Talk:Homo habilis

Facts I Would Like to Know More About

I personally thought this was a good page. I would like to know more about homo habilis though! Such as, how did they become extinct? I'll probably add some info. About that once I find it on other sites ^.^ -Freddy

Fixed it up a bit! cool species, added pic too.--Quena@sympatico.ca 04:59, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

I deleted a short paragraph that had to do with more religious aspects in comparison with actual evidence of H. habilis backing up the species in general. --King of the Dancehall 20:33, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I would like to know more about this homo habilis you have said that they were found along east africa bt which country? to me i fart country through which oldvai gorge is the main place —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 196.44.170.61 (talk • contribs).

Contradiction?

The section "Stratification and expansion" may be a bit fallacious, I don't think there is any fossil evidence of any Homo prior to H.erectus existing outside of Africa. The section lacks citations and until there is a valid reference disproving this complaint, such misleading information ought to be removed.

From the article: "Anthropologist Richard Leakey’s son Jonathon Leakey, unearthed an ape-like skull that shared human like traits in 1964", but Richard Leakey was born 1944, so his child could not had been more than 4-5 years old, and then Richard would have had to been a father in a quite young age. Does anyone have any more facts about this? /Nilzzon 16:13, 20 January 2006 (UTC

You're right. Richard Leakey was actually the brother of Jonathan Leakey. Louis Leakey was the father of both Richard and Jonathan Leakey. Details can be found in the Leakey foundation's website, which states, "In 1960, eldest son Jonathan Leakey found parts of a juvenile hominid skull, jaw, and hand bones." [1] --Angrylilgurl 05:07, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Would like to see more comparisons between habilis and others such as erectus or aferensis —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.21.156.31 (talk) 19:21, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

removed inappropriate/useless/unrelated insult comment 98.67.2.77 (talk) 20:13, 14 June 2010 (UTC)HammerFilmsFan

Australopithecus habilis?

I am not fully indating on the theories of the recent data that would include the H. habilis being reclassed as under the Australopithecus genus but i do know of the eviendce just not enough to write about it. could a section be added to express this new data by someone with more knowledge of the topic than i. of if there is alot to rename the topc to fit with it so. cj105 24 May 2006

I haven't heard any (recent) proposal to reassign habilis to Australopithecus. - UtherSRG (talk) 11:39, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Not very recent, but in 1999 Wood et al. proposed this reclassification. See "The Human Genus", Wood and Collard, Science 2 April 1999: 65, DOI: 10.1126/science.284.5411.65 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.178.237.94 (talk) 16:54, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

He proposed it, but this has been seen as invalid revisionism. The Austro's are clearly in a separate genus, and some paleontologists (the minority view at this time) see them closer to apes than man. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.67.2.77 (talk) 20:15, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Douglas Futuyma calls the specimen "australopithecus habilis" in his second edition of "Evolution"(part of the evolutionary biology curriculum in great parts of the U.S). Stinukli (talk) 21:17, 31 October 2011 (GMT +1)

The reasoning for A. habilis rather than Homo habilis is due to the disproportionatly longer arm length in habilis versus other homo species, small cranium volume, a skull still retaining archaic features (protruding face) and shorter stature suggesting a spacially restrictive environment. Australopithecus brain sizes ranged from ~300 - ~600 which is close to the range of "Homo" habilis of 363-600 yet the page uses the very upper limit of habilis to say it had a brain size roughly half the size of the human brain. The page should state that they had a brain size only marginally larger than their decendants. The head shape, size of the body and long arm length relative to body still display archaic features. It is my view that this page is rather pro Leakey as they had decided to lower the limits of what species could be considered in the Homo genus by the features mentioned above. 70.126.82.78 (talk) 02:38, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Correction: Homo habilis brain sizes were formerly thought to range between 363 and 600 cc, even as late as 2000 when the "Australopithecus habilis" paper now cited in this Article was published. Subsequent reassessments of H. habilis skull fragments have updated its brain size to range between 550 and 687 cc. Despite what was published as late as 2000, the lower limit of H. habilis brain size is much higher than the 363 cc you talked about here. Here's a link: http://tolweb.org/treehouses/?treehouse_id=3710. If that's not recent enough, I can always dig out my Evolution textbook. At any rate, the Article now uses an outdated source to take a revisionist position in its Lead contrary to scholarly consensus. I will be bold and correct this. Even this link, while it does indeed talk about ongoing controversy, makes it clear that the H. habilis brain averages more than 600 cc, the very measurement you insisted was the maximum of the range: http://australianmuseum.net.au/Homo-habilis. Exact quote: "Brain averaged 610 cubic centimetres in size, representing 1.7 per cent of their body weight. This was a significant increase compared to australopithecine brains" (Emphasis added).

610 cc > 600 cc. Again, 610 cc is now calculated to be the average brain size for Homo habilis, whereas you cited 600 cc as the maximum.

Homo habilis was a descendant of Australopithecus sediba and itself the common ancestor of the Genus Homo. Technically, the Genus Homo would become polyphyletic if it were to exclude its common ancestor, regardless of visible physical features. Moreover, the increase in brain size from A. sediba to H. habilis was appreciable and most likely explains why stone tool use began when it did. The Mysterious El Willstro (talk) 18:48, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

ER 1470

Is ER 1470 known by a different name? I was expecting to find it here with no luck. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.234.198.197 (talk • contribs) .

KNM ER 1470 is Homo rudolfensis. - UtherSRG (talk) 17:50, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Full Skeleton of a Homo habilis

Is a there a picture of a full Homo habilis skeleton, besides from the head. Anker99 19:18, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Java

-didn't homo habilis exist until 27,000 in Java? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 142.59.193.47 (talk • contribs).

No - habilis never lived outside of Africa, as far as the known fossil record analysis.

No. - UtherSRG (talk) 15:42, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

That was probably Homo erectus.Kfc1864 00:45, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, Homo erecus lived in Java, and Neanderthals lived till 27,000 ya. Get your acts right.:)Kfc1864 talk _{my edits} 09:58, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Richard Leakey on Time.jpg

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Discovery of new Homo erectus and Homo habilis fossils at Lake Turkana

In case anyone should have time to annotate the article, the following are links to a Times article questioning that Homo habilis is the direct ancestor of Homo erectus as a result of recent finds at Lake Turkana, as well as to a news article and a letter in Nature:

[2] [3] [4].

I shall try and include some detail myself in due course, but that might be better done by someone with a scientific background who understands the debates. DSuser 13:45, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Reconstructions

we need authors. affilliations and nation of origins for reconstruction. this one is german apparently. and to looks very thin what i think is not warranted. a comprehensive reference in the field would also be helpfull, it is a very rich resource when the chemical and geophysical and anatomical aspects are weighed to the anthropological/medical knowledge they derive from. Plenty of the research is relevant for the reconstruction of habitats , diets and other aspects. I don't think there is better except research on site.24.132.170.252 (talk) 23:45, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

'Hobbits' Of Flores Island Descended From H. habilis?

This interesting article [5] 'The foot that may prove 'hobbits' existed', states that:

"The long toes of H. floresiensis suggest they could be the direct descendants of a hominin similar to an early human ancestor such as H. habilis, rather than the more recent H. erectus, a species known to have migrated out of African long before the migration of our own species, H. sapiens." --217.33.67.248 (talk) 12:38, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, that makes an assumption that the Flores Island species was a true species, and not some local morph of a known hominid. However, if habilis is the direct anscestor of erectus and the like, then, technically, yes - but habilis died out long, long before the Florestian creatures lived, and if they are a true taxon, then their ancestor was much more recent. 98.67.2.77 (talk) 20:21, 14 June 2010 (UTC)HammerFilmsFan

H.h. outside Africa? Really?

The article currently contains unsourced statements to the effect that H.h. ranged into Europe and Asia. This is to my knowledge completely unfounded, but I'm a late prehistoric archaeologist so I don't have any literature on the subject. Anybody else? Martin Rundkvist (talk) 20:46, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Expansion and Inclusion

I have begun an attempt to make the pages on Homo ergaster, Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo neanderthalensis, Homo habilis, and Homo georgicus resemble each other in format and content more closely. I shall try to present each competing interpretation, but have often settled, half-way through the page, on presenting each species as legitimately distinct (while letting readers know, of course). My main concern is that these six pages present many prevalent and valid interpretations but no conformity of tone or content between pages (or sometimes even paragraphs). I shall also try to make conglomerate authorship less detectable between pages, personally editing large chunks using my own tone. I shall attempt, however, to let no personal interpretations of our ancestry interfere with the hypotheses presented. I will not eradicate any additions to these pages' content, obviously, but will attempt to make their voice and presentation uniform. Homo Ergaster (talk) 00:25, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Inconsistency?

This article suggests a connection between Homo Ergaster and Homo Erectus. But when you link to the Homo Ergaster page on Wikipedia, the information there suggests there may not be a direct link between Ergaster and Erectus. Can any changes be made to ensure these two closely related articles don't appear to contradict each other?

Solaricon (talk) 14:20, 2 May 2010 (UTC) yes we must avoid the appearance of contradictions/inconsistencies76.178.120.228 (talk) 09:30, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Olduvai Gorge

It says Homo habilis was discovered in Olduvai Gorge, but also in Kenya, the Olduvai Gorge article says it's in Tanzania. Is this a contradiction or does the gorge go through both countries? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.154.245.138 (talk) 00:12, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Adjective and noun version

If we were talking about a member or members or traits of a species, does the term's conjugation change in any way? For example would I just say "a pair of homo habilis attacked a lone homo habilis, demonstrating homo habilis violence" ? Ranze (talk) 23:41, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

New 2.8-myo find – habilis?

The current footnote 1 in the lede links to the very recent announcement of a 2.8 million-year-old jawbone. However, the linked reference (a BBC news story rather than a scholarly paper) does not explicitly identify the jawbone as being H. habilis, although it implies ancestry to habilis. (I have been unable thus far to access any more scholarly sources for the story.)

I think we need more solid sources to confirm that the specimen is indeed considered habilis, and not some (perhaps yet-unnamed) habilis antecedant. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 212.95.237.92 (talk) 18:22, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

I think the reference is to the age of the Hominini tribe and origin of Homo, not of Habilis. I agree it is far too early to assign a specific species to the new jawbone, but I don't think this reference does that, it merely confirms the (new) 2.8 mya date for Homo as a genus. Nowimnthing (talk)