It’s strange (but typical) how creationists will simply make up an answer to that question that trivializes the number of discovered fossils — the latest is DaveScot, who claims they “wouldn’t fill a single coffin.” Afarensis tallies them up. Would you be surprised to learn that DaveScot was making it all up?
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Hominin? What’s the distinction, if any, between a hominin and a hominid?
But, MOST of those fossils are a)Neanderthals (pretty clearly distant cousins) and b) discovered during last 10 years or so. The notion that all the fossil material of human ancestors and their CLOSE relatives can fit on a table was correct 10 years ago, wasn’t it? And you know that Creationists are usually about 100 (or 1000) years out of date on their information, so being just 10 years behind is not too bad for them….
The sad thing for me is, they all are in their coffins, however many there are. And here we are, pretending that we’ve never shared this planet with other species of humans. I feel such a sense of loss – and couldn’t that loss be called morality, even (brace yourselves) religious?
The believers around me say, “No!” They want me to be “saved,” and yet every time I talk to them about other species of humans, their responses are harsh and unequivocal: “I can accept being related to dogs and cats, but not to *gasp* APES!” I must ask, if they believe God created everything, didn’t He create the apes as well? Can’t Lucy and Turkana Boy be children of God, too? Well, folks, the answer is an emphatic, “No.” A couple people have told me that apes came from the devil.
*Brainfart*
Well, so much for me being open-minded, okay? I’m sorry, but I’ve really had enough of “communicating” with these people. As far as I’m concerned, they are the ones with no sense of the sacred, and when I look at the fossils of earlier hominids, whether they are our direct ancestors or not, I know that I am experiencing a sense of belonging that my would-be deprogrammers could only wish to have.
Those creationists should stop ad hominid attacks.
thanks Peter… snorted tea all over my computer. :|
These ID guys continue to amaze with the energy it must take to hold together such myoptic & stagnant positions…or does the opium of self-grandiose blabber feel that good?
Be that as it may…here’s to our hominid brethren!
I wonder if we can find the fossil of the first human ancestor where ‘ensoulment’ has occurred. Its amazing to think that christianity still has no answer for that one. Even for those versions that accept some form of evolution there remains the question of when humans stopped being animals and became worthy of God providing us with souls.
I’m pretty sure DaveScot’s brain could fit inside an eyedropper. If you added lots of water.
“Those creationists should stop ad hominid attacks.”
ROFL
Kristine, one of the major purposes of Abrahamic religion is to establish the unique position of humans vis-a-vis the rest of nature. “For Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou hast made him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands; Thou hast put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.” [Psalm 8:5-8]
Christianity’s primary concern is the salvation of the soul. That makes it vital to demarcate beings that have souls from those that don’t. Much of the irrationality of Christianity, from the viewpoint of biology, lies precisely where this demarcation is practiced. To biologists, humans are one species, one part of the tree of life. To the orthodox Christian, no animal has half a soul. It either has a soul, and is therefore human, or it doesn’t, and is animal. So at what point, during evolution, did he soul appear? Were Adam’s parents so different from him, that they didn’t deserve a relationship with god? To biologists, development and death are both natural processes, often gradual. To the orthodox Christian, the soul is either present or not. To biologists, cognitive faculties are natural abilities provided by the brain and nervous system. Errors in development can prevent them completely, as with anencephalic infants, and diseases can degrade them gradually until they are gone so completely that only autonomic functions remain, as with stroke and various brain diseases. To the orthodox Christian, the soul appears in a stroke, when their god supplies it, and never ends, but is at some point separated from the body.
I see no way to reconcile these views. There is a sense in which the creationist, recognizing the inherent conflict between biology and their religion, is more consistent than the liberal Christian, who wants to adhere to their religion, but can make no rational account of the soul that doesn’t either do damage to their religion, or turns into a conflict with science. The creationist simply rejects science. That’s wacky. But quite consistent to their religious belief.
Funny, I’ve heard that comment before. From whom, you ask? The Dilbert creator – Scott Adams. Perhaps Dave Scott was merely quoting that authority on hominid fossils.
The creationist riff that there aren’t many early human fossils is baffling, and not just for the reason that it isn’t true. Suppose it were true. It wouldn’t make any difference, since the conversation amounts to something like:
Me: Cats exist.
Anti-cat zealot: Cats do not exist, heretic.
Me: *holds up a cat* Look, I have a cat.
Anti-cat zealot: You only have one cat. It hardly fills up a box. Cats do not exist, heretic.
“Hominin? What’s the distinction, if any, between a hominin and a hominid?”
I first read it as homonym fossils.
Sam, I hope this helps.
What’s the difference between hominin and hominid?
This one gets tricky, and more than a bit confusing. We are dealing with the sciences of systematics and taxonomy. The idea behind these sciences is that they create names that are (1) not confusing, (2) equally and well understood by all scientists that make use of the terms, and (3) provide information about the evolutionary and/or morphological relationships among animals. It sounds like a good set of goals. Unfortunately, we scientists have failed on every single objective. That’s why it’s so tricky and confusing.
To start, let’s look at the basic concepts of taxonomy. The system we use today was developed by Linnaeus in the 1700’s (note that this is well before concepts of evolutionary relationships came into play, which is one of the problems). Linnaeus came up with a seven tiered system for organizing life: Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species. The system sounds good, except that none of these seven groups is clearly defined.
Biologists have been arguing for over 100 years about what constitutes a species. The best definition to date, know as the biological species concept as proposed by Mayr, states that a species is a group of animals that share a common gene pool and that are reproductively isolated from other groups. This concept seems to work well, and is testable – an important quality in any scientific endeavor. You merely put the two types of animals together and see if they will, or can, mate. If they can – they are the same species. If they can’t – they are different species. Sounds good, but then how do you apply this to asexual species (creatures that don’t need a partner to reproduce – and there are lots of these) or fossil species (creatures that are extinct, and so there is no way to apply the
mating test)? The next problem, even if you solve the species question, how do you group species together to make a Genus? How do you group genera together to make a Family? Etc. You look for evolutionary relationships. Species that share a common ancestor would be in the same genus. Genera that share a common ancestor would be in the same Family. And so on.
Now, to apply this problem to humans. Humans are Kingdom: Animal; Phylum: Chordate; Class: Mammal; Order: Primate – up to this point you don’t get much disagreement among scientists. But what about Family? Well, in old days (up until the 1980’s) humans were thought to differ from the other apes at the family level. That made humans Hominoids and apes Anthropoids. That made the word “hominid” a family level distinction that includes all the human species that ever evolved (including the extinct ones) that excludes the apes. Most specialists today use the work “hominid” to mean just that, although recent research shows that it is incorrect usage. (For you purists out there, I am for the moment ignoring the difference between Family and Super Family. The difference between those levels comes down to
the same basic problem anyway.)
Recent work shows that apes are not a monophyletic group (all descended from one ancestor), so that chimps and gorillas share a more recent ancestor with humans than they do with the orangutan. That means that, on the strict taxonomic level, chimps and gorillas are hominids. There are some specialists that use the term in this way – although it gets very confusing when they do. If chimps and gorillas are hominids, what then do we call the group that leads to humans but not to chimps and gorillas? For that, we come up with a new taxonomic level called Tribe, that lies between Family and Genus. The Tribe hominini describes all the human species that ever evolved (including the extinct ones) that excludes the chimps and gorillas.
So, when scientists use the word hominin today, they mean pretty much the same thing as when they used the word hominid twenty years ago. When these scientists use the word hominid, they mean pretty much the same thing as when they used the word hominoid twenty years ago. Of course, there are still plenty of scientists around today that use the words exactly they way they used them twenty years ago. And, all of the papers that were published just a few years ago probably use the older terminology although their interpretations are still very current and valid.
If you’re more confused now than you were before, you are just about where you should be. We scientists really need to clean up shop in this area. Paleoanthropologists get a lot of criticism over this issue, especially from scientists who study the evolution of other species. However, those scientists are no better off in their taxonomic problems. They simply benefit from the fact that only a handful of people study individual non-human species, which makes it easier to come to an agreement. But when you come to a hot topic area, dinosaurs for example, the taxonomic situation is just as confused and confusing.
References:
Mayr, E (1970) Populations, Species, and Evolution. Harvard University
Press: Cambridge.
McKenna, MC and Bell, SK (1997) Classification of Mammals above the
Species Level. Columbia University Press: New York
Simpson, GG (1967) Principles of Animal Taxonomy. Columbia University
Press: New York
Szalay, FS and Delson, E (1979) Evolutionary History of the Primates.
Academic Press: New York.
Thomas M. Greiner, Associate Professor of Anatomy / Physical Anthropology
Area of science: Evolution
ID: 1049173529.Ev
Wait, totally off-topic here but it just occurred to me – why did omnipotent God need to rest on the seventh day?
I’m sure this has been covered somewhere on here before…
Richard, I am sure that several people are busy crafting careful responses tearing your post apart right now. But I want to just quickly note that your description of the present state of systematics and taxonomy is poor and inaccurate.
Wow you peoples, don’t you know that all of those supposed transitional fossils are merely modern humans with severe arthritis?
Richard Harris has given a good answer, but I can still argue with it:
Actually… no. We are purely dealing with nomenclature. And that is not a science, it is a set of conventions, of definitions — or lack thereof.
Except for “species”, none of them is defined at all (except for their order: a phylum can contain classes, but not vice versa), and there are at least 25 mutually contradicting definitions of “species” out there; see below for how different they are. No wonder some say species are just as artificial as the other categories.
Er, no, that made us hominds and apes pongids (after Pongo, the orang-utan). Hominoidea is the superfamily that includes both. Anthropoidea (not a superfamily, despite its ending) is a much larger grouping that includes all monkeys & apes (including us).
No — and this is the funniest part. There is no way to say that a classification is right or wrong. Only aesthetic and utilitarian arguments can be made. MWA HA HA. MWA HA HA HA. MWA HA HA HA HAAAAAH…
International Code of Zoological Nomenclature
Most specialists today, AFAIK, use Hominidae to refer to all great apes, including us, and sometimes to the gibbons as well. The splitters have given way to the lumpers. Again, there is no way to say any of these extremes — or the many intermediate positions that occur in the literature, like putting us, the chimps and the gorillas into Hominidae and the orang-utans into Pongidae — is right or wrong.
That is because Hominidae is defined as “the family that Homo belongs to”, and “family” is not defined.
It would mean that — if the name Hominidae had a phylogenetic definition along the lines of “everything more closely related to us than to the orang-utans”. But, unfortunately, it doesn’t (the code that will regulate such definitions is not yet in effect). Nothing except personal preferences prevents us from giving the gorillas their own family, or on the other hand from sinking Pongidae into Hominidae. (The opposite is forbidden because Hominidae was named first.)
The tribe Hominini. :-)
This is how most people use the term, but nothing forces them to. The definition is, again, “the tribe that contains Homo“, and “tribe” is, again, not defined. Indeed, there are people who put us and the chimps into the same tribe Hominini (as opposed to the gorillas), and within that, the chimps get the (redundant) subtribe Panina and we get Hominina.
Hardly! That’s because we have adopted phylogenetic nomenclature. We largely ignore the artificial categories and give our names phylogenetic definitions. Sure, it’s not yet regulated, so some names have 2 or more competing definitions, but for the most part it’s pretty quiet. Tell us you have an ornithischian or saurischian or theropod or tyrannosaurid even, and we know precisely what you mean. :-)
—————————
More like 50 years ago…
And have you missed the fact that the neandertalers are the closest of all to us, or have I misunderstood you?
<clearing throat noisily>
That depends on the species concept. Most species concepts are not applicable to fossils, and depending on the species concept, there are currently between 101 and 249 endemic bird species in Mexico. MWA HA HA. MWA HA HA HA. MWA HA HA HA HAAAAAH…
Have they tried to square that with the Bible? LOL.
Richard Harris has given a good answer, but I can still argue with it:
Actually… no. We are purely dealing with nomenclature. And that is not a science, it is a set of conventions, of definitions — or lack thereof.
Except for “species”, none of them is defined at all (except for their order: a phylum can contain classes, but not vice versa), and there are at least 25 mutually contradicting definitions of “species” out there; see below for how different they are. No wonder some say species are just as artificial as the other categories.
Er, no, that made us hominds and apes pongids (after Pongo, the orang-utan). Hominoidea is the superfamily that includes both. Anthropoidea (not a superfamily, despite its ending) is a much larger grouping that includes all monkeys & apes (including us).
No — and this is the funniest part. There is no way to say that a classification is right or wrong. Only aesthetic and utilitarian arguments can be made. MWA HA HA. MWA HA HA HA. MWA HA HA HA HAAAAAH…
International Code of Zoological Nomenclature
Most specialists today, AFAIK, use Hominidae to refer to all great apes, including us, and sometimes to the gibbons as well. The splitters have given way to the lumpers. Again, there is no way to say any of these extremes — or the many intermediate positions that occur in the literature, like putting us, the chimps and the gorillas into Hominidae and the orang-utans into Pongidae — is right or wrong.
That is because Hominidae is defined as “the family that Homo belongs to”, and “family” is not defined.
It would mean that — if the name Hominidae had a phylogenetic definition along the lines of “everything more closely related to us than to the orang-utans”. But, unfortunately, it doesn’t (the code that will regulate such definitions is not yet in effect). Nothing except personal preferences prevents us from giving the gorillas their own family, or on the other hand from sinking Pongidae into Hominidae. (The opposite is forbidden because Hominidae was named first.)
The tribe Hominini. :-)
This is how most people use the term, but nothing forces them to. The definition is, again, “the tribe that contains Homo“, and “tribe” is, again, not defined. Indeed, there are people who put us and the chimps into the same tribe Hominini (as opposed to the gorillas), and within that, the chimps get the (redundant) subtribe Panina and we get Hominina.
Hardly! That’s because we have adopted phylogenetic nomenclature. We largely ignore the artificial categories and give our names phylogenetic definitions. Sure, it’s not yet regulated, so some names have 2 or more competing definitions, but for the most part it’s pretty quiet. Tell us you have an ornithischian or saurischian or theropod or tyrannosaurid even, and we know precisely what you mean. :-)
—————————
More like 50 years ago…
And have you missed the fact that the neandertalers are the closest of all to us, or have I misunderstood you?
<clearing throat noisily>
That depends on the species concept. Most species concepts are not applicable to fossils, and depending on the species concept, there are currently between 101 and 249 endemic bird species in Mexico. MWA HA HA. MWA HA HA HA. MWA HA HA HA HAAAAAH…
Have they tried to square that with the Bible? LOL.
There I go again, responding to myself…
Erm… that made us hominids and the great apes pongids. And the gibbons ( = lesser apes) hylobatids as usual (though not as always, har har).
I forgot the important part: this is true even if everyone agrees on the phylogenetic relationships of the organisms in question! There was indeed research showing that the previously common view — the great apes were each others’ closest relatives, and we were outside that group — was wrong, but which classificatory consequences one draws from that, if any, is a purely personal decision. And often this kind of decision changes over one’s career.
And all that while everyone except Jeffrey Schwartz agrees precisely on the shape of the tree! It’s purely a game of where to put which names and how to square that with the categories and other requirements of the ICZN (whether actually written down in there or just tradition). A completely unnecessary source of confusion.
There I go again, responding to myself…
Erm… that made us hominids and the great apes pongids. And the gibbons ( = lesser apes) hylobatids as usual (though not as always, har har).
I forgot the important part: this is true even if everyone agrees on the phylogenetic relationships of the organisms in question! There was indeed research showing that the previously common view — the great apes were each others’ closest relatives, and we were outside that group — was wrong, but which classificatory consequences one draws from that, if any, is a purely personal decision. And often this kind of decision changes over one’s career.
And all that while everyone except Jeffrey Schwartz agrees precisely on the shape of the tree! It’s purely a game of where to put which names and how to square that with the categories and other requirements of the ICZN (whether actually written down in there or just tradition). A completely unnecessary source of confusion.
Richard said:
By that test, tigers and lions are the same species, as are zebras and horses, grizzly bears and polar bears, wolves and coyotes, etc.
Richard, I apologize. That wasn’t the nicest way to characterize what your wrote.
However, as you noted that we scientists need to clean up misunderstandings about the nature of systematics, so . . . .
The difference between hominin and hominid is that, presently, the former refers to a group (either Hominini or Homininae)that is a subset of the latter (Hominidae). This site is clear enough on that issue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hominini
Taxonomic ranks are essentially arbitrary. One family, say of snails, cannot be compared to another, say of primates, in any particularly meaningful way. The whole effort to assign ranks for every node in a hypothesized phylogeny (of primates or any other group of organisms) is useless as there are far too many nodes. Arguments about what ranks to assign different clades might have pedagogical value, but they are essentially non-scientific.
Contrary to what you wrote, apes (Hominoidea) ARE monophyletic, as are the great apes (Hominidae), as is Homininae, and as is Hominini. They are just ever inclusive groups focused in our great species. If by chance, one ascribes to the silly notion that all other hominoids (gibbons, chimps, orangs, and gorillas) are apes, while we humans are not, then the group “apes” would be paraphyletic, and hence what is sometimes known as a non-natural group. But note that “apes” is not a formal taxonomic name and therefore has very little bearing on what the difference is between hominin and hominid, both of which are adjectives referring to formal taxa.
I agree that systematics is poorly understood by non-systematists, but I would describe systematics in this way. Systematics can be broken down into five essential tasks or activities: 1) identification (placing names on specimens or photo observations that refer to previously named groups); 2) naming (following a code of nomenclature to provide formal names to species or groups of species that have not previously been named in the scientific literature); 3) description (publishing formal accounts/definitions for species or groups of species that have not previously been recognized); 4) classification (grouping sets of organisms according to some organized and logical method); and 5) phylogenetics (forming and testing hypotheses on the evolutionary relationships among organisms). Taxonomy is often equated with systematics, but taxonomy does not explicitly involve phylogenetic analysis.
Allen said:
I’m a little confused about this. By my understanding, apes don’t include humans, which means they are not monophyletic. Certainly in common usage, apes don’t include humans (of course, in common usage, “animals” doesn’t include humans either).
And while we are at it, what about monkeys (or even “old world monkeys”? Are they monophyletic? I understand monkeys to not include apes.
Old World monkeys and apes are sister-groups. The New World monkeys are outside of that. The next outgroup are the tarsiers, and then the lemurs and lorises.
“Taxonomy” and “systematics” have been used in many ways, often as synonyms. The way I was taught some people make a difference is: taxonomy = how to make a classification; systematics = how to insert species (or whatever) into an existing classification. When combined with the science of phylogenetics, phylogenetic nomenclature makes classification superfluous… :-)
Old World monkeys and apes are sister-groups. The New World monkeys are outside of that. The next outgroup are the tarsiers, and then the lemurs and lorises.
“Taxonomy” and “systematics” have been used in many ways, often as synonyms. The way I was taught some people make a difference is: taxonomy = how to make a classification; systematics = how to insert species (or whatever) into an existing classification. When combined with the science of phylogenetics, phylogenetic nomenclature makes classification superfluous… :-)
Do you find a difference between identification and description?
Do you find a difference between identification and description?
A shorter version of the above is that hominin includes all fossils up to our common ancestor with chimps. Hominid refers to a member of the family Hominidae which includes all great apes (including the Hylobatids). Within the tribe Hominini (or the hominins) there are three tribes: Australopithecina, Incertae Sedis (to accomodate Orrorin and Sahelanthropus whose present taxonomic status is still being debated), and Hominina, which includes all species referable to the genus Homo (technically, this group can be referred to as hominans). At least, that is the way Conroy explained it (an explanation I found convincing and switched, although I do still use hominid from time to time).
The notion that all the fossil material of human ancestors and their CLOSE relatives can fit on a table was correct 10 years ago, wasn’t it?
Depending on what you mean by “close”, but…
I have a book that’s over 10 years old that has a field day debunking that claim. (“The Hominid Gang” by Delta Willis, 1989). That’s only counting what was sitting in the Kenya National Museum’s vaults.
Rats! Sorry for the unclosed italics tag…
Actually, I suspect this claim stopped being true sometime in the early 1900’s. Certainly it was no longer true by the time of Dart and Broom.
Rob, if uses the informal name “apes” to refer to Hominoidea, then apes form a monophyletic group. In your understanding of the word apes, it would be a paraphyletic group because it does not include humans. I guess that makes sense to some people, but I don’t get it. I look at chimps, gorillas, etc. and I can’t help but see our similarity in morphology and behavior, which happens to be an accurate reflection of our shared ancestry. Phylogenetic (or cladistic) nomenclature is when we systematists only give formal names to monophyletic groups. One of the good things about such a system is that learning names is equivalent to learning a bit of history (or hypothesized history anyway).
David, I do see a difference between formal description following a certain set of rules (ICZN, phylocode, or whatever) as different from identification. On the other hand, I sense and perhaps fear that you might be getting at something deep. Both actions are hypotheses. The former consists of hypothesizing that a group of organisms (usually a species) is evolutionarily distinct from all other known species and making the hypothesis is accomplished by publishing the description by some set of rules. Identification is a hypothesis as well, but in this case, one is simply asserting that some individual(s) are part of some already named group. This type of hypothesis can be much less formal, like writing a name on a piece of paper and dropping it into a jar. Maybe you’re getting at the idea that these two tasks are essentially equivalent?
The way you just explained them makes both sound like (parts of) phylogenetics plus nomenclature… :-)
Subtribes.
Wow. I didn’t know that name existed. Does it refer to a paraphyletic group?
BTW, under the ICZN, only the names of genera and smaller groups are italicized. The botanists allow italicizing all official names, and the PhyloCode will recommend it.
Ouch! That’s not a name (and not capitalized), it’s just Latin for “of uncertain seat” ( = of uncertain place in a classification). That Orrorin and Sahelanthropus are Hominini incertae sedis means that it’s not yet clear if they belong into Australopithecina or Hominina or neither.
The way you just explained them makes both sound like (parts of) phylogenetics plus nomenclature… :-)
Subtribes.
Wow. I didn’t know that name existed. Does it refer to a paraphyletic group?
BTW, under the ICZN, only the names of genera and smaller groups are italicized. The botanists allow italicizing all official names, and the PhyloCode will recommend it.
Ouch! That’s not a name (and not capitalized), it’s just Latin for “of uncertain seat” ( = of uncertain place in a classification). That Orrorin and Sahelanthropus are Hominini incertae sedis means that it’s not yet clear if they belong into Australopithecina or Hominina or neither.
Hmmm…
I think I’ve heard that coffin quip before….
Dave, you are correct, I have a bad habit of not previewing comments for mistakes. On incertae sedis I did not know it is not capitalized, thanks for the info. You are correct that the exact placement of Orrorin and Sahelanthropus is uncertain (additional correction, in this scheme incertae sedis is placed in Hominini as a tribe). As far as Australopithicina goes, it contains the following genera: Ardipithecus, Kenyanthropus (which may just be Australopithecus afarensis according to Hawks) and Australopithecus (with Paranthropus as a subgenus). At this point I would say it is monophyletic, but don’t hold me to it, but them if Wood and others are successful in getting Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis placed in it, then it would become paraphyletic. Which pretty much exhausts my knowledge of the taxonomic aspects of this discussion, so I hope I answered your question.
Would Discovery Institute research results fill a coffin? A briefcase? Hmm – maybe a handbag?
I suspect the only thing Discovery Institute “research results” actually manage to fill is a few people’s pockets.
I have an admission to make. It was not obvious to many respondents to my post # 13 that I wasn’t the author. The author’s details are actually at the end of post # 13 – obviously not clear enough. I should’ve been more careful to give due credit.
I’ve not had a chance yet to look over the responses – but I’ve no expert knowledge in this field, so I probably won’t respond further.
I was only trying to help answer a previously unanswered query, with an article from my files.
Pardon my callow naïveté, but I’m not entirely familiar with the ‘coffin’ unit of measurement. Could anybody tell me the conversion factor for this into SI units? Also, I was curious what the anticipated quantity of hominid fossils (in SI units, if you don’t mind) would be to adequetly demonstrate… um… what was the question, actually?
Richard, David, Allen and Afarensis,
Thanks, I’m confused on a much higher level, now. ;-)
Sam
Density of bone: 1.5 kg/cm^3
Weight of Skeleton: 50 kg
Volume of Skeleton: 33.3 cm^3
Coffin: 200.66 x 60.96 x 35.56 cm
Volume of Coffin: 434,978.227 cm3
434978.227/33.3 = 13,049.3599 skeletons per coffin
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2002/AnnaYarusskaya.shtml
Estimated weight of skeleton from percentages
http://www.casketfurniture.com/prod/simple_coffin_plan.html
coturnix, the post on Afarensis gives a 1976 count of 3,600 hominid fossils. Now, it’s *possible* that they’re pretty much bone chips or teeth, and could therefore all fit into a coffin, but there’s a lot of skulls mentioned.
Quite true if you crush the bones to get efficient packing. When I was an undergraduate, I used to have lunch in a bone room at the UW — this is where the disarticulated skeletons of human specimens were stored. I was impressed with how small a box could accommodate a full skeleton — it had to be about the length of a femur, of course, and thick enough to hold a skull, but even there, many of the skulls were sawed open, which reduced the required thickness considerably, and the pelves were also usually sawed in half so they’d lie flat.
Just as another estimate, I’d guess those bone boxes were about 40cm x 30cm x 20cm, or somewhere in the neighborhood of 24000 cm^3, which is enough to hold all the bones loosely and doesn’t require snapping or crushing to get a good fit. That would mean we could fit about 18 into that coffin.
Question:
Answer:
No.
No, it’s placed in Hominini, as are the subtribes of Hominini (Australopithecina and Hominina). It just looks like it. :-) Usage: “Orrorin and Sahelanthropus are hominins incertae sedis.” Names of genera and larger groups must consist of a single capitalized word.
Thanks for the explanation of Australopithecina.
No, it’s placed in Hominini, as are the subtribes of Hominini (Australopithecina and Hominina). It just looks like it. :-) Usage: “Orrorin and Sahelanthropus are hominins incertae sedis.” Names of genera and larger groups must consist of a single capitalized word.
Thanks for the explanation of Australopithecina.
When I was in the anthropology department at UT we used slightly larger boxes to house skeletons in the donated, forensic and human osteology labs, as well as skeletons from archaeological sites. We never put more than one skeleton per box to avoid commingling issues, but I suspect that they could have held 2-3 entire skeletons and that we could fit 6-8 boxes in a coffin.
Another way of looking at it is that the cranial capacity of modern humans ranges from 1100-1700 cm3 which means that if you accept the calculations of “commenter” you could fit anywhere from 33-50 skeletons inside the human cranium!
Umm. Wait, but isn’t one the of the anti-pro-life arguments that the Bible, the original mind you, not the later mangled translations, makes a clear distinction between “life” as what animates and “life” as in what makes a thing itself, and that this later thing is what it proscribes “eating” within the blood of animals. So, what is that if not a “soul”? And if it is a soul, then why the hell would the Bible be denying its existence in animals, while simultaniously insisting that you can’t *eat* the blood of an animal with its flesh, because it *contains* a the essense of the animals soul? I am so confused… lol