Forbidden Archeology_ The Full Unabridged Edition - Michael A. Cremo [490]
The dental evidence was a cause of concern among some researchers, including T. J. Robinson. Johanson wrote: “He said that one could find greater shape differences in a population of modern humans than Leakey had found between habilis and the australopithecines— or, in fact, between habilis and Homo erectus. Robinson’s point was that on dental evidence alone there was too narrow a slot between Australopithecus and Homo erectus to yield room for another species” (Johanson and Edey 1981, p. 102). As we have seen, however, there are, aside from the teeth, significant differences between Homo habilis, as represented by the small OH 62 individual, and Homo erectus.
Wilfred Le Gros Clark said: “‘Homo habilis’ has received a good deal of publicity since his sudden appearance was announced, and it is particularly unfortunate that he should have been announced before a full and detailed study of all the relevant fossils can be complete. . . . From the brief accounts that have been published, one is led to hope that he will disappear as rapidly as he came” ( Fix 1984, p. 143). Le Gros Clark consistently maintained his early opposition to Homo habilis.
And C. Loring Brace wrote: “Homo habilis is an empty taxon inadequately proposed and should be formally sunk” (Fix 1984, p. 143).
If the bones attributed by some workers to Homo habilis were not to be interpreted as a new species, then what did they represent? T. J. Robinson argued that Homo habilis had been mistakenly derived from a mixture of skeletal elements belonging to Australopithecus africanus and Homo erectus. Even Louis Leakey suggested that Homo habilis might actually have embraced two Homo species, one giving rise to Homo sapiens and the other to Homo erectus ( Wood 1987, p. 187).
Concerning the new OH 62 discovery, Wood pointed out that this hominid individual had been classified as Homo habilis by Johanson and his coworkers primarily because its craniodental remains resembled those of the habilis-like Stw 53 skull from the Sterkfontein site in South Africa. But Wood (1987, p. 188) observed: “The logical ‘trail’ becomes tenuous because Stw 53 has merely been likened to H. habilis, and not formally attributed to it, even though more than a decade has elapsed since its discovery.” Wood appeared to suggest, though somewhat indirectly, that OH 62 might in fact be attributed to Australopithecus africanus, which he said was “the most likely alternative taxonomic attribution for Stw 53” ( 1987, p. 188).
According to Wood (1987, p. 187), one interpretation of the OH 62 find is that it “confirms that the range of variation within material from the early Pleistocene of East Africa assigned to early Homo is now too great to be sensibly encompassed within one taxon.” Wood himself favored this view.
So in the end, we find that Homo habilis is about as substantial as a desert mirage, appearing now humanlike, now apelike, now real, now unreal, according to the tendency of the viewer. Taking the many conflicting views into consideration, we find it most likely that the Homo habilis material belongs to more than one species, including a small, apelike, arboreal australopithecine (OH 62 and some of the Olduvai specimens), an early species of Homo ( ER 1470 skull), and anatomically modern humans (ER 1481 and ER 1472 femurs).
11.8 Oxnard’s Critique of Australopithecus
According to most paleoanthropologists, Australopithecus was a direct human ancestor, with a very humanlike postcranial anatomy. Advocates of this view have also asserted that Australopithecus walked erect, in a manner practically identical to modern human beings.