On Wednesday, February 9, 2022 at 9:41:32 PM UTC-5, DD'eDeN aka note/nickname/alas_my_loves wrote:
> On Wednesday, February 9, 2022 at 7:14:30 PM UTC-5, Paul Crowley wrote:
> > On Monday 7 February 2022 at 11:57:08 UTC, Pandora wrote:
> >
> > >> It's species that occupy niches. Vagrants
> > >> are usually in the wrong place, but could
> > >> be looking for a similar habitat.
> > >> For hominins that was somewhere females
> > >> could come (willingly or otherwise) and
> > >> raise young. The hominin failure rate
> > >> would have been around 99.999%
> > >
> > > So the probablity of a hominin like "Abel" (KT12/H1) ever reaching
> > > Koro Toro in the central Sahara would be practically zero.
> > Doesn't follow at all. Refugee bands could
> > well keep travelling for a decade or more,
> > hoping to find a place they could settle.
> > At the time of 'Abel' some of the predators
> > they encountered might have begun to
> > recognise the vulnerability of hominins,
> > meaning they had to move on.
> > > Multiply by
> > > the probabilty of this rare individual becoming a fossil and the
> > > probability of us finding it exposed on the surface 3.5 million years
> > > later would indeed make the total probability astronomically small.
> > > The fact that we have "Abel" is evidence that your story doesn't make
> > > any sense, at all.
> > No logic here at all. Hominin bands would
> > have spread out from their homelands
> > (presumably on the East African coast) more
> > or less indefinitely. Nothing to stop them.
> > >>>>> Where did it sleep?
> > >>>>
> > >>>> In whatever shelter it could find.
> > >>>
> > >>> Nice handwaving.
> > >>
> > >> Silly question.
> > >
> > > You've asked it many times.
> > I ask it about hominins supposedly settled
> > on the savanna (or the like), raising infants
> > and children, while surrounded by large
> > predators. You are asking me about what
> > were (at any one time) a band of transient
> > males, not seen as likely prey by local
> > predators.
> > >> Mat weaving was probably one of the
> > >> earliest of ground-living technologies.
> > >> It took only ONE bright hominin to
> > >> develop it, and the rest copied.
> > >> Minimal 'cognitive capacity'.
> > >
> > > Those neurons are not there to generate heat. Any neuroscientist will
> > > tell you that they are organized in delicate networks that underly
> > > perception, affection, cognition, and action.
> > > Pick up a copy of that big book by Kandel et al.:
> > > https://www.mhprofessional.com/9781259642234-usa-principles-of-neural-science-sixth-edition-group
> > Organs often have more than one function.
> > Brains were originally for what you say -- as
> > in nearly all animals. But they also act as a
> > store of heat. In some marine animals they
> > have evolved great size specifically for that
> > purpose. No good reason that should not
> > also apply to huminins.
> > > Chimps and humans are not much different when it comes to raw
> > > perception, emotion, and action. The big difference is in cognition.
> > > It's those higher-order integrative cortical association areas
> > > involved in cognitive processing that make up the bulk of the bulbous
> > > human brain. Chimps and Australopithecus have/had much less of that:
> > >
> > > https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aaz4729
> > There's next to nothing in such material.
> > Empty verbiage. Is there one meaningful
> > (i.e. testable) proposition in any text ever
> > written on the subject of "cognition"?
> > > Weaving a mat from fiber is a multistage proces that in humans
> > > requires significant cognitive processing, from selecting appropriate
> > > raw materials to preparing them for the purpose of weaving and the
> > > weaving process itself. It's not a programmed instinctive behaviour
> > > like nest-building in birds.
> >
> > Google images of "palm fronds". The leaves
> > fall off and litter the ground.
> Cite?
>

> Only after hurricanes. They hang and dry and root, [I meant rot!]
few land on the ground in usable condition.

> Early ground-
> > sleeping hominins making beds, would
> > collect a lot and lay them down, one layer
> > North-South, the next East-West. The
> > notion of interweaving them (so that they
> > didn't clump) would occur around Week 2.
> PC fantasy 47.
> > All other hominins would copy.
> > >> (But the predators would
> > >> not have realised that for a while.) Their
> > >> rock-throwing was also probably fairly
> > >> good.
> > >
> > > So they DO have a means of defending themselves.
> > > Never accepted when I suggest it.
> > I'm talking about naive predators, running
> > into a band of male hominins, not knowing
> > what they were. They'd take a few weeks or
> > months to realise that hominins were easy
> > prey -- especially at night. Whereas you
> > always talk of hominins living, sleeping,
> > and raising children in the same habitat
> > as those predators.

On Thursday, February 10, 2022 at 2:34:28 AM UTC, DD'eDeN aka note/nickname/alas_my_loves wrote:

> Probably a photo taken at the Wamba forest reserve or similar,
> Japanese research stations on chimps & bonobos.
>
> Clue:
>
> In 1973, a 35-year-old Japanese researcher named Takayoshi Kano,
> the first scientist to study bonobos extensively in the wild, spent
> months trudging through the dank forests of what was then Zaire

Got to grant you that one. I was too hasty
with my scepticism.

Nevertheless, it is close to a circus act.
Bonobo females would rarely go bipedal.
Here the mother with infants needs to
carry bunches of sugar-cane in her hands
and can't use her usual pronograde
locomotion.

On Thursday, February 10, 2022 at 2:41:32 AM UTC, DD'eDeN aka note/nickname/alas_my_loves wrote:

>> Google images of "palm fronds". The leaves
>> fall off and litter the ground.
>
> Cite?
>
> Only after hurricanes. They hang and dry and root, few land on the ground in usable condition.

Around here there are a few cordyline trees,
the palm-like leaves of which litter the
ground. Similar to the yucca, common in
North America.

Whether dried or pulled from living plants,
such leaves are common and readily available.
They're better than trying to sleep on damp
or dusty ground.

https://shop.catholicsupply.com/store/p/29274-Jerusalem-Palm.aspx

>> Early ground-
>> sleeping hominins making beds, would
>> collect a lot and lay them down, one layer
>> North-South, the next East-West. The
>> notion of interweaving them (so that they
>> didn't clump) would occur around Week 2.
>
> PC fantasy 47.

Try to be a little more articulate.

On Thursday, February 10, 2022 at 1:19:17 PM UTC, Pandora wrote:

>> You've heard of the "Replication Crisis"?
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis
>> It's merely a recent example of the "lack
>> of objectivity" that most educated adults
>> know is likely to be prevalent in any field
>> of human activity. Yet I'm not surprised
>> that you seem ignorant of it -- since PA
>> is your field -- one where, in a most
>> peculiar manner, credulousness is the
>> rule.
>
> "The replication crisis may be triggered by the "generation of new
> data/publications at an unprecedented rate" that leads to a failure to
> adhere to good scientific practice and the "desperation to publish or
> perish"
>
> I would hardly think that applies to PA, since it doesn't have the
> luxury of big data and they generally take their time to publish
> (often many years between discovery and publication).

My point was that the 'Replication Crisis'
reflects the norm. Bad science is to be
expected when independent verification
is poor or lacking. 'Original data' is too
often faked. Credulousness rules: going
back to Margaret Mead or Cyril Burt and
his claimed identical-twin IQ studies.

Bad scientists put obstacles in the way
of verification. That's only too obvious
in PA.

>> Partly this comes from regarding any kind
>> of 'speculation' with an atavistic horror
>> while working, without the slightest
>> question, under the superstition known
>> as the 'Biblical assumption'. Under this
>> everything is assumed to be as late as
>> possible and can only be given an
>> earlier date when it has near-cast-iron
>> evidence.
>
> I think that's just good empirical practice.

No other science adopts -- without
thinking -- an irrational and unjustifiable
assumption, and then proceeds in its
work by slowly chipping away the
resulting hypotheses.

> As such we have good reason to believe that bipedalism arose much
> earlier than big brains and the use of bifaces.

But, in consequence (of the adoption of
an irrational assumption) you have fallen
into the appalling error or assuming that
'intelligence' and bipedalism are
unrelated. So two events -- as rare as
death from lightening strikes -- just
happened to occur in the same taxon,
one soon after the other.

> We don't know the infants and children of most hominins, and those
> that we do know (e.g. "Selam") are different from modern humans:

At some point, hominin babies evolved --
fat, useless, slippery lumps of lard, that
have to be carried everywhere, and which
make a perfect meal for almost any predator.
This 'problem' -- when, why and how --
should be central in the discipline. Yet it's
completely ignored.

On Thursday, February 10, 2022 at 1:24:27 PM UTC, Pandora wrote:

>> No logic here at all. Hominin bands would
>> have spread out from their homelands
>> (presumably on the East African coast) more
>> or less indefinitely.
>
> It's ecologically unviable for a population of at most a few thousand
> individuals on an island with limited resources to generate such a
> surplus for millions of years.

After 2.6 ma, when sea-levels fell, it would
have been a variety of islands, perhaps
mostly off the western coast of Africa.
Before 2.6 ma it was probably Zanzibar and
Pemba, or Danakil, as well as other large
islands, archipelagos & peninsulas. A 'few
thousand' might have been possible during
some bad periods, but it would have to
have been a few tens of thousands in good
times.

> More likely the population would crash
> when the carrying capacity of the island was exceeded.

I don't get the logic here at all. Whenever
there was an excess, it would leave, be
told to leave, or have wars and be forced
to leave. Treks by bands of males into the
mainland would have been normal, so
flights by larger groups were predictable.

> Besides, you have a blind spot for Paranthropus, a small-brained taxon
> that was contemporary with Homo from about 2.5 mya through 1.4 mya,
> that obviously could not have evolved on the same islands, within a
> similar niche.

My 'blind spot' is no bigger than that of
the whole of PA with the difference that
I know it exists.

Paranthropus fossils are most commonly
found in the same places as those of other
hominins: Turkana, Koobi Fora, Ethiopia,
Swartkrans -- which makes no sense --
especially for the "East African Highway"
through the Rift Valley. Clearly they were
all travelling through those locations --
most on 'highways' with good supplies of
fresh water.

It is the height of folly to argue that they
all lived and co-evolved in such places at
much the same times (among all the
predators) AND that they all shared the
same habitats.

>> Nothing to stop them.
>
> Except that 99.999% failure rate that would have stopped them dead in
> their tracks. You sure know how to contradict yourself.

They nearly all died after travelling a
few hundred or a few thousand miles
-- leaving no descendants. There's no
contradiction.

>> Organs often have more than one function.
>> Brains were originally for what you say -- as
>> in nearly all animals. But they also act as a
>> store of heat. In some marine animals they
>> have evolved great size specifically for that
>> purpose.
>
> Really, can you quote a marine biologist on that?

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-84762-0

Amplification of potential thermogenetic mechanisms in cetacean brains compared to artiodactyl brains

>> No good reason that should not
>> also apply to huminins.
>
> One good reason why it wouldn't apply in hominins is because they lack
> the other aquatic adaptations of marine mammals.

They were not marine mammals , but
they had roughly similar pressures
(needing to endure intense cold) and
had similar resources -- plentiful
supplies of fish.

>>> Chimps and humans are not much different when it comes to raw
>>> perception, emotion, and action. The big difference is in cognition.
>
>> Is there one meaningful (i.e. testable) proposition in any text ever
>> written on the subject of "cognition"?

> You may want to check a vast literature on the subject with regard to
> primates, or aliens like this:
>
> https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139058964

The 'vast literature' is about simple tests,
such as "Does the animal recognise itself in
a mirror?". It's a bit like the tests on fusion
reactors: "Does the experiment produce
more heat than it consumes?" But the
latter has real science behind it. The
former has none.

>> notion of interweaving them (so that they
>> didn't clump) would occur around Week 2.
>> All other hominins would copy.
>
> Chimps have been tugging in vegetation from all directions for
> millions of years in tree nests and in day nests on the ground.
> Weaving mats has never occured to them.

Chimp nests are complicated. They
take young chimps many years of
practice to learn. It's not much of
a transition to learn how to emulate
them on the ground -- with reeds and
the like -- but, I guess, that need has
never been pressing.. Or any that
did learn how to do it, didn't pass it
on. Chimp cultures rarely spread.

>> Whereas you
>> always talk of hominins living, sleeping,
>> and raising children in the same habitat
>> as those predators.
>
> That's what the fossil record says, contemporaneity and sympatry of
> hominins and carnivores, from as early as Sahelanthropus all the way
> to Homo sapiens.

It's NOT what the fossil record says. Learn
to count. The record says that hominins
were not part of the ecology. They were
as rare as vultures in Scandinavia.

On Thursday, February 10, 2022 at 3:41:52 PM UTC, Pandora wrote:

> Besides, even when PA is dealing with something approaching big data,
> e.g. phylogenetic analysis on a datamatix of multiple taxa and
> characters, one team was perfectly capable of reproducing the results
> of another team. That is, this one:
> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1513-8
>
> independently got the same topology as this one:
> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S004724841830143X
>
> Conclusion: Sahelanthropus and Ardipithecus are basal hominins.

"Independently" . . ? This is a discussion
that has been going on for decades. Each
team knows exactly where the other has
come from, and in which direction it
wants to go .

On Saturday, February 12, 2022 at 6:52:20 PM UTC-5, Paul Crowley wrote:
> On Thursday, February 10, 2022 at 2:34:28 AM UTC, DD'eDeN aka note/nickname/alas_my_loves wrote:
>
> > Probably a photo taken at the Wamba forest reserve or similar,
> > Japanese research stations on chimps & bonobos.
> >
> > Clue:
> >
> > In 1973, a 35-year-old Japanese researcher named Takayoshi Kano,
> > the first scientist to study bonobos extensively in the wild, spent
> > months trudging through the dank forests of what was then Zaire
> Got to grant you that one. I was too hasty
> with my scepticism.

You mean ignorance & bias. There is no indication in the photo of a zoo habitat.

> Nevertheless, it is close to a circus act.

Nope.

> Bonobo females would rarely go bipedal.

Bonobos are the 3rd most upright bipedal hominoid after Homo & Hylobatids.

> Here the mother with infants needs to
> carry bunches of sugar-cane in her hands
> and can't use her usual pronograde
> locomotion.

Again, bonobos are the third most bipedal hominoid.
While carrying food and while wading, all hominoids are typically bipedal.
Chimps have been observed bipedally carrying sticks and root rhysomes.

On Saturday, February 12, 2022 at 6:55:08 PM UTC-5, Paul Crowley wrote:
> On Thursday, February 10, 2022 at 2:41:32 AM UTC, DD'eDeN aka note/nickname/alas_my_loves wrote:
>
> >> Google images of "palm fronds". The leaves
> >> fall off and litter the ground.
> >
> > Cite?
> >
> > Only after hurricanes. They hang and dry and rot, few land on the ground in usable condition.
> Around here there are a few cordyline trees,

Those are small houseplants, ti plants, nothing like palm trees.

> the palm-like leaves of which litter the
> ground.

Not palm-like.

Similar to the yucca, common in
> North America.

No idea what you are trying to say. These plants have narrow long leaves, not palm frond.

> Whether dried or pulled from living plants,
> such leaves are common and readily available.
> They're better than trying to sleep on damp
> or dusty ground.
>
> https://shop.catholicsupply.com/store/p/29274-Jerusalem-Palm.aspx

Actual palm fronds can be used, but apes never use them below the tree, nor have I read of them using fronds for nests anywhere.

> >> Early ground-
> >> sleeping hominins making beds, would
> >> collect a lot and lay them down, one layer
> >> North-South, the next East-West. The
> >> notion of interweaving them (so that they
> >> didn't clump) would occur around Week 2.
> >
> > PC fantasy 47.
> Try to be a little more articulate.

An open bowl ground nest invites mosquitoes, midges, predators and defends against nothing. Mats were not woven at all until Homo had already been using domeshields for at least 2 million years. Soft fiber weaving was even later, so no early netting.

On Saturday, February 12, 2022 at 7:02:31 PM UTC-5, Paul Crowley wrote:
> On Thursday, February 10, 2022 at 1:24:27 PM UTC, Pandora wrote:
>
> >> No logic here at all. Hominin bands would
> >> have spread out from their homelands
> >> (presumably on the East African coast) more
> >> or less indefinitely.
> >
> > It's ecologically unviable for a population of at most a few thousand
> > individuals on an island with limited resources to generate such a
> > surplus for millions of years.
> After 2.6 ma, when sea-levels fell, it would
> have been a variety of islands, perhaps
> mostly off the western coast of Africa.
> Before 2.6 ma it was probably Zanzibar and
> Pemba, or Danakil, as well as other large
> islands, archipelagos & peninsulas. A 'few
> thousand' might have been possible during
> some bad periods, but it would have to
> have been a few tens of thousands in good
> times.
> > More likely the population would crash
> > when the carrying capacity of the island was exceeded.
> I don't get the logic here at all. Whenever
> there was an excess, it would leave, be
> told to leave, or have wars and be forced
> to leave. Treks by bands of males into the
> mainland would have been normal, so
> flights by larger groups were predictable.
> > Besides, you have a blind spot for Paranthropus, a small-brained taxon
> > that was contemporary with Homo from about 2.5 mya through 1.4 mya,
> > that obviously could not have evolved on the same islands, within a
> > similar niche.
> My 'blind spot' is no bigger than that of
> the whole of PA with the difference that
> I know it exists.
>
> Paranthropus fossils are most commonly
> found in the same places as those of other
> hominins: Turkana, Koobi Fora, Ethiopia,
> Swartkrans -- which makes no sense --
> especially for the "East African Highway"
> through the Rift Valley. Clearly they were
> all travelling through those locations --
> most on 'highways' with good supplies of
> fresh water.
>
> It is the height of folly to argue that they
> all lived and co-evolved in such places at
> much the same times (among all the
> predators) AND that they all shared the
> same habitats.
> >> Nothing to stop them.
> >
> > Except that 99.999% failure rate that would have stopped them dead in
> > their tracks. You sure know how to contradict yourself.
> They nearly all died after travelling a
> few hundred or a few thousand miles
> -- leaving no descendants. There's no
> contradiction.
> >> Organs often have more than one function.
> >> Brains were originally for what you say -- as
> >> in nearly all animals. But they also act as a
> >> store of heat. In some marine animals they
> >> have evolved great size specifically for that
> >> purpose.
> >
> > Really, can you quote a marine biologist on that?
> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-84762-0
>
> Amplification of potential thermogenetic mechanisms in cetacean brains compared to artiodactyl brains
> >> No good reason that should not
> >> also apply to huminins.

Whales do not shiver, humans and pigs shiver.

> >
> > One good reason why it wouldn't apply in hominins is because they lack
> > the other aquatic adaptations of marine mammals.
> They were not marine mammals , but
> they had roughly similar pressures
> (needing to endure intense cold) and
> had similar resources -- plentiful
> supplies of fish.
> >>> Chimps and humans are not much different when it comes to raw
> >>> perception, emotion, and action. The big difference is in cognition.
> >
> >> Is there one meaningful (i.e. testable) proposition in any text ever
> >> written on the subject of "cognition"?
>
> > You may want to check a vast literature on the subject with regard to
> > primates, or aliens like this:
> >
> > https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139058964
> The 'vast literature' is about simple tests,
> such as "Does the animal recognise itself in
> a mirror?". It's a bit like the tests on fusion
> reactors: "Does the experiment produce
> more heat than it consumes?" But the
> latter has real science behind it. The
> former has none.
> >> notion of interweaving them (so that they
> >> didn't clump) would occur around Week 2.
> >> All other hominins would copy.
> >
> > Chimps have been tugging in vegetation from all directions for
> > millions of years in tree nests and in day nests on the ground.
> > Weaving mats has never occured to them.
> Chimp nests are complicated.

All arboreal apes follow the same bowl nest design to ensure they and their infants do not fall through or fall out at night.

They
> take young chimps many years of
> practice to learn.

They start while they are babies incapable of actual mimicry but able to bend twigs. A year later they make their own bowl nests.

It's not much of
> a transition to learn how to emulate
> them on the ground -- with reeds and
> the like -- but, I guess, that need has
> never been pressing.

Nor ever been observed.

Or any that
> did learn how to do it, didn't pass it
> on. Chimp cultures rarely spread.
> >> Whereas you
> >> always talk of hominins living, sleeping,
> >> and raising children in the same habitat
> >> as those predators.
> >
> > That's what the fossil record says, contemporaneity and sympatry of
> > hominins and carnivores, from as early as Sahelanthropus all the way
> > to Homo sapiens.
> It's NOT what the fossil record says. Learn
> to count. The record says that hominins
> were not part of the ecology. They were
> as rare as vultures in Scandinavia.

Vultures are not rare in Scandinavia, just less common than in steppe/arid country.

On Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 12:56:30 AM UTC, DD'eDeN aka note/nickname/alas_my_loves wrote:

>> Nevertheless, it is close to a circus act.
>
> Nope.

Quadrupeds are (or were) routinely trained
to go bipedal in circuses. They occasionally
do it themselves in the wild -- but rarely.

>> Bonobo females would rarely go bipedal.
>
> Bonobos are the 3rd most upright bipedal hominoid after Homo & Hylobatids.

A nonsense statement. The question (with
regard to being similar or not to homo) is
"Are they obligate bipeds?". Being
occasional bipeds has no significance
whatever.

On Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 1:10:44 AM UTC, DD'eDeN aka note/nickname/alas_my_loves wrote:

>> Around here there are a few cordyline trees,
>
> Those are small houseplants, ti plants, nothing like palm trees.

Around here, outside & typically 4-7 metres tall.
https://www.architecturalplants.com/product/cordyline-australis/

> No idea what you are trying to say. These plants have narrow long
> leaves, not palm frond.

Long narrow leaves litter the ground.

>> https://shop.catholicsupply.com/store/p/29274-Jerusalem-Palm.aspx
>
> Actual palm fronds can be used, but apes never use them below the
> tree, nor have I read of them using fronds for nests anywhere.

I wouldn't expect that either. They sleep
in ordinary trees. Their near-ground-nests
would follow the same pattern.

If you're going to sleep on the ground,
you use whatever material is to hand to
cover it and make some 'bedding'. Palm
fronds (or cordyline leaves) are readily
stripped from trees.

> An open bowl ground nest invites mosquitoes, midges

As I'm sure you know, midges, mosquitoes
and other bugs are much more common
around trees.

> predators and defends against nothing.

Chimps nest high up in a tree. The main
reason it's high up is to avoid ground predators.
No hominoid (especially a mother with infant)
is going to sleep on the ground when there are
large predators around.

On Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 2:03:00 PM UTC, Pandora wrote:

> The logic is that of primates that don't just jump into the sea when the
> going gets tough.

At some point out ancestors stopped being
like other primates (in this respect). I can
see them remaining on an over-crowded
island when it's truly remote. But if they
can see the mainland, or the next island,
there will be a strong incentive get a raft
or flotation aid and head towards it.

> Your problem is that you've proposed an evolutionary scenario of human
> evolution that pretends to explain all uniquely human features, from
> the origin of bipedalism to big brains,

An ambition -- as it should be for all who
have an interest in this subject. NOT a
claim.

> When you put KNM-ER 406 and KNM-ER 3733 next to each other it's
> obvious that these two could not have followed the same evolutionary
> trajectory:

Sure. The robusts went off in some
weird direction.

>> It is the height of folly to argue that they
>> all lived and co-evolved in such places at
>> much the same times (among all the
>> predators) AND that they all shared the
>> same habitats.
>
> Considering how different Paranthropus and Homo are craniodentally
> it's reasonable to infer that they were also ecologically distinct.
> Niche partitioning is a common feature of closely related taxa. See
> the many bovine species in Africa today.

Hominins are very different from bovids
-- being carnivorous for a start. No one
(with any sense) would suggest that two
competing hominin species could share
the same habitat.

>> They were not marine mammals , but
>> they had roughly similar pressures
>> (needing to endure intense cold)
>
> Those pressures would then also apply to the rest of the body,

Hominins usually swim (in survival
mode or otherwise) with their heads
out of the water (very different from
marine mammals). That drastically
changes the dynamics of heat-loss,
and the physiology that can best
survive the cold.

> but apart from brainsize the human body shows little convergence
> toward cetaceans or other marine mammals.

Sure. Marine mammals are in cold water
all the time. Hominins were in it only
occasionally, and maybe only rarely --
but enough (may be less than once in a
lifetime) for the cold to exercise selective
effects.

> On the contrary, the human body has
> several adaptations for rapid heat dissipation (e.g. large numbers of
> eccrine sweat glands in the skin and emissary veins in the skull.
> (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissary_veins)

Not a contradiction.

> Overheating rather than hypothermia seems to have been a problem in
> human evolution.

One does not rule out the other.

> Besides, brain size really took off with Homo after about 2 mya, not
> at the origin of hominins:
> https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0168010219304882-gr1.jpg

Brain size took off at about the same time
as ice-ages commenced.

> Sahelanthropus at 7 mya had a cranial capacity of only 370 cc,
> Australopithecus anamensis at 4 mya still had a cranial capacity of
> 370 cc. No change in the first 3 million years of hominins.

And h.naledi wasn't much more at ~250 ka

>> and had similar resources -- plentiful
>> supplies of fish.
>
> If you can catch them.
> All piscivorous marine mammals are fast swimmers.

Humans are still not fast swimmers, but
catch plenty of fish. It's a question of when
nets came into use.

>> Chimp nests are complicated.
>
> No, they're not. The construction of a normal nest varies between 1
> and 5 minutes. The technique is described on p. 196-197 in:
> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0066185668800032

https://www.livescience.com/19708-primates-build-sleeping-nests.html

"When they are ready to snuggle up at the tops of trees, great apes make themselves cozy "nests" in which to rest for the night. New studies of these one-night nests reveal their incredible complexity."

"They are almost as complex as a man-made shelter you might make,"

>> It's NOT what the fossil record says. Learn
>> to count. The record says that hominins
>> were not part of the ecology. They were
>> as rare as vultures in Scandinavia.
>
> I've done the count. When I search the Turkana Database for all
> entries of Hominidae I get 671 (5%). When I do the same for Carnivora
> I get 608 (4.5%).

I can do a count for the Natural History Museum.
My results won't be a guide to the numbers
of wlld animals in South Kensington -- now or
ever. Likewise for the Turkana Museum. It
doesn't claim to be representative.

> But you will always concoct some lame excuse to reject results you
> don't like. Such behaviour doesn't constitute a move in the scientific
> language-game.

The 'PA language-game' re numbers has
drifted into some strange territory way
above the ground -- between religion
and myth. Those in the discipline decided
(around 100 years ago) that hominins
evolved in Africa -- AND were a more-or-
less normal element in the ecology. They
never examined this theory with any care
or honesty, because all likely answers are
catastrophic. If hominins 5 ma could cope
with the carnivores, then those of 1.0 ma
or 100 ka would have wiped them out.

And that's still the case. But for the last
20 to 40 years the numbers (based on
the extreme rarity of hominin fossils)
prove that hominins were NEVER a
normal or natural part of any known
African ecology.

On Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 2:52:20 PM UTC, Pandora wrote:

>> But, in consequence (of the adoption of
>> an irrational assumption) you have fallen
>> into the appalling error or assuming that
>> 'intelligence' and bipedalism are
>> unrelated.
>
> I don't see why the null-hypothesis is so appalling to you.
> Being emotional about it interferes with objectivity.

The null hypothesis should include
the assumption that the bipedal taxon
acquired its distinctive characteristics
at its origin. That's the rule for every
other taxon. But, for some strange
reason, PA assumes that it's the 100
million to one exception.

The distinctive features of the bipedal
taxon include its capacity to develop
technology, and and pass on (from
generation to generation) powerful
adaptive cultures and culturally-
acquired skills.

>> So two events -- as rare as
>> death from lightening strikes -- just
>> happened to occur in the same taxon,
>> one soon after the other.
>
> If brain organization/size has anything to do with it then we have no
> reason to believe that much has changed in the 3 million years between
> Sahelanthropus and Australopithecus anamensis, both with a cranial
> capacity of 370 cc, within the range of Pan.
> What other empirical data can inform us about intelligence in early
> hominins?

Survival is one -- contrary to all reasonable
predictions -- given that the taxon adopted
a slower form of locomotion and gave up
its capacity to scoot up trees (especially
with young attached).

>> At some point, hominin babies evolved --
>> fat, useless, slippery lumps of lard, that
>> have to be carried everywhere, and which
>> make a perfect meal for almost any predator.
>> This 'problem' -- when, why and how --
>> should be central in the discipline. Yet it's
>> completely ignored.
>
> Not completely, but the subject is difficult to study when it has no
> soft tissue and genetic correllates in fossil taxa:
> <https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/(SICI)1096-8644(1998)107:27+%3C177::AID-AJPA7%3E3.0.CO;2-B>

I should have mentioned that these fat,
useless, slippery lumps of lard are also
extremely noisy, often at night. These
characteristics didn't evolve recently,
nor in the presence of predators.
Following the rules that we apply to
every other taxon, we can assume that
they evolved at its origin.

There aren't many realistic possibilities
for a desperately slow, night-blind,
ground-living hominin, incapable of
climbing nearly all trees (especially with
infants attached).

Surely, it's not too much to ask those
who pretend to study the subject to
outline what they are, or might be?

On Friday, February 18, 2022 at 5:39:16 PM UTC-5, Paul Crowley wrote:
> On Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 2:52:20 PM UTC, Pandora wrote:
>
> >> But, in consequence (of the adoption of
> >> an irrational assumption) you have fallen
> >> into the appalling error or assuming that
> >> 'intelligence' and bipedalism are
> >> unrelated.
> >
> > I don't see why the null-hypothesis is so appalling to you.
> > Being emotional about it interferes with objectivity.
> The null hypothesis should include
> the assumption that the bipedal taxon
> acquired its distinctive characteristics
> at its origin. That's the rule for every
> other taxon.

Gibbons are upright bipeds, almost obligatorily, but have never developed tools nor speech, being non-social.

But, for some strange
> reason, PA assumes that it's the 100
> million to one exception.
>
> The distinctive features of the bipedal
> taxon include its capacity to develop
> technology, and and pass on (from
> generation to generation) powerful
> adaptive cultures and culturally-
> acquired skills.

That requires hypersociality and complex neural processing, not just bipedalism, and safe sleep.

> >> So two events -- as rare as
> >> death from lightening strikes -- just
> >> happened to occur in the same taxon,
> >> one soon after the other.
> >
> > If brain organization/size has anything to do with it then we have no
> > reason to believe that much has changed in the 3 million years between
> > Sahelanthropus and Australopithecus anamensis, both with a cranial
> > capacity of 370 cc, within the range of Pan.
> > What other empirical data can inform us about intelligence in early
> > hominins?
> Survival is one --

Sheltered sleep.

contrary to all reasonable
> predictions -- given that the taxon adopted
> a slower form of locomotion and gave up
> its capacity to scoot up trees (especially
> with young attached).

Domeshields.

> >> At some point, hominin babies evolved --
> >> fat, useless, slippery lumps of lard, that
> >> have to be carried everywhere, and which
> >> make a perfect meal for almost any predator.
> >> This 'problem' -- when, why and how --
> >> should be central in the discipline. Yet it's
> >> completely ignored.
> >
> > Not completely, but the subject is difficult to study when it has no
> > soft tissue and genetic correllates in fossil taxa:
> > <https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/(SICI)1096-8644(1998)107:27+%3C177::AID-AJPA7%3E3.0.CO;2-B>
> I should have mentioned that these fat,
> useless, slippery lumps of lard are also
> extremely noisy, often at night.

Only when separated from mother and her attention.

These
> characteristics didn't evolve recently,
> nor in the presence of predators.
> Following the rules that we apply to
> every other taxon, we can assume that
> they evolved at its origin.
>
> There aren't many realistic possibilities
> for a desperately slow, night-blind,
> ground-living hominin, incapable of
> climbing nearly all trees (especially with
> infants attached).

Domeshields or Atlantis.

> Surely, it's not too much to ask those
> who pretend to study the subject to
> outline what they are, or might be?

On Friday, February 18, 2022 at 5:34:43 PM UTC-5, Paul Crowley wrote:
> On Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 2:03:00 PM UTC, Pandora wrote:
>
> > The logic is that of primates that don't just jump into the sea when the
> > going gets tough.
> At some point out ancestors stopped being
> like other primates (in this respect). I can
> see them remaining on an over-crowded
> island when it's truly remote. But if they
> can see the mainland, or the next island,
> there will be a strong incentive get a raft
> or flotation aid and head towards it.
> > Your problem is that you've proposed an evolutionary scenario of human
> > evolution that pretends to explain all uniquely human features, from
> > the origin of bipedalism to big brains,
> An ambition -- as it should be for all who
> have an interest in this subject. NOT a
> claim.
> > When you put KNM-ER 406 and KNM-ER 3733 next to each other it's
> > obvious that these two could not have followed the same evolutionary
> > trajectory:
> Sure. The robusts went off in some
> weird direction.
> >> It is the height of folly to argue that they
> >> all lived and co-evolved in such places at
> >> much the same times (among all the
> >> predators) AND that they all shared the
> >> same habitats.
> >
> > Considering how different Paranthropus and Homo are craniodentally
> > it's reasonable to infer that they were also ecologically distinct.
> > Niche partitioning is a common feature of closely related taxa. See
> > the many bovine species in Africa today.
> Hominins are very different from bovids
> -- being carnivorous for a start. No one
> (with any sense) would suggest that two
> competing hominin species could share
> the same habitat.
> >> They were not marine mammals , but
> >> they had roughly similar pressures
> >> (needing to endure intense cold)
> >
> > Those pressures would then also apply to the rest of the body,
> Hominins usually swim (in survival
> mode or otherwise) with their heads
> out of the water (very different from
> marine mammals). That drastically
> changes the dynamics of heat-loss,
> and the physiology that can best
> survive the cold.
> > but apart from brainsize the human body shows little convergence
> > toward cetaceans or other marine mammals.
> Sure. Marine mammals are in cold water
> all the time. Hominins were in it only
> occasionally, and maybe only rarely --
> but enough (may be less than once in a
> lifetime) for the cold to exercise selective
> effects.
> > On the contrary, the human body has
> > several adaptations for rapid heat dissipation (e.g. large numbers of
> > eccrine sweat glands in the skin and emissary veins in the skull.
> > (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissary_veins)
> Not a contradiction.
> > Overheating rather than hypothermia seems to have been a problem in
> > human evolution.
> One does not rule out the other.
> > Besides, brain size really took off with Homo after about 2 mya, not
> > at the origin of hominins:
> > https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0168010219304882-gr1.jpg
> Brain size took off at about the same time
> as ice-ages commenced.
> > Sahelanthropus at 7 mya had a cranial capacity of only 370 cc,
> > Australopithecus anamensis at 4 mya still had a cranial capacity of
> > 370 cc. No change in the first 3 million years of hominins.
> And h.naledi wasn't much more at ~250 ka
> >> and had similar resources -- plentiful
> >> supplies of fish.
> >
> > If you can catch them.
> > All piscivorous marine mammals are fast swimmers.
> Humans are still not fast swimmers, but
> catch plenty of fish. It's a question of when
> nets came into use.
> >> Chimp nests are complicated.
> >
> > No, they're not. The construction of a normal nest varies between 1
> > and 5 minutes. The technique is described on p. 196-197 in:
> > https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0066185668800032
> https://www.livescience.com/19708-primates-build-sleeping-nests.html
>
> "When they are ready to snuggle up at the tops of trees, great apes make themselves cozy "nests" in which to rest for the night. New studies of these one-night nests reveal their incredible complexity."
>
> "They are almost as complex as a man-made shelter you might make,"

They are simple bowl nests, like weaver bird nests. The complexity refers to the individual strands, which is mostly irrelevant since they can wrap around in many other ways. The bowl form is the only significant thing.

> >> It's NOT what the fossil record says. Learn
> >> to count. The record says that hominins
> >> were not part of the ecology. They were
> >> as rare as vultures in Scandinavia.
> >
> > I've done the count. When I search the Turkana Database for all
> > entries of Hominidae I get 671 (5%). When I do the same for Carnivora
> > I get 608 (4.5%).
> I can do a count for the Natural History Museum.
> My results won't be a guide to the numbers
> of wlld animals in South Kensington -- now or
> ever. Likewise for the Turkana Museum. It
> doesn't claim to be representative.
> > But you will always concoct some lame excuse to reject results you
> > don't like. Such behaviour doesn't constitute a move in the scientific
> > language-game.
> The 'PA language-game' re numbers has
> drifted into some strange territory way
> above the ground -- between religion
> and myth. Those in the discipline decided
> (around 100 years ago) that hominins
> evolved in Africa -- AND were a more-or-
> less normal element in the ecology. They
> never examined this theory with any care
> or honesty, because all likely answers are
> catastrophic. If hominins 5 ma could cope
> with the carnivores, then those of 1.0 ma
> or 100 ka would have wiped them out.
>
> And that's still the case. But for the last
> 20 to 40 years the numbers (based on
> the extreme rarity of hominin fossils)
> prove that hominins were NEVER a
> normal or natural part of any known
> African ecology.

On Friday, February 18, 2022 at 5:13:45 PM UTC-5, Paul Crowley wrote:
> On Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 1:10:44 AM UTC, DD'eDeN aka note/nickname/alas_my_loves wrote:
>
> >> Around here there are a few cordyline trees,
> >
> > Those are small houseplants, ti plants, nothing like palm trees.
> Around here, outside & typically 4-7 metres tall.

HArd to sleep in one.

> https://www.architecturalplants.com/product/cordyline-australis/
> > No idea what you are trying to say. These plants have narrow long
> > leaves, not palm frond.
> Long narrow leaves litter the ground.

Yes, wind scatters them, rain soaks them.

> >> https://shop.catholicsupply.com/store/p/29274-Jerusalem-Palm.aspx
> >
> > Actual palm fronds can be used, but apes never use them below the
> > tree, nor have I read of them using fronds for nests anywhere.
> I wouldn't expect that either. They sleep
> in ordinary trees. Their near-ground-nests
> would follow the same pattern.
>
> If you're going to sleep on the ground,
> you use whatever material is to hand to
> cover it and make some 'bedding'. Palm
> fronds (or cordyline leaves) are readily
> stripped from trees.

Forest Pygmies sleep on pole beds. They sit on large broadleaves.

> > An open bowl ground nest invites mosquitoes, midges
> As I'm sure you know, midges, mosquitoes
> and other bugs are much more common
> around trees.

No, in shade around water, which is why pygmies sleep in dome huts 50m from water.
Furred apes sleep in open bowl nests, naked Homo never has.

> > predators and defends against nothing.
> Chimps nest high up in a tree. The main
> reason it's high up is to avoid ground predators.
> No hominoid (especially a mother with infant)
> is going to sleep on the ground when there are
> large predators around.

Humans do so routinely when sheltered and in groups.

On Friday, February 18, 2022 at 5:10:55 PM UTC-5, Paul Crowley wrote:
> On Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 12:56:30 AM UTC, DD'eDeN aka note/nickname/alas_my_loves wrote:
>
> >> Nevertheless, it is close to a circus act.
> >
> > Nope.
> Quadrupeds are (or were) routinely trained
> to go bipedal in circuses. They occasionally
> do it themselves in the wild -- but rarely.

Bonobos routinely carry while bipedal, and while wading are bipedal.

> >> Bonobo females would rarely go bipedal.
> >
> > Bonobos are the 3rd most upright bipedal hominoid after Homo & Hylobatids.
> A nonsense statement.

Nope.

The question (with
> regard to being similar or not to homo) is
> "Are they obligate bipeds?". Being
> occasional bipeds has no significance
> whatever.

Bonobos are the 3rd most upright bipedal hominoid, more than any other great ape but man.

On Saturday, February 19, 2022 at 8:35:16 AM UTC-5, Pandora wrote:
> On Fri, 18 Feb 2022 14:34:41 -0800 (PST), Paul Crowley
> <yelw...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >On Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 2:03:00 PM UTC, Pandora wrote:
> >
> >> The logic is that of primates that don't just jump into the sea when the
> >> going gets tough.
> >
> >At some point out ancestors stopped being
> >like other primates (in this respect). I can
> >see them remaining on an over-crowded
> >island when it's truly remote. But if they
> >can see the mainland, or the next island,
> >there will be a strong incentive get a raft
> >or flotation aid and head towards it.
> That's quite different from going in and swimming a few miles.
> No ape will do that, unless it's a well-trained Homo sapiens.
> >> Your problem is that you've proposed an evolutionary scenario of human
> >> evolution that pretends to explain all uniquely human features, from
> >> the origin of bipedalism to big brains,
> >
> >An ambition -- as it should be for all who
> >have an interest in this subject. NOT a
> >claim.
> >
> >> When you put KNM-ER 406 and KNM-ER 3733 next to each other it's
> >> obvious that these two could not have followed the same evolutionary
> >> trajectory:
> >
> >Sure. The robusts went off in some
> >weird direction.
> That makes them interesting as a test case for your scenario. They
> have their origin at about the same time as Homo, but their brains are
> small (410 cc in KNM-WT 17000), while their jaws and teeth are
> massive. Quite the opposite of Homo.
> They couldn't have come from the same island.
> >>> It is the height of folly to argue that they
> >>> all lived and co-evolved in such places at
> >>> much the same times (among all the
> >>> predators) AND that they all shared the
> >>> same habitats.
> >>
> >> Considering how different Paranthropus and Homo are craniodentally
> >> it's reasonable to infer that they were also ecologically distinct.
> >> Niche partitioning is a common feature of closely related taxa. See
> >> the many bovine species in Africa today.
> >
> >Hominins are very different from bovids
> >-- being carnivorous for a start.
> More likely omnivorous.
> Besides, we see the same pattern of diversity and niche partitioning
> in carnivores such as Felidae. Lion, leopard, cheetah, serval,
> caracal, and a host of other cats are sympatric in Africa today.
> >No one (with any sense) would suggest that two
> >competing hominin species could share
> >the same habitat.
> Paranthropus and Homo are distinct enough morphologically to suggest
> something similar as with felids.
> >>> They were not marine mammals , but
> >>> they had roughly similar pressures
> >>> (needing to endure intense cold)
> >>
> >> Those pressures would then also apply to the rest of the body,
> >
> >Hominins usually swim (in survival
> >mode or otherwise) with their heads
> >out of the water (very different from
> >marine mammals). That drastically
> >changes the dynamics of heat-loss,
> >and the physiology that can best
> >survive the cold.
> All the more reason the believe that the rest of the body was under
> selection to make them better swimmers, to stay as short in the water
> as possible, but hominins do not even have webbed fingers and are
> still much slower than marine predators such as sharks.
> >> but apart from brainsize the human body shows little convergence
> >> toward cetaceans or other marine mammals.
> >
> >Sure. Marine mammals are in cold water
> >all the time. Hominins were in it only
> >occasionally, and maybe only rarely --
> >but enough (may be less than once in a
> >lifetime) for the cold to exercise selective
> >effects.
> Only if they stayed in the water for a prolonged time, long enough to
> drown for other reasons. And then, the ones that reached the mainland
> had a failure rate of 99.999% there and would leave much less progeny
> than their island conspecifics who stayed put. From a Darwinian point
> of view that's fatal for your genes.
> >> On the contrary, the human body has
> >> several adaptations for rapid heat dissipation (e.g. large numbers of
> >> eccrine sweat glands in the skin and emissary veins in the skull.
> >> (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissary_veins)
> >
> >Not a contradiction.
> >
> >> Overheating rather than hypothermia seems to have been a problem in
> >> human evolution.
> >
> >One does not rule out the other.
> When one of two opposing features is no longer needed than natural
> selection will reduce it. On land hominins didn't need such a big
> central heater as is useful in the water. Yet their brains grew ever
> bigger, culminating in Homo sapiens.
> >> Besides, brain size really took off with Homo after about 2 mya, not
> >> at the origin of hominins:
> >> https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0168010219304882-gr1.jpg
> >
> >Brain size took off at about the same time
> >as ice-ages commenced.
> Those where mostly a feature of higher latitudes, not the
> (sub)tropics. Besides, we see the smallest brain sizes in early Homo
> at the highest latitudes of their range (as low as 546 cc in D4500 at
> 1.8 mya from Dmanisi, Georgia).
> >> Sahelanthropus at 7 mya had a cranial capacity of only 370 cc,
> >> Australopithecus anamensis at 4 mya still had a cranial capacity of
> >> 370 cc. No change in the first 3 million years of hominins.
> >
> >And h.naledi wasn't much more at ~250 ka
> >
> >>> and had similar resources -- plentiful
> >>> supplies of fish.
> >>
> >> If you can catch them.
> >> All piscivorous marine mammals are fast swimmers.
> >
> >Humans are still not fast swimmers, but
> >catch plenty of fish. It's a question of when
> >nets came into use.
> The oldest evidence for such sophisticated techniques is from about
> 29000 years ago:
> https://phys.org/news/2018-08-world-oldest-fishing-net-sinkers.html
> >>> Chimp nests are complicated.
> >>
> >> No, they're not. The construction of a normal nest varies between 1
> >> and 5 minutes. The technique is described on p. 196-197 in:
> >> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0066185668800032
> >
> >https://www.livescience.com/19708-primates-build-sleeping-nests.html
> >
> >"When they are ready to snuggle up at the tops of trees, great apes make themselves cozy "nests" in which to rest for the night. New studies of these one-night nests reveal their incredible complexity."
> >
> >"They are almost as complex as a man-made shelter you might make,"
> Almost as complex, but not quite.
> https://www.pnas.org/content/109/18/6873
>
> Sure, it demonstrates technological knowledge and a degree of
> cognitive ability beyond that of monkeys, but not to the same degree
> as that required to build even a rather simple composite shelter such
> as a San dome hut, with a wooden skeleton of detached branches and a
> covering of different material.

Dome huts have been the main form of shelter of pre-neolithic Homo sapiens around the world, from far north Eskimo igloos to far south Tierra del Fuego brush domes in the New World and Pygmies in Queensland banana leaf dome huts and China and Japan dugout dome huts. They were the societal armor of Homo (sapiens) with occupancy variable between a single individual to an entire family to a whole hamlet (Andaman Islanders), while great ape bowl nests have remained with maximal occupancy of a mother and her infant no matter the species or geography.

> >>> It's NOT what the fossil record says. Learn
> >>> to count. The record says that hominins
> >>> were not part of the ecology. They were
> >>> as rare as vultures in Scandinavia.
> >>
> >> I've done the count. When I search the Turkana Database for all
> >> entries of Hominidae I get 671 (5%). When I do the same for Carnivora
> >> I get 608 (4.5%).
> >
> >I can do a count for the Natural History Museum.
> >My results won't be a guide to the numbers
> >of wlld animals in South Kensington -- now or
> >ever. Likewise for the Turkana Museum. It
> >doesn't claim to be representative.
> There is no Turkana Museum, the Turkana Database is housed in the
> National Museums of Kenya, and represents a fauna from a specific
> area, the Turkana Basin, over a well-dated stratigraphic range. As
> such it can be considered representative of that area and time.
>
> But I also mentioned the numbers from Aramis (5.6% hominidae, 5.5%
> carnivores), different time different place, which you conveniently
> snipped.
> >> But you will always concoct some lame excuse to reject results you
> >> don't like. Such behaviour doesn't constitute a move in the scientific
> >> language-game.
> >
> >The 'PA language-game' re numbers has
> >drifted into some strange territory way
> >above the ground -- between religion
> >and myth. Those in the discipline decided
> >(around 100 years ago) that hominins
> >evolved in Africa -- AND were a more-or-
> >less normal element in the ecology. They
> >never examined this theory with any care
> >or honesty, because all likely answers are
> >catastrophic. If hominins 5 ma could cope
> >with the carnivores, then those of 1.0 ma
> >or 100 ka would have wiped them out.
> >
> >And that's still the case. But for the last
> >20 to 40 years the numbers (based on
> >the extreme rarity of hominin fossils)
> >prove that hominins were NEVER a
> >normal or natural part of any known
> >African ecology.
> I understand that has become an article of faith from which you will
> never part, no matter what genuine count I present, because your whole
> theory turns on it.

On Sunday, February 20, 2022 at 6:31:08 AM UTC-5, Pandora wrote:
> On Sat, 19 Feb 2022 20:25:36 -0800 (PST), "DD'eDeN aka
> note/nickname/alas_my_loves" <daud....@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> >>> Chimp nests are complicated.
> >> >>
> >> >> No, they're not. The construction of a normal nest varies between 1
> >> >> and 5 minutes. The technique is described on p. 196-197 in:
> >> >> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0066185668800032
> >> >
> >> >https://www.livescience.com/19708-primates-build-sleeping-nests.html
> >> >
> >> >"When they are ready to snuggle up at the tops of trees, great apes make themselves
> >> >cozy "nests" in which to rest for the night. New studies of these one-night nests reveal their incredible complexity."
> >> >
> >> >"They are almost as complex as a man-made shelter you might make,"
> >> Almost as complex, but not quite.
> >> https://www.pnas.org/content/109/18/6873
> >>
> >> Sure, it demonstrates technological knowledge and a degree of
> >> cognitive ability beyond that of monkeys, but not to the same degree
> >> as that required to build even a rather simple composite shelter such
> >> as a San dome hut, with a wooden skeleton of detached branches and a
> >> covering of different material.
> >
> >Dome huts have been the main form of shelter of pre-neolithic Homo sapiens around the world,
> >from far north Eskimo igloos to far south Tierra del Fuego brush domes in the New World and Pygmies
> >in Queensland banana leaf dome huts and China and Japan dugout dome huts.. They were the societal
> >armor of Homo (sapiens) with occupancy variable between a single individual to an entire family to a whole
> >hamlet (Andaman Islanders), while great ape bowl nests have remained with maximal occupancy of a
> >mother and her infant no matter the species or geography.
> The grass hut or tshu, such as those of the Ju/wasi ("bushmen") is
> probably one of the oldest shelters used by hominins:
>
> <https://books.google.nl/books?id=rtHR8_gK_WwC&lpg=PA164&hl=nl&pg=PA14#v=onepage&q&f=false>
>
> https://www.writersvoice.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Bushmen-hut.jpg
>
> Still, compared to the nests of apes it's a fairly complicated
> composite structure for which suitable raw materials must be selected
> and collected from the environment. The question is whether or not
> it's an evolutionary novelty or evolved as an extension of ape nests
> (i.e. we never stopped building nests, but made them more
> complicated).

Elisabeth Marshall was very prescient and observant in her book, she gave an excellent view of prehistoric Homo sapiens in the Kalahari. Of course there are errors, omissions and outdated data, but she was heads and shoulders above the typical savannistas. Both her and Elaine Morgan's writings should be consulted in a study of human evolution, imo.

On Sunday, February 20, 2022 at 6:31:08 AM UTC-5, Pandora wrote:
> On Sat, 19 Feb 2022 20:25:36 -0800 (PST), "DD'eDeN aka
> note/nickname/alas_my_loves" <daud....@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> >>> Chimp nests are complicated.
> >> >>
> >> >> No, they're not. The construction of a normal nest varies between 1
> >> >> and 5 minutes. The technique is described on p. 196-197 in:
> >> >> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0066185668800032
> >> >
> >> >https://www.livescience.com/19708-primates-build-sleeping-nests.html
> >> >
> >> >"When they are ready to snuggle up at the tops of trees, great apes make themselves
> >> >cozy "nests" in which to rest for the night. New studies of these one-night nests reveal their incredible complexity."
> >> >
> >> >"They are almost as complex as a man-made shelter you might make,"
> >> Almost as complex, but not quite.
> >> https://www.pnas.org/content/109/18/6873
> >>
> >> Sure, it demonstrates technological knowledge and a degree of
> >> cognitive ability beyond that of monkeys, but not to the same degree
> >> as that required to build even a rather simple composite shelter such
> >> as a San dome hut, with a wooden skeleton of detached branches and a
> >> covering of different material.
> >
> >Dome huts have been the main form of shelter of pre-neolithic Homo sapiens around the world,
> >from far north Eskimo igloos to far south Tierra del Fuego brush domes in the New World and Pygmies
> >in Queensland banana leaf dome huts and China and Japan dugout dome huts.. They were the societal
> >armor of Homo (sapiens) with occupancy variable between a single individual to an entire family to a whole
> >hamlet (Andaman Islanders), while great ape bowl nests have remained with maximal occupancy of a
> >mother and her infant no matter the species or geography.
> The grass hut or tshu, such as those of the Ju/wasi ("bushmen") is
> probably one of the oldest shelters used by hominins:

I hope you can see the gap between the standard great ape arboreal bowl nest of wicker and broad leaves and the H&G Hs thatched round hut. Obviously, there was a transitional shelter, unless you think there was an Einstein that magically erected a brand new architectural model on the open plains as soon as he leaped down from the tree top.

Realistically, the San dome hut is the end product of continuous improvements by Homo, not the beginning.

> <https://books.google.nl/books?id=rtHR8_gK_WwC&lpg=PA164&hl=nl&pg=PA14#v=onepage&q&f=false>
>
> https://www.writersvoice.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Bushmen-hut.jpg
>
> Still, compared to the nests of apes it's a fairly complicated
> composite structure for which suitable raw materials must be selected
> and collected from the environment. The question is whether or not
> it's an evolutionary novelty or evolved as an extension of ape nests
> (i.e. we never stopped building nests, but made them more
> complicated).

Imagination, plausibility, parsimony, continuity and experience are fine guides for exploring the past existence of our genus.

I Envy JTEM wrote:
> Primum Sapienti wrote:
>
>>> Dogmatic people, like you, certainly will never retain anything that
>>> conflicts with your treasured beliefs, assuming you even comprehended
>>> it in the first place, which is why arguments can be stated and re stated
>>> and re-re-re-re-re-re-stated across the years and you NEVER remember
>>> them, much less respond.
>>>
>>> You religious types are like that.
>
>> Billions of people on the planet do not have access to large quantities of
>> fish
>
> Okay. And you think this means... what?

Fish not necessary in the diet.

Primum Sapienti wrote:
> Fish not necessary in the diet.

Cool. And where is the time machine that you imagine, the one that whisks
your lack of fish back to aquatic ape, eliminating fish from their diet?

Seriously, can you not grasp this?

You might as well argue that we're not habilis so habilis never existed...

You don't see to understand what is pertinent and what is not.

Are you an economist by any chance? Eew. Hose the place down, get
rid of the stench....

-- --

https://jtem.tumblr.com/post/676775721186869248

On Sunday, February 20, 2022 at 11:59:32 PM UTC-5, DD'eDeN aka note/nickname/alas_my_loves wrote:
> On Sunday, February 20, 2022 at 6:31:08 AM UTC-5, Pandora wrote:
> > On Sat, 19 Feb 2022 20:25:36 -0800 (PST), "DD'eDeN aka
> > note/nickname/alas_my_loves" <daud....@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > >> >>> Chimp nests are complicated.
> > >> >>
> > >> >> No, they're not. The construction of a normal nest varies between 1
> > >> >> and 5 minutes. The technique is described on p. 196-197 in:
> > >> >> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0066185668800032
> > >> >
> > >> >https://www.livescience.com/19708-primates-build-sleeping-nests.html
> > >> >
> > >> >"When they are ready to snuggle up at the tops of trees, great apes make themselves
> > >> >cozy "nests" in which to rest for the night. New studies of these one-night nests reveal their incredible complexity."
> > >> >
> > >> >"They are almost as complex as a man-made shelter you might make,"
> > >> Almost as complex, but not quite.
> > >> https://www.pnas.org/content/109/18/6873
> > >>
> > >> Sure, it demonstrates technological knowledge and a degree of
> > >> cognitive ability beyond that of monkeys, but not to the same degree
> > >> as that required to build even a rather simple composite shelter such
> > >> as a San dome hut, with a wooden skeleton of detached branches and a
> > >> covering of different material.
> > >
> > >Dome huts have been the main form of shelter of pre-neolithic Homo sapiens around the world,
> > >from far north Eskimo igloos to far south Tierra del Fuego brush domes in the New World and Pygmies
> > >in Queensland banana leaf dome huts and China and Japan dugout dome huts. They were the societal
> > >armor of Homo (sapiens) with occupancy variable between a single individual to an entire family to a whole
> > >hamlet (Andaman Islanders), while great ape bowl nests have remained with maximal occupancy of a
> > >mother and her infant no matter the species or geography.
> > The grass hut or tshu, such as those of the Ju/wasi ("bushmen") is
> > probably one of the oldest shelters used by hominins:
> I hope you can see the gap between the standard great ape arboreal bowl nest of wicker and broad leaves and the H&G Hs thatched round hut. Obviously, there was a transitional shelter, unless you think there was an Einstein that magically erected a brand new architectural model on the open plains as soon as he leaped down from the tree top.
>
> Realistically, the San dome hut is the end product of continuous improvements by Homo, not the beginning.

Oldest Ydna: Mbo, Mbuti/Biaka, then San

https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/39/2/msac017/6516020?login=false

> > <https://books.google.nl/books?id=rtHR8_gK_WwC&lpg=PA164&hl=nl&pg=PA14#v=onepage&q&f=false>
> >
> > https://www.writersvoice.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Bushmen-hut.jpg
> >
> > Still, compared to the nests of apes it's a fairly complicated
> > composite structure for which suitable raw materials must be selected
> > and collected from the environment. The question is whether or not
> > it's an evolutionary novelty or evolved as an extension of ape nests
> > (i.e. we never stopped building nests, but made them more
> > complicated).
> Imagination, plausibility, parsimony, continuity and experience are fine guides for exploring the past existence of our genus.

On Saturday, February 19, 2022 at 1:35:16 PM UTC, Pandora wrote:

>> At some point out ancestors stopped being
>> like other primates (in this respect). I can
>> see them remaining on an over-crowded
>> island when it's truly remote. But if they
>> can see the mainland, or the next island,
>> there will be a strong incentive get a raft
>> or flotation aid and head towards it.
>
> That's quite different from going in and swimming a few miles.
> No ape will do that, unless it's a well-trained Homo sapiens.

Under my scenario, a population of
chimps became isolated on a large
island (Zanzibar will do as a model)
probably as a result of a rise in sea-
levels -- enough to discourage
carnivores from crossing. In a few
thousand years the local carnivores
would become too inbred and die out.
The proto-hominins would leave the
trees, and roam free. They'd get
used to foraging on coasts, and
swimming between off-shore islets.
Their nature would change as they
evolved into a new form with
wholly new challenges.

> > Sure. The robusts went off in some
> > weird direction.
>
> That makes them interesting as a test case for your scenario. They
> have their origin at about the same time as Homo, but their brains are
> small (410 cc in KNM-WT 17000), while their jaws and teeth are
> massive. Quite the opposite of Homo.
> They couldn't have come from the same island.

There were several islands. and even
more as seal-levels went down, with
the inception of ice-ages.

> > Hominins are very different from bovids
> > -- being carnivorous for a start.
>
> More likely omnivorous.
> Besides, we see the same pattern of diversity and niche partitioning
> in carnivores such as Felidae. Lion, leopard, cheetah, serval,
> caracal, and a host of other cats are sympatric in Africa today.

All those carnivores hate each other,
often fight, and will eat other's young.
much the same would apply to early
hominins.

> > No one (with any sense) would suggest that two
> > competing hominin species could share
> > the same habitat.
>
> Paranthropus and Homo are distinct enough morphologically to suggest
> something similar as with felids.

Felids take much care to hide and
protect their young which, in any case,
grow up rapidly. Felids have many
offspring, so can cope with a high
death rate in their young. Hominins
are very different.

> > Hominins usually swim (in survival
> > mode or otherwise) with their heads
> > out of the water (very different from
> > marine mammals). That drastically
> > changes the dynamics of heat-loss,
> > and the physiology that can best
> > survive the cold.
>
> All the more reason the believe that the rest of the body was under
> selection to make them better swimmers, to stay as short in the water
> as possible,

Survival (and most other forms of)
swimming is with the head out of the
water. It's going to be slow at the best
of times. The selective effect of slightly
more webbing between fingers will be
minimal, and greatly outweighed by
the disadvantages during ordinary
life (e.g. more hand injuries).

> but hominins do not even have webbed fingers and are
> still much slower than marine predators such as sharks.

What's the easiest way to improve
the swimming speed of something
like an australopith? (Not racing
speed -- just survival speed.)

How about larger hands and larger
feet? And a longer, and more stream-
lined body?

What do we see with h.sap males?

We don't see any of these cold-swiming-
adaptations (including large heads and
brains) with h.naledi -- they were a long
way from the ocean.

Homo males should also develop
strong 'breast-stroke' muscles -- for
moving the arms downwards. These
will be less developed in austral-
opiths and h.naledi (other things
being equal).

>> Sure. Marine mammals are in cold water
>> all the time. Hominins were in it only
>> occasionally, and maybe only rarely --
>> but enough (may be less than once in a
>> lifetime) for the cold to exercise selective
>> effects.
>
> Only if they stayed in the water for a prolonged time,

The waters off East and West Africa
during ice-ages were much colder.
However, hope of rescue was probably
small, and it was up to each swimmer
to get to shore themselves.

> long enough to drown for other reasons.

Drowning often arises from a complex
of reasons; hypothermia is a major
factor.

https://www.hofmannlawfirm.com/faqs/how-long-does-it-take-to-get-hypothermia-in-cold-water.cfm

> And then, the ones that reached the mainland
> had a failure rate of 99.999%

This was my estimate of the failure
rate of refugees, lost on the African
mainland.

> there and would leave much less progeny
> than their island conspecifics who stayed put.

During ice-ages, sea-levels were (over
evolutionary timescales) much more
variable. New islands came into
existence, and were later drowned.
Hominins on remote islands were
more isolated -- and safer for a time.
But not for long.

Those on islands closer to the main-
land (or to other islands) would come
and go from them, and mount
expeditions to the mainland, lasting
months or years. They'd learn to cope
with mainland predators, and their
populations would be much more
capable of dealing with the radical
changes, when they occurred, than
would isolated populations. They'd
leave progeny. Isolated populations
wouldn't.

>>> Overheating rather than hypothermia seems to have been a problem in
>>> human evolution.
>>
>> One does not rule out the other.
>
> When one of two opposing features is no longer needed

There's nothing 'opposing' here. Early
hominins sometimes got too hot and
evolved sweating (for which they needed
good supplies of water and a range of
hard-to-get salts of iodine, potassium
and sodium). Sometimes they were
exposed to hypothermia, and evolved
mechanisms to cope with that.

> than natural
> selection will reduce it. On land hominins didn't need such a big
> central heater as is useful in the water. Yet their brains grew ever
> bigger, culminating in Homo sapiens.

Bad thinking here. Often one feature
or requirement will impose strains on
others, but that's normal.

>> Brain size took off at about the same time
>> as ice-ages commenced.
>
> Those where mostly a feature of higher latitudes, not the
> (sub)tropics. Besides, we see the smallest brain sizes in early Homo
> at the highest latitudes of their range (as low as 546 cc in D4500 at
> 1.8 mya from Dmanisi, Georgia).

The effects of Ice-ages were world-wide.
Water went to the poles. Everywhere
was drier. Dust everywhere. Continental
uplands very cold at night. Cold antarctic
currents travelled much further north
on both sides of Africa. Plenty of fish in
them but cold -- brrrr!

>> Humans are still not fast swimmers, but
>> catch plenty of fish. It's a question of when
>> nets came into use.
>
> The oldest evidence for such sophisticated techniques is from about
> 29000 years ago:
> https://phys.org/news/2018-08-world-oldest-fishing-net-sinkers.html

Once you have string, nets are very
easy to make.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vegEIHaWB8g

> But I also mentioned the numbers from Aramis (5.6% hominidae, 5.5%
> carnivores), different time different place, which you conveniently
> snipped.

Embarrassingly bad. Those numbers
come from a thorough investigation of
the Ardi site. It was done to establish,
as far as possible, the habitat in which
(hopefully) Ardi lived. The 110 hominin
fossils are those of Ardi herself (or her
companions). Much the same number
of carnivore fossils were also found
there.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/40446786

Locate another 10,000 roughly similar
fossilferous sites in East Africa and,
after a thorough investigation, guess
what you'll find in each?

About the same number (~100) of
carnivore fossils -- but ZERO hominins.

For every hominin fossil, there are
~1,000,000 carnivore fossils.

THAT'S the problem. As every PA field
person knows -- only too well -- you
can spend a lifetime in East Africa and
find NOT ONE hominin fossil.

Paul Crowley wrote:

> Under my scenario, a population of
> chimps became isolated on a large
> island (Zanzibar will do as a model)
> probably as a result of a rise in sea-
> levels -- enough to discourage
> carnivores from crossing. In a few
> thousand years the local carnivores
> would become too inbred and die out.
> The proto-hominins would leave the
> trees, and roam free. They'd get
> used to foraging on coasts, and
> swimming between off-shore islets.
> Their nature would change as they
> evolved into a new form with
> wholly new challenges.

The ancestors to chimps were part of the aquatic ape
population. Either they or several waves eventually
peeled off, moved inland into Africa. If it was more than
one wave then they interbreed and diversified, some
learning to exploit the forests, others exploiting the
open ground, but genetically one group with near
constant contact along the tree lines, moderating their
evolution.

The forest group was held back from fully adapting to
the forest environment by the genetic influx from the
open air population, and vice versa.

Eventually as the aquatic ape population continued to
evolve the two groups got into competition, which the
more intelligent/advanced aquatic ape population won.
They wiped out the proto chimps everywhere, except in
the firsts where they could hide or escape into trees.

There. That's it. No longer moderated by an open air
populations, Chimps as we know them evolved. They
could and did fully adapt to their arboreal environment,
losing their upright walking... amongst other traits.

Humans invented Chimps, so to speak.

We may have done the same with other species as well.

We almost certainly "Invented" many species, which just
don't know which.

...by hunting them. By hunting their prey or predators.
By altering their environments. Etc.

-- --

https://jtem.tumblr.com/tagged/gun%20control/page/2