Savanna Fantasts neglect more recxent information:
Op 25-03-2008 08:42, in artikel 22c4fe0b-ac45-40ff-b589-bf150-
ed22fe0@c65g2000hsa.googlegroups.com, rmacfarl
<rmacfarl@alphalink.com.au> schreef:
> On Mar 25, 12:05 am, Gerrit Hanenburg
> <G.Hanenb...@inter.nl.nomail.net> wrote:
>> Marc Verhaegen <m_verhae...@skynet.be> wrote:
>>> Past and present vegetation ecology of Laetoli, Tanzania P
>>> Andrews & M Bamford 2008 JHE 54 : 78e98
>>
>>> ... This indicates the overall pattern of vegetation at
>>> Laetoli to have been a mosaic of low & tall deciduous
>>> woodlands & with riverine woodland & forest associations
>>> along water courses.
>>> - Low woodlands would have been dominated by Acacia spp ;
>>> - tall woodlands by Combretum-Albizia spp, with increasing
>>> increments of montane species, such as Croton spp, to
>>> the E of the area.
>>> - Riverine woodlands would have been dominated by
>>> Acacia-Euclea spp, with wetter associations (downriver
>>> or linked with spring activity) supporting gallery
>>> forest with Ficus, Celtis & Croton spp ...
>>
>>> (cf.Dryopith in wet forests + Celtis & Ficus)
>>
>> Another attempt to turn Laetoli into a wetland? It doesn't
>> work, the total lack of aquatic taxa is still significant.
>>
>> And
>>
>> Su, D.F. & Harrison, T. 2007. The paleoecology of the Upper
>> Laetolil Beds at Laetoli.
>>
>> On the basis of a detailed and comprehensive comparative
>> analysis of the mammalian fauna, comparing the ecovariable
>> structure of the Laetoli fauna with other Plio-Pleistocene
>> hominin-bearing localities and modern faunal communities,
>> the paleoecology of the Upper Laetolil Beds is
>> reconstructed as a "mosaic habitat dominated by grassland
>> and shrubland, with areas of open- to medium-cover
>> woodlands, as well as some closed woodland and possibly
>> forest along seasonal river courses." Pp. 279-313 inhttp:/-
>> /www.springer.com/life+sci/zoology/book/978-1-4020-3097-0
>>
>> Note, *dominated* by grassland and shrubland, and possibly
>> forest along *seasonal* river courses. Not wetland at all.
>>
>> Gerrit
>
> Someone should mark down 16 March 2003 as a red-letter day
> in SAP history. It was on this day that 2 of the prime
> proponents of the Aquatic Ape Hypotheses, Algis Kuliukas and
> Marc Verhaegen, both acknowledged publicly that the Laetoli
> Footprint Tuff represents negative evidence of their
> hypotheses.
>
> Ross Macfarlane
>
> =================================================================
>
> From: Marc Verhaegen (fa204466@skynet.be) Subject: Re: Algis
> Kukiukas "Wading for food" Nutr.Health 16:267 Newsgroups:
> sci.anthropology.paleo Date: 2003-03-16 14:35:56 PST
>
>
> "Gerrit Hanenburg" <G.Hanenburg@inter.nl.nomail.net.> wrote
> in message
> news:1ot87v8akn2jcji0ro4h1jtg7ngtmopbhs@4ax.com...
>
>> Surely Laetoli got its batch of heavy showers during the
>> rainy season, at
> times leaving the terrain completely soaked, just as it
> happens in the Serengeti today (making it sometimes
> impossible to drive through even with a 4WD vehicle). The
> layers of the upper unit of the Footprint Tuff at Laetoli
> are extensively redeposited by water, the sheetwash of heavy
> rains. That's not the point when I argue that Laetoli is
> incompatible with a wetland ecology. That argument is based
> on the lack of lacustrine, fluviatile, and floodplain
> deposits and associated aquatic flora and fauna. And the
> lack of water-frequenting terrestrial taxa such as reduncine
> bovids does not give much hope for a distant wetland ecology
> either. Gerrit
>
> I guess you're right here (what about Garusi?). Perhaps the
> Laetoli population was not aquarboreal any more, or simply
> ran away from the vulcanic eruption. Whatever, this only
> exception you could find of possibly non-wetland apiths
> doesn't say that apiths had not the aquarboreal early
> hominid ancestors that we predicted on comparative grounds.
> Other afarensis (Hadar) did live in wet forested areas & had
> traces of aquatic plant feeding (Puech).
>
> Marc Verhaegen http://www.onelist.com/community/AAT
> http://allserv.rug.ac.be/~mvaneech/Verhaegen.html
>
> From: Algis Kuliukas (algis@RiverApes.com) Subject: Re:
> Algis Kukiukas "Wading for food" Nutr.Health 16:267
> Newsgroups: sci.anthropology.paleo Date: 2003-03-16
> 04:12:02 PST
>
>
> Bob Keeter <rkeeter@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> news:<BA99692A. 28C25%rkeeter@earthlink.net>... [..]
>
>>> All I'm saying is that the evidence is that they walked on
>>> muddy ash. That's *all* I'm saying. Why are you guys so
>>> sentitive to a drop of water?
>>>
>>
>> We are not (at least Im not!). It was the SUGGESTION that
>> the footprints implied in any way any of the current
>> "aquaboreal" or the old "Aquatic" existence!
>>
>> If you found your 1-5 above you probably read the rest of
>> the article discussing the other footprints found at
>> Laetoli. . . . didnt sound like a lacustrine or riverine
>> mix at all.
>
> I made no such suggestion. If you look back at the thread
> all I did was to suggest that the Laetoli evidence showed
> that over 3 my hominids were walking bipedally on wet
> ground. That's a fact.
>
> I thought it would be interesting to see the reaction and -
> sure enough - it's the good ol' knee-jerk, "he must be
> wrong, mustn't he - wait - what? what did he say? Oh. Well
> we *thought* he was saying ... well suggesting, well
> implying well... "
>
> well, nothing.
>
> I was stating a fact and you jumped at the conclusion that I
> was banging on the AAH drum. You were wrong. I think the
> Laetoli evidence is one of the few bits that seems to
> contradict the AAH - I don't think it's a show stopper, but
> it definitely doesn't help it at all.
>
> Algis Kuliukas
>
> From: Ross Macfarlane (rmacfarl@alphalink.com.au) Subject:
> Re: Algis Kukiukas "Wading for food" Nutr.Health 16:267
> Newsgroups: sci.anthropology.paleo Date: 2003-03-16
> 19:08:43 PST
>
>
> jae@vidi.ucdavis.edu (Jason Eshleman) wrote in message
> news:<b52adl$kil $1@woodrow.ucdavis.edu>...
>> Algis Kuliukas <algis@RiverApes.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> I was stating a fact and you jumped at the conclusion that
>>> I was banging on the AAH drum. You were wrong. I think the
>>> Laetoli evidence is one of the few bits that seems to
>>> contradict the AAH - I don't think it's a show stopper,
>>> but it definitely doesn't help it at all.
>>
> Someone should mark down 16 March 2003 as a red-letter day
> in SAP history. It was on this day that 2 of the prime
> proponents of the Aquatic Ape Hypotheses, Algis Kuliukas and
> Marc Verhaegen, both acknowledged publicly that the Laetoli
> Footprint Tuff represents negative evidence of their
> hypotheses.
>
> Given that AAHs of hypothesise about behaviours of hominid
> ancestors, which normally do not fossilise, and hence can
> only be inferred from indirect evidence, it is significant
> that this acknowledgement should be made to the only
> indisputable hard fossil record of prehuman bipedal hominid
> behaviour. It does not represent the end of AAH, but I
> thought it was a significant event and should be formally
> noted as such.
>
> Ross Macfarlane
>
> Marc Verhaegen Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 Subject: "modern" AAT
>
> Thanks, Stephen. I fully agree, couldn't have said it
> better. I don't think it's difficult & I don't understand
> Algis's problem, but the main point seems to be that Algis
> thinks that erectus's lifestyle is essentially like ours,
> whereas we think those people were still different from us
> (dense bones, flat skull, broad thorax, shorter legs etc.):
> littoral parttime waders & beach-combers (on 2 legs of
> course) & parttime divers, much too heavily-built for
> regular or far terrestrial locomotion (IOW, they were no
> endurance runners, not even endurance walkers, as recent
> papers try to argue). IOW, we situate our semi-aquatic past
> until more recently (IMO until c 200 ka) than Algis does,
> and we think our ancestors were once more aquatic than Algis
> seems to think.
>
>
> If most AATers could agree that AAT is essentially about
> Homo & that apiths have directly nothing to do with AAT, we
> could evade irrelevant & annoying "discussions" with
> AAT-allergic fanatics about some apiths found in
> possibly-not-very-aquatic milieus (Laetoli seems to be the
> only possibility, and even this is not certain).
>
>
> --Marc
>
> _______
>
>> Algis wrote:
>
>>> Yes but in your TREE paper you also mention wading 24
>>> times and imply that wading was a big part of human
>>> bipedal origins, which is all I'm arguing. I thought it
>>> was a good paper. But now, for some reason which I have
>>> still not understood, you seem to have changed your mind
>>> about it.
>
>
>>> Maybe Stephen Munro might like to comment here. He was a
>>> co-author of that paper too. Was it, or was it not,
>>> arguing that wading was a key factor in the origin of
>>> human bipedalsim? Or was it arguing that diving was a more
>>> important factor?
>
>
>> I think wading can explain the bipedalism we see in
>> australopiths and in our paper we argued that wading was
>> most probably a part of the locomotor repertoire of the
>> ancestors of humans/chimps and gorillas. To explain modern
>> human bipedalism, however, we argued that diving was
>> important. IOW, we have been arguing that diving was
>> essential in the evolution of human bipedalism. I've
>> certainly never argued that wading wasn't important and I
>> don't think Marc has. My impression is that Marc has been
>> arguing that wading alone
>> (i.e., without diving) is not enough to explain human
>> bipedlaism, and I have to say I agree.
>
>
>> Stephen