Timurlengia

Introduction Transitional hominin fossils have been a useful line of evidence in reconstructing the evolutionary history of our species, as such they pose a large thorn in the sides of young-earth creationists, who would rather believe humans are unrelated to other animals. Young-earth creationists have attempted to discredit transitional hominin fossils by claiming they are either misidentified ape or fossils, modern human remains or even intentional forgeries. Dr. Jack Couzzo is an orthodontist and Christian young-earth creationist. Despite having no formal training in paleoanthropology, Couzzo wrote a book on the topic, where he claimed specimens of Homo neanderthalensis were modern humans who lived for hundreds of years, this longevity causing their unique anatomy. In chapter 16 of his book, Couzzo made several erroneous claims in pursuit of the young-earth creationist cause, regarding the Broken Hill 1 (BH 1) cranium. For those who are unaware, the BH 1 cranium was discovered in

Justifying the separation of H. heidelbergensis and H. rhodesiensis Brief history of Homo heidelbergensis Homo heidelbergensis was described in 1908 by Otto Schoetensack. The holotype consisted of a nearly complete mandible (Mauer 1), discovered a year earlier near the village of Mauer, in South-East Heidelberg, Germany. Schoetensack did not offer a complete description of the mandible, only noting its archaic features such as the weakly developed chin and enormous overall size and robusticity (Schoetensack, 1908). Early on it was believed that the H. heidelbergensis mandible was more primitive and likely ancestral to the geologically younger H. neanderthalensis (MacCurdy, 1909). However, the taxon H. heidelbergensis was not commonly used and the Mauer mandible was generally considered to represent a European form of H. erectus (Campbell, 1972). Comparisons were made between the Mauer 1 mandible and the hominin remains discovered in the Arago Cave in Tautavel, France in 1964