Re: An alternative to ST and AAT
Paul Crowley (Paul@crowleyp.demon.co.uk)
Fri, 18 Oct 96 19:04:29 GMT
In article <326796F4.16D@mailbox.hogia.net>
magnus.sterky@mailbox.hogia.net "Magnus Sterky" writes:
> Holly Reeser wrote:
>
> >What East African sites are coastal? Off the top of my head I cannot
> >think of any coastal Australopithecine or early Homo coastal sites.
> >And how will you test this?
>
> The ocean level has varied by some +-10 meters several times during he
> last couple of hundred thousands years back.
No, No. For most of the past 10 million years sea levels were
about 100 (one hundred) metres lower. We're currently at the peak
of an unsually warm interglacial and sea levels are at a 20 million
year high. This basic fact has not got through to the bulk of
paleoanthropologists -- see Holly's comment. Any East African
coastal Australopithecine sites are likely to be under a 100 metres
of water.
So if hominids were essentially coastal animals (as I maintain)
what we will get is an extraordinarily distorted fossil record
which will make little sense. And what do we have -- well, an
extraordinary fossil record that makes little sense. We're
at the end of the 20th Century and our understanding of human
evolution is on a par with that of Chemistry around 1700.
Sense can be made, but it will require one heck of a paradigm shift.
Paul.
|