Ardipithecus again: a recylcled ape-man (find out real reason "Ardi" making headlines)

CMI ^ | October 5, 2009 | Dr. Carl Wieland

[goodusername]

“[[—Wow, this claim is still being used? I would have thought that this claim would have died when it was discovered that Neandertal semicircular canals were also very small, and probably more similar to those of Australopithecines than those of modern humans.]]

Hmmm- first you say Aldi is ‘more ismilar to humans’, then you turn aroudn and state it’s more similar to Australopithecines than to humans-”

—I’m not sure what you mean. Ardi shows that Ardipithecus is more human-like than we expected 4.4 million year old hominins to be.
The section you responded to is not at all related to Ardi. I was explaining that the semicircular canals of Neandertals are very small, similar to that of Australopithecines (which Creationists sometimes argue didn’t walk upright to due having small semicircular canals).

[CottShop]

[[—I’m not sure what you mean. Ardi shows that Ardipithecus is more human-like than we expected 4.4 million year old hominins to be.
The section you responded to is not at all related to Ardi. I was explaining that the semicircular canals of Neandertals are very small, similar to that of Australopithecines (which Creationists sometimes argue didn’t walk upright to due having small semicircular canals).]]

I misread that i guess

[CottShop]

[[—Well, I’ve found nothing that implies anything as ludicrous (outside of Creationist sources) as the bones of a single individual being spread out over an area of 1.5 km.]]

You will find all the secular sites stating that the 36 individuals were fouind in the AREA that the fragments from this particular one was found in, and saying the AREA was 1.5 km- I see nothign stating that this one Ardi was found in a small area-

[[It looks like most of the major pieces of Ardi were within an area of about 3 meters, with a few scraps spread out over another 3 meters or so. I don’t know if you’d consider that a “nice little area”, but ~6 meters is a whole lot less than 1500.]]

Got a link to that map? Not disputing it=- it’s just the first I’ve heard of any small area- as I mentioend, all the sites I searched stated 1.5 Area where the fragments and the 36 individuals (I’m assuming that was fragments of 36 individuals) were found

[goodusername]

“Got a link to that map? Not disputing it=- it’s just the first I’ve heard of any small area- as I mentioend, all the sites I searched stated 1.5 Area where the fragments and the 36 individuals (I’m assuming that was fragments of 36 individuals) were found”

—I’m on a machine which has access to Science mag articles, but I’m not sure if they opened this up to the public or not. Here’s the link:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/326/5949/64

I skimmed through some sites trying to find any claims about Ardi’s remains being spread through 1.5 km and wasn’t able to find anything, but I did find this:
http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/ardipithecus/slide-show/discovering-ardi.html

Look at pic 15. There are flags marking where each part is found, and says that the remains were found in one small area.

[CottShop]

[[Look at pic 15. There are flags marking where each part is found, and says that the remains were found in one small area.]]

Here’s what the blurb says:

“-matching parts, indicates that the more than 125 pieces found represent a single individual who died here 4.4 million years ago. The body came apart on the ancient landscape before the bones were entombed in the silts and clay that arrived and blanketed the landscape during seasonal flooding.

It just says some of the remains were foudn htere- other reports I read stated that the remains were strewn about and implied wild animals did the strewing- I’m not statign that the remains were in a 1.5 km area, but indications seems to suggest that- problem is the articles are kinda badly written- not very specific- It appears they are entombed in flood silt which means they certainyl would have been more scattered than the few flags pictured indicate- especially being that the body ‘came apart’ (soem articles said were strewn by wild animals) before hte flooding happened- but whatever- I think they are making bold claims that go beyond hte evidence-

This woudl be a much bigger issue if the researchers were more confident i ntheir findings, but the fact that extensive ‘digital reconstruction’ had to take place undercuts the ‘completeness’ claims, and htus the strength of the claims-

[goodusername]

The discovery.com pic isn’t as good as the map and layout that the science mag has, but it gives an indication of how the pieces are distributed. The pieces have a “dense” scatter, as the discovery site puts it.

I think the digital reconstruction was done mostly as a way of handling the fossils as little as possible because of how fragile they are.