THE BONOBO, Pan paniscus, has recently been portrayed as being more like the African hominoid pro... more THE BONOBO, Pan paniscus, has recently been portrayed as being more like the African hominoid prototype than either the common chimpanzee or the gorilla and as a morphological relic very similar to the common ancestral stock from which gorillas, chimpanzees, and hominids ...
Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A. 19 II 71 Crombie's contentions (CA 12:147-69) are utterly devoid of a... more Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A. 19 II 71 Crombie's contentions (CA 12:147-69) are utterly devoid of any basis in fact or theory. He denies evolutionary advantages to such hominid features as the position of the foramen magnum and the flexure of the cranium, the retarded closure of the cranial sutures, the reduced size of the dentition, the position of the big toe, and so on (p. 163). He continually suggests that intense selection is accompanied by increased variability (pp. 163-64), linking factors such as loosened sexual behavior and the increased incidence of diseases affecting polygenic traits to increased intensity of selection. Indeed, the very facts presumably requiring explanation are questionable. If the prehominids were like chimpanzees, has there really been a loosening of sexual behavior and aggressive motivation from "rigid, detailed behavior patterns"? Neoteny is not a driving or orienting evolutionary force, but rather a description of certain directions of change. Neotenous changes, in this sense, may have no relation whatsoever to ontogeny. After all, any morphological change makes a given characteristic either more like or less like the fetus. The primary orienting factor of evolutionary change is selection. Selection may render advantageous changes that appear neotenous and allow their effect by simply prolonging or halting the developmental process. To reverse the order puts the cart before the horse.
by MILFORD H. WOLPOFF Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. 48109,... more by MILFORD H. WOLPOFF Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. 48109, U.S.A. 10 I 85 Russell's (CA 26:337-49) is a very interesting paper, largely because it shows that paleoanthropology can be a science of prehistory and that even one-time-only events such as human evolution can be the focus of explanatory hypotheses if the conditions are right. She has clearly found a circumscribed case in which the conditions were right, formulated an explanatory hypothesis, and tested it. What she has given us as a result is an explanation of how certain combinations of force stimuli and biomechanical responses will result in browridges in the hominids. She has not indicated that these are the only combinations but only that these combinations are highly predictive with regard to the size of supraorbital structures. While she has been less than clear as to whether the biomechanical effect is developmental, evolutionary (the result of a history of selection), or some unspecified combination of these, her hypothesis provides an explanation that would work with either mechanism. (This is often the case with hypotheses about the form/function relation in bone, because this tissue will grow to resist the forces that normally act on it, while selection often acts to regularize specific growth responses.) And how good is this explanation, beyond the Australian Aboriginal populations in which it is tested? It turns out that it fits the fossil hominids rather well. An example is Homo erectus, the first hominid species to have truly large supraorbital tori. The great majority of australopithecines have poorly developed supraorbital regions, with minimal vertical thickness in the supraorbital torus and little projection of the torus anterior to the frontal squama. In contrast to the composite afarensis reconstruction, with its plaster chimpanzee-like frontal, this species actually does not differ from Australopithecus africanus in the supraorbital region. The centro-lateral portion of the AL-288 (Lucy) supraorbital region that was preserved is extraordinarily similar to the homologous region in other australopithecine females such as STS 5. This piece was inexplicably ignored in the Hadar composite reconstruction. We can take the morphology of the region in afarensis (the bone, not the plaster) to be primitive for the hominids. H. erectus is characterized by a much less prognathic face but an only moderately higher frontal. While total masticatory
by MILFORD WOLPOFF Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. 48109, U.... more by MILFORD WOLPOFF Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. 48109, U.S.A. 14 vii 78 Although the commentary approach to CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY publications has usually been a useful vehicle for the presentation of serious discussion, the spectre of continued clear-cutting of our Northwest Coast forests leads one to question whether these discussions should include points that could have been clarified through a more careful reading of the paper in question or through a query sent by mail. The comments presented by Williams, Sciulli, and Poirier (CA 19:63637) provide an example and moreover presuppose an extraordinary degree of ignorance, if not dishonesty, on my part in the utilization of canine-socket measurements to estimate transverse canine breadths. The authors claim that insufficient data were presented to show that this estimation is accurate for the australopithecine sample, that the resulting regression of socket on actual canine breadth may have been ineptly applied, and that eliminating part of the sample "results in essentially unimodal curves" (a contention unsupported by any statistical test). I offer the following points in response: 1. In stating that the transverse canine-breadth measurement is inevitably maximum in the cervical region and homologous and analogous for the nonhuman primates (CA 17:580), I had hoped to make it clear that this condition applies to all the species concerned without listing them separately. 2. The least-squares regression formulae and the appropriate data regarding their fit are as follows: maxillary canine = 1.01 (socket breadth) .13 (r = .990); mandibular canine = .94 (socket breadth) + .6 (r = .996). For the maxillary sample (N = 8), the average absolute difference between the socket and canine breadth measures is .11 mm, while the average absolute difference between the canine estimate and actual breadth is .07 mm. For the mandible (N = 10), these differences are respectively .12 and .06 mm. Had the authors requested these data from me by letter, their discussion of "what the data might have shown" would have been unnecessary and a number of trees could have been saved. 3. In any event, these absolute errors are close enough to justify a direct estimation of transverse canine breadth by socket breadth. Alternatively, their comment simply could have been based on the assumption that I attempted to see if my procedure was accurate before I used it, although this too would have rendered it unnecessary. 4. Finally, there is no question that removing some data from a small sample makes it more difficult to interpret. If the authors are interested in pursuing this line of reasoning, they might try to remove all measurements ending in an odd number, or perhaps those with specimen numbers with more than three digits, and report on the effects of these procedures. I look forward to hearing about their results.
The modem scientific method relies on falsification of large, overarching explanatory hypotheses,... more The modem scientific method relies on falsification of large, overarching explanatory hypotheses, but refutation at any level is not easily accepted, nor should it necessarily be. Here we discuss the "Dubois syndrome," based on the history of Eugène Dubois, famous for the discovery and interpretation of Pithecanthropus erectus. Widely viewed as unbalanced for his changing understanding of these important fossils, we discuss how his apparent capriciousness was actually a rational conclusion based on his adherence to a broad evolutionary theory. Examples of the Dubois syndrome are common, perhaps especially so in paleoanthropology because the database, even many years later, is small.
Neanderthals and Indigenous Aboriginal Australians are twin themes in Jan Jelinek's life work... more Neanderthals and Indigenous Aboriginal Australians are twin themes in Jan Jelinek's life work. Jelinek's understanding of these humans is quite different from the treatment accorded them by many other anthropologists who treat each as a model for understanding the other. These segments of humanity have been considered parallel races at various times, because of the similarities perceived in their primitive technologies and primitive' cranial form (invariably meaning brow ridges). But parallelism is understood a different way in paleoanthropology, where it refers to the homoplasies that mark independent development of the same features by different species. This use of parallelism could apply to the description of how the evolution of Neanderthals and Indigenous Aboriginal Australians is related if Neanderthals are a different species. This is because the same sequence of changes took place in Europe and Australasia, at the opposite ends of the earth. But as Jelinek has always emphasized, the interpretation of Neanderthals as a different species is very unlikely; the odds of the required homoplasies cannot be calculated, but their combined probability is quite clearly diminishingly small.
... EBERHARD, WOLFRAM. 1965. Chinese regional stereotypes. Asian Sur-vey 5:596-608. GULDIN, GREGO... more ... EBERHARD, WOLFRAM. 1965. Chinese regional stereotypes. Asian Sur-vey 5:596-608. GULDIN, GREGORY E. 1977. ... The efficacy of the entire model, however, boils down to the accuracy of the bimodal distribu-tions and the interpretations derived from them. ...
THE BONOBO, Pan paniscus, has recently been portrayed as being more like the African hominoid pro... more THE BONOBO, Pan paniscus, has recently been portrayed as being more like the African hominoid prototype than either the common chimpanzee or the gorilla and as a morphological relic very similar to the common ancestral stock from which gorillas, chimpanzees, and hominids ...
Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A. 19 II 71 Crombie's contentions (CA 12:147-69) are utterly devoid of a... more Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A. 19 II 71 Crombie's contentions (CA 12:147-69) are utterly devoid of any basis in fact or theory. He denies evolutionary advantages to such hominid features as the position of the foramen magnum and the flexure of the cranium, the retarded closure of the cranial sutures, the reduced size of the dentition, the position of the big toe, and so on (p. 163). He continually suggests that intense selection is accompanied by increased variability (pp. 163-64), linking factors such as loosened sexual behavior and the increased incidence of diseases affecting polygenic traits to increased intensity of selection. Indeed, the very facts presumably requiring explanation are questionable. If the prehominids were like chimpanzees, has there really been a loosening of sexual behavior and aggressive motivation from "rigid, detailed behavior patterns"? Neoteny is not a driving or orienting evolutionary force, but rather a description of certain directions of change. Neotenous changes, in this sense, may have no relation whatsoever to ontogeny. After all, any morphological change makes a given characteristic either more like or less like the fetus. The primary orienting factor of evolutionary change is selection. Selection may render advantageous changes that appear neotenous and allow their effect by simply prolonging or halting the developmental process. To reverse the order puts the cart before the horse.
by MILFORD H. WOLPOFF Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. 48109,... more by MILFORD H. WOLPOFF Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. 48109, U.S.A. 10 I 85 Russell's (CA 26:337-49) is a very interesting paper, largely because it shows that paleoanthropology can be a science of prehistory and that even one-time-only events such as human evolution can be the focus of explanatory hypotheses if the conditions are right. She has clearly found a circumscribed case in which the conditions were right, formulated an explanatory hypothesis, and tested it. What she has given us as a result is an explanation of how certain combinations of force stimuli and biomechanical responses will result in browridges in the hominids. She has not indicated that these are the only combinations but only that these combinations are highly predictive with regard to the size of supraorbital structures. While she has been less than clear as to whether the biomechanical effect is developmental, evolutionary (the result of a history of selection), or some unspecified combination of these, her hypothesis provides an explanation that would work with either mechanism. (This is often the case with hypotheses about the form/function relation in bone, because this tissue will grow to resist the forces that normally act on it, while selection often acts to regularize specific growth responses.) And how good is this explanation, beyond the Australian Aboriginal populations in which it is tested? It turns out that it fits the fossil hominids rather well. An example is Homo erectus, the first hominid species to have truly large supraorbital tori. The great majority of australopithecines have poorly developed supraorbital regions, with minimal vertical thickness in the supraorbital torus and little projection of the torus anterior to the frontal squama. In contrast to the composite afarensis reconstruction, with its plaster chimpanzee-like frontal, this species actually does not differ from Australopithecus africanus in the supraorbital region. The centro-lateral portion of the AL-288 (Lucy) supraorbital region that was preserved is extraordinarily similar to the homologous region in other australopithecine females such as STS 5. This piece was inexplicably ignored in the Hadar composite reconstruction. We can take the morphology of the region in afarensis (the bone, not the plaster) to be primitive for the hominids. H. erectus is characterized by a much less prognathic face but an only moderately higher frontal. While total masticatory
by MILFORD WOLPOFF Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. 48109, U.... more by MILFORD WOLPOFF Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. 48109, U.S.A. 14 vii 78 Although the commentary approach to CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY publications has usually been a useful vehicle for the presentation of serious discussion, the spectre of continued clear-cutting of our Northwest Coast forests leads one to question whether these discussions should include points that could have been clarified through a more careful reading of the paper in question or through a query sent by mail. The comments presented by Williams, Sciulli, and Poirier (CA 19:63637) provide an example and moreover presuppose an extraordinary degree of ignorance, if not dishonesty, on my part in the utilization of canine-socket measurements to estimate transverse canine breadths. The authors claim that insufficient data were presented to show that this estimation is accurate for the australopithecine sample, that the resulting regression of socket on actual canine breadth may have been ineptly applied, and that eliminating part of the sample "results in essentially unimodal curves" (a contention unsupported by any statistical test). I offer the following points in response: 1. In stating that the transverse canine-breadth measurement is inevitably maximum in the cervical region and homologous and analogous for the nonhuman primates (CA 17:580), I had hoped to make it clear that this condition applies to all the species concerned without listing them separately. 2. The least-squares regression formulae and the appropriate data regarding their fit are as follows: maxillary canine = 1.01 (socket breadth) .13 (r = .990); mandibular canine = .94 (socket breadth) + .6 (r = .996). For the maxillary sample (N = 8), the average absolute difference between the socket and canine breadth measures is .11 mm, while the average absolute difference between the canine estimate and actual breadth is .07 mm. For the mandible (N = 10), these differences are respectively .12 and .06 mm. Had the authors requested these data from me by letter, their discussion of "what the data might have shown" would have been unnecessary and a number of trees could have been saved. 3. In any event, these absolute errors are close enough to justify a direct estimation of transverse canine breadth by socket breadth. Alternatively, their comment simply could have been based on the assumption that I attempted to see if my procedure was accurate before I used it, although this too would have rendered it unnecessary. 4. Finally, there is no question that removing some data from a small sample makes it more difficult to interpret. If the authors are interested in pursuing this line of reasoning, they might try to remove all measurements ending in an odd number, or perhaps those with specimen numbers with more than three digits, and report on the effects of these procedures. I look forward to hearing about their results.
The modem scientific method relies on falsification of large, overarching explanatory hypotheses,... more The modem scientific method relies on falsification of large, overarching explanatory hypotheses, but refutation at any level is not easily accepted, nor should it necessarily be. Here we discuss the "Dubois syndrome," based on the history of Eugène Dubois, famous for the discovery and interpretation of Pithecanthropus erectus. Widely viewed as unbalanced for his changing understanding of these important fossils, we discuss how his apparent capriciousness was actually a rational conclusion based on his adherence to a broad evolutionary theory. Examples of the Dubois syndrome are common, perhaps especially so in paleoanthropology because the database, even many years later, is small.
Neanderthals and Indigenous Aboriginal Australians are twin themes in Jan Jelinek's life work... more Neanderthals and Indigenous Aboriginal Australians are twin themes in Jan Jelinek's life work. Jelinek's understanding of these humans is quite different from the treatment accorded them by many other anthropologists who treat each as a model for understanding the other. These segments of humanity have been considered parallel races at various times, because of the similarities perceived in their primitive technologies and primitive' cranial form (invariably meaning brow ridges). But parallelism is understood a different way in paleoanthropology, where it refers to the homoplasies that mark independent development of the same features by different species. This use of parallelism could apply to the description of how the evolution of Neanderthals and Indigenous Aboriginal Australians is related if Neanderthals are a different species. This is because the same sequence of changes took place in Europe and Australasia, at the opposite ends of the earth. But as Jelinek has always emphasized, the interpretation of Neanderthals as a different species is very unlikely; the odds of the required homoplasies cannot be calculated, but their combined probability is quite clearly diminishingly small.
... EBERHARD, WOLFRAM. 1965. Chinese regional stereotypes. Asian Sur-vey 5:596-608. GULDIN, GREGO... more ... EBERHARD, WOLFRAM. 1965. Chinese regional stereotypes. Asian Sur-vey 5:596-608. GULDIN, GREGORY E. 1977. ... The efficacy of the entire model, however, boils down to the accuracy of the bimodal distribu-tions and the interpretations derived from them. ...
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