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Episode 2 continued the strong evolutionary thread of episode 1 and the
importance of natural selection was emphasized as it showed Homo habilis,
Homo rudolfensis and Paranthropus boisei in direct competition with each
other.
I have decided to ignore the silliness of some of the acting, the
occasional corny costumes and the odd role Winston makes for himself,
strolling through the African savanna 2mya; if you do this, then what is
left is very rewarding indeed.
Here are some highlights from this evening's broadcast:
1. We often think of early humans having to be wary of lions, but the
program depicts - through digitally-created images - sabre-toothed tigers
and other megafauna now extinct which brought home to me how perilous life
was.
2. The leader of the habilis band is depicted as being slain by a lion
and the difficulty it causes the survivors in replacing him - although it
was less for the quick-witted habilis with their less specialized body
shape and sexual dimorphism than for the less opportunist bosei.
3. A lion is also shown eating a freshly-killed eland carcass and
vultures are mentioned (circling vultures led the observant habilis to the
meat). The lion and the vultures, no matter how much flesh they took,
still left the bone marrow and habilis is depicted smashing open the large
bones and slurping up the marrow.
4. All in all there is much more on diet in this second episode. The
program gives us the usual story: eating meat > larger brains > smarter
species > 'the new world of ideas'. And one big idea was the creation and
adaptive use of stone tools for the first time; this accelerated and
magnified, in an iterative feedback, the way meat eating fostered
intelligence and how intelligence made meat-eating easier. (Habilis is a
favorite of mine!) To me, it is ideas, not diet, not exercise that lies
at the real heart of evolutionary fitness; it is just that our physical
health and dietary well-being are presently in such desperate need of
returning to our Pleistocene roots that we focus most on them, But we
must never neglect ideas and social relationships, otherwise we will go
the way of the bosei.
5. For the bosei, it mentions their consumption of termites; I understood
that termites were being presented as a staple, not just a novelty to the
bosei or a novelty to cause us, the viewers, to elicit 'Yuk!'.
6. Quite a bit on teeth here, too. We hear a lot about bosei's huge jaw
muscles and massive molars used to consume the plentiful but fibrous reeds
and roots. This continues to puzzle me as I would have thought that
anyone eating roots would also be chewing grains of soil and sand and tiny
pebbles and that this would wear away teeth far more than would eating
meat and marrow.
7. Once again, nice depictions of climate change and how it drove natural
selection. This time it shows how the specialized bosei were highly
successful while the climate remained stable and continued to provide
their staples in abundance. But climate change transformed the vegetation
and the specialized bosei succumbed while the dietary 'jack of all trades'
habilis was adaptable and could swing easily from eating the meat of one
animal (which, like bosei, was declining in response to the climate
change) to eating meat of another animal (whose population thrived in the
emerging climate-created niche). Come to think of it - aren't we bringing
on climate change ourselves now, in the 21st century!
8. Habilis are depicted as hyper-active little imps operating in groups
of around 20 in contrast to the lumbering, slothful, predominantly-
vegetarian bosei ('these lovely creatures' as the narrator calls them) in
their groups of 5-8. And habilis were the survivors, so we should be
looking to them rather than bosei or rudolfensis for models today.
9. Bosei, rudolfensis and habilis are all depicted as operating in
families: the habilis hunt in groups, each defends themselves
cooperatively against attack or predation; grooming and play are important
in bonding and in practicing and reinforcing the effectiveness of
cooperation.
Next week: Homo ergaster.
Keith
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