Contested Bones by Christopher Rupe & Dr. John Sanford

Author:Christopher Rupe & Dr. John Sanford [Rupe, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: -
Publisher: FMS Publications
Published: 2019-04-27T16:00:00+00:00

Figure 7. Hypothetical cave system showing possible features of the landscape prior to erosion. Everything drawn above the dotted line is an imaginary reconstruction of a complex cave system. Today all that is seen is a shallow pit assumed to be the remnant of a former cave system.

It should be obvious that this is not a testable hypothesis, but is a “just so” story. There are numerous alternative scenarios which could explain a mixed bone bed like the Malapa pit. The flowstone observed in the pit does not necessarily indicate an ancient cave; flowstone is also observed around hot water springs. Flowstone is just a localized deposit of lime, deposited by lime-saturated flowing water.104 Hot water springs could also be associated with a natural gas seep—where animals would come to drink and become asphyxiated. The pit of bones could also reflect a sinkhole (a deep pond with steep sides), where animals would drown. Another possibility is that the animals were hunted by humans, and aft er consumption the remains were conveniently cast into an existing pit. This would neatly explain why nearly all of the species represented are common game animals.105 Lastly, the pit, being near a river, may have been filled with debris from a local flash flood. The Malapa pit is located in a flood plain between three converging tributaries of the Magaliesberg River.

All we can honestly infer from the existing evidence is that the bones of many creatures of all sorts accumulated in a small pit, resulting in a jumble of mixed bones. This made reassembly of the original skeletons, as Berger noted, “the most taxing jigsaw puzzle.”106

Conclusion—Sediba is a Jumble of Homo and Australopithecus Bones

The bones that have been called Sediba do not appear to represent a “transitional form” at all. What Berger and colleagues reconstructed is not a new species but rather appears to be a chimeric skeleton (a mixture of human and non-human bones). It is not uncommon for paleo-experts to unintentionally mix bones belonging to different species. This is especially true when they are highly motivated to find an “in-between” creature. Berger admits that this was always his life-long ambition.107 Berger (like his role model Donald Johanson) seem to have spent a lifetime chasing after the honor of finding the missing link that would validate human evolution. Given a jumble of bones from all kinds of African animals (including apes and men), all found in one small pit, and given a strong desire to discover an “in-between” ape-human skeleton, it is easy to see how bones and bone fragments might be assembled to resemble an incomplete “ape-man” skeleton. This explains why some of Sediba’s bones appear distinctly ape, while others appear distinctly human.

Berger and colleagues repeatedly refer to Sediba as a mosaic of primitive (ape-like) or derived (human-like) traits.108 Some bones were distinctly ape, whereas others were distinctly human. The researchers’ explanation for the mishmash of traits is that Sediba is a snapshot of ape evolving into man. However, a number of leading paleoanthropologists such as Bernard Wood, Donald Johanson, and others reject this view of Sediba.

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