What is it about?
Fossil-hunting paleo-anthropologists generally assume that the australopith fossils are more closely related to us than to the African great apes gorillas, chimps or bonobos. I show that this an example of unscientific anthropo-centrism (human-based interpretations): they do find fossil relatives of orangutans (great apes in Asia), but anthropocentrically believe all apelike fossils in Africa are not related to gorillas or chimpanzees, but to humans. This is not only statistically impossible, but detailed comparisons show that East-African australopiths (e.g. Australopithecus afarensis & boisei) resemble gorillas more than chimps or humans, and South-African australopiths (e.g. Au.africanus & robustus) resemble chimps more than humans or gorillas.
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Why is it important?
I hope my work will make the study of anthropology more scientifically-based & more easily to understand.
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This page is a summary of: African ape ancestry, Human Evolution, June 1990, Springer Science + Business Media,
DOI: 10.1007/bf02437246.
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