re: lions, chimps and sticks"
• Previous message: Phillip Bigelow: "Re: tears"
• Maybe in reply to: David Froehlich: "Hair and AAS"

In article <45vsiv$ob9@nntp.ucs.ubc.ca> VINCENT@REG.TRIUMF.CA "pete" writes:

> One could reasonably speculate that if it wasn't gone already,
> body hair would be detrimental to a creature huddling around
> a campfire at night. Whether this might amount to significant
> selective pressure I don't know, but if my overcoat caught
> fire, I'd be mighty appreciative of the fact that it wasn't
> attached to my skin. So, say, by h. erectus, it's disappearing?

Here's another currently untestable speculation.

Surely the use of animal skin (for "clothes") must pre-date the use
of fire? Skinning large animals is almost a necessary part of eating
them and could go back >2.5 Myr. Starting a fire, and keeping it
going is a hell of a task; it needs a fixed home base and an advanced
discipline and level of planning. If the use of cutting tools pre-
dates the end of the aquatic phase, then there is no reason why hair
should ever return - the hominids would have had "clothes".

Paul.

• Next message: H. M. Hubey: "Re: lions, chimps and sticks"
• Previous message: Phillip Bigelow: "Re: tears"
• Maybe in reply to: David Froehlich: "Hair and AAS"