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Darryl de Ruiter
This specimen, known as SK 48, is one of the best examples of Paranthropus robustus from South Africa's Swartkrans Cave.
An analysis of fossil teeth from South Africa suggests that the males in pre-human societies stayed near the caves where they grew up, while the females migrated when it was time to mate.
The researchers behind the analysis say their findings, published in this week's issue of the journal Nature, could shed light on the migratory behaviors that eventually gave rise to human societies.
"This appears to be most similar to a chimpanzee social structure," said lead author Sandi Copeland, an anthropologist at the University of Colorado and Germany's Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. It's also consistent with the way many humans handle the process of moving out and settling down, she told journalists. "It's more often than not in modern societies that the woman is the one that leaves," she noted.
But it's not the norm in the animal world. "In most primates and most mammals, it's usually the males who leave their home community," she said. Thus, the analysis could hint at one of the factors that made us human.
Darryl de Ruiter
The skull of "Mrs. Ples" is the most famous example of Australopithecus africanus from South Africa's Sterkfontein Cave.
The research is the result of a "continuing effort that we have been making over the last five to 10 years," focusing on an area of South Africa that's rich with caves and pre-human fossils, said Oxford University archaeologist Julia Lee-Thorp, another one of the study's co-authors. She and her colleagues have been measuring the radioisotope distribution around the Sterkfontein and Swartkans cave sites, to come up with the chemical fingerprints for samples in that area.
The point behind this exercise is to chart out the migration patterns for species that can no longer tell their own tales. By sampling the isotopes of strontium in tooth enamel, the team could determine which teeth belonged to animals that grew up in the cave region and absorbed strontium in the characteristic isotopic proportions from the foods they ate. That chemical signature remained intact in the tooth enamel throughout adulthood, even if the animals later roamed to a different area.
Sandi Copeland
Faint marks, left behind by a laser ablation procedure, can be seen along the right side of this Australopithecus africanus molar.
The researchers carefully blasted 19 pre-human teeth with pinpoint laser beams, and then analyzed the results. Eight of the teeth came from the Sterkfontein Cave and were traced to a species known as Australopithecus africanus, dating back about 2.2 million years. The other 11 teeth came from the Swartkans Cave, and are attributed to Parathropus robustus, a species that lived about 1.8 million years ago. Australopithecus is thought to be a closer ancestor of modern humans than Paranthropus.
The team expected to see a difference in the local vs. non-local distribution of the two species. They didn't.
"As the numbers rolled off the mass spectrometer after each laser ablation, we were at first disappointed," Lee-Thorp said in an Oxford news release. "But we soon realized that we had found another prize — a difference between the males and females. It was totally unexpected."
The researchers assumed that nine significantly larger teeth in their sample came from males, while the 10 significantly smaller teeth came from females. They chose these teeth for comparison precisely because of the size difference.
Based on the strontium analysis, more than half of the female-sized teeth came from outside the cave region, while 90 percent of the male-sized teeth were traced to the caves. That finding led the researchers to conclude that the males were stay-at-home types, while the females were more likely to roam.
Such a pattern is similar to that seen in chimpanzee societies, where males in a particular locale tend to stick together to defend their turf from interlopers. In order to guard against inbreeding, the younger females are likelier than the males to migrate for mating. Copeland said the situation is different for gorillas. In those societies, the dominant male gorilla rules over a harem that tends to stay put, while younger males usually have to go someplace else to find their own mates.
"This study gets us closer to understanding the social structure of ancient hominds, since we now have a better idea about the dispersal patterns," Copeland said in a University of Colorado news release.
The team's conclusions are based on less than two dozen teeth, divided up into species and sex categories. That raised questions about the small sample size. Texas A&M anthropologist Darryl de Ruiter, a study co-author, acknowledged that the team was "very constrained by the amount of material that we have available for destructive analysis." But he said that adding a few more teeth to the sample size may not have helped, because they had already selected the largest and the smallest teeth available to them.
"Anything else we would have added would have been in the gray area," he told journalists. "It wouldn't have added any value to the discrimination between males and females."
More about human origins:
- Lucy's 'great-grandfather' found
- How big babies shaped society
- Can fingers point to sex habits?
- Interactive: Before and after humans
In addition to Copeland, Lee-Thorp and de Ruiter, co-authors of "Strontium Isotope Evidence for Landscape Use by Early Hominins" include Matt Sponheimer, Daryl Codron, Petrus J. le Roux, Vaughan Grimes and Michael P. Richards.
You can connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page or following @b0yle on Twitter. Also, give a look to "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
Leave a Comment:
Ahhh...how large did you say these women were?
And what's this 'inbreeding' theory... these days we just call em skanks.
drifrat
I was under the impression that you didn't even believe such individuals existed?
Haven't you made multiple comments in previous posts disputing the existence of early Hominids and attacking the very science used to study them?
I apologize if not, I could have sworn it was you though.
chad ol' sport...
Your about as far away from my opinions as someone could be and still be somewhere.
Apology unwarrented but accepted (I grab em when I can, as a theist (Spinoza type)I get it from all directions).
That's why I asked my man.
I couldn't remember if it was you or not ... maybe someone with a similar handle?
I even preempted with an apology if I was wrong ;)
As a theist, do you have troubles rectifying personal creation with evolution?
I'm always curious here. I often wonder if today's evolution-accepting theists would really be accepting if the science simply hadn't become too hard to deny or brush under the rug any longer?
actually I'm at the cusp of foam/ether (sans the 10 or M @11) type approach whereas space as a place appears to have a kinda metaphysical reflection. I'll have to lend support with sci guy quotes ok? "Included in the entirety is the observer.-Paul Davies "
So as far as evolution - thats a gimme - it what it appears to physically be which is scientific evolution - the most accurate study we have curently reflecting the developement of our species.
Yes, but why do you choose to inject mystery where none is needed? If you agree evolution is a beautiful, natural, and compelling explanation for the diversity of life .... where does the unnatural need for a theistic, personal god arise?
I can understand a deistic position on the potential for a rhetorical godhead ... but I don't understand how a scientific mind makes the jump from this, into providing quantified answers to unquantifiable questions.
Again, I'm no saying your not entitled to this cognitive jump, I'm merely trying to understand the "why" a little better.
What if the smaller teeth are young males?
Chad I like to think I'm not injecting mysteries - that I'm just looking at em.
Most of our scientific beliefs and assumptions about existence are supported by 'intelligent intuition' which is still faith. Keep in mind that I dont believe in a personal God to help me through the tuff times but I do see there exist an ontology of man which demands resolution, that in fact this may be a force that is part of our evolution.
Ever the optomist.
Oh, fun.
I could agree with all that, but I still fail to grasp the concept or need for anything even remotely resembling a theistic position. Especially from what you just said.
Theists, in my experience anyway, seem to negate the concept of mystery.
I wasn't implying that there isn't mystery (I'm a seeker myself), I just still fail to see how a theistic position could ever wish to any better define the unknown, or help us get closer to understanding it. It seems trivial to argue semantics I know (that's why I seldom refer to myself as an atheist, agnostic, etc because it really means nothing to me). But, when I hear an admitted theist who accepts evolution, I still find myself just scratching my head.
You rang? :D
haha, Kidding aside, this was a fun read for this afternoon. Very fascinating article!
Personally, for me, I like to think that if there is an omnipotent being that created the universe (I'm Catholic, so I do believe that), then He would at least have enough common sense to create a system of laws to govern said universe, and make it entirely possible to run with the least amount of interference by His behalf. A scientific God, so-to-speak.
But that's just me.
Chad...a Theist typically would not believe in a personal God. That concept is considered childish and silly to any serious objectively directed thinker.
That being pointed out...we humans exist in a dual world of the physical and the metaphysical of which we have yet to reconcile. We're not very far apart Chad except I include the force of existence in my analysis as that force is greater than anything I've been able to understand. As the concept does gives me some comfort.
good one observer...yours is certainly the least typical post of an admitted Cath-o-lic. Most of the time that school throws out just hate-speak with a lot of confusion tossed in. You must be very confident in your beliefs?
Admittedly, I used to be an atheist. Judging from your post a couple up, we may have had similar paths in our conclusions.
And those types of Catholics you mentioned are actually in direct conflict with the Church's unofficial stance of theistic evolution. The current Church merely entertains Creationists, but it won't be long before the unofficial becomes the official. But, sadly, the Church does and always has moved unbearably slow. It's a huge juggernaut, I suppose, and keeping in mind that it is mostly run by individuals far along in their ages and ways, it will not be until people of our generation are up there in ranks before things change.
(Theistic evolution is basically a similar premise that I believe in, but with more Godly involvement, which I debate personally.)
driftrat
You have me confused here .... are you mixing terms?
If you have a different idea of what theism is (and how you wouldn't actually be considered a deist), I'd love to hear that. Maybe that's where our confusion here is.
@Observer
I guess I can understand that, it just seems a little reachy to me to submit an omnipotent god who needs to reflect "change", i.e. evolution, into the equation in the first place. I won't pretend to know god's mind, but if it were me .... when I was "creating man in my image", I would have ... ya know .... created him in my image. Not as a lessor primate that needs to go through millions of years of revisions before I decide to instil "revelation" and "morality" upon my creation.
Furthermore, if he did use evolution (which you believe), and he has already spoken to us (which you also believe), wouldn't we have gotten a great deal of what we know about evolution from his "word", i.e. the bible? Why did it take blasphemous scientists to finally unravel this puzzle? And why, until the evidence simply became impossible to deny, did the religious community reject every aspect of evolution so stridently ... and for so long?
"The researchers assumed that nine significantly larger teeth in their sample came from males, while the 10 significantly smaller teeth came from females. They chose these teeth for comparison precisely because of the size difference."
My question arises because the investigators are assuming that all of the smaller teeth came from females. Even if only a few of the 10 smaller teeth were young males, it would change the data and provide them with an alternative interpretation.
Chad:
Some excellent points! And I wouldn't dare dream of being able to contend with those arguments, because they are at the crux of modern philosophical debate. I wouldn't dare call myself a philosopher or theologian by any means!
Some of my thinking, though, may be admissible from a personal stand point, I hope.
I think His rationale (and pardon my capitalization of that word, and I do not expect you to follow suit) would be very similar to why scientists believe evolution is necessary: adaptation. The universe is ever changing, the natural world is ever changing, entropy only increases, etc. Evolution is necessary to ensure that living organisms continue to thrive. If God created evolution, surely His intent was similar to what Darwin felt the intention was.
This is an interesting subject, one that I feel is debated not just amongst the theists and non-theists alike, but also inside of the theist camp.
I don't feel like man is created, physically, in the image of God. I feel like his mind is created in God's image. And I'd like to address that with your next position:
I think that is the crux of it all.
Science is fun. Learning is fun. Raising children is fun (for some, not me, haha). At some point, you can only instill so much knowledge to your kids before you have to let them hit the high seas on their own merit.
My thoughts are this: there are two games we, as man, are playing (I'll be drawing some parallels to James Carse's "Finite and Infinite Games"). One for the whole of the species and one for our spiritual side. Both, for me, are equally as important, if not the one we play for our species even more important (one, after all, for the religious plays into the other, no?). I think those that place the spiritual game above all are the reasons for such problems we've had in the past (holding on to old ways of thought).
Do I believe in the end of days for humans? Yes. Do I believe that it will be because God finally has enough and comes down to smite the wicked? No. I think God wants us to survive as a species and that through science and the voyage through His mind, He gives us the tools and resources to do so. At some point, perhaps we will reach what we can know and our demise is just inevitable. That is the point where I think the end of days will happen. Not by some heavenly host coming down to swoop up the righteous, but by some natural cataclysm that we were simply not able to avoid.
God has given us what we need to know for the spiritual game, which I feel like is a pretty decent guide for making sure we don't bring about our own demise by our own hands. But He leaves it up to us to figure out the reality game. We must prove our worth and ingenuity through our own merits. Boldly go where...wait, that's someone else's catch-phrase. haha
I do think that there is a certain satisfaction in paving our species' own way when it comes to our survival and prosperity. I don't think God wants to deprive us of that, nor of the fun in learning new and exciting things. After all, wouldn't it be flattering to the creator to admire its work? I would like to think that Michelangelo was flattered when I admired his Sistine Chapel a few years ago.
All in all, I regret the Church's role in the past when it came to science. To be fair, it did promote some, but heinously dismissed others. I think it's the man that runs the institution, though, where the problem lies. People are afraid of change and of new ideas. And they ALWAYS will be, I think. Fear and panic are the greatest hurdles for humanity as a species.
A wise man once said: "Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do."
Observer,
I like you a lot. I must say, you are without a doubt the most pleasant theist with whom I've ever had the pleasure of engaging in a civil (agree to disagree) discourse.
One thought:
But doesn't that negate the very quality behind an omnipresent, omnipotent, all-knowing, all-seeing, god in the first place?
I'm also curious, were you raised catholic, or did you reach your faith through a later means?
I only ask because I agree with much of what you just said. I would just submit a different quantifier rather then "god" when speaking about spirituality (simply because I don't know). And, I'm curious if you've ever studied other faiths? You seem incredibly open, and I sometimes get confused how inquisitive individuals like yourself become comfortable being roped into the dogmatic baggage that comes with the religion they choose (or are born into).
If you were born in Iran for example, would you still be a christian and hold faith in the Lord? Or, would it be Muhammad? And so on and so on ... through various cultures and faiths.
I guess that's my whole beef with religion. To me, at least, it's extremely limiting. It's void of all the beauty and mystery I find through science. It's a cultural constraint, a bag of dogmatic bricks that I've long displaced.
My final question:
But why on earth did he create me an atheist then?
Chad...Well I usually say theist-light in defining my beliefs. I was a pantheist for years and then I felt that a theistic approach was more in line with my base beliefs of God as a more general universal force. Unfortunatly the word has a poorly defined tag that potrays a God force who has a personal relationship with everyone. I have come to feel that God's relationship is specific to the Universe and not our ego's. If there's a more clearly defined term for my confusion then my lack of academia is showing and I'm open.
observer...that was a nice post.
I agree, you're very pleasant to talk with as well! A lot of times, I just catch a lot of flak (on both sides, haha).
Sadly, no matter what field people play in, they always want to run around poking each other and people in other fields with a long, sharp stick. I find it absurd.
Hmm, how so? I tried to think of what you could mean, but I'd hate to assume anything on your behalf.
No. I was raised Methodist (my parents were never that strong in their faith, they kind of went where they liked the people/preacher). When I was a senior in high school up until very late in my college years, I was an atheist.
But then I got to the point where I could not reconcile certain 'whys' in science. I started seeing (or as someone outside my camp would claim I started imagining) patterns. It's hard for me to say, and as ridiculous as it sounds, but I went so far into science I became religious.
As far as why Catholicism? Well, I just look at it this way. Besides using legal arguments, Catholicism made sense scientifically. If I want to consult with someone about medicine, I see a doctor. If I want to learn about physics, I see a physicist. If I want to learn about Christianity, may as well go to the one that has been around for 2000 years, is the largest, and has the most well-educated theologians.
I guess I could've went back to Islam, if at the very beginning I started that way. But, just legally and historically speaking, Catholicism made the most sense. But I did know it would be monotheistic, as I cannot rationalize polytheism. (I guess if there is one god, there could be many, but I didn't think that made as much sense as one.) (NOT THAT THERE IS ANYTHING WRONG WITH THOSE THAT DO. I respect your belief.)
Yes, I have a degree in religious studies from a secular university. (I picked it up only because I was curious and I had a boatload of free electives I had to do in order to complete my primary degree.)
They fail to ask serious questions and self-reflect, I think. The day one stops scrutinizing oneself and everything one holds dear, is the day they stop being a sensible human. My humble opinion. There is not a day that goes by that I do not question everything, including my Catholic beliefs. (Want to know what the biggest hurdle is for me when it comes to being a Christian? Heaven. I can conceive of a Hell, theoretically, but Heaven just does not make any sense to me whatsoever. Usually, wouldn't it be the other way around? haha)
Well, like I previously mentioned, I think it represents a different facet of ourselves. The spiritual game. Science is magnificently beautiful, for the physical game. That's one of the things I love about Catholicism, and usually one of the critiques from others: its unabashed splendor. Giant cathedrals, hundreds of years of the most fantastic art work and architecture, and a Mass (the service we go to) that is connected to 2000 years of history. It's like being in a giant family, not just of individuals alive today, but that have ever been alive for the past 2000 years. I can go to Mass where I live now, or go to Mass in France, and it'll be the same exact Mass. (Unless I go to a vernacular service, in which case I better study French beforehand!)
One of the things that really knocked me on my butt was going into St. Peter's Basilica for the first time. I have been to many places, but that place...wow. Though, I wonder how I would've felt had I gone when I was atheistic.
Why not?
I don't mean to sound sarcastic. I'm serious. What's wrong with you? Nothing that I can see. Are you kind to your fellow man? Do you work to build a loving home with your family? Do you want to ensure the survival of the human species to the best of your ability?
If you answered yes to any of that, then you're already better than a lot of religious folk I know. See you on the flip side then! (That part, I break away from most faiths. I do believe that if people follow their code, and are good to one another, then spiritual beliefs aside, they did what they're supposed to here in this existence. I just cannot imagine that God sent people like Ghandi to Hell. The righteous are beloved by God, no matter what their faith or lack-thereof was, in my humble opinion.)
Chad, Observer, driftrat,
I have been following your conversation on and off this evening. It is most interesting to read comments from folks who are trying to understand each other and be respectful rather than trying to convince each other the other is a nasty name. That was a fun read.
I had some problems with definitions / meanings but I think I was able to discern to some reasonable degree what each of you was trying to convey to the other.
For that I thank you.
Thanks all for the lively discussion.
It's interesting that a woman archaeologist Julia Lee-Thorp is mentioned in the article. I wonder if her gender made decisions in this theory that women were migratory and not men. It seems to me that the theory is biased, making conclusions that don't necessarily justify the data.
Another theory and just as plausible, could be that males from neighboring areas, needed additional mates, so invaded other territories to steal them away. Want another one, tribal fights between neighboring tribes killed the males, but the females were brought back for breeding stock.
Jim,
You were wondering "if her gender made decisions in this theory...." And then you turned around in your next paragraph and assumed that males are violent sexual predators and turned it into something resembling a video game.
What's up with that? Was that a gender based assumption / theory? I think so.
That's the first thing I thought of when I read this.
Capturing females from rival tribes seems more plausible to me.
That's because you are looking at this through your male dominated society glasses.
I would venture to guess that raiding, capturing females, and predatory behavior against other tribes would have created quite a few maimed, crippled or otherwise less sturdy males. There was no penicillin or doctors or magic potions like a video game. An injury could be deadly or crippling, even a minor injury. A healthy male was needed to help raise the next generation---what ever his duties might be.
The ability to negotiate and trade for a reasonable outcome is a great part of what has made us human.
I hold this opinion because I am old now and would be too slow to successfully compete in the raiding party. Also, I don't particularly like to get hurt.
Where you stand depends upon where you sit. See?
I think that "Rape of the Sabine Women" scenario is not excluded by this research. I tried to be careful to leave that scenario open as a possibility, but you're absolutely right that I didn't explicitly mention it. And you're also right in suggesting that females might have been abducted and brought back to the caves as part of the males' process for finding mates.
I still think we put a lot of assumptions on past populations by trying to put them in our world. We think that two young cave people meet, get married and go find a real estate agent to find them a nice cave in the suburbs. Then hubby goes to work hunting animals and spreading his seed with every Rachel Welch that comes along while the little misses happily plants flowers at the cave entrance before working on those Mastodon steaks.
The reality is that these people tended to live in small clusters of people, either wandering following the game or staying put if resources allowed. Ladies might have children from different males within the group, and if this research is correct (and I suspect these people did this even if the experiment is in error) then the ladies brought back genetics from elsewhere and the guys probably sent some away from time to time.
Just trying to say that it is not in our nature as humans, male or female, to be monogamous, especially in the long run.
My guess is that these last two scenarios are the MOST likely (Abduction, non monogamy)
Who's to say that packs of roaming women didn't take over areas where ample males congregated looking for potential "fertilizers"?
To Jim-2660533
So, what you are saying is that the fact that Julia Lee-Thorp has a vagina caused her to systematically falsify the results of an analysis of Strontium isotopes derived from laser ablation of early human teeth in order to promote a feminist agenda which was in conflict with the initial expectations of the researchers.
It sounds like you are the one with the rather ugly biased gender expectations.
Seems to me you are the ugly one jaycubed. I don't use vulgar language, and I didn't say that any data was falsified by Julia Lee-Thorp. I'm sure all the data is accurate and she is a fine scientist.
However, that doesn't mean that scientists don't sometimes try to fit the data to a theory they have and that there objectivity is skewed by their life experiences, and yes, there gender, age, religion, ethnicity, and more. The article mentions, "That finding led the researchers to conclude that the males were stay-at-home types, while the females were more likely to roam." That's a rather biased assumption, considering the data is from thousands of years ago.
I just find it interesting that there are far more potential theories than to assume that women were the main migrators. They could have been forced to migrate from males taking them.
when exactly did the word 'vagina' become vulgar? i can think of about twenty or so different ways to refer to female genitalia, all of which are infinitely more vulgar, and in some cases disturbing, than vagina.
maybe you should keep your sexual puritanism to your self.
"objectivity is skewed by their life experiences" this fact of life is overlooked by so many scientist I'm glad you pointed it out
seriously coldcrankcase? The word is not vulgar, the context it was used in is. 'Language' is a collection of words used to convey meaning and the meaning he intended to convey is clearly derogatory.
You might want to actually read the report before wiggling your fingers. The data (based on a population study of evidence demonstrating where individuals were living/eating based on specific mineral markers incorporated into their teeth following digestion) clearly shows that the males did stay much closer to their mother's family group and that females were more likely to disperse into other family groups. There is no assumption involved except in extrapolating that data_males stayed with mother while females dispersed_beyond that particular population.
And, if males did "take" females and force them to migrate, how would that make it an "assumption" that females did the migrating. There are a variety of theories that might explain such a dispersion pattern. Our closest relatives clearly follow the voluntary female dispersion pattern, making that the simplest & most obvious explanation. The only "evidence" for the male abduction scenario is found in organized modern human societies and in the fantasies of many men.
The problem here is, to put it simply, sexism. Males must be the primary actors and females must be secondary. That is the presumption made by many commentators here, all of whom appear to have a penis.
I don't find it offensive to point out your underlying sexism in the most basic & scientific terms. I find the sexist presumptions you make far to be far more offensive. A profound part of your world view revolves around the posession of an extruded sexual organ rather than an intruded sexual organ (since the word vagina offends you so much). A huge part of your identity is tied up in Believing that your possession of a penis/extrusion is a privileged state. I find such a world view vulgar, not the description of such a world view.
I can see where the cave women migrated to. They went to Italy and one of them had an accident with a police car.
This is probably why men established marriage, to prevent their wives from roaming and diversifying the gene pool.
I've thought for a long time that the "men spread their seed, women want one guy for security" to be a very bogus argument. Women actually want a group to feel secure. But they also like to mate with the guy they think is the "studliest".
This just shows it goes way back. "Girls Gone Wild" is over 2 million years old.
It could also be that marriage evolved as a way to accept new women into the family / community group without the aggression, injury, etc that Alan Boyle mentions in the following post. As primates developed rituals in humankind's early efforts to explain and influence the world around them, marriage may have started when a community group leader offered some form of adornment and ceremony to a prospective mate. It could have been a simple enticement mimiced after observing a bird's or some other animal's courting behaviors; a means to signify to the group that the "spouse" had attained some measure of significance by mating / bonding with the leader; or the "spouse" has now been accepted as a group member so quit with the newbie hazing.
Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery...voila, several eons later, we now get royal weddings and Bridezilla reality shows!
Well, I recall seeing a very interesting documentary a few years ago on human sexuality. It answered a lot of questions for me and I wish I could remember more of it accurately. But they discussed something that was called "mate protection" or "mate possessiveness" and tied it to several the modern human tendencies right down a man walking with his arm draped over a female companion etc.
It would seem that the act of codifying a mated couple or whatever would have grown out of that. Sorry, I just can't remember enough of the documentary to give you more specifics.
I think I saw that too!
And drats, you're right, it was a while back and I cannot remember it either. Wasn't its host John Cleese?
Tony in Dallas, skip and Observer,
Us guys are just lucky, I guess. He, he.
Jim et al. ... If we look to the pattern of female dispersal in chimpanzees, researchers have found that female chimps "leave without being coerced, enter a new group at the bottom of the social hierarchy, receive considerable aggression from resident females, and may fight to establish a residential core area." So it sounds as if female chimps decide to roam rather than falling victim to marauding males. Nevertheless, the abduction scenario is still not excluded.
http://unm.academia.edu/MelissaThompson/Papers/241797/The_context_of_dispersal_in_Kanyawara_chimpanzees
I've also heard that the young female chimps will leave the group, then come back to her group pregnant. It is thought to be a way of inserting genes into the family and minimizing inbreeding.
I'm not completely convinced of this theory of the wandering female. The evidence is too thin and speculative to me. There are numerous ancient societies that reveal the man leaving his clan and living with the woman's clan. So, if I had to go with this theory, I might suggest that there were other factors involved. It's too small a sample but it's an interesting theory to ponder, at best.
It's probably true that in some cultures the female left, in others the male left. It is also quite obvious that in a lot of these cultures both men and women left, 'cause humans settled almost the whole planet, except Antarctica (and that may be because we have not found the fossil remains of humans yet.)
perhaps it was ...
1. just a male bonding group experience
2. the males were gay.
3. the females had just learned to speak and were driven away by the males.
LOLOL
There is a great Geico insurance commercial in here somewhere. Maybe if they branch out into home insurance.
It first I thought I'd seen this caveman on I-95 South the other day, but as read the article, it became clear that this research could account for the couch potato (stay at home male), while the women would leave to gather the food, take care of the young and look for a better male to mate with. Had this been an evolutionary driving force, it could be suggested that the home bound male was important for taking care of children that were not his. This in turn might be seen as a threat to passing on the couch potato gene however, the gene may be passed on only using the Y make chromosome, the same small contribution from any male. The species could be advance through the maternal lineage where mate selection played role, making the male contribution to evolution very indirect. The males provide a few useful roles, is not expendable but it often seems that way, the non-breeding male could make the perfect couch potato.
If he had a cave couch
There's wisdom in there Rich. Let me weed some out.
The couch potato male would breed once or twice with the female, but the female would inevitable breed with some other male that doesn't necessarily stick around.
However, I still think these people lived in groups, and not as nuclear families.
Cavewomen strayed.....well have you ever seen cave men?
So the women strayed from camp and had affairs with other tribes? Does this mean that you could say we are all illegitimate offspring?
Really???? "One of factors that made us human" was the slutty female? GAWD!!!! I love to hate scientists!
There are many societies (modern and not too distant past) that let travelers sleep with their wives. It was customary in some, required in others.
Why do we always want to think that cavemen had the morals that we want to pretend we have?
Gumpy, it was a female scientist that said it, not some dirty old man.
Is anyone else blown away to find that Cavemen Dentists used Laser Ablation? my dentist is still using a beeper and having me rinse with floride.
Also, 2 dozen teeth would be a statistically valid sample set in West Virginia.
Males capturing females from rival tribes seems just as plausible to me, maybe more so.
Don't see why this alternate theory isn't also offered.
Could also be younger males, but no reasonable scenario appears to me for that one.
Who's to say that packs of roaming women didn't take over areas where ample males congregated looking for potential "fertilizers"?
Why is it the males that have to be the aggressors?
"I am sure that never was a people, who had more reason to acknowledge a Divine interposition in their affairs, than those of the United States; and I should be pained to believe that they have forgotten that agency, which was so often manifested during our Revolution, or that they failed to consider the omnipotence of that God who is alone able to protect them."
- George Washington
And God spake, saying that his people, the white peope shouldst conquer the world and subjugate the heathens of darker hue and rid the world of their kind, thus creating the land of God, America.
Hey wow, I can quote something that is 100% completely irrelevant to the topic at hand too! This is fun, everyone join in now.
"Its crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsy in snide." (Mad Magazine)
"I've got an idea. Why don't we just spread chocolate all over the floor and let Chunk eat his way through?" (-The Goonies)
twiddly,
If I recall correctly,isotopes of strontium remain fixed and do not change after our 6th year. However, this may not be in case a couple of million years ago. Maybe they continued with strontium intake until adolescence. In which case, a possible scenario is that the older males drove off the competition. At any rate, it is important that the study be based on solid data - not assumptions.
Interessting study and may confirm that these fossils are "pre-human" (what ever that is) since the behaviour of women moving away would be consistent with modern humans.
One thing to consider is that these people probably had a maximum life span of around 40 years so you can't compare it to the "old widows" of modern society that live past 80 and usually outlive their spouses. Most young daughters do move out to marry, unless they marry some looser who can't provide a home. In "pre-human" times, those types probably wouldn't get past the cave door.
Yeah, I used "pre-human" as shorthand for hominid or homonin. Maybe I should go back to using "hominid" ... anyway, these are species that are thought to be on the human family tree after the split-off from the chimp line, but not necessarily directly related to humans. A lot of folks say Australopithecus afarensis and africanus are "direct" ancestors, but the family tree is so bushy that I'm wondering whether that's the right way to put it. We can almost guarantee that the remains found in the South African caves did not belong to creatures who are the direct ancestors of me and thee.
There is another animal that functions in a similar manner and that is the Lion and Lioness. The male lion will stay in one location while the female moves her cubs around to keep them safe and too look for food.
One has to wonder if this early caveman didn't mimic the Lion and Lioness social behavior's. It would be interesting to know if there were any groups of lions that roamed the same area of these cavemen.
These were not "humans" or "ape-men" or so called "hominids" but extinct species of primates.
More Darwinist nonsense dressed up as science.
Mark
Yeah, but they are a lot older than 6,000 years, so it's still worthy research.
I found it typical that the beginning posts were of a religous nature(Not surprising though) What DID surprise me was who they were by!! Guys who usually stick to topic!!LOL driftrat! Come back to us!!LOL Earth to chad!!LOL My guess is abduction/raid/ non monagamy is the best case scenario(s)
These posts are even sillier than the article in question. You're all so full of yourselves. It's a stupid monkey. Half of you are even arguing back and forth about the "lack of science" to support theism. (LOL) Where is the scientific "PROOF" that this is a pre-human. It takes a hell of a lot more FAITH to believe in this type of nonsense than it takes to believe in God.
It is "pre-human" in ths sense that it lived before there were humans. and it is clearly on the same "hominid" line as us, after the split from apes. The exact relationships beyond that are unknown.
"lifelonglearner", might I suggest actually learning some biology at some point in your life, so that you will understand that evolutionary theory and God are NOT MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE. Perhaps then, with a newfound understanding of the biological sciences, you will refrain from posting uninformed comments on a public discussion.
Strontium - now there's a cool element.
I've found it really awesome that Mr. Boyle has stayed lively in the discussion of his article. Kudos!