[Taxacom] hominid challenge

[Geoff Read]

I kept quiet about this yesterday, but since we are off again regardless ...

PNAS this week presents the "Out of Africa" issue on human origins

http://www.pnas.org/content/vol106/issue38/?etoc

A commentary by Tattersall covers some Homo skeletal issues.  He also
claims 'our species exhibits symbolic mental processes ... members
deconstruct the world around them into a huge vocabulary of mental
symbols'. I'm not sure how one would score that in a character set, and
how easy it  would be to get the comparative data on other related
species, especially the fossil relatives! But he seems to reckon we are
unique and that the chimps don't.  More than homocentric wishful thinking
on our superiority? Who knows.

Geoff