Forbidden Archeology_ The Full Unabridged Edition - Michael A. Cremo [487]
11.7.3 Conflicting Assessments of Other Homo Habilis Fossils
It was not only new evidence such as OH 62 that challenged the long-accepted picture of Homo habilis. Previously discovered fossil evidence relating to Homo habilis, originally interpreted by some authorities as very humanlike, was later characterized by others as quite apelike.
11.7.3.1 The OH 8 Foot
As mentioned earlier (Section 11.4.2), a fairly complete foot skeleton, labeled OH 8, was found in Bed I at Olduvai Gorge. Dated at 1.7 million years, the OH 8 foot was associated with other fossils classified by L. Leakey as Homo habilis (OH 7) and was also attributed to this species (Lewis 1980, pp. 275, 290).
M. H. Day and J. R. Napier (1964) said the OH 8 foot very much resembled that of Homo sapiens, thus contributing to the overall humanlike picture of Homo habilis. According to Day and Napier, the OH 8 foot showed that Homo habilis walked upright.
But O. J. Lewis (1980, p. 291), anatomist at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical College in London, wrote: “The attribution of these remains to the taxon Homo has been a source of controversy.” He showed the functional morphology of the OH 8 foot was more like that of chimpanzees and gorillas (Table 11.4).
TABLE 11.4
1. Articulations between the metatarsals “are like the chimpanzee” ( p. 294).
2. Ankle joint surfaces “retain the apelike form” ( p. 291).
3. Form of the talus (ankle bone) is like that “seen in the extant African apes” ( p. 291).
4. Disposition of the heel similar to that of gorillas and chimpanzees ( p. 291).
5. Hallux (large toe) capable of being extended sideways, with some “residual grasping functions” ( p. 293).
Apelike Features of the oh 8 Foot Reported by o. j. lewis (1980)
Commenting on the 1964 study by Day and Napier, Lewis (1980, p. 294) noted that “conservative arboreal features of the tarsus [ankle] . . . escaped comment.” The suggestion that the OH 8 ankle manifested arboreal features is intriguing. It certainly does not serve the propaganda purposes of evolutionists to have the public visualizing a supposed human ancestor like Homo habilis climbing trees with an aboreally adapted foot rather than walking tall and brave across the African savannahs. When the owner of the OH 8 foot did walk on the ground, it probably did so in a chimpanzeelike manner, said Lewis (1980, p. 296).
From Lewis’s study of the OH 8 foot, one could therefore conclude that Homo habilis was much more apelike than most scientists have tended to believe. The OH 62 discovery supports this view. Another possible conclusion: the OH 8 foot did not belong to Homo habilis but to an australopithecine. This view was favored by Wood (1974b) and Lewis (1980, p. 295). A related conclusion is that Homo habilis itself was, as Oxnard (1975b) proposed, simply a variant of Australopithecus. Oxnard, said Lewis (1980, p. 295), thought “the australopithecines (including OH 8) were at least partially arboreal primates retaining efficient climbing capabilities associated with a bipedal capacity probably of a type no longer seen.” Of course, the proposal that Australopithecus was even partially arboreal defies the conventional view that this creature was humanlike from the neck down and walked fully upright on the ground. In Section 11.8, we give a detailed discussion of this issue.
Over the years, scientists have described the OH 8 foot skeleton as humanlike ( Day and Napier 1964), apelike ( Lewis 1980), intermediate between human and ape ( Day and Wood 1968), distinct from both human and ape (Oxnard 1972), and orangutanlike ( Lisowski et al. 1974). This demonstrates once more an important