The Fossil Record And Hominid Development

The dodo record offers no genuine missing imagine in the hominid evolution. Even those dodos, which allegedly validate the calamity that man and ape evolved gradually over time from a common etymon, elicit suspicion of authenticity. An incident causing much(prenominal) suspicion was the discovery of Piltdown Man. In 1912 Charles Dawson discovered a fogy with an “ape-like bawl out, but a human cranium“ near Piltdown, England.[i] The testicle responded with enthusiasm. One British newspaper reported, “One of the most historical prehistoric finds of our time has been made.[ii] Triumph turned to disgrace, however, when from 1949 to 1953 a non-finite of tests were conducted on the fossil to examine its legitimacy. Investigators discovered that “the cranium and mandibula were not the same age or paleolithic at all, and the dentition had been filed to make a much human teeth in an apes jaw. The bone tool was modern, and even the fossil rhinoceros tooth and other bones came from elsewhere and were artificially stained to match.”[iii] Thus, the “ more(prenominal) interesting lesson to be learned from Piltdown Man is that scientists, like everyone else, serve be fooled into seeing what they want to see.

” [iv] The fossils of Ramapithecus, which “were discovered in N India and in E Africa, beginning in 1932,[v] further underscore this lesson. After the initial verdict that Ramapithecus was the last common antecedent between apes and humans, this fossil endured a series of tests to confirm that conclusion. The supporters of Ramapithecus were in short silenced, because “the m! ost damaging blow was the realization that, because of a elemental error in interpreting anatomy, the upper jaw of Ramapithecus had been hypothesise incorrectly.”[vi] The search then ensued for Ramapithecus’ correct location in the fossil record. “Ulimately, enough Sivapithecus remains were found to validate the idea that what had been called Ramapithecus was completely a smaller...If you want to get a near essay, identify it on our website: BestEssayCheap.com

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