Re: AAT Theory
Phillip Bigelow (n8010095@cc.wwu.edu)
31 Aug 1995 09:55:21 -0700
Someone else noted:
>>The question has oft been raised if AAT would have greater adhearants if
>>hominid fossils were found in the Dinali (sp?) Alps or in an obvious
>>marine environment. I have heard no acceptance of this proposal. My
>>opinion is that the Savannah crowd has a distate for the flavour of their
>>own words. No, this would not prove anything conclusively, but it would
>>TEND TO FAVOUR AAT.
r3dlb1@dax.cc.uakron.edu (David L Burkhead) responded:
> If no fossils are found in the postulated region it
>would mean nothing. It wouldn't even mean that no fossils had
>survived. It would just mean that none had been found. Contrariwise,
>if fossils _were_ found, it would only mean that some hominids lived
>there or passed through there.
You must be referring to the Danakil region.
Even if depositional environment studies are rigorous enough, it wouldn't
even prove that the hominids lived near the water. It is common
to find savannah creatures that died on the plain and were
swept into a river or lake by flooding rivers that overflowed their banks.
In the Afar region of Ethiopia, the rock formation that yielded remains of
A. afarensis also yielded fossils of baboons. Rivers, lakes, and the sea
shore are notorious "traps" for carcasses of creatures from a myriad of
environments and niches.
<pb>
(back for a shower and then out to
the boondocks again...)
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