More Complete than Lucy

One of the best idications, she was bipedal, whereas apes are not.

One of the best idications, she was bipedal, whereas apes are not.

The Scientific American article states that she has all the characteristics of her species, which makes sense, since she is considered one of a number of similar findings, being unique only because so complete and so young.

The conspiracy . . . .


None of the articles linked include the actual paper that was just published. I suggest we look into that before drawing such conclusions.

the Laetoli footprints led to the stunning revelation that humans walked upright well before they made stone tools or evolved large brains. Experts have generally come to agree, however, that the tracks probably belong to members of the species Australopithecus afarensis, the hominid most famously represented by the Lucy fossil..........

The prints show that whoever made them had a humanlike foot arch, and the reconstructed A. afarensis foot exhibits just such an arch. So far, so good. The problem, Harcourt-Smith and Hilton say, is that the reconstruction is actually based on a patchwork of bones from 3.2-million-year-old afarensis and 1.8-million-year-old Homo habilis. And one of the bones used to determine whether the foot was in fact arched--the so-called navicular--is from H. habilis, not A. afarensis.

Doesn't it seem odd to you that THE characteristic (bipedalism) that might identify the find as one similar to Lucy is simply glossed over and no specifics given?

No specifics regarding bipedal ability of the Dikika female are given. It is simply asserted that it is so ...

.... And the seeming unwillingness to divulge detail on the Dikika find gives no reason to simply believe without evidence any claims of bipedalism for it either.

The skull of the approximately three-year-old presumed female shows that most features diagnostic of the species are evident even at this early stage of development. The find includes many previously unknown skeletal elements from the Pliocene hominin record, including a hyoid bone that has a typical African ape morphology. The foot and other evidence from the lower limb provide clear evidence for bipedal locomotion, but the gorilla-like scapula and long and curved manual phalanges raise new questions about the importance of arboreal behaviour in the A. afarensis locomotor repertoir ...

... One of the authors of the paper, Fred Spoor a professor of evolutionary anatomy at University College London, describes with Zeresenay Alemseged (lead author) of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, the fossil,

• The lower body is very human-like while the upper body is ape-like.
  
• The shoulder blades resemble those of a gorilla rather than a modern human.
  
• The neck seems short and thick like a [non-human] great ape's, rather than the more slender version humans have to keep the head stable while running.
  
• The organ of balance in the inner ear is more ape-like than human.
  
• The fingers are very curved, which could indicate climbing ability, "but I'm cautious about that," Spoor said. Curved fingers have been noted for A. afarensis before, but their significance is in dispute.

If you don't know much about A afarensis there is much debate about its arboreal behavior and abilities, but there is a general concensus that entists it stood upright and walked on two feet. The ability to climb into trees and move about would require anatomical equipment like long arms, and A. afarensis had arms that dangled down to just above the knees. The question is whether such features indicate climbing ability or just evolutionary baggage.

Source

real life wrote:

Doesn't it seem odd to you that THE characteristic (bipedalism) that might identify the find as one similar to Lucy is simply glossed over and no specifics given?

No specifics regarding bipedal ability of the Dikika female are given. It is simply asserted that it is so ...

.... And the seeming unwillingness to divulge detail on the Dikika find gives no reason to simply believe without evidence any claims of bipedalism for it either.

Bullshit. The specimen's mastoid process, foramen magnum, pelvic girdle, femur, tarsal and metatarsal structure and conformation are consistent with and exclusive to bipedalism.

Quote:

The skull of the approximately three-year-old presumed female shows that most features diagnostic of the species are evident even at this early stage of development. The find includes many previously unknown skeletal elements from the Pliocene hominin record, including a hyoid bone that has a typical African ape morphology. The foot and other evidence from the lower limb provide clear evidence for bipedal locomotion, but the gorilla-like scapula and long and curved manual phalanges raise new questions about the importance of arboreal behaviour in the A. afarensis locomotor repertoir ...

... One of the authors of the paper, Fred Spoor a professor of evolutionary anatomy at University College London, describes with Zeresenay Alemseged (lead author) of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, the fossil,

• The lower body is very human-like while the upper body is ape-like.
  
• The shoulder blades resemble those of a gorilla rather than a modern human.
  
• The neck seems short and thick like a [non-human] great ape's, rather than the more slender version humans have to keep the head stable while running.
  
• The organ of balance in the inner ear is more ape-like than human.
  
• The fingers are very curved, which could indicate climbing ability, "but I'm cautious about that," Spoor said. Curved fingers have been noted for A. afarensis before, but their significance is in dispute.

If you don't know much about A afarensis there is much debate about its arboreal behavior and abilities, but there is a general concensus that entists it stood upright and walked on two feet. The ability to climb into trees and move about would require anatomical equipment like long arms, and A. afarensis had arms that dangled down to just above the knees. The question is whether such features indicate climbing ability or just evolutionary baggage.

Source

The lower body is very human-like while the upper body is ape-like.

The foot and other evidence from the lower limb provide clear evidence for bipedal locomotion