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Author Topic:   New Species of Homo Discovered: Homo naledi
Meddle
Member (Idle past 1298 days)
Posts: 179
From: Scotland
Joined: 05-08-2006


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Message 82 of 85 (768450)
09-11-2015 8:28 PM
Reply to: Message 18 by Faith
09-10-2015 3:12 PM


Not enough skull there though, and the one hand isn't convincingly human...
It may not be the full skull but what is there is still provides a significant amount of information. For example the overall size of the brain cavity and the sloping of the skull from the pronounced brow ridge, lacking a discernible forehead and therefore a less developed frontal lobe. you could also point to the slope of the upper jaw as an indication of how far the jaw protrudes. I'm sure someone like Coyote who has studied this area of biology could get a great deal more information from this skull and how it compares with other hominin skulls.
Look again at the series of skulls that Dr Adequate posted. We see a series of 'microevolutionary' changes as the brain cavity increases in volume and other features of the skull becoming more gracile, and somewhere in that continuum lies H.naledi. If you disagree, can you point to two adjacent skulls that show what you would call a 'macroevolutionary' change?
As for the hand not being convincingly human, what leads you to believe that? Like in humans the thumbs are quite large, extending as far as the proximal phalanges of the other fingers, whereas in the great apes the thumb is proportionally smaller since the metacarpals of the other fingers are elongated.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 18 by Faith, posted 09-10-2015 3:12 PM Faith has replied

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 Message 83 by Faith, posted 09-12-2015 12:15 AM Meddle has not replied

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