1 The Pliocene ended c. 2 mya. This period saw not only further climatic change but also the appearance of new hominin species.

Australopithecus robustus has smaller canine and incisor teeth than its predecessor, A. africanus, although its face, brain and molars are bigger with the postcanine teeth possessing thick enamel. It possessed a cranial capacity of 475 cm3. The best-preserved examples come from the site of Drimolen, South Africa. Described by its excavator Andre Keyser, the cranium and mandible discovered in 1994 reveal that the species’ sexual dimorphism is greater than what had previously been theorised and reinforces what was previously known, namely that A. robustus and early Homo were contemporaries in southern Africa.

Males weighed around 40 kg and females, 32 kg. Dental analyses have concluded that the foods eaten by A. robustus were harder and required less use of the incisors than its cousin, A. africanus. The examinations of its enamel, via stable carbon isotopes, have added further to the reconstruction of this hominin's dietary behaviour: grasses, tubers as well the meat of animals whose diet comprised primarily of C4 plants; thus, contrary to previous hypotheses, A. robustus was a generalised eater (Lee-Thorp et al 1994). Interestingly though, the C3 and C4 proportions of the A. robustus and the early Homo diet appear to be similar, although this should not be taken to mean that their diets were the same especially considering the massive dentition of A. robustus (Lee-Thorp et al. 2000).

This new scenario is consistent with tool finds at Swartkrans. Australopithecus robustus comprises the majority of the skeletal remains from Swartkrans, where many stone tools have been found, and the hominin also posses a hand morphology that is virtually the same as modern humans; this means it had a precision grip). Thus it is very possible both A. robustus and Homo erectus utilised stone tools at the site of Swartkrans, especially with bone tools found in the same breccia member as A. robustus bearing wear marks.

2 To start, Cremo & Thompson do not explain why they call one group primitive Homo and yet exclude it from our line of ancestry. They are correct in drawing attention to the discrepancy between the known Homo habilis post-cranial remains and the two femurs; however, they make a fatal judgmental error in their analysis. As they themselves note (1999: 252), the femurs were discovered in the same strata level as the Homo rudolfensis skull designated KNM-ER 1470. This relationship should have provisionally suggested to the authors that the finds might belong to the same species. The idea presented that they might be the remains of anatomically modern humans is unlikely because shortly afterwards, Homo ergaster appeared on the scene with modern human bodily proportions. Occam’s Razor dictates that H. rudolfensis probably possessed more human-like proportions in line with H. ergaster than did H. habilis. This raises a far more interesting question which can only be resolved by more detailed remains being uncovered: is H. rudolfensis, and not H. habilis, the direct ancestor of H. ergaster or are the exhibited characteristics an example of evolutionary parallelism.

3 No creationist story would be complete without dismissing the australopiths as being part of our ancestral lineage. It is an essentially part of their myth, in which they try to impress ordinary people by citing two palaeoanthropologists in particular: Solly Zuckerman and Charles Oxnard. Standard creationist procedure also dictates those direct rebuttals to Zuckerman and Oxnard’s articles are dismissed through non-mention. "The Hidden History of the Human Race" follows the dictate to the letter, but with a few added extras: "Louis Leakey held that Australopithecus was an early and very apelike offshoot from the main line of human evolution. Later, his son Richard Leakey took much the same stance." (Cremo & Thompson 1999: 257)

What Cremo & Thompson do not mention is that Richard Leakey has subsequently abandoned this track of thinking. As he states in the updated version of his widely available book, "Origins Reconsidered" (the previous version, "Origins", is referenced but the second edition is not): "It is already clear that with Homo we are looking at a putatively very different kind of animal from Australopithecus… Bipedal apes had been in existence for a long time when Homo arrived. The human family emerged about 7.5 million years ago; Homo evolved sometime before two million years ago… It is true that modern humans are bipedal apes in a sense, but the earliest hominids were bipedal apes, and no more. Only with Homo did the evolutionary equation change, and in a dramatic direction." (Leakey & Lewin 1993: 141)

After having given the impression that Richard Leakey still supports his father’s idea, thereby lending an additional "air of authority" to their claims, Cremo & Thompson head back with the normal creationist tract, insisting Zuckerman and Oxnard have disproven any ancestral relationship between Homo and the australopiths. This approach is mandatory, for if one of the australopith species were ancestral to Homo it would effectively destroy any factual basis to their religious paradigm.