[Taxacom] What is Homo sapiens

[Kenneth Kinman]

Dear All,

      In the conclusions, he says: "By logical extension, hypothetical neanderthalensis and heidelbergensis clades, regardless of their relationship to a sapiens clade, should be regarded as separate genera."

      I do not agree with that at all.  This is another example of the oversplitting that many anthropologists have long practiced, and it should be discouraged, not encouraged.

                --------------Ken

________________________________
From: Taxacom <taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> on behalf of John Grehan <calabar.john at gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2018 7:59 AM
To: taxacom
Subject: [Taxacom] What is Homo sapiens

For anyone interested in such questions, see article at

http://www.isita-org.com/jass/Contents/2016vol94/Schwartz/26963221.pdf


Abstract below

What constitutes Homo sapiens? Morphology versus received wisdom

Although Linnaeus coined Homo sapiens in 1735, it was Blumenbach forty
years later who provided the first morphological definition of the species.
Since humans were not then allowed to be ante-Diluvian, his effort applied
to the genus, as well. After the Feldhofer Grotto Neanderthal disproved
this creationist notion, and human–fossil hunting became legitimate, new
specimens were allocated either to sapiens or new species within Homo, or
even to new species within new genera. Yet as these taxonomic acts
reflected the morphological differences between specimens, they failed to
address the question: What constitutes H. sapiens? When in 1950 Mayr
collapsed all human fossils into Homo, he not only denied humans a diverse
evolutionary past, he also shifted the key to identifying its species from
morphology to geological age – a practice most paleoanthropologists still
follow. Thus, for example, H. erectus is the species that preceded H.
sapiens, and H. sapiens is the species into which H. erectus morphed. In
order to deal with a growing morass of morphologically dissimilar
specimens, the non-taxonomic terms “archaic” (AS) and “anatomically modern”
(AMS) were introduced to distinguish between the earlier and later versions
of H. sapiens, thereby making the species impossible to define. In
attempting to disentangle fact from scenario, I begin from the beginning,
trying to delineate features that may be distinctive of extant humans (ES),
and then turning to the fossils that have been included in the species.
With the exception of Upper Paleolithic humans – e.g. from Cro-Magnon,
Dolni Vestonice, Mladeč – I argue that many specimens regarded as AMS, and
all those deemed AS, are not H. sapiens. The features these AMS do share
with ES suggest the existence of a sapiens clade. Further, restudy of
near-recent fossils, especially from southwestern China (~11-14.5 ka),
reinforces what discoveries such as H. floresiensis indicate: “If it’s
recent, it’s not necessarily H. sapiens”.
_______________________________________________
Taxacom Mailing List
Send Taxacom mailing list submissions to: Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu

http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/taxacom
The Taxacom Archive back to 1992 may be searched at: http://taxacom.markmail.org
To subscribe or unsubscribe via the Web, visit: http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/taxacom
You can reach the person managing the list at: taxacom-owner at mailman.nhm.ku.edu

Nurturing Nuance while Assaulting Ambiguity for 31 Some Years, 1987-2018.