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kevin_shepherd 's review for:
Almost Human: The Astonishing Tale of Homo Naledi and the Discovery That Changed Our Human Story
by John Hawks, Lee Berger
Paleoanthropologists, as a rule, spend their professional lifetimes in wishful pursuit of just one significant new hominid identification - Lee Berger has two.
“It just shows that you can never stop looking. Just because something has been studied for years doesn't mean that it can't still tell us new things”
Berger might be the most controversial figure in a profession populated with highly controversial figures. On the one hand, some of his contemporaries consider him a selfish and egotistical showman. On the other hand, he has “open-accessed” his projects for participation and study by scientists and students from all over the world, something no other paleontologist has ever done. I would think, if one were truly selfish and egotistical, one would restrict access to one’s own discoveries, ensuring personal credit for all comparative analysis and authorship (or co-authorship) of all scientific papers. In other words, if someone were selfish and egotistical one would behave like those scientists who claim that Berger is selfish and egotistical.
Australopithecus sediba
First discovered in August of 2008 by Lee Berger’s 9-year-old son Matthew at Malapa cave, near Muldersdrift, South Africa. Sediba has been dated at roughly 1.98 million years old. That puts it in the early Pleistocene.
What I find most interesting about the early Pleistocene dating is that we already know of at least two other hominids that (co)existed at that time: Paranthropus robustus and Homo ergaster. (The more we learn about primate evolution the less our family tree looks like a tree. “Family Bush” anyone?)
Homo naledi
First discovered in September of 2013 by spelunkers Steve Tucker and Richard Hunter at Rising Star cave, near Krugersdorp, South Africa. Naledi has been dated at approximately 300,000 years old. That puts it squarely in the middle Pleistocene (Chibanian age).
Naledi’s place in the genus ‘Homo’ is still, in 2021, rather tenuous. Although there are a plethora of characteristics that naledi shares with Homo, its small brain size lines up more closely with Australopithecus and its curved fingers suggest a lifestyle that was more arboreal than terrestrial.*
I like Lee Berger (does it show?). He certainly makes paleoanthropology more accessible and more interesting. If it’s dry, excruciatingly academic analysis you are after, I suggest skipping Almost Human and opting for Tim White’s The Human Bone Manual instead…
*I’ve always felt that taxonomic arguments involving fossils, specifically hominid specimens, are a little idiotic. Let’s face it, everything that has ever lived on this planet, including us, is “transitional.” What we find in the fossil record are merely snapshots of kinetic evolutionary time. Our need to bracket and classify everything into discernible groups hamstrings some individuals’ understanding of evolution. This is one reason why that weak-ass “missing link” argument keeps rearing its scientifically illiterate head (I’m looking straight at you, Evangelicals
“It just shows that you can never stop looking. Just because something has been studied for years doesn't mean that it can't still tell us new things”
Berger might be the most controversial figure in a profession populated with highly controversial figures. On the one hand, some of his contemporaries consider him a selfish and egotistical showman. On the other hand, he has “open-accessed” his projects for participation and study by scientists and students from all over the world, something no other paleontologist has ever done. I would think, if one were truly selfish and egotistical, one would restrict access to one’s own discoveries, ensuring personal credit for all comparative analysis and authorship (or co-authorship) of all scientific papers. In other words, if someone were selfish and egotistical one would behave like those scientists who claim that Berger is selfish and egotistical.
Australopithecus sediba
First discovered in August of 2008 by Lee Berger’s 9-year-old son Matthew at Malapa cave, near Muldersdrift, South Africa. Sediba has been dated at roughly 1.98 million years old. That puts it in the early Pleistocene.
What I find most interesting about the early Pleistocene dating is that we already know of at least two other hominids that (co)existed at that time: Paranthropus robustus and Homo ergaster. (The more we learn about primate evolution the less our family tree looks like a tree. “Family Bush” anyone?)
Homo naledi
First discovered in September of 2013 by spelunkers Steve Tucker and Richard Hunter at Rising Star cave, near Krugersdorp, South Africa. Naledi has been dated at approximately 300,000 years old. That puts it squarely in the middle Pleistocene (Chibanian age).
Naledi’s place in the genus ‘Homo’ is still, in 2021, rather tenuous. Although there are a plethora of characteristics that naledi shares with Homo, its small brain size lines up more closely with Australopithecus and its curved fingers suggest a lifestyle that was more arboreal than terrestrial.*
I like Lee Berger (does it show?). He certainly makes paleoanthropology more accessible and more interesting. If it’s dry, excruciatingly academic analysis you are after, I suggest skipping Almost Human and opting for Tim White’s The Human Bone Manual instead…
*I’ve always felt that taxonomic arguments involving fossils, specifically hominid specimens, are a little idiotic. Let’s face it, everything that has ever lived on this planet, including us, is “transitional.” What we find in the fossil record are merely snapshots of kinetic evolutionary time. Our need to bracket and classify everything into discernible groups hamstrings some individuals’ understanding of evolution. This is one reason why that weak-ass “missing link” argument keeps rearing its scientifically illiterate head (I’m looking straight at you, Evangelicals