Several times a year, it seems, a fragment of fossilised bone turns up that overthrows what scientists thought they knew about our hominid ancestors (or, come to that, about the dinosaurs). This doesn't, of course, stop them asserting the radically revised picture with all the certainty they attached to the previous one - a certainty that properly belongs to a version of truth a tad more, shall we say, solidly based and likely to last. This time it's Homo Erectus, who is suddenly reshaped as a wide-hipped bighead - more work for the illustrators, who will have to update such gracile images as the one that adorns this post. Fans of the Kinkster, of course, already know all we need to know about Homo Erectus. (I don't recommend it as a ringtone though...)
Nothing to do with Homo Erectus (though perhaps there is a link to Erectus), but mention of the Kinkster reminded me of his quote on a hotshot lawyer he knew, who once got a charge of sodomy reduced to 'following too closely'.
ReplyDeleteIn my experience, "having a larger brain" does not make one more independent of one's parents more quickly.
ReplyDeleteAh Susan - that is very true. Seems rather the reverse in these days of extended education and (in the UK anyway) degree glut...
ReplyDelete