Forbidden Archeology_ The Full Unabridged Edition - Michael A. Cremo [488]
11.7.3.2 The OH 7 Hand
The OH 7 hand was also found at Olduvai Gorge (Section 11.4.2), as part of the type specimen of Homo habilis. Napier (1962, p. 409) described the hand as quite human in some of its features, especially the finger tips. As in the case of the OH 8 foot, subsequent studies showed the OH 7 hand to be very apelike, calling into question either its attribution to Homo habilis or the generally accepted humanlike picture of Homo habilis, which the original interpretation of the OH 7 hand helped create.
C. E. Oxnard (1984, p. 334-ii) was highly critical of Napier’s original study of the Homo habilis hand: “being convinced that he was looking at a pre-human hand that made tools, he interpreted three features in which that hand was similar to a human hand as more weighty than ten in which he found it similar to those of apes.” Oxnard identified evolutionary bias (seeing a fossil as “pre-human”) as the key factor in Napier’s attempt to characterize an essentially apelike structure as human.
Randall L. Susman and Jack T. Stern noted that the OH 7 finger bones had large areas for the insertion of a muscle (the flexor digitorum superficialis) that apes use when hanging from branches. “The impressions for this muscle are greater in relative area than in any living ape or modern humans,” they said (Susman and Stern 1979, p. 572).
Susman and Stern (1979, p. 565) therefore concluded: “Prominent markings for insertions of these muscles in a fossil hand (such as O.H. 7) suggest use of the forelimb in suspensory climbing behavior.”
Susman and Stern (1979, p. 572) noted in addition that the finger bones of the OH 7 hand were thick and curved like those of chimpanzees, indicating, like the flexor digitorum superficialis muscle, a degree of arboreal suspensory behavior.
In others words, Homo habilis, or whatever creature owned the OH 7 hand, may have spent much of its time hanging by its arms from tree limbs. This apelike image differs from the very humanlike portrait of Homo habilis and other supposed human ancestors one usually encounters in Time-Life picture books and National Geographic Society television specials.
11.7.4 Cultural Level of Homo Habilis
A reevaluation of the cultural evidence at Homo habilis sites also casts doubt on the conventional humanlike interpretation of Homo habilis.
Louis and Mary Leakey designated the Homo habilis sites at Olduvai as “living floors.” They viewed particular combinations of hominid and animal fossils, along with stone tools, as signs of permanent or semipermanent habitation. From such interpretations of the evidence came detailed paintings, showing Homo habilis families living in base camps, with hunting parties returning with animal carcasses to be butchered with stone tools.
But according to Binford (1981, p. 252), the Leakeys’ characterization of Homo habilis sites as “living floors” was the result of wishful thinking: “the researchers have a generalized idea as to what the past was like and they have then accommodated all the archaeological-geological facts to this idea. This is not exactly science.” Binford went on to criticize the notion of living floors in terms of their “integrity” and “resolution.”
Binford believed the Homo habilis sites were of low integrity. By this he meant there was no certainty that Homo habilis was in fact responsible for the animal bones found at the sites. The bones could very well have been the result of natural deaths, which would have occurred fairly often on the shores of the ancient lake that deposited the sediments at Olduvai. The bones might also have been brought to their resting places by carnivorous animals rather than hominids.
For Binford, the term “resolution” meant the time during which the faunal remains and artifacts were deposited. For the concept of a “living floor” to be meaningful, the resolution should be quite