Quote:
Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b
Inform her that throughout our evolution, meat has been the main power behind the development of our big brains -- or would she prefer to still be an Australopithecus Robustus, hoping some other animal didn't eat her?
|
I understand your point completely Paul but
Robustus wasn't one of our direct ancestors, it was one of the Hominid species that co-existed with our direct ancestor
Homo Habilis. Well that seems to be the current scientific consensus anyway (when I was younger it was believed that Australopithecus Africanus and Robustus co-existed). It is fairly certain that we and Robustus both descended from the more gracile lines of Australopithecus but our line didn't have the big sagittal crests that Robustus and Australopithecus Boisei had (needed to attach those big herbivore jaw muscles to the top of the skull).
I agree with you on the brain development point. Even though Robustus probably had a very basic level of tool use they almost certainly never developed the use of fire or spoken language before they died out leaving no descendants.