Forbidden Archeology_ The Full Unabridged Edition - Michael A. Cremo [494]
In a set of drawings, Oxnard showed the hips and lower limbs of a human, an ape, and an australopithecine placed as if all three were quadrupedal. Oxnard (1975a, p. 57) noted: “The similarities of the ape and Australopithecus are most evident.” This could be taken to indicate that Australopithecus was well adapted for quadrupedal locomotor behavior.
In 1973, Oxnard assisted Zuckerman and other researchers in conducting an extensive multivariate statistical analysis comparing the pelvis of Australopithecus with the pelvises of 430 primates, representing 41 genera.
The pelvis study considered 4 measurements relating to joints and 5 relating to muscular attachments. When all 9 features of the pelvis were considered together, Australopithecus proved to be unique, differing from both human beings and the nonhuman primates.
Zuckerman and Oxnard therefore concluded that it was “conceivable that the habitual posture and gait of Australopithecus might have been unique by displaying a combination of quadrupedalism and bipedalism” (Zuckerman et al. 1973, p. 153).
Amplifying this suggestion, Zuckerman and Oxnard further stated: “the locomotor use of the hindlimb might have been composite, involving possibly quadrupedalism, bipedalism, and maybe other types of activity, such as an ‘acrobatic’ function” (Zuckerman et al. 1973, p. 156). Their comparative studies demonstrated that among sub-human primates “the group approximating most closely to Australopithecus comprises genera in which the hindlimb sometimes supports, sometimes suspends the animal, and generally operates in many planes of space” (Zuckerman et al. 1973, p. 159). It is difficult to overstate how strongly this contradicts the conventional picture of Australopithecus, which is never shown hanging from a tree limb by its legs.
11.8.3 Zuckerman and Oxnard on Suppression Of Evidence
The paper by Zuckerman and Oxnard on the pelvic study was originally presented at a symposium of the Zoological Society of London in 1973. At the conclusion of the symposium, Zuckerman made some important remarks. He said: “for more than 25 years anatomists and anthropologists—I am talking about physical anthropologists now—have been turning themselves inside out, persuading themselves and others that the obviously simian characteristics of the australopithecine fossils could be reconciled with the model of some assumed protohuman type. Over the years I have been almost alone in challenging the conventional wisdom about the australopithecines—alone, that is to say, in conjunction with my colleagues in the school I built up in Birmingham—but I fear to little effect. The voice of higher authority had spoken, and its message in due course became incorporated in text books all over the world” (Zuckerman 1973, pp. 450–451).
The situation has not changed since Zuckerman spoke in 1973. The voices of authority in paleoanthropology and the scientific community in general have managed to keep the humanlike view of Australopithecus intact. The extensive and well-documented evidence contradicting this favored view remains confined to the pages of professional journals, where it has little or no influence on the public in general, even the educated public.
Zuckerman (1973, p. 451) also stated: “in my view what above all has denied the study of the palaeontology of the higher Primates the right to be regarded as a serious science is the fact that over the years ex cathedra pronouncements about what constitutes a unique human characteristic in a bone have usually proved nonsense. My belief is that they will always do so.”
Zuckerman (1973, p. 451) explained: “It could well be that some feature or group of features in a fossil bone—maybe those having some definable mechanical significance—proves to be more like the corresponding features in man than in the living apes. Almost invariably other features in the same region would be likely to turn out far more ape-like than human. In combination, we end up with something that differs from both men and apes, and which would thus be unique. What conclusion does