Bill Chalker - Oct 11, 2009

[Schuyler]

As for prehistoric man being from Africa, and we can trace it back and prove that they were our first ancestors. I am unsure about that and do not mind be corrected on this point, i have a point of view on the subject, and here it is... seriously what can you really prove from a skull? It might sound simple, but it can not tell you how it lived, if it could speak, think, how it gathered food, even how technology advanced as species it was?

Not trying to contradict you here--just add some info. You can actually tell a tremendous amount from a skull, or even a single tooth. For example, we have 32 teeth. Divided into quarters we have two front teeth, a canine, two pre-molars, and three molars. Molars and pre-molars have cusps on them (The bitey parts--a technical term!) In apes the first pre-molar has one cusp only (called the protoconid). In humans the tooth has two cusps (the protoconid and the metaconid). In apes the axis of the pre-molar in relation to the tooth row is more acute than in modern humans. If you happen to find a single pre-molar tooth and identify which one it is from its shape, you can tell if the tooth was from an ape or a hominim species.

If the size is markedly different from any other pre-molar with the same characteristics, you have the basis for declaring a new species. One of the big arguments in paleontology is how widespread intra species variation was compared to inter species variation. The 'clumpers' tend to favor lots of intra-species variation and the 'splitters' are quick to name new species. In any case, you don't just get to name a new species. There has to be widespread agreement.

Further, if you examine wear on the tooth itself, you can tell if its owner was primarily a fruit eater, or ate harder foods such as nuts and seeds, or even if he ate meat. The micro fissures and striations on the tooth tell the story. If you find bones of prey associated with the species, you can tell the difference between a jackal's tooth mark and the marks caused by a flint blade.

If you find a complete skull you have struck gold! Depending on the position of the foramen magnum, for example, which is the hole through which the spinal column enters the skull, you know if the 'person' walked upright or was a knuckle dragger, genus Homo--or an ape. You've got brain size and sometimes structure. You know how strong his jaw was by the placement of muscles and their attachment points on the bone. If there's a Sagittal Crest, for example, the guy could chew some serious stuff; if not (like us), his jaw was pretty weak. The eye sockets, supra orbital ridges, the angle of the muzzle and the presence or absence of features such as the the shape of the occipital torus at the back of the head all betray feature clusters that denote one genus and one species or another.

The shape of the skull can also tell you about the vocal tract and larynx, so there's your speech verification. If you find tools with a species, you can tell how sophisticated they were in their formation. Endocasts of a skull can show areas of the brain that may be present or absent, also indicating the ability of speech. Broca's area, long associated with speech, is evident in all hominim species, but not in Australopithecus africanus. This would seem to indicate a tendency to language in the first, but not the second. You can tell if it exists just by looking at the interior of a skull.

THAT'S why the discovery of Austrolopithecus aferensis (Lucy) was so earth shattering. Not only did you have 40% of the skeleton, way more than enough to prove bipedalism, you also had pre-molar teeth that were intermediate between ape and human, as shown by the axis of the protoconid cusp as described above. Johanson, the discoverer, had just pushed back the issue to three million years. Australopithecus isn't of the genus Homo, per se, but it's pretty darned close and still hominin. You want a missing link? There's one right there. Several skeletons have been found.

One of the most hotly debated issues in paleontology was between the 'multi-regional hypothesis' and the 'single origin hypothesis,' that is, did Homo sapiens arise from Homo erectus several times in several different areas, or did Homo sapiens arise from one area? Here's where genetics has nailed the issue through mitochondrial DNA and the rate of mutations. Many different studies have done over the last few years using different areas of DNA, both mitochondrial and nuclear. If the multi-regional hypothesis is correct, what they call 'coalescence' should be at 1.8 million years, which would mean a divergence from Homo erectus. If the single origin hypothesis is correct, it would mean coalescence at about 240,000 years. All the studies point to the latter. Homo sapiens may very well have originated more than once, but you and I and everyone else alive today came from Africa.

The cool thing about this is that genetics has given us an unbiased framework to hang the various evolutionary theories of Homo sapiens upon. Now, when new material is found, it can be bounced off this structure to help paleontologists figure out where on the scale the new material fits.

Obviously, there's a lot to this and I fear I may be boring some of you. If you'd like to pursue this, a very good book is Roger Lewin's "Human Evolution; an illustrated introduction" now in its fifth edition (2004). It is a textbook, so you have the glaze-over factor, plus the price is on the steep side. But it does go over this stuff pretty well.

 

[Kieran]

Not trying to contradict you here--just add some info. You can actually tell a tremendous amount from a skull, or even a single tooth. For example, we have 32 teeth. Divided into quarters we have two front teeth, a canine, two pre-molars, and three molars. Molars and pre-molars have cusps on them (The bitey parts--a technical term!) In apes the first pre-molar has one cusp only (called the protoconid). In humans the tooth has two cusps (the protoconid and the metaconid). In apes the axis of the pre-molar in relation to the tooth row is more acute than in modern humans. If you happen to find a single pre-molar tooth and identify which one it is from its shape, you can tell if the tooth was from an ape or a hominim species.

If the size is markedly different from any other pre-molar with the same characteristics, you have the basis for declaring a new species. One of the big arguments in paleontology is how widespread intra species variation was compared to inter species variation. The 'clumpers' tend to favor lots of intra-species variation and the 'splitters' are quick to name new species. In any case, you don't just get to name a new species. There has to be widespread agreement.

Further, if you examine wear on the tooth itself, you can tell if its owner was primarily a fruit eater, or ate harder foods such as nuts and seeds, or even if he ate meat. The micro fissures and striations on the tooth tell the story. If you find bones of prey associated with the species, you can tell the difference between a jackal's tooth mark and the marks caused by a flint blade.

If you find a complete skull you have struck gold! Depending on the position of the foramen magnum, for example, which is the hole through which the spinal column enters the skull, you know if the 'person' walked upright or was a knuckle dragger, genus Homo--or an ape. You've got brain size and sometimes structure. You know how strong his jaw was by the placement of muscles and their attachment points on the bone. If there's a Sagittal Crest, for example, the guy could chew some serious stuff; if not (like us), his jaw was pretty weak. The eye sockets, supra orbital ridges, the angle of the muzzle and the presence or absence of features such as the the shape of the occipital torus at the back of the head all betray feature clusters that denote one genus and one species or another.

The shape of the skull can also tell you about the vocal tract and larynx, so there's your speech verification. If you find tools with a species, you can tell how sophisticated they were in their formation. Endocasts of a skull can show areas of the brain that may be present or absent, also indicating the ability of speech. Broca's area, long associated with speech, is evident in all hominim species, but not in Australopithecus africanus. This would seem to indicate a tendency to language in the first, but not the second. You can tell if it exists just by looking at the interior of a skull.

THAT'S why the discovery of Homo aferensis (Lucy) was so earth shattering. Not only did you have 40% of the skeleton, way more than enough to prove bipedalism, you also had pre-molar teeth that were intermediate between ape and human, as shown by the axis of the protoconid cusp as described above. Johanson, the discoverer, had just pushed back the genus Homo to three million years. You want a missing link? There's one right there. Several skeletons have been found.

One of the most hotly debated issues in paleontology was between the 'multi-regional hypothesis' and the 'single origin hypothesis,' that is, did Homo sapiens arise from Homo erectus several times in several different areas, or did Homo sapiens arise from one area? Here's where genetics has nailed the issue through mitochondrial DNA and the rate of mutations. Many different studies have done over the last few years using different areas of DNA, both mitochondrial and nuclear. If the multi-regional hypothesis is correct, what they call 'coalescence' should be at 1.8 million years, which would mean a divergence from Homo erectus. If the single origin hypothesis is correct, it would mean coalescence at about 240,000 years. All the studies point to the latter. Homo sapiens may very well have originated more than once, but you and I and everyone else alive today came from Africa.

The cool thing about this is that genetics has given us an unbiased framework to hang the various evolutionary theories of Homo sapiens upon. Now, when new material is found, it can be bounced off this structure to help paleontologists figure out where on the scale the new material fits.

Obviously, there's a lot to this and I fear I may be boring some of you. If you'd like to pursue this, a very good book is Roger Lewin's "Human Evolution; an illustrated introduction" now in its fifth edition (2004). It is a textbook, so you have the glaze-over factor, plus the price is on the steep side. But it does go over this stuff pretty well.

Thanks Schuyler for the info, i am not against the idea we came from Africa, i am saying, did we only start from there?, even if you do find a few skulls, prove certain details, it does not led to a conclusion,that we are all from Africa, just because those skulls that were unearthed from the ground from that continent points to that being right, and lot of the conclusions made are pointing to Africa, because some of those skulls are the oldest on record. The land mass of the planet, was very big in scope, even a million years ago or few hundred thousands years ago, and it hard to fathom, that our first ancestors , were isolated only to just one region of the globe, it only started there.We can only go on, what the evidence and the findings tell us, i will not disagree with you on that point.

I absolutely agree, that teeth and the structure of the skull mouth, will tell you, what it probably had to eat during it's life. The size of teeth alone, will tell you how old, a human being was in age. Most of my questions... have to do with speech, could it think similar to us, and are we certain, they were not very intelligent, just based on the skull, and are we sure they were not advanced, where they only hunter gatherers, did they develop far beyond that. We can not be sure, just on the evidence of skulls.

As for there cords, you probably get some idea of how they would speak by looking at the lower skull. It hard to now for sure, what this species would sound like with speech, unless you stood and heard it. I Think, i would not be mistaken in that fact.


I think it agreed, we have things in common, us and apes, and it makes you wonder, like since, we have so many ape and monkey species today on the planet, yet we, where the only ape, that developed from ape to man.. why? what makes us so different or special.

I Also think, even if the cranium looks odd or simply out of proportion, we can not be sure of how intelligent the species once was , when we have no brain to look at to verify our findings , we can only do this mainly by designing the brain either by computer or by graphic designs or by plaster, wax, clay or other and then creating your versions of that brain based on the skull.

Just imagine, we as a species ended, there is nothing of our existence left, no history, not a house, not a train, not a car, not a book, not a coin, nothing. A different species, eventually develops, a few hundred thousand years later, similar to us, but maybe different, may not and they find a skull of us, say in America, and they are along the same path in develop as us humans now.. What would they find from this skull, that would tell them about our past, and how far we came... OK this person could walk, they had a certain diet, and this person had a ability to talk... there is where it would end.. you can not be sure, how far a species developed on a planet, just based on a skull, in my opinion.

 

[Schuyler]

Thanks Schuyler for the info, i am not against the idea we came from Africa, i am saying, did we only start from there?, even if you do find a few skulls, prove certain details, it does not led to a conclusion,that we are all from Africa, just because those skulls that were unearthed from the ground from that continent points to that being right, and lot of the conclusions made are pointing to Africa, because some of those skulls are the oldest on record.

OK. Let me put it this way. It depends on what you mean by "we". (Kind of reminds me of Clinton: It depends on what the definition of "is" is!) If you mean by "we" Homo sapiens alive today, then "we" came from Africa. You don't need to unearth a single skull, a single tool, or even touch a shovel to prove this. If we had no stones, no bones, no dating, no stratigraphy, no tools, no fossils of any kind whatsoever, and even no theory to test, it would still be true. Population genetics pins us, this particular 'wave' of emigration, as 'from Africa.'

That doesn't prove primates started in Africa. It doesn't prove Homo erectus started in Africa. When the continents were one, maybe monkeys started in South America! There could have been waves over waves from Asia, Europe and Africa intermingling for millions of years. In fact, we could have unergone an extinction event when Mt. Toba erupted 72,000 years ago and had to start all over. (See: JOURNEY OF MANKIND - The Peopling of the World) but whatever happened back then, it is certain that the 'surviving wave' of Homo sapiens came out of Africa approximately a quarter million years ago. The rest of the hominim tree died out.

A very cool site is: The Genographic Project - Human Migration, Population Genetics, Maps, DNA - National Geographic which explains a lot of this and allows you to participate in a genetic study.

 

[Kieran]

OK. Let me put it this way. It depends on what you mean by "we". (Kind of reminds me of Clinton: It depends on what the definition of "is" is!) If you mean by "we" Homo sapiens alive today, then "we" came from Africa. You don't need to unearth a single skull, a single tool, or even touch a shovel to prove this. If we had no stones, no bones, no dating, no stratigraphy, no tools, no fossils of any kind whatsoever, and even no theory to test, it would still be true. Population genetics pins us, this particular 'wave' of emigration, as 'from Africa.'

That doesn't prove primates started in Africa. It doesn't prove Homo erectus started in Africa. When the continents were one, maybe monkeys started in South America! There could have been waves over waves from Asia, Europe and Africa intermingling for millions of years. In fact, we could have unergone an extinction event when Mt. Toba erupted 72,000 years ago and had to start all over. (See: JOURNEY OF MANKIND - The Peopling of the World) but whatever happened back then, it is certain that the 'surviving wave' of Homo sapiens came out of Africa approximately a quarter million years ago. The rest of the hominim tree died out.

A very cool site is: The Genographic Project - Human Migration, Population Genetics, Maps, DNA - National Geographic which explains a lot of this and allows you to participate in a genetic study.

I think your right Schuyler, we have to go with what the findings and evidence is saying in regards to our origins, if something else pops up, and is found, then we can revise our history books. We have go with the evidence found suggests. To be honest, we can not say are you sure it happened the way you have said it did? / could it have been different? evidence is evidence,so nobody can discount that, so i rest my case here. Thanks for the info of these sites, you learn something new everyday.

 

[Kieran]

It is interesting, if you follow the map, the "Journey of mankind" to the end. That in and around ten thousand years ago to eight thousands ago, the ice age for northern Europe started to end and also too for north America, the climate got warmer in the north and farming was possible, once the ice age ended. I do not think anyone can have an argument, that any species, that where our ancestors, would find it almost impossible, to survive in a climate that was this cold, maybe not impossible today with technology, but simple hunter gatherers, i believe it beyond impossible to have lived in such a climate and lived for very long in this conditions. I Think they were right on the money with this in my opinion.

Now the Ice age ended in around 10,000 years or less up north, the south of the planet was warmer and more fertile for farming. Plenty of time for a unknown society, between 20,000 years and 10,000 years been born, could a society have developed to a advanced stage, between this dates? highly speculative, i know. It possible, the Atlantis myth? it fits, if you believe the story... 10,000 years before Plato.. Interesting, We have stories, but stories are not evidence, and that is the problem.

I Think if you look, how far we have come, in less than two thousand years A.D, The achievements, we have made. Human history is a little vague, before 6,000 years ago. Did it happen, was there advanced group of humans on the planet, between 20,000 years ago and 10,000 years ago? Now i know, i am hitting territory, that has no base in fact... It just a bit of speculation not dogma.

 

[Schuyler]

You might want to check out "Underworld" by Graham Hancock. He postulates a culture in India that got wiped out by the rising seas. This issue also has implications for the Climate Change debate. I'd personally rather have Canada and Siberia turned into breadbaskets of the world than endure another ice age.

This was a fun discussion. I learned a lot. It inspired me to re-visit old haunts and find out all the new stuff that is happening. Thanks.

 

[Kieran]

You might want to check out "Underworld" by Graham Hancock. He postulates a culture in India that got wiped out by the rising seas. This issue also has implications for the Climate Change debate. I'd personally rather have Canada and Siberia turned into breadbaskets of the world than endure another ice age.

This was a fun discussion. I learned a lot. It inspired me to re-visit old haunts and find out all the new stuff that is happening. Thanks.

It has been while since i saw 'this documentary, i watched it on TV, it was made by a person named Graham Hancock, I am not sure if it is the same person, but the documentary was all about the search for the "Ark of the Convenant" He wanted to know, if there was any truth to the story, he ended up going to France, the middle east, and Ethiopia, he might have gone to other regions, but it been a while since i saw it, 'like i said.

If i can find the link or video, i post it up in the Ancient mysteries thread, for people who are interested, it was really a fascinating video as i remember.

That sounds interesting, i saw you write about a possible unknown culture in India, in a previous post, and i am very interested in alternative history, so thanks for that. And also thank you, for Taking the time to reply to my posts, i appreciate it.

 

[Indrids Cold]

I read HAIR OF THE ALIEN and found it really interesting.

Sadly, the audio quality was poor, and I found it hard to understand Bill's voice. Was it SKYPE?

Yeah, I found it hard to understand also. His Aussie accent and the drop outs during his call were very disjointing.

I did have a question though. I thought I heard him say that the abductee bit the Blond women's nipple and spit out a piece of it. Did I hear that and did he recover any material that he might have taken off with the bite?

Enquiring minds want to know.....

 

[Artyom]

It has been while since i saw 'this documentary, i watched it on TV, it was made by a person named Graham Hancock, I am not sure if it is the same person, but the documentary was all about the search for the "Ark of the Convenant" He wanted to know, if there was any truth to the story, he ended up going to France, the middle east, and Ethiopia, he might have gone to other regions, but it been a while since i saw it, 'like i said.

If i can find the link or video, i post it up in the Ancient mysteries thread, for people who are interested, it was really a fascinating video as i remember.

That sounds interesting, i saw you write about a possible unknown culture in India, in a previous post, and i am very interested in alternative history, so thanks for that. And also thank you, for Taking the time to reply to my posts, i appreciate it.

Yep, it was exactly the same person. He used to write for The Economist while he was in North Africa and, right, writing about local people and political situation around he became involved in investigating the story around The Ark. I read his later book 'Fingerprints of the Gods', the matter of fact I have this book in PDF and can send it to you. Plus I have his DVD 'Quest For The Lost Civilization' and can easily convert it to Mpeg-4, upload to my host and share.

 

[Artyom]

You might want to check out "Underworld" by Graham Hancock. He postulates a culture in India that got wiped out by the rising seas. This issue also has implications for the Climate Change debate.

I think it rises a question of studying coast lines through out the world. Along these lines this story with structures near Cuba seashore (600 meters deep under the water) fascinates me but as far as I know nobody officially research this area. The woman who initially found it abandoned its study several years ago because of a financial matters. It is a pity.