DAVID: [i]About 15 found Evolution and humans; a new hominin (Evolution)

by dhw, Sunday, September 13, 2015, 08:04 (3358 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by dhw, Sunday, September 13, 2015, 08:50

DAVID: About 15 found in a cave in southern Africa:-https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/fossils-found-in-african-cave-ar...-There seems to be a never ending stream of sensational new discoveries that will revolutionize our thinking about the universe and evolution. This one even made it into the national news over here. The articles David has posted and press and TV features also mention the theory that these hominids buried their dead - which would revolutionize all our concepts of these early forms of human: tools and rituals being used perhaps 4 million years ago. However, there are problems with dating, and already there are murmurings that these fossils are not quite as unique as the researchers claim. William Jungers, a New York anthropologist, thinks they might be earlier versions of homo erectus, and Tim White, a paleoanthropologist from Berkeley is pretty sure that's what they are, while Christoph Zollikofer, an anthropologist from Zurich, thinks the few "unique" features could just be local variations. He and Jungers are very sceptical about the burial theory, and say there are plenty of other possible explanations. There is also a "reconstruction", showing a face that is a remarkable mixture of human and ape and a great tribute to someone's imagination.-However, for all the hype and sensational speculation, all these hominid fossils seem to me to lend more and more credence to Darwin's theory that humans and apes evolved from common ancestry.