teeth and skeletal fragments from the Afar region in Ethiopia. Other named forms are based on sparser evidence. Au. anamensis is known from skeletal fragments from Kanapoi in western Kenya and a cranium from Afar in Ethiopia (Leakey et al. 1995, Haile-Selassie et al. 2019). A partial cranium and some skeletal elements from the Bouri Formation in the Afar region of Ethiopia have been assigned the name Au. garhi (Asfaw et al. 1999). From the Woranso-Mille site in the Afar region of Ethiopia, we have cranial and skeletal elements assigned to Au. deyiremeda (Haile-Selassie et al. 2015). From the central African country of Chad comes a maxillary fragment named Au. bahrelghazali (Brunet et al. 1995) and a highly fragmented skull named Sahelanthropus (Brunet et al. 2002). Another fragmentary skull from Kenya is known as Kenyanthropus (Leakey et al. 2001). Finally, some skeletal elements from Chad, including femora, have been called Orrorin (Senut et al. 2001). Due to scattered and fragmentary evidence, anthropologists still reserve firm judgment on the east African evidence for H. habilis or H. rudolfensis, often referring to them collectively as “early Homo.” Two well-known crania, KNM ER 1470 and KNM ER 1813, are referred to H. rudolfensis and H. habilis respectively (Lieberman et al. 1996). Numerous skeletal elements recovered from Gran Dolina in Atapuerca, Spain are referred to the taxon H. antecessor (Bermúdez de Castro et al. 2017). A cave in the Philippines yielded teeth and skeletal fragments similar to H. floresiensis that have been labeled H. luzonensis (Détroit et al. 2019). Since these bones are also found on an island, presumptive sea faring ability would be evident. Additional names proposed but not widely adopted include H. gautengensis (for South African skull fragments; Curnoe 2010), H. bodoensis (for a set of African skulls; Roksandic et al. 2022), H. rhodesiensis (for a set of African skulls that includes skulls of H. bodoensis; Grün, et al. 2020), H. cepranensis (a partial skull from Italy; Manzi et al. 2001), H. longi (a skull from China; Ni et al. 2021), and H. tsaichangensis (a mandible fragment from Taiwan; Chang et al. 2015). Most mysteriously of all, a handful of teeth from the Denisova Cave in Siberia were found to contain a genome sequence distinct from both H. sapiens and Neandertals (Reich et al. 2010). Subsequently, a mandible from Tibet was found to match this genome (Chen et al. 2019). An isolated tooth in Laos was judged to belong to the same taxon based on morphological comparison (Demeter et al. 2022). Otherwise, this group, known only as “Denisovans,” has an unknown fossil history. III. CREATIONIST ASSESSMENTS OF THE HOMININ FOSSIL RECORD With so many named taxa that cannot be classified as human or nonhuman by their associated cultural remains, creationists often turn to morphology-based methods to gain insight into the relationships of these taxa to known humans or apes. In the 1990s, when trained anthropologists began publishing creationist perspectives on hominins, the situation was relatively clear: hominins could be classified as human-like or ape-like based on skeletal characteristics. A. The “Lubenow Core Humans” We may refer to Neandertals, H. erectus, and H. sapiens in a category we call “Lubenow core humans,” after creationist Marvin Lubenow, whose judgment that these three represented true humans was popularized in his influential book Bones of Contention (Lubenow 1992, 2004). The Lubenow core definitely expands our understanding of skeletal variability among humans. The skulls of Neandertals, while having a larger cranial capacity than the average human, are nevertheless much lower and broader, with a heavy brow ridge (supraorbital torus) and no chin (mental eminence). H. erectus skulls are even more different, with an average cranial capacity about two thirds that of H. sapiens, resulting in a much smaller and more compact skull. Like Neandertals, H. erectus also has a prominent brow ridge and lacks a chin. Neandertal long bones in the arms and legs tend to be shorter than corresponding bones in H. sapiens, but Neandertal bones tend to be much thicker than H. sapiens (Trinkaus 1983). This gives rise to their image as “stockier” or “more robust” than modern people. In H. erectus, the skeletal elements do not differ so strikingly from H. sapiens as Neandertal bones do, even as their skulls are the most different of all. While Neandertals and H. erectus skeletons look remarkably similar to those of H. sapiens, the skeletons of species assigned to Australopithecus differ markedly in the anatomy of the skull, arms, and shoulders. With a vastly lower cranial capacity measuring roughly one-third the size of modern humans, steeply sloped braincase, heavy brow ridge and somewhat prognathous muzzle, Austalopithecus skulls are readily distinguishable from those of the Lubenow core. Additionally, the longer forearms, upward-deflected shoulder blade, and curved phalanges of Australopithecus are adaptations to climbing (Asfaw et al. 1999, Green and Alemseged 2012). Below the waist, the anatomy appears to be more suited for upright locomotion than knuckle-walking, as indicated by the angle that the femur forms with the tibia and the torsion or twisting of the metatarsals (Harcourt-Smith 2014). The pelvis also is considerably more rounded than the flat pelves of quadrupedal apes, although it is not as bowlshaped as those in members of the Lubenow core (e.g., Berge and Goularas 2010). Thus, Australopithecus was understood as creatures with a unique combination of characteristics not found in any living creatures, human or ape. Since they clearly differed from humans, and because their skulls resembled apes more than they do human skulls, it seemed reasonable to regard these species as extinct apes (Hartwig-Scherer 1998). Agreement among young-age creationists on this general outline of Australopithecus as ape and the Lubenow core as human still left some details to disagree about. Numerous fragmentary taxa were known at the time from scant evidence. The KNM ER 1470 skull (H. rudolfensis), for example, was seen as an ape by some (Mehlert 1999) and human by others (Cuozzo 1977, Lubenow 2004). Some designated H. habilis as more ape-like than Australopithecus and therefore not human (Hartwig-Scherer 1998), while others believed H. habilis was an artificial group incorporating both human and ape fossils (Lubenow 2004; Rupe and Sanford 2017). Given the incomplete state of the evidence from these fossils, it is not surprising that opinions on these matters differ. B. Further Developments Between the first (1992) and second (2004) editions of Bones of Contention, little had changed in terms of the hominin taxa known to the scientific community. This situation changed dramatically as paleoanthropology entered a renaissance that continues to the present, with a significant number of new taxa identified (including Au. ROSS, BRUMMEL, AND WOOD Human History: From Adam to Abraham 2023 ICC 72
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