Forbidden Archeology_ The Full Unabridged Edition - Michael A. Cremo [491]
This negative view persisted until the early 1950s, when the combined effect of further Australopithecus finds and the fall of Piltdown man created a niche in mainstream paleoanthropological thought for a humanlike Australopithecus.
But even after Australopithecus won mainstream acceptance as a hominid and direct human ancestor, opposition continued. Louis Leakey (1960d, 1971) held that Australopithecus was an early and very apelike offshoot from the main line of human evolution (Section 11.4.3). Later, his son Richard Leakey (1973b) took much the same stance (Section 11.6.2).
In the early 1950s, Sir Solly Zuckerman (1954) published extensive biometric studies showing Australopithecus was not as humanlike as imagined by those who favored putting this creature in the lineage of Homo sapiens. From the late 1960s through the 1980s, Charles E. Oxnard of the University of Chicago, employing multivariate statistical analysis, renewed and amplified the line of attack begun by Zuckerman.
In this section, we shall focus on Oxnard’s studies of Australopithecus, except those dealing specifically with Australopithecus afarensis (Lucy). The latter are included in our general discussion of Australopithecus afarensis (Section 11.9).
11.8.1 A Different Picture of Australopithecus
In Uniqueness and Diversity in Human Evolution, Oxnard (1975a, p. vii) wrote: “Whereas the conventional wisdom about human evolution depends upon the (apparent) marked similarity between modern man and the various australopithecine fossils, the studies here indicate that these fossils are uniquely different from modern man in many respects.”
Oxnard’s interpretation of the fossil evidence profoundly unsettles the evolutionary status of Australopithecus. According to Oxnard (1975b, p. 394), “it is rather unlikely that any of the Australopithecines . . . can have any direct phylogenetic link with the genus Homo.”
In Table 11.5, we review the observations that led Oxnard to this conclusion. The table also includes material from Zuckerman’s studies.
Oxnard believed there is much that remains to be known about Australopithecus, and that what we do know does not conform to the customary image of this creature. Oxnard (1975a, p. 123) observed: “All of this makes us wonder about the usual presentation of human evolution in encyclopedias and popular publications, where not only are the australopithecines described as being of known bodily size and shape, but where, in addition, such characteristics as bipedality . . . and even facial features are happily reconstructed.”
TABLE 11.5
Anatomical Features cited by s. Zuckerman and c. e. oxnard Indicating that Australopithecines Were not human Ancestors
Brain:
“endocranial casts of the Australopithecinae . . . do not appear to diverge in any material way from existing apes” (Zuckerman 1954, p. 305).
“estimates of endocranial volume do not depart from the range of size met with in the great apes” (Zuckerman 1954, p. 304).
“suggestions that the Australopithecinae may have had higher relative brain weights than, say, chimpanzees” have not been substantiated (Zuckerman 1954, p. 304).
Teeth and jaws:
“with the exception of their incisors and canines, the size and general shape of the [australopithecine] jaws and teeth . . . were very much more like those of the living apes than like acknowledged members of the Hominidae, either living or extinct” (Zuckerman 1954, pp. 306–307).
Shape of skull:
“resembles. . . . the ape—so much so that only detailed and close studies can reveal the difference between them” (Zuckerman 1954, p. 307).
Shoulder Bone (sterkfontein sts 7 scapula):
“does not resemble that of man to any degree. . . . almost as well-adapted structurally for suspension of the body by the limbs as is the corresponding part of
the present-day gibbon.