Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

Ancient and ArchaeologyΒ  permalink

Southern apes

• Message 1.Β 

  Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Wednesday, 21st November 2007

  i.e. australopithecines. I've been persuaded (ow! ow! my arm! Yes, I'll do it! Just let go!) to give a talk to our local Scientific Society and just wondered if anyone here has any recommendations for good sources for up-to-date info on them. I'm hoping to get up to but not beyond H. Erectus on this - with more (and more contentious) stuff to come later

  Link to this forum: Southern apes

  Report message1

• Message 2

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Wednesday, 21st November 2007

  Hi Urnungal
  
  It's really difficult to answer this without information about how much you know on this subject already, and what the level of attainment of your audience is.
  
  Do you know Jumain, Kilgore & Trevathan 'Introduction to Physical Anthropology'? This modern USA textbook would be an excellent source for a historian who was going to lecture an audience of amateur science lovers; but not sufficient for a palaeoentologist lecturing post-graduates in biology and anthropology.
  
  I'm sure it was a slip but it's H. erectus - with a lower case 'e'.
  
  Best wishes,
  
  TP

  Link to this forum: Southern apes

  Report message2

• Message 3

  , in reply to message 2.

  Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Wednesday, 21st November 2007

  TP - thanks. They are merely interested laymen - as indeed am I. The spurious E -I'm like Eric Clapton in that I have slow hands.

  Link to this forum: Southern apes

  Report message3

• Message 4

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Wednesday, 21st November 2007

  Gil and Twinprobe,
  
  not directly to do with your study Gil, but I read some months ago on the teletext of I don't remember what channel and in what language about a new link of the gorilla to the rest of the hominids and to confuse it more I remember something as that also a discovery in Italy was mentioned. Perhaps I confound it all. I wanted to put it on this forum on that moment, asking lol beeble while he in the past commented such stuff, but with my busy life it wasn't implemented.
  
  Did some research myself:
  
  
  
  
  Perhaps the link with what I read, is in the new "gorilla like" article and perhaps was then the Homo ergaster and Ceparano Italy mentioned.
  
  And now I read in one of the articles that Homo ergaster could have existed together with Homo erectus (attention to not use a capital).
  
  Gil, perhaps I confuse even more things and you will lose your will! for the talk on the local Scientific Society. Sorry for that. BTW: that "ow! ow! my arm!"? Is that some British (English (am I allowed to use that word?)) expressing of some feelings that pass behind the back of some rudimentary formed brains of Flemish Belgians?
  
  Twinprobe, what are your comments on all this? I mean about the serious stuff...
  
  Warm regards to both,
  
  Paul.

  Link to this forum: Southern apes

  Report message4

• Message 5

  , in reply to message 4.

  Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Wednesday, 21st November 2007

  Paul :
  "Ow" etc - indicates they twisted my arm to persuade me to do something I didn't really want to do.
  
  Is the "gorilla" story to do with the theory that the latest precursor is estimated to be a couple of million years older than the presumed split from the hominid line? If so, it really doesn't surprise me at all. I can't take seriously the idea that the "genetic clock" runs at a constant pace.

  Link to this forum: Southern apes

  Report message5

• Message 6

  , in reply to message 4.

  Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Wednesday, 21st November 2007

  Paul,
  
  I'm sorry to say that I have no opinion about the serious stuff. At my university it is felt undesirable to concentrate your attentions purely on what interests you (in my case Roman Britain, the Scottish Iron Age, the Vikings, glass and metallurgy) but to do some courses simply to broaden the mind. So I took biological anthropology.
  
  The problem is that it is really hard to keep ahead of new research in this field if it is not part of your regular study programme. For example: has anyone heard of the Dmanisi hominids and their relationship, or otherwise, with H. erectus? There is a limit to how flexible anyone can be I'm afraid, and you run the risk of being savaged by real experts (see the current thread on Rourke's Drift). Perhaps I shouldn't care; what do you think?
  
  Kind regards,
  
  TP

  Link to this forum: Southern apes

  Report message6

• Message 7

  , in reply to message 6.

  Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Wednesday, 21st November 2007

  I've always said that the biggest problem with any sort of history is that things change so fast.

  Link to this forum: Southern apes

  Report message7

• Message 8

  , in reply to message 6.

  Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Friday, 23rd November 2007

  Re: Message 6 and 5.
  
  Twinprobe,
  
  thank you for your "honest" reply.
  
  "And you run the risk of being savaged by real experts...Perhaps I shouldn't care, what do you think?..."
  
  I think that you shouldn't care. I read nearly all your utterings on these boards with great esteem. And even if some aren't correct they add by the reaction of the "experts" to the greater picture of the discussion. And I have seen a lot of other! "utterings" here on these boards, even to such a degree that I didn't want to read them anymore at the end...
  
  Gil, thank you for the explanation of some "plain" English and for the rest of your reply.
  
  Warm regards to both,
  
  Paul.

  Link to this forum: Southern apes

  Report message8

Back to top