Come meet the Family.....

Waves hi to everyone....

A short while back I visited the Smithsonian and took some pictures of what is being presented as part of 'Human evolution" I thought I'd share some of the images I took. I'm sure some of you have seen some if not all of these before. Did we come from apes as is often misquoted or do we have a common ancestor?



AUSTRALOPITHECUS AFARENSIS

PARANTHROPUS BOISEI

HOMO HABILIS

HOMO ERECTUS

HOMO HEIDELBERGENSIS

HOMO NEANDERTHALENSIS

AND

The recent 'Hobbit'
HOMO FLORESIENSIS

reply to post by SLAYER69


Out of them all I think I would like to have a pint with the first example AUSTRALOPITHECUS AFARENSIS, he looks like he knows how to have a good time.
Heck I even have his smile


I love all of our common ancestors
Great pics btw S&F.

reply to post by SLAYER69


HOMO HEIDELBERGENSIS looks like it could be a Distant Relative of the Aborigional People of Australia and the South Pacific islanders If these Scientific renderings can be Proven to be Plausable Reconstructions . Do you believe they are ?

reply to post by SLAYER69

My question about facial reconstruction from a skull, or part of a skull, is always the same. How accurate is it? Has anyone ever reconstructed a face from a skull we already had an image of, and then made the comparison afterward? If so, please link, because I haven't found one yet.

The finished product only approximates actual appearance because the cranium does not reflect soft-tissue details (eye, hair, and skin color; facial hair; the shape of the lips; or how much fat tissue covers the bone). Yet a facial reconstruction can put a name on an unidentified body in a modern forensic case—or, in an archaeological investigation, a face on history.

Source

Nevertheless. I find this whole area of study interesting, but I think we have a lot more to learn.

Oh man. They killed all my old drinking buddies and stuck their preserved heads on a board.

I honestly don't know how accurate the reconstructions are. I've seen drawings and skulls of the various types all my life.

Accuracy? I dunno, I'm glad however somebody tried to flesh them out.

Dare I make a post that could be misunderstood as racist but, isnt it interesting that Erectus resembles an Aboriginal, Heidelbergensis resembles an Sub-Saharan African Man, Neanderthalis resembles a Caucasoid Eurasian Man, and Florensis resembles a Southeast Asian Man, or Oriental Man even?

I wonder if this was the intention of the Sculptor in all of his genius .. or if these are actually the pre-cursor 'races' to our current set of worldly ethnic groups?! Lol. Didn't all four of those simultaneously exist on the Planet Earth for a few thousand years, at least? ...

Erectus has a clean shaven chin with wide nostrils,
Heidelbergensis has Afro-like facial hair,
Neanderthalis has a beard,
Florensis has a clean chin, and long straight black hair slicked back

HMM...

reply to post by Klassified


Well they do it for bodies which are found and have no ID and the work I have seen them do is pretty amazing.
Here is the wiki page showing how it is done and also some photos to show how close they can get.

en.wikipedia.org...

They can work out the muscle mass etc and work around the skull, I think they are pretty close...in my view anyhow

reply to post by runetang


From what I've read the human "Family Tree" is more like a gnarled up angry bush. There are supposed separations between many of them by hundreds of thousands and in some cases millions of years.

reply to post by boymonkey74


Yeah well. back in the day of my youth and early marriage. I'd come stumbling home through the door late from having a few pints with my buddies and I'd come home to the wife like this....


AND

of course she'd give me the look.

reply to post by SLAYER69


That sure is a killer look she has isn't it....lucky she is so small so you can leg it

reply to post by SLAYER69




I find it odd that some of the I presume males? have no hair on their upper lips?

Any reason for that because they can't have had razors! I thought that their

faces would have been much hairier?

lol @ SLAYER..

@ ele, I guess we could be seen as nitpicking or looking too far into these marvelous works of art at this point, lol. At least I could. But, i'm starting to think that the sculptor didn't do as well of a job as humanly possible

Zanti Misfit
reply to post by SLAYER69

 

HOMO HEIDELBERGENSIS looks like it could be a Distant Relative of the Aborigional People of Australia and the South Pacific islanders If these Scientific renderings can be Proven to be Plausable Reconstructions . Do you believe they are ?

Genetic studies have shown that Australian Aboriginals have DNA from Denisovan from Siberia.
How's that for "going walk about"
Aboriginies do have some very strong features though such as a robust jaw and prominent brow.
But then there is also Mungo Man who's features are very european 40,000 years ago in south eastern Australia. There is no current evidence of Erectus or other hominids in Australia.

reply to post by Klassified


this was the only really good example I came across, but the end result looks remarkably like the gentleman did when he was alive.
www.thetelegram.com...

blog.dutyandvalour.com...

the first link has a photo of the reconstruction, the second has an actual photo of the soldier. As you pointed out, there are some issues with this technique and it is somewhat subjective and open to artistic interpretation as there is no way to know for sure, especially with extinct hominids, what the skin color really was, how much hair there was, tissue thickness, wrinkles etc. There will be some aspects that are entirely determined by skull shape as well as scarring from muscle attachment points that do give us a pretty good idea of major facial features as well as muscle size.

reply to post by peter vlar

Thanks for finding that. That's the kind of thing I was looking for. The reconstruction isn't bad at all, it does however, accentuate the inherent problems with reconstruction. Especially with ancient skulls.
For those interested...


Still. I have to agree with Slayer...

Accuracy? I dunno, I'm glad however somebody tried to flesh them out.

The reconstructions still give us a rough idea of what they might have looked like.

weirdguy

Zanti Misfit
reply to post by SLAYER69

 

HOMO HEIDELBERGENSIS looks like it could be a Distant Relative of the Aborigional People of Australia and the South Pacific islanders If these Scientific renderings can be Proven to be Plausable Reconstructions . Do you believe they are ?

Genetic studies have shown that Australian Aboriginals have DNA from Denisovan from Siberia.
How's that for "going walk about"
Aboriginies do have some very strong features though such as a robust jaw and prominent brow.
But then there is also Mungo Man who's features are very european 40,000 years ago in south eastern Australia. There is no current evidence of Erectus or other hominids in Australia.

edit on 1-12-2013 by weirdguy because: (no reason given)

Very Interesting , Thanks for pointing that out .

Drags hairy knuckles across the keyboard,

I thought some of you would find this interesting.


Ok, now off to hunt something to eat.

The human reconstructions are pretty accurate because we know how much fat tissue, cartilage etc humans generally have and where it all goes. These may be as close as we can get now and I am also glad someone gave it a go. But don't close the book on this quite yet...actually, it may never be closed! But it is fun to take our.most educated guess

Thanks for sharing bud.

reply to post by SLAYER69


Historicus Aliensarewithusicus