Predatory Massacres and Human Evolution

"Paul Crowley" <[email hidden]> wrote

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I would never put forward anything so foolish. Chimps
(and other quadrupedal hominoids) have perfectly good
systems for carrying infants and food, which they've
had for some tens of millions of years. There is no
remotely possibility of a 'selective pressure' from
those activities -- except to continue doing exactly
what they are doing now.

You seem unable to comprehend that with A'pith we are
talking about animals that are extremely dependent on
treed habitat. Let me explain. With the onset of the
monsoon habitat of late miocene Africa, treed habitat
became very patchy. We might envision the geography as
now having only 10% to 20% of the tree cover that it had
previously and all of this being in city-sized, town
sized patches of forest along or near water features:
rivers, lake, ponds, and even areas of high ground
water. The expansive, predatory filled, treeless habitat
was unsurvivable to them. They weren't out walking
around much.

When this happened (and it may well have done in some
places at some times) it probably did so over many
generations -- but, in any case, far too quickly to allow
for evolutionary adaptation. Any hominids in the area
would not have coped -- they'd have died, or moved away.

In the town-sized, city-sized patches of remaining forest
that I envision they would have persisted--as long as they
had strategies that allowed them to survive the dry season.

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> Bipedalism is a stick-wielding, rock-throwing
> adaptation

I don't buy rock-throwing though. Good throwing rocks
(that can be thrown some distance and do some damage)
are not easy to find on the ground in nearly all
circumstances when you need them.

You'd first have to sell me on your premise that it is
supposedly necessary to assume that for rock throwing to
have been selectively advantageous that it is necessary
for them to have been able to "do some damage," to quote
your words.

A large animal is not going to move away, unless it has
realistic fears of suffering injury.

Are you saying that being hit by rocks and clubs can't
cause injury?

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I indicate otherwise in my hypothesis. More to the
point, according to my hypothesis their rock throwing
would not need to be lethal, it just had to be good
enough to scare off large mammals with whom which they
competed for resources.

What large mammals are these? What are they eating?

Migratory African animals eating vegetation.

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That would mean that early (proto-)hominids would have
had to carry a supply -- and that's highly unlikely.

So, let me get this straight, in your learned opinion
it's not plausible that A'pith might carry rocks a few
hundred yards,

It's not easy to carry more than a few rocks in your arms
for a few hundred yards -- especially over rough ground

Is it, supposedely, easier to carry a baby while being
chased by a pack of lions?

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and/or from one strategic location to another, within
the context of a town sized patch of forest habitat (as
indicated in my hypthesis)

And when you get them to the place you need, the targets
will usually have moved on anyway.

In my model getting their targets (large migratory food
competitors) to move away *is* the goal.

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but supposedly it is plausible for them to be carrying
their young through treeless habitat

I don't see hominids carrying small infants around --
except over very short distances, or on very rare
migrations.

Then why would you suggest this as a significant factor of
hominid evolution?

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running from and fending off lions, hyena, and wild dogs
(as, it seems, is indicated in your hypothesis).

Nope. I don't see hominid life as viable at all when there
were predators in any numbers.

I agree. The best strategy of an early hominid community to
avoid predation is to maintain the resources at their
isolated city-sized, town-sized patch of forest so that they
may continue to maintain their individual strengths and
collective unity through the dry season so that the
predators will ignore them and go to other more poverty
stricken patches of forest wherein the A'piths are
individually weak and collectively disunited and are,
therefore, easier pickings.

A small tribe could survive

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indefinitely in a river valley set on a desert coastline,
where only the occasional lion turned up. Over time, the
number and size of potentially inhabitable valleys would
have increased, and the required degree of isolation would
have reduced. But hominids would have always had to live
at a significant distance from areas dominated by
predators.

But the evidence indicates that hominids were regularly
victims of predatory massacres:

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