This article is from
Journal of Creation 37(3):36–41, December 2023

Browse our latest digital issue Subscribe

An evolutionist guide to the supposed hominin fossils

A review of: The Human Lineage, 2nd edn by Matt Cartmill and Fred H. Smith
John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ, 2022

reviewed by Peter Line

This is the second edition of The Human Lineage by the authors. The first edition was published in 2009. Matt Cartmill is Professor of Anthropology at Boston University and Professor Emeritus of Evolutionary Anthropology at Duke University. Fred Smith is University Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Illinois State University and Adjunct Professor at the University of Colorado. The blurb on the back of the book describes it as a “comprehensive textbook”, “the best and most current guide to the morphological, geological, paleontological, and archeological evidence for the story of human evolution.” It is said to cover “the entire story of human evolution from its Precambrian beginnings to the emergence of modern humanity”, and to be “indispensable reading for all advanced students of biological anthropology.” My detailed assessment of many of the supposed hominins (i.e. fossils believed by evolutionists to be human ancestors and/or more closely related to humans than to chimpanzees) is published elsewhere.¹

The main body of the book is organized into eight chapters (excluding foreword, prefaces, notes, appendix, bibliography, and index), consisting of 469 pages of text, figures, and tables. With large page size and small text font, it is a comprehensive overview, covering most of the important supposed hominin discoveries. The book contains many useful tables and illustrations, with most of the latter drawn by one of the authors (Cartmill). In the words of the authors, they use

“… informal, taxonomically noncommittal labels for groupings of fossil hominins that are often described as species but that we suspect may be semispecies, multiple species, or vaguely defined chronospecies: Afarenses, Ergasters, Heidelbergs, Neandertals” (p. xx).

In many ways, using these added terms adds even more taxonomic confusion to an already perplexing situation. I will therefore try to avoid using these terms as much as possible, and stick to conventional species names (e.g. Australopithecus afarensis, Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis, etc.), though in some instances the author’s terms are difficult to avoid.

The fossil record

In chapter 1, it is claimed that “the sacred poetry of the Hebrew scriptures, in which the voice of God from the whirlwind reproves would-be geologists”, constrained speculation about the history of the earth throughout most of the history of Western thought (p. 1). This early attack on the creation story in Genesis leaves little doubt as to what sort of interpretation lenses the authors use throughout the book. This chapter includes a discussion of various dating techniques, including some of their limitations, but accepts their validity. Coverage of the problems, flawed assumptions, and unreliability of age-dating methods, with emphasis on radiometric dating, is available elsewhere.^2,3,4

The authors admit that it “is not clear how instructions for making the proteins needed to make DNA could have become encoded in a DNA molecule” (p. 12). The reality is that naturalistic origin-of-life scenarios, which attempt to show how a first self-replicating cell could have been created by unguided and unintelligent processes (i.e. by chance), are thoroughly discredited.^5,6 Leaving aside this giant problem, the rest of the first chapter involves speculations on how life is supposed to have subsequently evolved, from allegedly around 4 Ga ago up to the arrival of mammals. As such, these evolutionary speculations, including the ones in the chapters that follow, are espousing a belief system (some would say a religion) called ‘scientism’. Scientism is described as

“… a scientific worldview that encompasses natural explanations for all phenomena, eschews supernatural and paranormal speculations, and embraces empiricism and reason as the twin pillars of a philosophy of life appropriate for an Age of Science.”⁷

Hoping against hope that a naturalistic origin-of-life explanation will somehow be found in the future is not exactly an embrace of empiricism and reason.

Analyzing evolution

Chapter 2 discusses Darwin’s theory, speciation, species, classification, microevolution and macroevolution, phylogenetics, and other concepts as they relate to evolution. Here, the authors reveal themselves to be lumpers (as opposed to splitters) regarding defining species. Lumpers believe “it is better to recognize as few species as possible” (p. 40).

However, no attempt is made to address the insurmountable problems with evolution theory, which renders human evolution impossible from a scientific viewpoint.⁸ One fatal problem is the waiting time problem; that is, it takes too long for specified DNA mutations to become fixed within a so-called hominin population.⁹ Another catastrophic problem is that the genome has been deteriorating (due to accumulation of genetic mutations) ever since its origin, and the rate of deterioration cannot explain the preservation of information over timespans of millions of years.¹⁰

Throughout the book, independent evolution, i.e. parallel evolution as well as convergent evolution, is used in discussions to explain similar features that cannot be explained by a common ancestor. However, the vanishingly small probability of a feature evolving even once, let alone multiple times, is ignored.

Primates

Chapter 3 includes discussions on the supposed first mammals, allometry in mammals (how body proportions and ratios change with body size changes), and what a primate is. An overview of living primates, as well as outlining anatomical differences in the skulls of humans and apes, is given. Also discussed is a speculative account of the primate fossil record, in terms of alleged evolutionary history, from the supposed stem group to Miocene apes. Rather than forcing a fictitious evolutionary tale on the fossils, one could simply say that extinct primates varied as do living primates.

Australopithecines

For those interested mainly in the supposed fossil hominins, chapter 4 is where it all starts. This chapter summarizes most of the major fossil finds of the so-called hominins not usually assigned to the genus Homo. As such, the focus is on the australopithecines, but not exclusively so. In my view, the australopithecines were simply an extinct apish primate group. The almost obligatory story of the Taung child (figure 1) is rehashed for the umpteenth time in evolutionary literature, early in the chapter, and the reader will be spared further mention of it here.

Photo: Peter Line

In discussing the anatomy of bipedality, the authors curiously state that “the human lower back is not much of an advertisement for intelligent design” (p. 116). In a cursed world, our bodies do not always work optimally, but this is hardly an argument against it being designed.¹¹

The authors lump the genus Paranthropus (i.e. the robust australopithecines) into Australopithecus (p. 129). Concerning the oldest ‘hominin’ contender, Sahelanthropus tchadensis, the authors conclude their analysis of this find by stating:

“In view of the shattered and deformed condition of the skull, and the conflicting claims that have been published about the stratigraphic context of the Sahelanthropus finds … many paleoanthropologists are suspending judgment on the significance of these fossils until more specimens are found” (p. 140).

Three contenders vie for the title of ‘first hominin’: Sahelanthropus tchadensis, Orrorin tugenensis, and Ardipithecus kadabba, with considerable disagreement between proponents as to who wins the ‘honour’ (p. 146). However, the authors write that

“None of these disputes can be settled until we know for sure whether these Late Miocene hominids represent three different species, let alone three different genera” (p. 146).

This last sentence in many ways sums up the state of play regarding much of the alleged hominin fossil record. There are disputes over anatomical reconstructions, dating of specimens, interpretations, classifications, etc. The tale of human evolution has changed numerous times, sometimes at the drop of a dime, and seems to be the only thing ‘evolving’.

The fossils attributed to Australopithecus anamensis are said to be the “oldest fossils that all experts acknowledge as hominin” (p. 146). Australopithecus afarensis (e.g. the famous ‘Lucy’) is presented as a species in a ‘classification muddle’ (p. 152), mainly because of a find known as the Burtele foot. The latter had a grasping, hand-like foot, like Ardipithecus, but supposedly lived a million years later, at the same time and place (Ethiopia) as A. afarensis (pp. 146, 152). The authors cite evidence “hinting that ‘A. afarensis’ had retained some limited capacity for abducing its big toe to enhance the grasping ability of the foot” (p. 168). Perhaps the Burtele foot bones belonged to A. afarensis. That would explain the two different types of fossil footprints found at the Laetoli, Tanzania site.¹² Cartmill and Smith cite expert Russell Tuttle, who argues that the footprints at Site G “are like those of modern humans and could not have been made by the long-toed feet of A. afarensis” (p. 182). The simplest explanation is that they were made by humans, as were the footprints at Site S, but that the ape-like footprints from Site A were made by A. afarensis.¹³ As the Laetoli footprint-bearing stratum has been dated to 3.66 Ma, no evolutionary paleoanthropologist will admit that the Site G and S footprints were made by humans, as that would collapse their human evolution storyline.

There are also questions about whether the big male KSD-VP-1/1 A. afarensis skeleton represents a different species (p. 172). In my opinion, the KSD-VP-1/1 A. afarensis skeleton likely represents Homo erectus, but, because of its supposed early age of 3.6 Ma, this is a possibility evolutionists cannot entertain,¹⁴ for similar reasons as above.

In this chapter, and the ones that follow, the authors present contrasting views on specimens and/or species from different experts, as well as their own opinion. One suggestion is that Kenyanthropus platyops (figure 2) may represent a mere variant of A. afarensis (p. 154). There are indications that Australopithecus bahrelghazali “can be encompassed within the range of variation” of A. afarensis (p. 153). Some experts have dismissed Australopithecus sediba “as just a slightly derived (and unexpectedly late) descendant or representative” of A. africanus (p. 160).

Photo: Peter Line

On this topic, in a recent paper titled “Reappraising the palaeobiology of Australopithecus”, paleoanthropologist Zeresenay Alemseged reduced the number of Australopithecus species to ‘probably’ five (i.e. A. afarensis, A. africanus, A. garhi, A. platyops, and A. sediba).¹⁵ In the Cartmill and Smith book, the fossils attributed to Australopithecus anamensis are said to be the “oldest fossils that all experts acknowledge as hominin” (p. 146). Alemseged sinks Australopithecus anamensis, as well as Australopithecus bahrelghazali and Australopithecus deyiremeda, into A. afarensis. And he considers Paranthropus (i.e. the robust australopithecines, usually considered an evolutionary dead end) a monophyletic genus.¹⁵ He thinks Australopithecus prometheus is best explained by intraspecific variation in Australopithecus africanus, and renames Kenyanthropus platyops to Australopithecus platyops.¹⁵

Hence, if you are looking for stability and certainty, it is unlikely to be found in the tale of human evolution. This is further illustrated in the comments of Bernard Wood, a doyen of evolutionary paleoanthropology, and Alexis Uluutku. In a recent American Scientist article, they give their opinion on popular evolutionary narratives, e.g. on supposedly

“… how, when, and why our human ancestors’ posture became upright, their gait became bipedal, their diet shifted from vegetarian to a combination of meat and plants, and their brains enlarged.”¹⁶

They state:

“Although a narrative of this type would look like an accurate account of human evolution, it would almost certainly differ from the real evolutionary history. Instead, this article will lay out reasons for thinking the existing human fossil record is incomplete in almost all respects, with little chance that any narrative explanation offered today can be the right one. If the human evolutionary story were a play or a novel, many of its characters would be absent, misrepresented, or poorly developed, and the plot would have many holes.”¹⁶

Homo habilis and Homo erectus

Chapter 5 is about Homo habilis (figure 3) and Homo erectus, as well as some odd fossil finds, e.g. Homo floresiensis and Homo naledi. Of interest is them mentioning that the OH 8 foot, originally assigned to H. habilis, is “probably of Australopithecus boisei” (p. 198), a robust australopithecine. Also, the type specimen of H. habilis (OH 7) was early on accommodated within Australopithecus africanus by some experts (p. 199). They mention that, apart from a bigger brain, the famous KNM ER 1470 skull “does not differ much from some [a]ustralopithecines” (p. 204). The 1470 skull is sometimes assigned to Homo rudolfensis when H. habilis is defined in a more restrictive manner. In specimens attributed to H. habilis, associations between craniodental and postcranial bones are rare. Where they are present (e.g. OH 62 and KNM-ER 3735), the remains are described as ‘exasperatingly incomplete’, and, if anything, their limb proportions are like Australopithecus afarensis, or even more ape-like (p. 209).

Photo: Peter Line

Concerning the classification of H. habilis, the authors state that they “would personally prefer to retain them in a paraphyletic genus Australopithecus until more is known about their anatomy and phylogeny” (p. 214). My assessment is that H. habilis appears to be a phantom species, i.e. a composite species made up of mostly australopithecine remains, but also a few Homo erectus remains, that have been bundled together and marketed as a species of ‘apeman’. Other evolutionists have also suggested that H. habilis fossils should be removed from the genus Homo. Wood and Collard, in 1999, recommended that H. habilis should be transferred to Australopithecus, reasoning:

“H. habilis and H. rudolfensis (or Homo habilis sensu lato for those who do not subscribe to the taxonomic subdivision of ‘early Homo’) should be removed from Homo. The obvious taxonomic alternative, which is to transfer one or both of the taxa to one of the existing early hominin genera, is not without problems, but we recommend that, for the time being, both H. habilis and H. rudolfensis should be transferred to the genus Australopithecus.”¹⁷

Concerning H. erectus, the authors point out the different views, with some wanting to split Homo erectus into multiple species, whereas others “argue that even the species H. erectus is one species too many, and contend that all these early humans should be formally sunk into our own species, H. sapiens” (p. 217). The book gives a brief history of H. erectus, including the find of the first specimen in Java, Indonesia in 1891, as well as the later discovery (and loss in World War II) of Peking Man in China. The authors then discuss many of the other important finds since then, including the Dmanisi specimens from Georgia, and are quite detailed in this.

Of interest is that the authors admit to assigning the Kocabaş cranium from Turkey to the Heidelbergs (i.e. associated with Homo heidelbergensis) in the first edition of the book, even though it was attributed to H. erectus by those who published the paper on it (p. 264). An influence in that decision was the alleged date of around 0.51 to 0.49 Ma. However, when a new date of 1.1 Ma was found, they subsequently attributed the Kocabaş cranium to H. erectus (p. 264). Not only does this illustrate how the alleged ages of some of these fossils are fluid, but also how the assigned geological age influences species attribution. It also brings up the issue as to why H. erectus and H. heidelbergensis are classified as different species, apart from evolutionary propaganda. The authors state:

“The distinctiveness of H. ergaster, H. antecessor, H. georgicus, H. gautengensis and even H. heidelbergensis (see Chapter 6) from H. erectus, or of Heidelbergs from Neandertals, is far from unequivocally demonstrated by the pertinent fossil record. Increased knowledge may prove that some or all of these taxonomic designations are valid, but none of them are conclusively supported by currently available facts” (p. 276).

This chapter also discusses Homo floresiensis, better known as the hobbit, from the Indonesian island of Flores. The authors discuss three models to explain the strange fossils; the insular dwarfed H. erectus model, the pathological modern human model, and the pre-Erectine hominin model (i.e. they evolved from a pre-H. erectus ancestor) (p. 271–272). From this they state, “we incline towards interpreting it as a late survivor of a pre-Erectine offshoot from the base of the human genus” (p. 272).

Homo naledi from the Rising Star cave system in South Africa is also discussed. Their view is that “the humans from Rising Star show no particular affinities to any other group of early Homo and that their designation as a separate species is probably justified” (p. 274). My view is that in both instances one is dealing with H. erectus-like individuals, with some members of the group suffering from a pathology, most likely cretinism.^18,19 I consider H. erectus individuals to have been early post-Flood humans that were robustly built,²⁰ as were the Homo heidelbergensis and Neanderthal individuals covered in the subsequent two chapters.

Homo heidelbergensis

Chapter 6 is about supposed hominins associated with the evolutionary geological age known as the Middle Pleistocene. Hence, these fossils are often called ‘Middle Pleistocene hominins’. They are also known as Homo heidelbergensis—when broadly defined. The authors refer to them more loosely as Heidelbergs, and state they “will focus mainly on specimens and sites between ca. 500 Ky and 200 Ky in age” (p. 281). A detailed coverage of the fossils is given, whether from Eurasia or Africa.

As indicated earlier, the fragility of H. heidelbergensis as a species is illustrated by the many specimens in it that were previously (or still are) assigned to other taxonomic groups, usually H. erectus. Take the Ceprano cranium from Italy. Initially dated at approximately 0.8 Ma, it was considered as the earliest European H. erectus (p. 296), or as belonging to Homo antecessor (p. 297) (figure 4). The latter is a rather shaky category also, at least according to the authors (p. 267). It was later ‘dated’ to a geological age only about half as old (p. 297), which, it was said, “pushes the specimen squarely into the Heidelberg time frame” (p. 267). As stated by the authors, “Accordingly, recent studies have emphasized Ceprano’s more derived features and sought to label it as a Heidelberg” (p. 297); i.e. as part of the H. heidelbergensis taxon.

Photo: Peter Line

The Ngandong crania from Java, Indonesia, are regarded as late-surviving H. erectus by many (pp. 313, 327), but are covered in this chapter on the Heidelbergs. These fossil crania are said to “present perplexing problems in terms of both taxonomy and chronology” (p. 313). Because of morphological similarities they are regarded as reflecting “regional continuity” to “earlier Javan Erectines” (p. 314). According to the authors, the “current date estimates for these archaic-looking fossils are surprisingly late, even if we group them with the Heidelbergs” (p. 314). At the end of the Heidelberg chapter, Cartmill and Smith write:

“A quick review of all the specimens described in this chapter will show that there are no unique defining characters for Heidelbergs—just various mosaics of features that are not the same for all regions, or even for all specimens within a region” (p. 330).

They further state that it “is also not clear that the species H. heidelbergensis has any practical utility in classification” (p. 330). Later in the book, they advance the view that most of the specimens discussed in the Heidelbergs chapter, including the Ngandong remains, should be designated as a subspecies of Homo sapiens (pp. 467–468). In my opinion, H. heidelbergensis appears to have been a species name used simply to fill a supposed evolutionary taxonomic vacuum; i.e. as a transitional form between Homo sapiens (modern humans) and H. erectus, a vacuum that never existed. Like us, they were fully human, as were members of H. erectus. They all belong to the same species.

Neanderthals

The focus of chapter 7 is the Neanderthals, and it is quite detailed, reflecting the abundance of material available on these specimens. A minimum of about 500 Neanderthal individuals were said to be known at the time of writing, “ranging from relatively complete skeletons to fragments of a single bone” (p. 339). The Neanderthals, especially the European ones, are said to exhibit “a strikingly cold-adapted body build”, “with short limbs, a deep wide trunk, and large body masses for their relatively short stature” (p. 368). It is said that

“… even very young Neandertals show features of skeletal anatomy and shape that distinguish them from similar modern children and foreshadow the morphology of Neandertal adults” (p. 375).

However, on whether Neanderthals and modern humans were separate species, the authors state that “If we adopt a strict biological-species definition, then the two were not separate species” (p. 407). Towards the end of the book, they opine that “Neandertals should be considered a human subspecies—Homo sapiens neanderthalensis” (p. 467). Also, the authors acknowledge that

“Recent reassessments of Neandertal cognition and technology … have undermined the long-standing belief that Neandertals differed qualitatively from early moderns in cognitive capacities” (p. 406).

There is also a relatively brief section on the Denisovans in this chapter. The authors’ list of candidate Denisovans includes the Ngandong specimens from Java, as well as specimens from China, such as Dali, Xuchang, Harbin, and Jinniushan, but it is said that “none of these fossils have so far yielded macromolecules that can be used to test for Denisovan affinities” (p. 382).

Modern humans

The last chapter is about modern humans or ‘early’ modern humans. As with the other chapters, the authors give a detailed overview of the fossil evidence. Concerning this, they state that

“… in southern and northern Africa, East Asia, Australasia, and Europe, early modern populations retained a few morphological characteristics that evidently derived from local archaic peoples” (p. 465).

They discuss several models of modern human origins, and believe that the facts are best explained by the Assimilation model (p. 468). What this does indicate is that the ‘modern’ humans and robust (‘archaic’) humans did interbreed, and so had to be of the same biological species.

Conclusion

The Human Lineage summarizes a lot of information and is not a light read. The authors have put a lot of effort into the book, and their knowledge in this area is considerable. However, their evolutionary worldview is incorrect, and so a lot of the discussions in the book are on information interpreted according to a false belief system, limiting its usefulness. To someone aware of this limitation, and who has a keen interest in human origins, The Human Lineage can be a useful reference source on the fossils. Apart from this, I do not recommend the book.

Related Media

Did Humans Evolve From Ape-like Ancestors?