Re: Hominid Altitudinal-Latitudinal Adaptations

Dan Barnes (dbarnes@liv.ac.uk)
Wed, 23 Oct 1996 16:45:06 GMT

In article <01bbbe9f$a94a0aa0$5c2770c2@default>, jdwaters@dircon.co.uk
says...

BIG snip...

>And so to the questions.
>
>1. Was H. archaic a cold temperate climatic adaptation?

I'm not too sure about who you're talking about here. Archaic H.s. were
widespread throughtout a variety of climatic areas (although I don't agree with
the name).

>2. Was H. neanderthal a tundra climatic adaptation?

Yes.

>3. Is there any evidence of seasonal migrations concerning
>either of the above
>specie?

Seasonality is difficult to check at the resolution we view the Palaeolithic in. You
could try:

Lieberman, D. (1993) The rise and fall of seasonal mobility among
hunter-gathers: The case of the Southern Levant. Current Anthropology. 34.
599-631.

Larger climatic influences have been used to explain the Levantine evidence.

>4. Was H. sapiens a behavioral adaptation to a tundra habitat?
>Is there any evidence
>that it was contemporary with H. neanderthal?

H.s. also adapted to the tundra environment in his limb lenghts (Ruff, 1994 -
below). He was a contemporary for 70 ka in the Levant but Europe is still being
argued over (it may be at least 5 ka).

>5. Likewise, is there any evidence that H.ss was contemporary
>with H. archaic?

No. Except possibly in Java (and perhaps China?).

>6. In view of the evidence of habitat destruction by H.ss, could
>this behaviour have
>started at the inception of the specie?
>
If you mean the chopping down of the rainforests, etc. then there is an
arguement that he was responsible for megafauna extinction in the Americas
and Australia. I'm not too sure about the link with seasonal burning that the
indigenous peoples did to regulate the plant growth.

For hominid adaptations to climate read:

Ruff, C.B. (1994) Morphological adaptation to climate in modern and fossil
hominids. Yearbook of Physical Anthropology. 37. 65-107.

and for palaeoclimate see:

Boaz, N.T., Ninkovich, D. & Rossignol-Strick, M. (1982) Paleoclimatic setting
for Homo sapiens neanderthalensis. Naturwissenschaften. 69 (1). 29-33.

I've tried to keep this brief to start with. Any points can be expanded later.

Dan