NEWS re Early Language

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

Fom the NY Times - 9/7/99
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/090799sci-paleontology-erectu
s.html) (Watch out for wraparound in the browser URL box.)

(NOTE: the reporter takes the Out of Africa as majority in this piece,
although other recent stories suggest that majority is fast fading.  Both
Delson and Swisher, mentioned in the article, generally take a multiregional
approach.)

An Intriguing Find on the Upper West Side
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD

An intriguing fossil skull, presumably from a Homo erectus and possibly a
revealing piece of evidence for understanding human evolution, has been
found not on a parched hill in Africa or along a river in Java, but at a
cozy little shop on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

However the skull got there, and this part of the story is murky,
paleoanthropologists concluded last week that it is a genuine specimen
from Indonesia and could be critical in determining the place of the
Homo erectus species in East Asia on the human family tree. Learning
that is central to a scholarly controversy over where and how modern
humans, Homo sapiens, evolved....

The dark gray skull apparently belonged to a young male, probably in his
20's, but experts who examined it inside and out were struck by some
puzzling characteristics. The individual's brain was small, about half
the size of Homo sapiens but within the range for Homo erectus. Yet he
had a humanlike high forehead, not the sloping kind typical of Homo
erectus and other early hominids.

A cast made of the inside surface of the skull revealed the brain's
configuration, which bore some resemblance to Homo sapiens brains. An
apparent swelling in one region of the brain, scientists said, suggested
that the Homo erectus was developing the potential for language and
speech....

Until this decade, paleoanthropologists generally divided the lineage of
genus Homo into three successive species. Homo habilis appeared about
2.5 million years ago, at the time of the first evidence of stone
toolmaking. Homo erectus, beginning about 1.8 million years ago, was the
first to leave Africa, spreading across Eurasia as far as China and
Indonesia. The species was once thought to be the direct ancestor of
Homo sapiens....

Now scientists are not so sure. Other distinct species may have emerged
and overlapped between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens. Genetic studies
point to anatomically modern humans' appearing first in Africa some
100,000 years ago from descendants of the Homo erectus population that
remained there. The African branch of Homo erectus is now usually
labeled Homo ergaster to distinguish it from the Asian species. If
modern humans sprang from Africa, then the Far East Homo erectus was
probably an evolutionary dead end, though a few scientists still think
otherwise....

The rounded shape of the new skull and the inferred structure of its
brain, the examining team said, at least raised the question of whether
the Homo erectus of Indonesia was, in fact, evolving toward a more
modern human species...

Studying the actual skull and casts, the researchers noted that the
cranial bone was thick and the brow ridges well developed, both
characteristics of Homo erectus.....

Douglas Broadfield, a graduate student at City University, said the
braincase examination revealed a high degree of cerebral asymmetry, a
differential development of the two sides of the brain, that seemed
advanced for Homo erectus. It also showed a bump in what is known as the
Broca cap or area of the brain, the seat of language capability in
modern humans. The combination of asymmetry and a Broca's cap, he said,
was rare in Homo erectus.

"This is not to say this guy could speak like a modern human," Mr.
Broadfield said. "But the potential is there for some higher processing,
some type of communication cognition, that we don't see for other H.
erectus specimens...."

Dr. Carl C. Swisher 3d of the Berkeley Geochronology Center in
California will be analyzing sediment found embedded inside the skull,
which could yield chemical traces of the specimen's apparent age.  Dr.
Delson's team said the skull could be anywhere from 100,000 to 1 million
years old.

The shop owner would not estimate how much money his generosity might
have cost him, though some paleontologists speculated that the skull
might have commanded up to $500,000 on the open market.

/S. Long/