Forbidden Archeology_ The Full Unabridged Edition - Michael A. Cremo [496]
One point that Oxnard made in response to critics of his somewhat complicated mathematical approach was that simple visual evidence also established his conclusion that Australopithecus had a significant degree of quadrupedal, acrobatic, and suspensory capability.
For example, Oxnard observed that the articular, or joint, surfaces of the lower limbs of human beings are large relative to the articular surfaces of the upper limbs. Oxnard (1984, p. 316) stated: “This befits their bipedal status in which the lower limb takes all the body weight.”
Simple visual inspection also revealed that in African apes the articular surfaces of the upper and lower limbs are more equal in size. According to Oxnard (1984, p. 316), this indicates a pattern of behavior “in which both limbs participate in bearing the body weight (and the upper limbs somewhat more than the lower, however that may be, whether through quadrupedal knuckle-walking on the ground or through quadrumanal climbing in the trees).” Quadrumanal (fourhanded) climbing involves use of grasping hands and handlike feet by arboreal primates such as the gibbon and orangutan. In fact, in the gibbon and orangutan, which move through the trees mainly by using their arms, the articular surfaces of the upper limbs are larger than those of the lower limbs.
Oxnard (1984, p. 316) noted that as far as Australopithecus is concerned, “the fossils . . . resemble most, among living primates, the equivalent parts from apes (and among the apes, the orang-utan) more closely than they do humans.” Like orangutans, Australopithecus has larger articular surfaces in the upper limbs than the lower (Oxnard 1975a, pp. 117–119). “These facts should be set alongside the comment of Richard Leakey (1973c), who reports that preliminary indications point to a relatively short lower limb and a long upper limb for the australopithecines,” said Oxnard (1984, p. 316). Such proportions are decidely apelike and, along with the proportions of the articular surfaces, suggest a component of orangutanlike forelimb suspension in the locomotor repertoire.
Oxnard did not deny that Australopithecus manifested bipedal behavior. After all, apes can also walk on two legs in some fashion. Nevertheless, Oxnard (1984, p. 316) concluded about the australopithecines: “however able these creatures were at walking on two legs, they were also convincing quadrupeds and perhaps excellent climbers, feats denied to man today.” Oxnard (1984, p. 316) warned: “Such findings must make us wonder whether the australopithecine pattern of bipedal adaptation really reflects a transitional phase to man.” In other words, he doubted the common belief that Australopithecus is a human ancestor.
11.8.5 Implications of Uniqueness
Summarizing his findings, Oxnard (1975b, p. 393) stated: “Between the very early Miocene apes and ancient man is the tantalizing set of fossils known as Australopithecus. . . . most workers feel that the overall position of these fossils is adequately fixed, with a taxonomic label as clearly Hominidae, an evolutionary label as on the line to man or very close to it, and a functional label as a human type of biped. . . . But our current studies are providing very different ideas. In the multivariate investigations reported here, the various australopithecine fossils are usually quite different from both man and the African apes. . . . Viewed as a genus, they are a mosaic of features unique to themselves and features bearing some resemblance to those of the orang-utan.”
Let us consider one example of uniqueness in the australopithecine anatomy—the talus, or ankle bone. The multivariate statistical technique employed by Oxnard involves measuring a fixed number of features on a bone, in this case the talus. The results of such a study can be visually represented, for each bone, as a point in multidimensional space. For example, if one is measuring three features of a bone, the combination of these