Taxacom: hominid construction evidence

[John Grehan]

This note is not about taxonomy as such, but has a bearing on the fossil as
minimum age criterion that is so important for the efforts of many
taxonomists/systematists. Apparently a recent find of evidence for
construction of wooden materials, possibly structural,  found in Zambia
estimated at 450 to 550 thousand years (predating human fossil record). "If
so, the discovery complicates the conventional image of hominins as nomads
hunting migrating herds or gathering seasonal flora with relatively basic
tools. "This find has changed how I think about our early ancestors," says
University of Liverpool archaeologist Larry Barham, leader of a project
researching Stone Age technology called Deep Roots of Humanity. "Forget the
label 'Stone Age,' look at what these people were doing: they made
something new, and large, from wood. They used their intelligence,
imagination, and skills to create something they'd never seen before,
something that had never previously existed." This is classic - that one
has to revise one's theories because of a new fossil, even though
orangutans (who excel at engineering) already know how to make tree houses
(with floors, walls, and roofs), but for some reason (I can guess) no one
wants to acknowledge that early hominids just brought their tree-houses
down to the ground when the ground dwelling lifestyle became predominant
(emphasis on predominant as some people continue to build arboreal
dwellings). Food for thought.

Cheers, John Grehan

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