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Cambridge Uni Biological Anthropology Society
Приєднався 27 вер 2022
Seasonality and Human Evolution in East Africa
With James Clark and Dr. Gonzalo Linares Matas.
The diet and technology of early hominins has shaped conversations about human evolution, but these have often been framed in terms of hundreds of thousands of years. We still know little about the behavioural choices that hominins made to ensure their day-to-day survival in the face of seasonal fluctuations. Recent observations demonstrate that extant primates and modern human hunter-gatherer populations exhibit seasonal adaptations in the way they move across the landscape, as well as in the acquisition and consumption of plant and animal resources. Here, we first present some of our research into detecting these seasonal patterns in the Oldowan archaeological record, and examine the wider implications for hominin behaviour. We argue the ways in which hominins adapted to such seasonal changes are represented by changes in subsistence strategy, mobility, and lithic investment. The second part will be an open Q&A session, where we look forward to discussing the wider importance of seasonality in human evolution.
The diet and technology of early hominins has shaped conversations about human evolution, but these have often been framed in terms of hundreds of thousands of years. We still know little about the behavioural choices that hominins made to ensure their day-to-day survival in the face of seasonal fluctuations. Recent observations demonstrate that extant primates and modern human hunter-gatherer populations exhibit seasonal adaptations in the way they move across the landscape, as well as in the acquisition and consumption of plant and animal resources. Here, we first present some of our research into detecting these seasonal patterns in the Oldowan archaeological record, and examine the wider implications for hominin behaviour. We argue the ways in which hominins adapted to such seasonal changes are represented by changes in subsistence strategy, mobility, and lithic investment. The second part will be an open Q&A session, where we look forward to discussing the wider importance of seasonality in human evolution.
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Відео
Why is Exercise Weird but Healthy? The Active Grandparent Hypothesis
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With Professor Daniel Lieberman. Almost everyone knows that physical activity is healthy, but there is less awareness of the extent to which lifelong physical activity -particularly during middle and older age- promotes health. We also lack an ultimate, evolutionary explanation for why humans are less likely to remain healthy as they age in the absence of regular physical activity including its...
Drivers of mammalian evolution in the Miocene of eastern Africa
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Principal and Co-Investigators of the Turkana Miocene Project Isaiah Nengo, Stony Brook University Catherine Beck, Hamilton College Craig Feibel, Rutgers University Greg Henkes, Stony Brook University Chris Poulson, University of Michigan (now Dean of Arts and Sciences, U of Oregon) Kevin Uno, Columbia University The goal of this project is to apply a high-resolution, basin-focused approach to ...
Out of Africa & then what?
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With Dr. Elizabeth Sawchuk. "Out of Africa… & then what? Archaeological, biological & genetic perspectives on the more recent African past" As the place where our species evolved and has lived the longest, Africa harbours the greatest human genetic diversity in the world. Yet we have only recently begun to appreciate how much this diversity has been impacted by events in the last several thousa...
The Development and Evolution of the Human Pelvis
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With Professor Terence Capellini. This talk will focus on the development of the human pelvis using an integrated evolutionary, genetics, and morphological perspective. I will focus on how we can use this perspective to identify past evolutionary selection on the pelvis, and notably on its developmental genetic regulation.
The Shape of Human Evolution
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With Professor Carol Ward. Understanding how the transition to committed terrestrial bipedality took place is key to deciphering how, and why, our lineage evolved. Although the limbs have received considerable attention, primates vary in the shape and structure of their torsos, which reflects body posture, spinal mobility, and even limb use. New fossil pelves, ribs, vertebrae and other torso el...
Using synchrotron X-ray micro-computed tomography in natural and cultural heritage
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With Dr. Vincent Fernandez and Dr. Camille Berruyer. X-ray computed tomography is a widely used technique, notably in the medical field with thousands of CT scans done daily in hospitals. But the capacity to inspect the content of an object without having to physically cutting it open is also very appealing for many other fields. Natural and cultural heritage institutes rely more and more on th...
Towards a more realistic interpretation of the human fossil record
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With Professor Bernard Wood. The majority of attempts to reconstruct the evolutionary history of the hominin clade proceed as if the hominin fossil record is a precise, accurate, and comprehensive record of human evolutionary history. In this contribution we review the various ways in which the apparent scarcity of early hominins on the landscape means that the existing hominin fossil record al...
Reimagining human origins: the Homo naledi paradox
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With Professors Lee Berger, Agustin Fuentes, and John Hawks. The Rising Star cave system presents an unparalleled skeletal record of a nonhuman hominin species in exactly the time and place most archaeologists thought that modern humans evolved. This paradox raises many questions about the nature of this species and our own, and our possible interactions. We have come together to examine our un...
Naledi is a verboten word on some subreddits
In my opinion size and shape are overrated when it comes to define humans. Nobody has any doubt about that a kangal is a dog and a yorkshire terrier is a dog too. And both are Canis lupus familiares and are able to interbead with canis lupus - the wulf. We know that neanderthals and denisovans contributet to our genom. We should better be called homo hubris ...
I think what the conversation perhaps needs to evolve into is one where intelligence is respected across species and the former anthropocentric paradigm of what is human is diversified. We don't have difficulty respecting elephants mourning or pigeons being able to carry messages (there are great numbers of examples like these). Can't we be big enough to respect the various intelligences of the other bipeds in our family tree? Isn't it arrogant to hold ourselves superior when we cannot seem to fully embrace our own 'humanity' by caring for current populations and the planet? Maybe it's best we consider all, for whatever we find out, and discontinue the futile quest to separate ourselves from other life. Clearly life is better when one can respect other specie, and better with our own. I'm way more fascinated with what the etchings of Naledi and Neanderthal are about than the disharmonious conduct of many modern humans right now. We know Jane Goodall had relevant communication with chimps, so obviously there are bound to be relatives in our family tree that we could relate to cognitively and emotionally. Maybe Naledi is a bridge... or if not perhaps they serve as one by preparing us to improve our paradigm. If we are at a place of expanding exploration, let's do it with our best selves... treat each other well and keep open minds, constantly checking ourselves to not revert to past errors.
gorillas rarely climb into trees. No animal ever turned into a different animal. Lucy was an ape, and so was more of the so called human ancestors. human is not a physical thing.
Excellent presentation.
banned for racism soon lol
This is not uninteresting, but hardly related to "out of Africa". How do you conciliate a time period set at 100k -70K BPE suddenly shifting to 5k to 3k? It has nothing to do with "out of Africa", but everything with the African neolithic. It's remarkable not to find any comment whatsoever regarding language groups associated with haplotype groups. In addition, it is absurd not to find any reference to African scholars, for example Cheikh Anta Diop and his successors in Senegal or South Africa.
Interesting, so this if before the big blow-up on "culture" claims.
Humans were created and didn't evolve into existence.
11:30 timestap for research
I appreciate this very though examination of the human pelvic development and the genes that control that development.
Delicious...
Naledi began with nothing and gradually added things to meet the requirements of the narrative.
Thanks Professor.
Everything needs the evidence…
How did they protect themselves….
Hi, just so wonderful…….take care…
Well, they would have to protect themselves somehow……rocks, clubs..something to throw at the predator…correct…
Watch Vanessa Davies. An Anthony T Browder. An then check out the Caucus Mountains. For Caucasian. Cauc-asian. Cause Africa is not it. LOL. You got so many Dr. Van Sertima. Dr. Yosef ben jochannan. To better help u. Cause to say that its a Neanderthal type species. Most of the world no better.
Why is the Homo naledi site promoted as the Cradle of Humankind?
I’m sorry I had to pause this one third the way through.Totally incredulous that you should be marvelling at Easy Aftrican from 5,000 years ago that were actually burying their dead? In Anatolia ( S Turkey on Syrian border - no so far away) they were engineering dressed stone megalithic temples of the utmost complexity with beautiful raised sculptures and complex carvings.They we’re clearly storing and channeling water of these rock hilltops. At a similar time the town of Jericho started with an enormous tower with internal staircase. Surely the only question to answer first is what went so horribly wrong in sub Saharan Africa. Nothing to do with racism in fact I find it more racist that you should be in awe of their primitive development like a mother praising a child. Finall to state the obvious.5,000 years ago / nearly) The pyramids were being constructed.Feats of engineering that we still don’t fully understand.
I think its all about contact with other humans. Horn and north Africa all had extensive trade ties and two way migration with other populations. For example horn africa developed writing systems, irrigation, used plows, were riding horses 5000 years ago, domesticated the camel ect West Africa/niger congo region however is so unbelievably far its hard to comprehend. Somalia is closer to China than Ghana then you factor in how the climate was different and Arabian peninsula and horn are closer more navigable which would be the same with the Mediterranean... Prior to the Bantu expansion subsaharan africa would've had limited contact outside northwest corridor and nilotic peoples west of the great lakes. That trend continued until middle ages Ethiopia and Egypt were exposed to Christianity early on Ethiopia officially adopting it before Rome in the 4th century and Egypt erecting a church mid first century... or even Islam where it reached east africa in the 7th century before the conquests of persia, levant and South Asia. Compare that to islam reaching subsaharan africa 12th century or Christianity in the 15th.... it was almost another world away
I don't think your understanding history.
"Out of Africa" is a political ploy to pander to one group.
Human evolution is far more complicated than their tidy little "out of Africa" story. I would predict that it would fall away in the future but the lysenkoism is starting to dominate even the "hard science" fields so future "consensus" is likely to land on whatever is politically expedient.
Nonsense.
Fantastic presentation, great detail that shows there is natural design and intelligence within the universe.
😊
Biological male? Seriously? Climate change? How one person can sound educated and stupid at the same time. The idea of climate vs THE climate indicates it is not static. You have local climate. You have current climate. There is no fixed clinate. Climate change is political not scientific. Male/Female is sufficient unless you are discussing contemporary New York or California.....
7 (seven) Considerations for two simple questions. Whereas (1) THAT, in a rare event, several fossils were found gathered in the same place; (2) THAT, these fossils are of individuals with ages ranging from months (infant) to mature age; (3) THAT these individuals appear to have died at the same time; (4) THAT there are no traces of food or hunting utensils/tools - nor of routine use of fire, although the place is very dark; (5) THAT the site is difficult to access even for small individuals, being difficult to go down to the lower chambers of the cave; (6) that exit from the site must be via the entry point; (7) that transporting adult corpses through the narrow labyrinth would be especially trying. I ASK: Wouldn't these individuals belong to a group (complete family, with adults, young people and children) that, in a hurry, sought refuge in the depths of the cave when fleeing from a pursuer who, in turn, had the means to understand the situation and set up guard for days or weeks, until it kills the refugees with thirst and hunger? Could the stalker be sapiens?
I like this content mate keep going !!! You may be interested in S M Z E U S!
i wonder what will happen when AI will start to analyze fossils, would it make things easier ?
Interesting presentation, and I found it pretty clear and understandable despite my not having education in the area, so good communication. Thank you.
I have a question. Was their cave like that while they were alive? I just got done watching the dude that discovered these talk about crawling through a hole that was 7 inches wide. What kind of burrowing chuds were these?
@davidallard1980 In one of his lectures Prof Lee told that yes the cave remained same. That they were getting in exacly like those things got in. But that was much easier for them because of their anatomy.
Look up their morphology, it's quite easy to do.
I guess it was too much to ask for this to avoid essentialism...
"Both biological sexes" The existence of intersex people beg to differ.
I can see these people coming up with something tremendously interesting some time in the future... but we're not there yet. E.g., I'd already heard about the climate becoming more arid, so it's nice to know that the new data say the same thing, but it's hardly headline material. And all the procedural stuff - who comes from where - is frankly boring to an outsider. My father, RIP, was a geophysicist, and the stuff he did kind of gave the same kind of vibe. Endless wading through detail, to achieve results that are just a small brick in an enormous wall. Popular science leaves out the boring part - otherwise nobody would listen...
Unfortunately, hypotheses and assumptions do not represent the truth or reality. There was no evolution of humans from a common ancestor with the apes. It's a conjecture without real evidence. Assumptions are not reality!
and excavations that exist
Lu l
Lo oí i
Y oo
Would this be considered a non-destructive sort of analysis?
Amazing presentation!
It stagers the imagination that Naledi used fire and buried their dead
Define ‘cave people’! Cavewomen & men developed into folk who built their own ‘cave substitutes’. Did Naledi-folk live in caves or cave entrances or did they just use them as catacombs? Are we humans alive today ‘post-cavepeople’?
Very interesting. Very sensible.
I watched this again. What strikes me as how pro-pastoralist you are. Which is fine. But it seems limited to Africans. Do you feel the same way about American and Canadian ranchers? Why are liberals so intent on attacking the beef industry here in the US, urging less consumption of beef?
@garyallen8824 The Federal Governor should own no land. Everything should be private.
Do you understand anything about the difference between scientific and historical description and contemporary policy questions? It really doesn't seem to be that complex. It would save you and others interested in the comment section from reading such nonsense as your claim that an archeologist is being "pro-pastoralist"... it's pretty much on the same level as claiming a historian who specializes on the emergence of city-states to be "pro-civilization". I mean come on.... You ought to broaden your laizzez-faire reading list to include works on the notion of science itself.
Evolution is evolving ;-) I think the upright pithecine ancestor of Sapien (Africa), Neanderthal (Europe), and Denisovan (Asia) evolved OUTSIDE of Africa, either in southeastern Europe or somewhere in ANE, and that this is why, via migration in all directions, it further evolved into not one but three separate [and yet compatible] species of homo. Neanderthals and Denisovans interfaced along the border of their separate domains long before Sapiens migrated out of Africa. But Sapiens, by far the superior of the three, not only in terms of capability but, BECAUSE of that capability, also in terms of sheer numbers, proved dominant, which is why the apparent assimilation [with the other two species] is as lopsided as it is. At the same time, elsewhere, all over the planet, various upright pithecines evolved into entirely OTHER versions of homo, that is, in places that involve zero contact with Sapien, Neanderthal, OR Denisovan. Naledi is likely a fine example of this. If we're able to construct its genome, it may well prove to resemble Sapien almost none at all. But even on the off chance Naledi DOES turn out to represent a branch or sub-branch of the very pithecine that migrated INTO Africa and evolved INTO Sapien, already there are other clear examples of this larger paradigm, to wit, Luzon and Flores. These are homos who evolved fully independently. Luzon and Flores didn't "arrive" on their respective islands, that is, in some way that involved having mastered the ability to navigate the seas. They didn't "migrate" there. They evolved there. They evolved there from whatever upright pithecines inhabited THOSE environments, cut off from all else, just as ANY homos evolved from ANY pithecines anywhere else. We don't get to say that the process which produced us ISN'T a process or, that is, "IS a process which could ONLY have produced us and our compatible co-species." The process either works, or it doesn't, and if it does, it works anywhere. We need to broaden our thinking on that. In fact, the only reason I say Sapien, Neanderthal, and Denisovan evidently SHARE the same ancestor, rather than having evolved from three distinct pithecines, is the fact that this compatibility has been PROVEN and, that is, because I don't "take it as given" that evolving FROM separate pithecines would even ALLOW for interbreeding. Or, stated alternately, I don't know that Sapien today could successfully breed with Flores, for example, if the latter had NOT gone extinct. Morphological similarity among various species of homo comes with no known guarantee of interbreedability, at least not in cases where they evolved from alternate pithecines ...and maybe not even always when they evolved from the SAME pithecine. Too, behavioral similarity means literally nothing. If and where upright pithecine goes to homo, it simply has to be the case that it leads to "common" behavioral outcomes over time. That behavioral similarities equate as linkages is no less a red herring than morphology. Evolution by definition guarantees these ghost linkages. If not, every plant that yields seeds would have to be imagined having arisen from a single, seed-yielding parent. No. It is the mechanism, not the source, that is shared in common. Process, not parent. The evolution of "man" happened everywhere. We're just its only surviving remnant, that is, with the exception of the extent to which former samples live on IN us, as part of us. EDIT: To be clear, I wouldn't want the reader to think I'm ignoring the fact that several extant primates, to whom we're so clearly related, register as indigenous to Africa, giving thus the appearance that Sapien, Neanderthal, and Denisovan must have originated in Africa as well. It's just that I do not think the evidence supports the claim that the apes OF Africa originated there. What I think is, 1) that the immediate ancestor of all apes as we know them is also the immediate or near-immediate ancestor of the upright pithecine from whom Sapien, Neanderthal, and Denisovan evolved, 2) that the severity of the Pleistocene caused this ancestor of all apes as we know them AND a large segment of our upright pithecine ancestor clade to migrate down INTO Africa, just as evidenced by the fact that the lesser apes (gibbons and siamangs) can be seen to be the product of migration down into South Asia, 3) that a lesser portion of our upright pithecine ancestor clade did NOT migrate south but, instead, adapted to the new conditions and evolved into the two distinct branches of homo we've so successfully identified as Neanderthal and Denisovan, 4) that another portion of our upright pithecine ancestor clade likely migrated south (also) into ASIA, producing an additional species of homo, related to us, in due course, and 5) that any other migrations of any other portion of our upright pithecine ancestor clade in any OTHER directions, likely ALSO would have produced additional species of homo, related to us, in due course. If we do not allow of this, then in principle we migrate both Neanderthal and Denisovan north, OUT of Africa, pre-Pleistocene, in a manner which somehow insensibly manages to leave no trace of them behind IN Africa. If not, alternately, we in principle migrate a portion of our shared upright pithecine ancestor clade north out of Africa, before it evolved INTO any species of homo, and yet do so without any explanation for what possibly may have given rise TO that impulse. So while yes, as by tradition, at least in theory, we can entertain a model where a portion of our shared upright pithecine ancestor clade migrated out of Africa quite early, evolving into Neanderthal and Denisovan elsewhere, and evolving into Sapien back in Africa, that model fails to account for some important and unavoidable things. It does not account for how it is that the fourth large primate to whom we're also provenly related (the orangutan) is neither IN nor FROM Africa, but whose habitat is limited to the islands of Borneo and Sumatra (once connected to the mainland). Only a seminal migration from N to SSW and SSE can account for the largely shared DNA profile among all three homos, both Lesser Apes, and all four of the Great Apes. In any event, the main thing is as follows, because it addresses the even larger problem left unanswered by a purely African origin model. The question of human evolution not possibly is limited to a matter of "from whence came primates." The reason for this, is it does not account for what it is that gave rise to what gave RISE to primates in the first place. In other words, our evolution, and the evolution we share WITH other primates, absolutely has to be understood in terms of what it is that gave rise TO primates before ever there even WERE primates. Once viewed through that lens, only THEN can one comprehend how a species of homo possibly could evolve on the kind of island (namely Flores) that is known to have never been connected to the mainland. Whatever process gave rise to primates ANYWHERE, gave rise to primates there, just as whatever mechanism allowed primates to evolve into pitheci and homos in that order, is a mechanism that allowed it there as well. So, while this is not to say that whatever gave rise to primates "anywhere" could not also have been in operation on the African continent, and is equally not to say that whatever mechanism allowed primates "anywhere" to evolve into pitheci and homos could not have been in play there too, it is only to say that, no, THESE primates did not evolve there. If primates could evolve fully independently on Flores, obviously primates could (and most certainly did) evolve in Africa. I'm not saying or suggesting they did not. But that's very different from saying that THESE primates ORIGINATED in Africa and that, accordingly, any of the world's pitheci and/or homos did too. Such a notion is enormously unsustainable. Already the evidence has grown overwhelming that a great deal of evolutionary process, involving primates, occurred well away the confines of the African continent. And it's not really that big of a leap of the imagination to think that the extant primates OF Africa, as well as the ancestor we and they share in common, can trace their beginnings beyond its borders. It is equally and by no means unimaginable that, fully independent of THESE primates, Africa produced its OWN now fully extinct ones, and that they in turn, yes, produced their OWN pitheci and homos in that order, also extinct, for which evidence can materialize (and likely has), and yet which knows zero connection to any of the primates to whom WE are related. We make an error in logic if we assume that all the primates of Africa, extant or otherwise, are related, just as we err to assume that all homos are [related] worldwide. We need, I think, to understand that nothing within the realm of natural law could have kept primates from "coming into existence," fully independently, anywhere on the planet, with no need for the one to be a cause of the other, and that because of this any instances of pitheci and homos in that order could have evolved in ways entirely unrelated to one another. The nature of evolution is that it can be expected to randomly produce quite similar "starting points," and then based simply on that similarity produce similar outcomes. All similar outcomes need not have a same source. As I say, I doubt that even all of Africa's homos are related, because I doubt they're related to us any more than Homo floresiensis is. I think we're in for a big surprise.
If 1)all pithecus ancestors of all homo species are found everywhere, not just [in] Africa, and if 2)one particular pithecus had to have been the ancestor of not only sapiens (s) but also neanderthals (n) and denisovans (d), and then if 3) each of the three homos s, n, and d are first found specific to their own respective continents (Africa, Europe, and Asia), wouldn't it stand to reason that our one pithecus ancestor lived somewhere CENTRAL to those three regions, branching out from there, and evolving into these three strains? Rudapithecus seems a good candidate for this. The "sapiens out of Africa" model does NOT require that our nearest ancestor be FROM Africa, just as is the case for either n or d. It may well be that while work continues in Africa at pace, greater and greater levels of attention should be paid to those regions which constitute southeastern Europe or ANE, that is, where a pithecus ancestor could have originated and migrated in all three directions. We seem to be looking for an essentially static ancestor, somewhere in Africa, with a focus on our own [later] migration. I think it's our ancestor's migration we should be aiming to track. I would add to that, that no, we do not need it to be the case that either flores or luzon be derivative, to wit, [that they be such] that they ultimately hail from the ancestor of s, n, or d. It seems, in fact, a great deal more likely that each of them, quite independently, rise from a separate pithecus source, simply following the same path of evolution we see in ourselves ...and far, far pre-dating the wherewithal to navigate the seas. There's no need to force linkages. If a pithecus can evolve into a homo, it ought not need a vast territory in order to do so. It ought need only a relatively safe one. An island is as good as a continent. And if evolving in this way is as very much a given as apparently it is, leading not only to s but also n and d, it should be taken as given that it occurred many times, in many locations, and in ways which were not at all linked. Just because s, n, and d yield linkages, doesn't mean all homos need to or did ...no more than all pitheci did.
32:45 "My screen is now blank" LOL. Just enjoying the fact that this is the very thing you're encouraging, Dr. Wood.
I'm fascinated by the hippo element or aspect of this culture, mainly because a link can be inferred between even the concept of a burial pit and, that is, a conceivable method of hunting that animal. This is especially true because the installation of stone pillars can be said to share in that linkage, as follows. In an environment where fluctuations in climate could indeed serve to threaten both human populations and that of their herds, it can be imagined that at times it proved very important to be able to rely on hippos as a food source. The challenges of such a thing, needless to say, would have been enormous. That said, if a people managed to meet that challenge (as the fossil records indicate they did), it seems that in their world it would have ranked as a monumental achievement. An achievement worthy of monumentalizing. Hippos not possibly could have been hunted in the water. They had to be drawn out of the water and hunted on land. Almost certainly the strategy for such a thing would have been to dig a deep pit for the animal to fall into, and then taunt them to lure them out. Using spears on an animal with such a thick hide and so dense a layer of fat would have been hit or miss and, well, often fatal for the hunters. A sure method had to be devised. Erecting large stones along the face of such a pit would have provided protection from hippos on the charge. That, and a gap, that is, with one or more nimble hunters positioned as the final lure. But such men would have tethered themselves to the nearest stone, allowing them to evade the oncoming animal by leaping into the pit and then quickly scaling its wall care of the tether. So yes, it may be that the burial pits were modeled after these. In fact, some years after the lake's water had receded, it may even be that the original hunting pits were repurposed as an obvious place to bury the dead. I think someone should study the pillars 14:41 with this possibility in mind. Also, the scoring cited 17:46 could be marks left behind by the teeth of a trapped hippo.
Poor title re
With all those years and pounds/dollars/pesos/beans spent researching can't we do any better than merely imagining it? What has come from all the blood, sweat and tears expended by the researchers? Simply something imagined ?
@56:11 Ward describes a siamang (a type of gibbon) as close to an ideal "missing link"/LCA. So the process of moving human ancestors out of Africa, away from australopithecines is germinating. Good to know.
ahahaha theres no paradox.. naledi is an ape..case closed