Lex Anteinternet: Evidence for the cooking of fish 780,000 years ago...A few observations.
Lex Anteinternet: Evidence for the cooking of fish 780,000 years ago...: Evidence for the cooking of fish 780,000 years ago at Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, Israel Yup. And. . . The early Middle Pleistocene site of Ge...
By most reckonings, the humans, and they were humans, who were grilling up the carp were not members of our species, Homo sapiens.
They likely would have been Homo Heidelbergensis or Homo Erectus, the former having at one time been regarded as a subspecies of the latter.
No matter, these people were a lot closer to you than you might imagine. Their brain capacity, for one thing, is just about the same as modern humans at 1200 cc. FWIW, the brain capacity of archaic Homo Sapiens was actually larger than that of current people, members of the species Homo Sapien Sapien. Our current brain sizes are pretty big, in relative terms, at about 1400 cc, although Neanderthals' were bigger, at 1500cc.
About the "archaic" members of our species, it's been said that they're not regarded their own species as they have been "admitted to membership in our species because of their almost modern-sized brains, but set off as ‘archaic' because of their primitive looking cranial morphology".1 Having said that, some people say, no, those are Homo Heidlebergensis. It can be pretty difficult to tell, actually, and as been noted:
One of the greatest challenges facing students of human evolution comes at the tail end of the Homo erectus span. After Homo erectus, there is little consensus about what taxonomic name to give the hominins that have been found. As a result, they are assigned the kitchen-sink label of “archaic Homo sapiens.”
Tattersall (2007) notes that the Kabwe skull bears more than a passing resemblance to one of the most prominent finds in Europe, the Petralona skull from Greece. In turn, as I mentioned above, the Petralona skull is very similar to one of the most complete skulls from Atapuerca, SH 5, and at least somewhat similar to the Arago skull.
Further, it is noted that the Bodo cranium from Africa shares striking similarities to the material from Gran Dolina (such as it is). This suggests that, as was the case with Homo erectus, there is widespread genetic homogeneity in these populations. Given the time depth involved, it is likely that there was considerable and persistent gene flow between them. Tattersall (2007), argues that, since the first example of this hominin form is represented by the Mauer mandible, the taxonomic designation Homo heidelbergensis should be used to designate these forms. This would stretch the limits of this taxon, however, since it would include the later forms from Africa as well. If there was considerable migration and hybridization between these populations, it could be argued that a single taxon makes sense. However, at present, there is no definitive material evidence for such migration, or widespread agreement on calling all these hominins anything other than “archaic Homo sapiens.”2
Regarding our first ancestors, of our species, appearance:
When comparing Homo erectus, archaic Homo sapiens, and anatomically modern Homo sapiens across several anatomical features, one can see quite clearly that archaic Homo sapiens are intermediate in their physical form. This follows the trends first seen in Homo erectus for some features and in other features having early, less developed forms of traits more clearly seen in modern Homo sapiens. For example, archaic Homo sapiens trended toward less angular and higher skulls than Homo erectus but had skulls notably not as short and globular in shape and with a less developed forehead than anatomically modern Homo sapiens. archaic Homo sapiens had smaller brow ridges and a less-projecting face than Homo erectus and slightly smaller teeth, although incisors and canines were often about as large as that of Homo erectus. Archaic Homo sapiens also had a wider nasal aperture, or opening for the nose, as well as a forward-projecting midfacial region, known as midfacial prognathism. The occipital bone often projected and the cranial bone was of intermediate thickness, somewhat reduced from Homo erectus but not nearly as thin as that of anatomically modern Homo sapiens. The postcrania remained fairly robust, as well. To identify a set of features that is unique to the group archaic Homo sapiens is a challenging task, due to both individual variation—these developments were not all present to the same degree in all individuals—and the transitional nature of their features. Neanderthals will be the exception, as they have several clearly unique traits that make them notably different from modern Homo sapiens as well as their closely related archaic cousins.3
Well, what that tells us overall is that we were undergoing some changes during this period of the Pleistocene, that geologic period lasting from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago.
And that, dear reader, points out that we're a Pleistocene mammal.
It also points out that we don't have yet a really good grasp as to when our species really fully came about. We think we know what the preceding species was, but we're not super sure when we emerged from it. And of course, we didn't really emerge, but just kind of rolled along mother and father to children.
Which tells us that Heidlebergensis may have been pretty much like us, really.
Just not as photogenic.
On that, it's also been recently noted that the best explanation for the disappearance of the Neanderthals, which are now widely regarded as a separate species that emerged also from Heidelbergensis disappeared as they just cross bread themselves out of existence. Apparently they thought our species was hotter than their own.
Assuming they are a separate species, which I frankly doubt.
Here were definitely morphology differences between Heidelbergensis and us, but as we addressed the other day in a different context, everybody has a great, great, great . . . grandmother/grandfather who was one of them.
And another thing.
They ate a lot of meat.
A lot.
I note that as it was in vogue for a while for those adopting an unnatural diet, i.e. vegetarianism, to claim that this is what we were evolved to eat.
Not hardly. With huge brains, and cold weather burning up calories, we were, and remain, meat eaters.
Foonotes:
1. Archaic Homo sapiens Christopher J. Bae (Associate Professor, Dept. of Anthropology, University of Hawaii-Manoa) © 2013 Nature Education Citation: Bae, C. J. (2013) . Nature Education Knowledge 4(8):4
2. By James Kidder, The Rise of Archaic Homo sapiens
3. 11.3: Defining Characteristics of Archaic Homo Sapiens
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