Topic ID #10412 - posted 4/18/2011 3:10 AM
Jennifer Palmer
Webmaster
Did Lucy's species butcher animals?
Jennifer Palmer
Webmaster
Did Lucy's species butcher animals?
By Kate Wong | Apr 13, 2011 01:00 PM | 13
Lucy skeletonMINNEAPOLIS—In August 2010 archaeologists announced that they had discovered evidence that pushed back the origin of butchery nearly 800,000 years. Studying bones of cow- and goat-size animals dated to around 3.4 million years ago from a site in Ethiopia called Dikika, Shannon McPherron of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and his colleagues observed several distinctive marks. After conducting an extensive analysis of the marks, the team determined that they resulted from butchery with stone tools, although no implements were recovered at the site. Because the only human remains known from Dikika belong to Australopithecus afarensis—the species to which the famous Lucy fossil belongs—the researchers concluded A. afarensis was the butcher.
The discovery made a big splash, because scientists thought stone tool use and butchery originated with human ancestors more advanced than Lucy's kind. Furthermore, according to conventional wisdom, A. afarensis relied primarily on plant foods.
Not everyone was convinced by the team's claims. Last November, Manuel Domínguez-Rodrigo of the Complutense University of Madrid and his colleagues published a paper arguing on the basis of photographs of the Dikika specimens that the alleged cutmarks were actually the result of the bones being trampled by animals. Dikika team member Curtis Marean of Arizona State University fired back saying the critics had rushed to press without studying the actual remains, and that some of the telltale signs of butchery are only visible with firsthand inspection of the bones.
Read more here.
By Kate Wong | Apr 13, 2011 01:00 PM | 13
Lucy skeletonMINNEAPOLIS—In August 2010 archaeologists announced that they had discovered evidence that pushed back the origin of butchery nearly 800,000 years. Studying bones of cow- and goat-size animals dated to around 3.4 million years ago from a site in Ethiopia called Dikika, Shannon McPherron of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and his colleagues observed several distinctive marks. After conducting an extensive analysis of the marks, the team determined that they resulted from butchery with stone tools, although no implements were recovered at the site. Because the only human remains known from Dikika belong to Australopithecus afarensis—the species to which the famous Lucy fossil belongs—the researchers concluded A. afarensis was the butcher.
The discovery made a big splash, because scientists thought stone tool use and butchery originated with human ancestors more advanced than Lucy's kind. Furthermore, according to conventional wisdom, A. afarensis relied primarily on plant foods.
Not everyone was convinced by the team's claims. Last November, Manuel Domínguez-Rodrigo of the Complutense University of Madrid and his colleagues published a paper arguing on the basis of photographs of the Dikika specimens that the alleged cutmarks were actually the result of the bones being trampled by animals. Dikika team member Curtis Marean of Arizona State University fired back saying the critics had rushed to press without studying the actual remains, and that some of the telltale signs of butchery are only visible with firsthand inspection of the bones.
Read more here.
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