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  2. Bioko and Afar are both good candidates for AAT location

Re: Bioko and Afar are both good candidates for AAT location

Mario Petrinovic <mario.petrinovic1@...>
 

        You are actually mentioning arguments against Bioko.

        First, as I can read in Wikipedia, Bioko became separated from mainland only 10 kya.

        But, it doesn't matter, your main idea is the idea of isolation. Take a look at Tusco-Sardinian island, where Oreopithecus lived. As soon as this island connected to mainland, the mainland ecology wiped off the ecology of this island. Take a look at Galapagos, or Sulawesi. Find any place on Earth where island fauna managed to survive after the contact with mainland fauna. Simply, mainland fauna is more competitive, and island fauna doesn't have a chance in confrontation with mainland fauna. Plus, you have to be in contact with predators, otherwise you will not know how to deal with them.

        Regarding "Baboon Marker", we have Trahilos footprints on Crete, 5.6 mya. So, humans evolved before that. How old should be "Baboon marker"?

        Our cooling mechanism is adapted to breeze. Breeze you have on any coast. Breeze keeps humans cold. Also, salt crystals damage fur. Damaged fur cannot perform cooling protection, because it cannot keep the layer of cold air around body. So, if it cannot perform cooling function, then it is just an unnecessary weight.


On 30.3.2020. 23:18, Allan Krill wrote:

Bioko and Afar are both good candidates for AAT location.  
Arguments for Bioko as opposed to Afar:
1. Bioko was and still is an island, without large predators. An easy place for apes to be isolated suddenly by accident, and a safe place to evolve over a very long time scale, many million years.
2. Bioko is in the range of chimpanzees. The Last Common Ancestor (LCA) of humans and chimpanzees could easily get isolated there, but not in Afar.
3. Humans never got infected by the Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV) which Elaine Morgan called the "Baboon Marker". I think all primates in east and south Africa were exposed to SIV, but not some of the primates in western Africa, and not the ones on Bioko.
4. The sun is always very strong in Afar, but Bioko is almost always cloudy. I think an aquatic ape in Afar would not lose its body hair, which is important for sun protection. 
But again, I agree, that Afar and Bioko are both good possibilities. 

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