Re: Paleosols of the Turkana Basin

Thank you for a very thorough and well written piece, Phillp. (What's the
actual reference to the paper you cited though?)

I liked your emphasis on the energy-based arguments of habitat and you make
a good case that rainforest would have been a more plausible ancestral home
of Homo than open grasslands.

However, what strikes me is this: Does it have to be one or the other? One
of the clearest long-term effects of aridification on rainforest is their
shrinkage clser to sources of water. Therefore aren't you somewhat
discounting the riparian forest habitat in your quest? Your 7-point summary
at the end of the piece, the one that began "1. Most Ape species live in
rainforest" is, I think, spot on - but it seems clear to me that forest
inhabiting ape species are more likely to stay with forests as they shrink
closer to rivers and lakes than to move out into more open habitats. In
parts of the world which are not arid, it makes sense that humans would
naturally find tropical rainforests suitable places to live but I don't see
anything to suggest that is where the process of hominization took place.
Any model that suggests this, begs the question why did the same process not
work with gibbons, orang-utans, gorillas, chimpanzees or bonobos?

Algis Kuliukas