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savanna disproven?
Alex Duncan (aduncan@mail.utexas.edu)
19 Sep 1995 00:36:32 GMT
In article <95260.171651NDR102@psuvm.psu.edu> Nicholas Rosen,
ndr102@psuvm.psu.edu writes:
>Excuse me. I am not even as much of an anthropologist as Mrs. Morgan,
>just a layman who tries to be widely read. It comes as something of
>a surprise to me that "savanna theory" is no longer accepted, and
>it is astonishing to be told that it has been disproven. Hypotheses
>in geometry can be disproven, perhaps hypotheses in physics, but in
>paleoanthropology? If most anthropologists these days do not claim
>that early hominids evolved on the savanna, and, I trust, not on the
>beach either, where do they think that early hominids did evolve,
>and what are their reasons to believe this? I am asking in good
>faith.
You're right. The savanna theory has not been disproven. There simply
has not been a lot of evidence that supports it. In fact, most evidence
for pre-2 myr old hominids supports the view that they lived in more
closed habitats w/ lots of trees, and variable amounts of open space.
What I should have said is exactly what I just did.
Alex Duncan
Dept. of Anthropology
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX 78712-1086
512-471-4206
aduncan@mail.utexas.edu
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