....but that is only because of my knowledge of fossil Homo remains in comparison with eye-witness reports....

easy, 9/9.
according to #7, they averaged 5 - 5 1/2 feet tall. Interesting, as you have said they avg'ed 6 feet tall, Chronic.

That's gonna hurt my GPA. Can I do some extra credit?[/color]

I base my conclusion on the most complete H.E. skeleton ever found.
An 11 year old boy, 5'4" tall. Hitting 6' would have been a foregone conclusion for him. Sure, 1 skeleton doesn't make an average, but the dozen other HE skeleton's (by the same token) also can not be used to estimate an average. Too small a sample for such a large/variable population.

I think everyone agrees that H.E. would have been in the top 20% of our average height. That makes him tall.

Sasquatch isn't a 350,000 year old fossil, revolutionary changes in form occur through punctuated equilibrium.

Homo Erectus is the only bipedal primate whose fossils are found everywhere on our planet (the dude flat out liked to travel)........sasquatch sightings also occur everywhere on our planet.

For extra credit, present a tasty argument explaining why H.E. CAN'T be sasquatch.

You are right that he would have been around 6 ft or more had he lived to adulthood, but scientists estimate his adult weight would have been around 150 lbs.
Nothing like Patty.
Jan

certainly!

Homo Erectus is the only bipedal primate whose fossils are found everywhere on our planet (the dude flat out liked to travel)........sasquatch sightings also occur everywhere on our planet.

For extra credit, present a tasty argument explaining why H.E. CAN'T be sasquatch.

He would have only 250,000 years to do that in...and even if you ascribe to punctuated equilbrium, what would have been the exterior cause?

Consider this....Homo Erectus could easily fit the description of the Almas...

That's only if you ascribe to punctuated equilbrium...



Unless I'm mistaken, Homo Erectus fossils have not been found anywhere in the new world. They have been found in Africa (are there sasquatch sightings there?); Asia (Yeti); Java; and Europe. We do not have any fossil remains from Australia (Yowie) or the former Soviet Union/Siberia, etc. area (Almas).



Until we get one and can test its DNA, we will never know for sure, but for the sake of argument, lets just address a few points. The latest fossil of a Homo Erectus that we have found to date is 250,000 years old. On average, their height ranges between 5 to 5 1/2 feet tall. "Turkana Boy", found in 1984, is an exception and indeed would have been 6 feet had he survived childhood. However, in order for Homo Erectus and sasquatch to be the same creature, Homo Erectus would have to increase in both height (1.5 times) and weight (2 to 3 times). He would have only 250,000 years to do that in...and even if you ascribe to punctuated equilbrium, what would have been the exterior cause? What would growing bigger get you in our Homo evolution? Based on the fossil record, the most radical changes are in brain size, not body size. In fact, there are no examples in the fossil record of any Homo getting larger bodies over time.

Consider this....Homo Erectus could easily fit the description of the Almas...

I'm afraid the institutionalized opinion of the grading professor might subjectively prejudice his or her evaluation of my dissertation.

Unless I'm mistaken, Homo Erectus fossils have not been found anywhere in the new world.    We do not have any fossil remains from Australia (Yowie)

Hey Jan!

No, I not trying to say there is a population of Almas' running around Russia....

But did you ever read the wonderful book by Myra Shackley called "Wildmen: Yeti, Sasquatch, the Neanderthal Enigma"????

There are 100,000 year old purposefully chipped stones in Australia. That's pretty old for a H.S. The Kow Swamp skeletons are also a little odd for your typical H.S.

Somewhere in the dim recesses of my memory it seems that the Kow Swamp skeletons were originally suspected to be possible remnant Erectus.

Any Aussies out there with something to contribute? :help:

I find it hard to believe Erectus wandered from Africa and Europe across Asia to present day China and didn't step foot in what's now known as Russia somewhere.

Thanks Belle! It's nice to know the Alzheimer's hasn't got me yet!

I rocked the hell out of that test!    I got them all correct, which is scary because I really don't know that much on the subject.  I'm just great with tests!  I used to tick off my teachers because I rarely did my homework but usually aced the tests.  I'm sure they hated me! 

Chronic mentioned the 100,000 year old lithic sites in Australia, suggesting H. Erectus could be responsible for those...but those dates are also within the accept H. Sapiens range (and some challenge the 100,000 date for those sites as well).

Skull fuels Homo erectus debate
By Julianna Kettlewell
BBC News Online science staff

The fossilized skull of a hominid that lived 930,000 years ago has been found in Kenya, Science magazine reports.
The creature may have belonged to the species Homo erectus, says the team which found it, even though its skull is smaller than previously seen.
But the fossil has fuelled a debate over how we group these ancient humans.
One camp claims H. erectus came in many shapes and sizes, while the other says it contains several species - which are incorrectly lumped together.
Both camps think the new find supports their argument. The diminutive skull could either demonstrate how variable H. erectus was - or it could belong to an entirely different species, forcing scientists to rethink hominid classification.

Heated debate

H. erectus lived between about two million and 400,000 years ago. According to one view, it evolved in Africa, but gradually migrated through the Old World.
The first fossil specimen was identified by Eugène Dubois during the late 19th Century, in Java, Indonesia. Since then a collection of remains and artifacts have been found but, especially in Africa, the fossil record is pretty patchy.
This has prevented scientists from gaining a clear picture of how much physical variation is "normal" for the species.
Most of the fossils uncovered have displayed a degree of uniqueness. But it is hard to know whether H. erectus was highly variable, or whether several different species were in fact present.
At the moment nearly every hominid find is placed under the "umbrella" of H erectus, but many researchers are unhappy about it.
"Palaeoanthropologists often have this assumption that every hominid found from that time period is a H. erectus," said Jeffery Schwartz, of the University of Pittsburgh, US. "They group hominids not on the basis of what they look like, but the time when they lived, which is totally unfounded.
"There is a tradition of confusing diversity with variation."

Different species?

The new fossil, uncovered by a team led by Richard Potts, of the National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC, US, is, once again, unique.
Although adult, it is much smaller than most other specimens and, according to Professor Schwartz, its skull is unlike the original "Java man" H. erectus.
"In the Java specimen the forehead is very long and backwardly sloping and it has very thin projecting brow ridges," he told BBC News Online. "But in Potts' specimen the angle of the forehead is different and the shape of the brow ridges is different."
But is it a different species? Professor Schwartz thinks so, but plenty of others do not.
"It is probably the cranium of a teenage female H. erectus," said Tim White of the University of Berkeley, California, US. "Many species exhibit sexual dimorphism. Gorilla males have a big crest on the top of their heads, but the females never do.
"Did H. erectus have sexual dimorphism? We don't know. But if there is no evidence of another lineage, why create one?"
There is other evidence too, which might support the "one variable species" theory.
Found near Professor Potts' fossil were hand-axes, typical of those associated with H. erectus. Not only that, but the hand-axes are quite big, suggesting they were made by larger individuals.
This has led Professor Potts to speculate that "his" hominid was part of a single population containing both large and small individuals.
And that could suggest broad physical variation existed happily within one species.
"By virtue of being small it extends our understanding of the variation of physical features available at that time," said Professor Potts.

Hard work

Professor White and Professor Schwartz are very clear on where they stand in the dispute. So what does Professor Potts think?
He is distancing himself from the whole argument. Although he says the individual shared many characteristics with H. erectus, he avoids calling it one.
"We are not going to name this hominid, because we can't be sure," he said. "To my mind it is very difficult to say, just from the bones, where the species boundaries lie.
"This debate generates a lot of heat but not a lot of light. What we are trying to do is reconstruct a very intricate and important process of how our own species arose."
In Professor Potts' opinion, the only way to end the disagreement is to build up the fossil record.
If scientists have a large fossil data-base, they will see patterns of similarities and differences. And then the species boundaries should become clear.
He said: "We just have to undergo the hard work of going out to these field sites, and being really patient and accumulating enough fossils to answer these questions."

We don't ever have to explain religion....