Does Any of This Sound Familiar?

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The discovery of a prehistoric skull in Kenya has led scientists to suggest that male "proto-humans" enjoyed sexual dominance among harems of tiny females.

Writing in Nature, an international team of scientists described the tiny skull of an adult female Homo erectus, dating back 1.55 million years.

The extreme size variation between the adult female skull and a "normal" male erectus cranium indicated our ancestors may have lived in harem-like social structures, with big males competing against each other to win the sexual favours of many females at once.

Palaeontologist and anatomist Fred Spoor from University College London, said the skull was "the smallest Homo erectus found thus far anywhere in the world" and likened its probable behaviour to that of a gorilla.

"If we look at those primate species that have large sexual dimorphism, their groups usually involve one dominant male with multiple female mates, and then perhaps a few non-dominant males that hang around, just waiting for their chance," Professor Spoor said.

Contrary to the views of most in the field, Darren Curnoe, an anthropologist at the University of NSW told ninemsn Homo erectus could actually be viewed as human.

"We don’t regard Homo erectus to be a separate species to us. We think Homo erectus is the earliest representative of our species," he said.

However, it was probably going too far to say that humans today have inherited "harem-like" behaviour from these ancestors.

"Those things are socially constructed and they tend to be exclusive domains of the Mogul kings of India and that sort of thing," he said.

"Even if we have a genetic basis to certain behaviours, it still goes through a cultural sorter. It’s very hard to break those rules of society because we can be socially ostracised."

"Irrespective of what internally we think we might like to do, often the way we behave is very strongly determined by the cultural surroundings.”

 

[MrNewportCustom]

The discovery of a prehistoric skull in Kenya has led scientists to suggest that male "proto-humans" enjoyed sexual dominance among harems of tiny females.

The extreme size variation between the adult female skull and a "normal" male erectus cranium indicated our ancestors may have lived in harem-like social structures, with big males competing against each other to win the sexual favours of many females at once.

They must have reverse-engineered the nature of the typical frat house to come up with this theory.

"If we look at those primate species that have large sexual dimorphism, their groups usually involve one dominant male with multiple female mates, and then perhaps a few non-dominant males that hang around, just waiting for their chance," Professor Spoor said.

Sounds like the dating scene through the ages. I fail to see where this has changed at all.


Lee
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"Does the average man get enough sleep? What is enough sleep? What is the average man? What is does?" - Robert Benchley

 

[Twitch]

I feel the true news here is the fact the 2 heretofore hominid species thought to be in an evolutionary line did in fact, possibly, coexist. It has been believed that Homo Habilis gave way to Homo Erectus in lineage when it is now wondered that they may have been separate coexistants on Earth.

I don't believe there will be difinitive answer as to when we "became human" by surmising that sexual dimorphism is the key. As it has been throughout paleoanthropology's past it is the teeth that point to human or ape and certainly both erectus and habilis had teeth far more human than ape.

Australopithecus species are more humanlike yet they are a far evolutionary cry from habilis or erectus.

If habilis and erectus fossil material found in the same strata prove out to be accurate it ponders a deeper set of questions about Homo Ergaster which was thought to be the link between the two being found in strata in between them. Ergaster WAS the link between erectus and heidelbergensis which went on to neanderthalensis and sapien.

This would mean that habilis lived another 500,000 years and erectus began those half million years earlier. Where this leaves ergaster is unknown. It would mean we had 3 distinctly separate homo species at the same time. This is not unique as the last erectus fossils in Java date to 50,000 years ago when Homo Neanderthalis and Homo Sapien all existed in Europe.

I believe one of the true marks of humanism is speech. Neanderthals had a hyoid bone and could no doubt communicate verbally. A hyoid bone is yet to be found in an erectus fossil but the scienificos lean towards that. And if any hominid was the "missing link" erectus is the probable suspect having spanned from 1.6 million years ago to just 50,000 ago. He was the longest living homo of any even though he was an evolutionary dead end and hit his intellectual zenith without growing in intelligence long ago.

The fact that neanderthals had distinct sexual dimorphism raises a question as well since they were not human in the sense that they were the forebearers of sapiens.

Erectus is probably the oldest humanlike hominid but so were heidelbergensis/neanderthalensis humanlike and neither are positively linked to sapiens.

As I said I find the real news is that habilis allegedly lived 500,000 longer that previously thought. It's almost a moot point that erectus could be considered a human. But they're calling it a direct ancestor of "our species" yet they are not ancestors to sapiens and more than neanderthals were.[huh]