#primate evolution

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

I have lived to see the day! 💖🙌

All through my youth and young adulthood--well into grad school and beyond--every popular science program on TV and magazine article defined human intelligence by language, and defined language by fluent speech.

Meanwhile, I was growing up within a culture that included kids with cerebral palsy, who couldn't speak clearly. And I was learning to sign an invented pidgin (Signed Exact English) to communicate with Deaf friends.*

I always felt like all that popular science media was leaving me and my friends out of the human race. I wondered if that would ever change as I yelled at the TV again, and again.

(Aside: this casual assumption that a certain "standard" set of mental and physical traits can be used to define Capital-H-Humanity, while forgetting the very existence of everyone who doesn't "measure up," is the definition of Ableism. Disablism, otoh, acknowledges that disabled people exist, but it's the belief that we shouldn't.)

Well, just now, I saw a YouTube short from NPR that puts gesture on an equal level with vocalization in the evolution of language.

Happy day!

*I learned that S.E.E. is not actually a true language when I was about 16 or 17, and set about to learn true ASL.

[is-the-primate-vid-cute]

Would humans of been able to reproduce with other species of human?

Not only are different species of human capable of mating and having offspring, but back when multiple species of human walked the earth, we did! Despite Neanderthals being extinct, traces of their DNA can be found in virtually all modern people even though the actual interbreeding would have been done by Europeans. Interbreeding between early homo sapiens (our species!) And other species of humans such as denisovans was so extensive that we wouldn't be the same humans we are today without them.

It is possible that our extensive history of interbreeding with other human species is a large part of our species being so widespread across the globe, strengthening our genetic makeup and diversifying our traits to aid our survival. In fact, traits such as the ability to survive at high altitudes have been credited to non-homo sapien human ancestors.

There is a ton of interesting info on this subject! I recommend doing some googling and skimming some articles, you'll find everything from Wikipedia, to simple info, to academic publications on the subject.

[is-the-primate-vid-cute]

Why do humans have a prominent nose point when most other primates don't?

It seems to be a mixture of warmer climate/living in temperature controlled environments and reduced sense of smell. Wider nostrils allow the air to warm more as it moves into the head cavities so this is beneficial in colder environments. This theory had been said to explain why larger noses are more common in colder climates, and why smaller/flatter noses are more common in warmer climates. Of course it isn't quite as simple as this-- larger noses can easier store moisture in the mucous membranes and having a protruding nose keeps excess moisture (such as water running down the face) out.

While many primates have evolved within specific evolutionary niches, humans have spent hundreds of thousands of years becoming the most widespread and diverse primate species on the planet, and we are incredibly adaptable. As such, our bodies favour specialized features a bit less and versatile ones more so that we can survive a broad range of scenarios and climates. This can make the exact purpose of a feature hard to pin down with absolute certainty, but makes us an absolutely fascinating species.

What can your nose teach you about your ancestors, and how does it impact your daily life? One little feature of unexpected adaptability I enjoy is that my nose is shaped so the bone protrudes in just the right spot to hold the bridge of my glasses. Noses, as we have discussed with proboscis monkeys, also impact your voice, like an amplifier. Perhaps as we evolved complex speech a protruding nose was helpful for being heard! While the leading theories of the human nose are temperature related, there are many other potential factors at play in shaping our species distinct look.

Here's an interesting article about the evolution of the human face

Here's a study showing we have less intense sense smell than other ancient humans and apes

Here's a study about human noses and climate adaptability

[is-the-primate-vid-cute]

i know you're not a paleo expert but im curious if you have ThoughtsTM - why are we so much bigger than chimps and bonobos and what seems like all our hominid ancestors? were just. so freaking huge comparitively, but i cant think of what advantage that would give us that we couldnt have held on to with keeping climbing???

Being large, as a species, is a gamble. It can be very advantageous in many niches but it also means more food is required to sustain you, gestation requires more resources, and it generally can cause some issues. In the case of gigantopithecus, large size was its downfall when resources became scarce.

Different builds have different advantages. When early hominids were in thick forest habitats being small and stocky would have been most advantageous, but being tall and slender may have been a more advantageous build for those on the plains participating in persistence hunting and long distance treks on flat ground. As hominids evolved closer to the species we are now, variety became important for allowing us to adapt to our circumstances. The fossil record is sparce and incomplete, but lifestyle shifts such as moving towards running and long distance walking are accompanied by species wide growth spurts.

We're an interesting large species because unlike gorillas we aren't built to be so physically powerful and strong. Instead, part of our large size may be that the larger we are, the larger brain mass we can sustain. Our brains love consuming calories, so our brain/body sizes may be in a positive feedback loop evolution wise.

So basically: large body = larger brain, longer strides, better endurance, plus we have more size variation. Modern humans can range in size over a foot in height and over 100 pounds in weight while still being perfectly healthy; that means that theres always someone shaped and sized just right for every niche and lifestyle.

[is-the-primate-vid-cute]

Whenever I try to eat foods like whole fruits and bone-in meats, I have to wonder; why do humans and many primates have flat faces? It seems to make eating certain foods more difficult than it needs to be compared to longer snouts that can reach into corners and hold objects in place. Does it have something to do with picking things apart with our hands?

It has everything to do with the hands! If you watch other species of primates eat you'll see that manipulating food with the fingers (and sometimes feet) is an important part of the eating process. Sure it makes things messy if you try to go hands free, but our strong, dexterous hands pick up the snout slack.

[technewsdirectory]

Lemur’s Under-Branch Crawl A Step Towards Tarzan

http://dlvr.it/M61v1b

[temporal-index]

We must, however, be acutely aware of the dangers of using old rules to tell new tales. This is compatible with a larger refusal to pretend that science is either only discovery, which erects a fetish of objectivity, or only invention, which rests on crass idealism. We both learn about and create nature and ourselves. We must also see the biosocial sciences from the point of view of the process of resolving the contradiction between, or the gap between, human reality and human possibility in history. The purpose of the sciences of function is to produce both understanding of meaning and predictive means of control. They show both the given and the possible in a dialectic between the past and the future. Often, the future is given but the possibility of a past. Sciences also act as legitimating meta-languages that produce homologies between social and symbolic systems. That is acutely true for the sciences of the body and the body politic. In a strict sense, science is our myth. That claim does not in any way vitiate the discipline scientific practitioners impose on each other to study the world. We can both know that our bodies, other animals, fossils, and what have you are proper objects for scientific investigation, and remember how historically determined is our part in the construction of the object. It is not an accident of nature that our social and evolutionary knowledge of animals, hominids, and ourselves has been developed in functionalist and capitalist economic terms. Feminists must not expect even arguments that answer clear sexist bias within the sciences to produce adequate final theories of production and reproduction as well. Such theories still elude us, because we are now engaged in a political-scientific struggle to formulate the rules through which we will articulate them. The terrain of primatology is the contested zone. The future is the issue.

Donna Haraway, “Theories of Production and Reproduction” in Simians, Cyborgs, and Women (1991)

[aprilkepnerludgate-blog]

I do not want to write this paper.