on Science new fossil material from Malapa, South Africa (1.8-1.9 myo) that could belong to a new species: Australopithecus sediba. But (as you can imagine) not everyone agrees with the taxonomic position of these new fossils. A good summary of all options was presented by John Hawks in his blog, but let me bring here two fragments from the article published by Berger and colleagues to summarize their opinion about these new specimens: a) "Although the skull and skeleton of Au. sediba do evince derived features shared with early Homo, the overall plan is that of a hominin at an australopith adaptive grade", and b) "The Malapa specimens demonstrate that the evolutionary transitions from a small-bodied and perhaps more arboreal-adapted hominin (such as Au. africanus) to a largerbodied, possibly full-striding terrestrial biped (such as H. erectus) occurred in a mosaic fashion". And now I want to think more about the way that we use the following concepts ..... adaptive grade, evolutionary transitions, and mosaic fashion (one of my "favorite" nightmares....).
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Australopithecus sediba.....or Homo sediba....or something else?
A couple of weeks ago was published 
on Science new fossil material from Malapa, South Africa (1.8-1.9 myo) that could belong to a new species: Australopithecus sediba. But (as you can imagine) not everyone agrees with the taxonomic position of these new fossils. A good summary of all options was presented by John Hawks in his blog, but let me bring here two fragments from the article published by Berger and colleagues to summarize their opinion about these new specimens: a) "Although the skull and skeleton of Au. sediba do evince derived features shared with early Homo, the overall plan is that of a hominin at an australopith adaptive grade", and b) "The Malapa specimens demonstrate that the evolutionary transitions from a small-bodied and perhaps more arboreal-adapted hominin (such as Au. africanus) to a largerbodied, possibly full-striding terrestrial biped (such as H. erectus) occurred in a mosaic fashion". And now I want to think more about the way that we use the following concepts ..... adaptive grade, evolutionary transitions, and mosaic fashion (one of my "favorite" nightmares....).
on Science new fossil material from Malapa, South Africa (1.8-1.9 myo) that could belong to a new species: Australopithecus sediba. But (as you can imagine) not everyone agrees with the taxonomic position of these new fossils. A good summary of all options was presented by John Hawks in his blog, but let me bring here two fragments from the article published by Berger and colleagues to summarize their opinion about these new specimens: a) "Although the skull and skeleton of Au. sediba do evince derived features shared with early Homo, the overall plan is that of a hominin at an australopith adaptive grade", and b) "The Malapa specimens demonstrate that the evolutionary transitions from a small-bodied and perhaps more arboreal-adapted hominin (such as Au. africanus) to a largerbodied, possibly full-striding terrestrial biped (such as H. erectus) occurred in a mosaic fashion". And now I want to think more about the way that we use the following concepts ..... adaptive grade, evolutionary transitions, and mosaic fashion (one of my "favorite" nightmares....).
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