|
|
Re: First Family and AAT
jamesb@hgu.mrc.ac.uk
18 Oct 1995 11:40:34 GMT
j#d#.moore@canrem.com (J. Moore) wrote:
>>
>So since AATers apparently believe that a terrestrial transition
>for humans means that many many open-country mammals should be
>predominately bipedal, and that the fact that they aren't is a
>grevious blow to all of paleoanthropolical theory, why shouldn't
>they answer the question of why aquatic mammals aren't
>predominately bipedal?
If you narrow the range down to primates, which in my opinion have the
slight predisposition needed for a bipedal wading posture to develop
(especially brachiating apes), then the question becomes why are the
baboon and the patas monkey quadropedal on the savannah? The AAT has in
its favour the example of the proboscis monkey, which proves that at
least under some conditions a semi-aquatic environment can lead to the
evolution of a habitual bipedal posture. So it's one primate example in
favour of AAT for habitual bipedalism and no primate examples in favour
of savannah mosaic havitual bipedalism. I admit that when you look at
non-primates there is a dearth of bipedalism (excepting the penguin) but
different species will adapt to the same environment in different ways
sometimes.
James Borrett.
|