The Antiquity of Man
Exploring human evolution, gender and social organisation
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Creationists falsely claim there are not many hominin fossils
by Mikey Brass
For the sake of time, and merely as an illustration, I will summarise
Fred Grine's contribution ("Description and preliminary analysis of new
hominid craniodental fossils from the Swartkrans Formation") in:
Brain, B. (ed.) 1992. Swartkrans: A cave's chronicle of early man.
Almost 100 hominin craniodental fossils were excavated, deriving from
the Member 1 Hanging Remnant breccia, Member 1 Lower Bank, Member 2 and
Member 3. Six individuals were attributed to Homo, the remainder 50-60
individuals to Paranthropus (otherwise known as the robust australopiths). This was from the period 1979 to 1986. The previous excavations, 1948 to 1953 and 1965 to 1979, yielded over 200 craniodental remains
attributable to Paranthropus which has been equated to between 85-97
individuals.
In addition to the above, 72 individually numbered jaws and teeth and 36
postcranial bones, about 21 craniodental fossils and a partial cervical
vertebra that were not described by the time of the 1992 publication
(but described as such in Grine's chapter) were recovered by Brain from
Member 1 Hanging Remnant rubble.
Grine gave detailed descriptions of the following:
Member 1 Hanging Remnant: 21 specimens
Member 1 Lower Bank: 20 numbered specimens representing 13-16 individuals.
Member 1-2 Interface: 9 isolated teeth
Member 2: 32 numbered specimens representing 21-24 individuals
Member 3: 12 numbered speciments representing 9-11 individuals
Now, the site of Sterkfontein is far richer in hominin remains than
Swartkrans. Consider further that these are just two of the main
palaeoanthropological sites in southern and East Africa, the Near East
and Europe and the picture becomes just slightly more complicated than
the "all remains would fit on a table tennis board" rubbish of creationists.
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