Know Your Hominin: Regourdou 1

(Picture Source)

Regourdou 1 is a partial neanderthal skeleton discovered in 1957 near Lascaux. Also discovered were the pedal remains of a second individual.

Literature

Volpato et al (2012) Hand to Mouth in a Neandertal: Right-Handedness in Regourdou 1

Begging For Articles

I recently received my copy of Science and Human Origins and I have decided to review the entire book. I am currently on Luskin’s chapter and I am in the process of checking the articles he has cited. For those unfamiliar with Luskin you should always check his quotes against the articles he cites – I once caught him joining parts of two sentences 17 pages apart into a single sentence. In Luskin’s chapter he has opted for a hyperactive version of the Gish Gallop. I have most of the articles he cites but am missing a few. With that in mind can someone send me the articles below:

Tattersall and Schwartz 2009 Evolution of the Genus Homo, Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Vol. 37: 67-92 DOI: 10.1146/annurev.earth.031208.100202

Tattersall 1992 The many faces of homo habilis, Evolutionary Anthropology, Volume 1, Issue 1, pages 33–37, DOI: 10.1002/evan.1360010110

Bromage and Dean 1985 Re-evaluation of the age at death of immature fossil hominids, Nature 317, 525 – 527, doi:10.1038/317525a0

Galik et al 2004 External and Internal Morphology of the BAR 1002’00 Orrorin tugenensis Femur, Science Vol. 305 no. 5689 pp. 1450-1453 DOI: 10.1126/science.1098807

Hartwig-Scherer and Martin 1991 Was “Lucy” more human than her “child”? Observations on early hominid postcranial skeletons, Journal of Human Evolution Volume 21, Issue 6, Pages 439–449 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0047-2484(91)90094-C

Oxnard 1975 The place of the australopithecines in human evolution: grounds for doubt?, Nature 258, 389 – 395, doi:10.1038/258389a0

Deacon 1990 Problems of ontogeny and phylogeny in brain-size evolution, International Journal of Primatology, Volume 11, Number 3 (1990), 237-282, DOI: 10.1007/BF02192870

Opps. I forgot one.

Arensburg et all 1989 A middle paleolithic human hyoid bone, Nature 338, 758 – 760, doi:10.1038/338758a0

I have them all now, a big thanks to all who sent articles!
My email address is on the “About” page. Thanks in advance!

Luskin On Neanderthals And A Johanson Redux

New Divergence Times For Humans, Chimps, And Gorillas

A new paper in PNAS gives new estimates for the gorilla, chimp, and human divergence times. The study looked DNA from 105 gorillas and 226 chimpanzees to estimate divergence times.

Here is the abstract:
Abstract Fossils and molecular data are two independent sources of information that should in principle provide consistent inferences of when evolutionary lineages diverged. Here we use an alternative approach to genetic inference of species split times in recent human and ape evolution that is independent of the fossil record. We first use genetic parentage information on a large number of wild chimpanzees and mountain gorillas to directly infer their average generation times. We then compare these generation time estimates with those of humans and apply recent estimates of the human mutation rate per generation to derive estimates of split times of great apes and humans that are independent of fossil calibration. We date the human–chimpanzee split to at least 7–8 million years and the population split between Neanderthals and modern humans to 400,000–800,000 y ago. This suggests that molecular divergence dates may not be in conflict with the attribution of 6- to 7-million-y-old fossils to the human lineage and 400,000-y-old fossils to the Neanderthal lineage.

At any rate can someone send me a copy?

Generation times in wild chimpanzees and gorillas suggest earlier divergence times in great ape and human evolution, PNAS,  doi: 10.1073/pnas.1211740109

Luskin, Science and Human Origins, and Dik-Dik Feces

The Discovery Institute recently published a book entitled Science and Human Origins that gives the ID take on human evolution. The book is authored by Douglas Axe, Anne Gauger (Both of the Biologic Institute), and Casey Luskin (from the Discovery Institute) From the book description at Amazon:

Evidence for a purely Darwinian account of human origins is supposed to be overwhelming. But is it? In this provocative book, three scientists challenge the claim that undirected natural selection is capable of building a human being, critically assess fossil and genetic evidence that human beings share a common ancestor with apes, and debunk recent claims that the human race could not have started from an original couple.

The book was reviewed in five parts by Paul McBride (starting here). This review created some defensive posts from the folks that created the book, but the dik-dik feces hit the fan when Carl Zimmer asked a simple question (be sure to read all four parts). Nick Matzke captured some of the fun over at The Panda’s Thumb. What caught my attention were the comments referring to the fossil record of human evolution, which prompted a defensive post by Luskin in which he promised to discuss the issue further in future posts. In the meantime he has excerpted several sections of his chapter in the book. In this post I will look at this excerpt. Note, I have ordered the book and will be reviewing Luskin’s chapter on paleoanthropology as soon as it has arrived and I have had a chance to read it. If this excerpt is any example, however, i will have to set my expectations pretty low.

Can someone send me the post below?

Meave G. Leakey, Fred Spoor, M. Christopher Dean, Craig S. Feibel, Susan C. Antón, Christopher Kiarie, Louise N. Leakey. New fossils from Koobi Fora in northern Kenya confirm taxonomic diversity in early Homo. Nature, 2012; 488 (7410): 201 DOI: 10.1038/nature11322
My email is on the about tab. Thanks