The case for Homo Erectus

[norseman]

The more I read the more I change my mind. The debate over what Bigfoot could be is a lot like the game clue. What was present in the past, that was at the right place and the right time to make the jump to North America? I’ve often argued against Homo Erectus as being too advanced to be a candidate....maybe not.

 

1) Topography

Homo Erectus was the most wide spread species of human to ever roam the Earth before modern Homo Sapiens left Africa roughly 100,000 years ago. They were as Far East as China and Indonesia and even built rafts and sailed to Flores Island. We have no evidence of them in North America, other than a recent mastodon butcher site in California 130,000 years old. Along with other controversial sites like Calico site.

 

2) Technology 

It would seem that how good your technology was as a Erectus was based on where you lived in the world. Oldowan technology was the beginning technology that was replaced in Africa by Acheulean technology. But not in Eurasia. So it would seem this new technology was developed after part of the population left Africa. The farther away Erectus got from Africa it seems the more primitive tools became. Hobbit tools on Flores Is are very primitive by comparison. The Hobbit lived on Flores Island from 1 mya to 50k ya. Fire making too seemed to have fits and starts concerning Erectus. Evidence goes back 600,000 ya that Peking man a eastern variant of Homo Erectus used fire. So for almost 500,000 years Homo Erectus in Asia did not use fire. Or at least we see no evidence for it. Is it possible that if Homo Erectus made it to North America that it arrived without the knowledge of fire? And only the most rudimentary knowledge of stone tools?  And if separated from others of its kind for 1 million years? It could have even regressed further?

 

3) Morphology 

Homo Erectus for the most part was roughly the same size and shape as modern humans. Although it seems they had a faster growth than modern humans as shown in the Turkana boy. But there was vast variances between sub species of Homo Erectus with the most glaring one being the hobbit on Flores Island that had evolved within 300,000 years much smaller known as “Island dwarfism”. Is there a possibility that this may have had an opposite affect for Homo Erectus going North over the Berengia land bridge? Bergmann’s rule is observed in many species including modern humans.

 

4) Evidence in North America 

The best evidence we have is a partial brow ridge found in Chapala lake area in Mexico. Although it’s largely been ignored. Other evidence includes the mastodon butcher site and various controversial tool sites claimed to be 200,000 years old or more.

 

5) Cannibalism

We know Erectus practiced cannibalism. We know that legends about the Ebu Gogo on Flores Island claimed they would steal and eat human babies. I was recently reading Indian accounts in the premium section of the BFF written by Kathy Strain in which she documented Indian legends of Sasquatch stealing and eating children. It’s an uncanny parallel. 

 

6) Gigantopethicus vs. Homo Erectus

It would appear that Gigantopethicus was mostly a vegetarian, and primarily ate bamboo. It was also very very large. And there is some controversy as to whether it was bipedal or not? Is it the best fit to make such a trek to North America? Or would Homo Erectus be the better fit? The “Ebu Gogo” literally means the “Grandmother who eats anything”. Again the Yakima tribe has similar tales about Bigfoot eating things they would not touch. 

 

7) Hammer and anvil

Just like the mastodon butcher site, I found a Elk femur that had been cracked open to get to the bone marrow. And while I cannot rule a hunter messing around I find it unlikely. It was found in NE Washington very close to Canada and Idaho in the Selkirk mtns.

 

8 ) Not too hot, not too cold.

Homo Erectus had a brain case about half the size of a modern human. So while they are not putting rockets on the moon? They would be considered a brainiac in the animal world. As a modern Chimp is much smaller braincase than Erectus is. And I would consider Chimps to be very smart. Is this why we cannot find one? Do they attempt to cover the evidence of their passing? Do they ritualistically eat their dead and bury the rest? Can they pick and choose when to start a fire or flake stone? Or have they evolved to not longer need them. A regression?

 

Resources:

 

http://www.animalplanet.com/tv-shows/monster-week/monster-articles/the-legend-of-the-ebu-gogo/

 

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-oct-03-adfg-bones3-story.html

 

http://calicoarchaeology.com/

 

https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-americas-first-humans-20170426-story.html

 

http://factsanddetails.com/world/cat56/sub360/entry-2754.html

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergmann's_rule

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[norseman]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hueyatlaco

[hiflier]

Camels originated in North America. A lot of the megafauna that was here did too. The "dumb" ones fell prey to not only to a cataclysmic event but also the Humans who took them down for food and hides. The "smart" ones (or the lucky) managed to avoid both. My question would be then are we barking up the wrong tree by speculating that BF came here from elsewhere? Why couldn't it be that BF originated in North America? A hypothesis like that would sure settle a lot of ancestral dialogue regarding where it came from and how it got here. IOW, maybe it was always here? Sure, no bones in the North American record (yet?) but that hasn't stopped believers so far since the preferred habitats don't appear to be conducive to bone preservation anyway. Lots of rain, acid soils, remote places and lots of organic debris constantly creating layer after layer of material make finding any remains highly unlikely.

 

I know this doesn't fit the record very well but hey, since when have I walk the straight and narrow around here?  

[Catmandoo]

Glaciers are the great erasers. Cycles of glaciation have wiped out histories of habitation by man and beast. We are left with fragments at near shore regions and  at areas that were south of the glacial advances.

[norseman]

37 minutes ago, hiflier said:

Camels originated in North America. A lot of the megafauna that was here did too. The "dumb" ones fell prey to not only to a cataclysmic event but also the Humans who took them down for food and hides. The "smart" ones (or the lucky) managed to avoid both. My question would be then are we barking up the wrong tree by speculating that BF came here from elsewhere? Why couldn't it be that BF originated in North America? A hypothesis like that would sure settle a lot of ancestral dialogue regarding where it came from and how it got here. IOW, maybe it was always here? Sure, no bones in the North American record (yet?) but that hasn't stopped believers so far since the preferred habitats don't appear to be conducive to bone preservation anyway. Lots of rain, acid soils, remote places and lots of organic debris constantly creating layer after layer of material make finding any remains highly unlikely.

 

I know this doesn't fit the record very well but hey, since when have I walk the straight and narrow around here?  

 

Bone fossils are problematic for sure. But we do have a global hominid fossil record and all signs point to Africa as a origin. We also see that the majority of extant apes are also found in Africa.

[NatFoot]

@norseman

 

Interesting hypothesis for sure. My mind first went to, well they aren't hairy enough...but then, although we can recreate the look and shape of a face due to bone structure and musculature, there's no way for us to know just how hairy they were.

 

@hiflier

 

I did not know that we knew for sure that most megafauna originated in North America.

[norseman]

1 hour ago, Catmandoo said:

Glaciers are the great erasers. Cycles of glaciation have wiped out histories of habitation by man and beast. We are left with fragments at near shore regions and  at areas that were south of the glacial advances.

 

As well as rising ocean levels.

3 minutes ago, NatFoot said:

@norseman

 

Interesting hypothesis for sure. My mind first went to, well they aren't hairy enough...but then, although we can recreate the look and shape of a face due to bone structure and musculature, there's no way for us to know just how hairy they were.

 

@hiflier

 

I did not know that we knew for sure that most megafauna originated in North America.

But we know how hairy some modern men are though. And it would stand to reason that Erectus was hairier than that.

[Old Time Lifter]

As far as I've ever read there are no (and never have been) any apes in the New World.  If Bigfoot evolved here they evolved from monkeys down in South America and migrated north.

 

Unless of course they are not primates or they just aren't at all.

[hiflier]

2 hours ago, NatFoot said:

I did not know that we knew for sure that most megafauna originated in North America.

 

I wasn't saying that most megafauna originated in North America, only that camels did. Of course there was megafauna here like elsewhere but the point of having camels originate here was that MAYBE they weren't the only large animal species that did, i.e. Sasquatch? I'm not saying I think that is the case with BF, only throwing it out there since there were and are primates other than Humans in the Western Hemisphere one of them, like in Africa, could possibly be a larger species than the others but hasn't been found in the record. After all monkeys and apes of all sizes are in Africa. If any of these alleged 130,000-250,000 Homo sites in the Northern Hemisphere are true then they got here somehow? OR we simply haven't found out own version of a Western Hemisphere Lucy yet? One thing I've noticed about these finds is that they don't appear to be located in temperate forests as much as in more arid areas which makes sense preservation-wise.

 

One idea is we may have not found all the different kinds of large megafauna that inhabited North America because of things like wetter habitats and, like Catmandoo said, glaciers scraping across the landscape mostly in the northern latitudes. Maybe some of the megafauna locations that we know about were carried by glacial advancement and retreat though I'm sure our scientist do look at such things when they date stuff. I'm not saying BF definitely originated here but I'm more saying that we don't know everything. Especially since we are constantly finding new Homo species in such different places.

Edited March 28, 2019 by hiflier

[starchunk]

A human ancestor is a much better candidate for Bigfoot's predecessor than Giganto, because:

1) Theres no evidence of apes in North America fossil wise, and all the sad attempts to conjecture otherwise prove squat.

2) The odds of a vegetarian ape from a tropical climate, a dietary specialist picking up and traveling across tundra etc, and not starving, freezing or being out competed or predated by creatures better adapted to the climate is frankly just stupid.

[norseman]

4 minutes ago, starchunk said:

A human ancestor is a much better candidate for Bigfoot's predecessor than Giganto, because:

1) Theres no evidence of apes in North America fossil wise, and all the sad attempts to conjecture otherwise prove squat.

2) The odds of a vegetarian ape from a tropical climate, a dietary specialist picking up and traveling across tundra etc, and not starving, freezing or being out competed or predated by creatures better adapted to the climate is frankly just stupid.

 

I pretty much agree. Except that all apes are from Africa and yet somehow Giganto got to SE Asia. So I won’t say it’s impossible. But way way more unlikely.

[MIB]

I don't think they evolved here ... not completely.    It pays to remember that a) there have been 4 periods, not just 1, in the last 2.3 million years when there were land bridges between Asia and North America,  (My guess o' the moment is that no matter what sasquatch proves to be, it crossed over during one of the earlier glacial maxima / sea level minima and has had sufficient time to evolve from whatever form they arrive in to the form they have now. ) and b) populations pushed by extreme conditions evolve more quickly because mutations with even small positive values become highly selected for, and c) small populations do not have the opportunity for mutations to be "buffered out".  

 

Everything adds up in an evolutionary sense.    Given just a little more time, extreme conditions to adapt to, and a very small population, I think it is real possible for bigfoot to have evolved from a shared human ancestor in a few hundreds of thousands of years.   

 

MIB

Edited March 29, 2019 by MIB

[starchunk]

On 3/29/2019 at 6:49 PM, MIB said:

I don't think they evolved here ... not completely.    It pays to remember that a) there have been 4 periods, not just 1, in the last 2.3 million years when there were land bridges between Asia and North America,  (My guess o' the moment is that no matter what sasquatch proves to be, it crossed over during one of the earlier glacial maxima / sea level minima and has had sufficient time to evolve from whatever form they arrive in to the form they have now. ) and b) populations pushed by extreme conditions evolve more quickly because mutations with even small positive values become highly selected for, and c) small populations do not have the opportunity for mutations to be "buffered out".  

 

Everything adds up in an evolutionary sense.    Given just a little more time, extreme conditions to adapt to, and a very small population, I think it is real possible for bigfoot to have evolved from a shared human ancestor in a few hundreds of thousands of years.   

 

MIB

Very fair assessment, but Giganto, hell no.

[guyzonthropus]

I would think that if a significant degree of their evolution took place on this continent, then they have been here a lot longer than that... They could have been here during the oligocene period, along with a large number of other really big mammals and birds. It could well have been the periods of glaciation that lead to their greater size, perhaps along with the advantages size lends when dealing with big predators such as the short faced bears, smilodons, and terror birds, just to list a few. I'd bet they were here long before the(we) hairless dwarves arrived, developing in accord with the shifting environmemts, thereby becoming adaptive generalist, using what brainpower they have to better navigate the hazards as well as regional seasonal abundances.

at least it's one possibility......

[MIB]

^^^^ Not necessarily.   Read up on punctuated equilibrium.    The idea is that genetic shifts occur rather rapidly with long periods of little to no change in between.    It contrasts Darwin's idea of slow, steady change.   Generally the changes are pushed by changes in conditions that drive natural selection ... abrupt temperature or moisture changes in particular.   As we are learning, glacial epochs sometimes set in within a decade rather than across centuries as previously believed.    The megafauna died out because they could not adapt to new conditions ... perhaps changing the food sources as much as it affected the animals directly.   (Human arrival didn't help much, either.)    One of my best guesses is that sasquatch, as a megafauna human form, survived is because they were able to do so by conscious behavioral adaptation (hey George, it's gettin' too hot, lets walk up to Canada) rather than relying on much slower biological adaptation ... adaptation that other species found too slow to cope with change in temperature thus change in plant communities that underlie the animals portion of the food web.

 

Unproven, but biologically sound. 

 

MIB