Australopithecus prometheus

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Australopithecus prometheus is the name of a species of the extinct genus Australopithecus namedby Raymond Dart in 1948. The fossils relatedto this specieswere discovered in Makapansgat ( South Africa ) and later added to the species Australopithecus africanus, which was also introduced by Dart in 1925 and thus given priority when it was named.

In 2015, the designation Australopithecus prometheus for an Australopithecus species that existed in South Africa at the same time as Australopithecus africanus was taken up by an international team of researchers and suggested as a species name for this find in connection with a re-dating of the fossil StW 573 (" Little Foot "). In the relevant paleoanthropological databases, this species name has not yet been recorded as a recognized taxon .

Naming

Australopithecus is an artificial word . The name of the genus is derived from the Latin australis 'southern' and the Greek  πίθηκος (old Greek pronounced) píthēkos 'monkey'. The epithet prometheus refers to Greek mythology: According to the Prometheus legend , the Titan Prometheus brought fire to earth for people.

In 1948, Raymond A. Dart chose the epithet prometheus on the assumption that the fossil-found individual belonged to a species that was already using fire. This was done on the erroneous assumption that the black coloration of some of the fossil animal bones discovered in the area around Makapansgat since 1925 was due to the effects of heat during the preparation of food by pre-humans. In fact, the color of these bones had changed due to the action of manganese dioxide in the layers found in the layers - that is, without the intervention of a living being. Traces of carbon at the fossil site were probably remains from blasting in connection with limestone mining.

Historical

The site was on the site of the South African farm Makapansgat , around 20 kilometers northeast of Potgietersrus . In an extensive, 24 printed-page specialist article in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology in 1948, Raymond Dart justified his decision to use the fragments of a fossil occiput (archive number MLD 1) as the holotype of another Australopithecus, discovered in September 1947 by his helper James Kitching in a cave breccia - Species to be identified and not to be assigned to Australopithecus africanus . In his reasoning, Dart referred to three arguments that seemed essential to him: On the one hand, the Makapansgat fossil came - according to biostratigraphic findings - from a different discovery horizon than the child of Taung , the holotype of Australopithecus africanus . On the other hand, the sutures that encompass the occiput are "larger" than in Taung's child. In addition, there was the assumption that Australopithecus prometheus hunted larger game (“bigger game”) and consumed a more varied diet (“a more varied dietary”).

The assembled fragments made it possible - for the first time in a fully grown Australopithecus - an almost complete reconstruction of the back of his skull; This was significant insofar as in the course of the human history of the human race , the enlargement of the cerebrum, in particular, increased the size of the back of the skull due to the increase in brain volume. According to the first description, the thickness of the skull bones of Australopithecus prometheus (6 to 13 mm) lies between that of the older chimpanzees (4 to 7 mm) and that of the younger Peking people (= Homo erectus , 8 to 15 mm).

Due to the largely preserved occiput, a comparison of the brain size of Australopithecus with that of a chimpanzee was possible for the first time : According to this, the area under the occiput in Australopithecus is 5030 mm², whereas in the male chimpanzee it is only 864 mm².

Other anatomical features indicated, among other things, that the head of Australopithecus was carried over the spine, ("improved balancing of the head upon the vertebral column"), which indicates an already advanced ability to walk on two legs.

Based on the finds from Makapansgat, Dart published a hypothesis, which has since been refuted, on the use of bones, teeth and horns by Australopithecus prometheus for hunting, called osteodontokeratic culture .

Revival of the species name

The skull of "Little Foot" at the site in 2006
View over the site in November 2006

In 2015, an international team of researchers led by Ronald J. Clarke published a review of the dating of archaeological and palaeoanthropological finds in the Sterkfontein area , including the fossil StW 573 (" Little Foot "), which has been unusually fully preserved. Clarke had already mentioned in its first description in 1995 that the fossil either belongs to Australopithecus africanus or to a second species. In 2008, Clarke decided: Little Foot had numerous features that distinguish it from both Australopithecus africanus and Australopithecus afarensis ; Therefore, he now assigned the fossil to a second species that lives in South Africa alongside Australopithecus africanus , but is still unnamed. In connection with the description of the exact procedure for checking earlier dates in the Sterkfontein area, it was then mentioned in 2015 - without justification - that Little Foot belonged to the fossil species Australopithecus prometheus , since the fossil was "very different" ("very different “) Show characteristics compared to Australopithecus africanus . In a series of specialist articles in which the Fossil StW 573 was first described in detail at the end of 2018, the authors kept the species name.

Shortly afterwards, it was objected to its reactivation that, due to formal deficiencies in its initial description , it was an invalid species name from the start ( noun nudum ), so that a new holotype would have to be specified for its renewed use. The presumed invalidity of the species name and the deduced rejection of its revival having regard to Articles 11 and 13 has been established international rules for Zoological Nomenclature : The name Australopithecus prometheus is 1948 without detailed description and therefore no precise definition of the so-named taxon introduced ; all three main features of the holotype cited by Raymond Dart in his diagnosis in 1948 were unsuitable to contribute to the definition of the species and to its differentiation from Australopiothecus africanus . The occiput is not suitable for the mutual delimitation of the Australopithecus species, it is rather suitable for the delimitation of the entire genus Australopithecus from other hominin genera. The other two features were mere - later refuted - speculations and, even if they had proven to be correct, no benchmarks for other fossils. Furthermore, from 1962 Dart himself no longer used the term Australopithecus prometheus and the u. a. John Talbot Robinson accepted the assignment of the Prometheus fossils to Australopithecus africanus . Ronald Clarke defended his name choice.

Literature (selection)

  • Raymond A. Dart: The Bone Tool-Manufacturing Ability of Australopithecus prometheus. In: American Anthropologist. Volume 62, No. 1, 1960, full text
  • Raymond A. Dart: The osteodontokeratic culture of Australopithecus prometheus. Transvaal Museum, 1957
  • Raymond A. Dart: The cranio-facial fragment of Australopithecus prometheus. In: American Journal of Physical Anthropology. Volume 7, 1949, pp. 187-211, 1949, doi: 10.1002 / ajpa.1330070204
  • Raymond A. Dart: The first pelvic bones of Australopithecus prometheus: Preliminary note. In: American Journal of Physical Anthropology. Volume 7, No. 2, 1949, pp. 255-257, doi: 10.1002 / ajpa.1330070208
  • Raymond A. Dart: The adolescent mandible of Australopithecus Prometheus. In: American Journal of Physical Anthropology. Volume 6, No. 4, pp. 391-411, doi: 10.1002 / ajpa.1330060410

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Raymond A. Dart : The Makapansgat proto-human Australopithecus prometheus. In: American Journal of Physical Anthropology . Volume 6, No. 3, 1948, pp. 259-283, doi: 10.1002 / ajpa.1330060304
  2. ^ Raymond A. Dart: Australopithecus africanus: The man-ape of South Africa. In: Nature . Volume 115, 1925, pp. 195–199, doi: 10.1038 / 115195a0 , ( full text (PDF; 456 kB) )
  3. ↑ Ronald J. Clarke , Phillip Tobias : Sterkfontein member 2 foot bones of the oldest South African hominid. In: Science . Volume 269, 1995, pp. 521-524, doi: 10.1126 / science.7624772
  4. ↑ a b Darryl E. Granger et al .: New cosmogenic burial ages for Sterkfontein Member 2 Australopithecus and Member 5 Oldowan. In: Nature. Volume 522, No. 7554, 2015, pp. 85-88, doi: 10.1038 / nature14268
  5. ↑ New cosmogenic burial ages for SA's Little Foot fossil and Oldowan artefacts. On: eurekalert.org from April 1, 2015
  6. ↑ The Global Biodiversity Information Facility and the Yale University database continue to list Australopithecus prometheus as “Synonym of Australopithecus africanus ”, there is no entry in the Catalog of Life: April 28th, 2016 and in the Paleobiology Database .
  7. ↑ Friedemann Schrenk : The early days of man. The way to Homo sapiens. CHBeck, 1st edition, Munich 2008 (CHBeck Wissen 2059), p. 36, ISBN 3-406-41059-6 (in later editions p. 37)
  8. ↑ Kenneth P. Oakley: The earliest fire-makers. In: Antiquity. Volume 30, No. 118, 1956, pp. 102-107, doi: 10.1017 / S0003598X00028313
  9. ↑ CK Brain: Fifty Years of Fun with Fossils: Some Cave Taphonomy-Related Ideas and Concepts that Emerged between 1953 and 2003. Chapter 1 in: Travis Rayne Pickering, Kathy Schick and Nicholas Toth (Eds.): Breathing Live into Fossils. Taphonomic Studies in Honor of CK (Bob) Brain. Stone Age Institute, 2004, p. 3, full text
  10. ^ R. Dart, The Makapansgat proto-human Australopithecus prometheus , 1948, p. 260.
  11. ^ R. Dart, The Makapansgat proto-human Australopithecus prometheus , 1948, p. 263.
  12. ↑ Ron J. Clarke: Latest information on Sterkfontein's Australopithecus skeleton and a new look at Australopithecus. In: South African Journal of Science. Volume 104, 2008, pp. 443–449, full text (PDF)
  13. ↑ Lee R. Berger and John Hawks: Australopithecus prometheus is a nomen nudum. In: American Journal of Physical Anthropology. Volume 168, No. 2, 2019, pp. 383-387, doi: 10.1002 / ajpa.23743
  14. ^ Raymond A. Dart: The Makapansgat pink breccia australopithecine skull. In: American Journal of Physical Anthropology. Volume 20, No. 2, 1962, pp. 119-126, doi: 10.1002 / ajpa.1330200212
  15. ↑ Ronald J. Clarke: Australopithecus prometheus was validly named on MLD 1. In: American Journal of Physical Anthropology. Volume 170, No. 4, 2019, pp. 479-481, doi: 0.1002 / ajpa.23892 .
    John Hawks and Lee R. Berger: Reply to Clarke, "Australopithecus prometheus was validly named on MLD 1". In: American Journal of Physical Anthropology. Volume 170, No. 4, 2019, pp. 482-483, doi: 10.1002 / ajpa.23927 .