Valentine Pontifex

The hominid fossils from Dmanisi, Georgia (former Soviet republic) are the cover story of August issue of National Geographic. I received my issue today.

An extremely abridged version can be found at:
<a href="http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0208/feature1/index.html" target="_blank">http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0208/feature1/index.html</a>

The formal scientific publication was in Science 297: 85-89 with news story on it on pages 26-27. The PubMed entry <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=120986 94&dopt=Abstract" target="_blank">here</a>.

Some news articles on it:

<a href="http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2002/0705skull.shtml" target="_blank">AAAS press release</a>
<a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/07/020705090840.htm" target="_blank">Science Daily's mirror</a>
<a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/07/0703_020704_georgianskull.html" target="_blank">National Geographic News</a>
<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2082622.stm" target="_blank">BBC</a>

Some good images of the two skulls published in 2000 can be found <a href="http://www.napa.ufl.edu/2000news/hominiph.htm" target="_blank">here</a>

I am assuming for the rest of post that people have read at least one of the references above.

Looking at the photos in NG, it is my non-professional opinion that it is clear that these are either extremly closely related species or (more likely) are the same species. This is devestating to the current AiG party line that Homo erectus is merely human and that Homo habilis is merely an ape given that this fossil bridges the classic features of both and that the brain size of this fossil is so utterly small.

To put another way: when the two previously found skulls were found, their close similiarities to the African Homo erectus (called H. ergaster by many) were <a href="http://www.napa.ufl.edu/2000news/HOMINIDS.htm" target="_blank">noted</a>. H. erectus includes such clearly human-like fossils like 90% complete<a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/15000.html" target="_blank">Turkana Boy</a>. Now the new skull shows similiarities to Homo habilis sensu stricto (H. habilis in the strict sense) like <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/1813.html" target="_blank">this fossil</a>.

One nit against NG's article though: "Either way, this human likely had plenty of facial and body hair." I don't see any data to support or refute this. It could be hairly, but then again could not the hairless condition have evolved in the australopithecines?

[ July 29, 2002: Message edited by: LordValentine ]</p>

Valentine Pontifex

The Fossil Hominids section of the Talk.Origins Archive now has a page on these fossils.

<a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/d2700.html" target="_blank">http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/d2700.html</a>

Jim Foley clearly saw in this fossils the same thing I noticed: they throw a monkey wrench in the habilis is ape and erectus is human claim which is currently very popular in creationist circles.

There is a web site for the Dmanisi site at:

<a href="http://www.dmanisi.org.ge/index.html" target="_blank">http://www.dmanisi.org.ge/index.html</a>