bipedalist Posted January 10, 2012 BFF Patron Share Posted January 10, 2012 http://blogs.smithso...became-extinct/ Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum comments on the article on his facebook page. I have received a communication from Dr. Meldrum stating that to date, Smithsonian has not YET published his comments to the page....... Hmmm...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bipedalist Posted January 12, 2012 BFF Patron Share Posted January 12, 2012 Update: Dr. Meldrum's comment approved and posted here as comment #1. http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/hominids/2012/01/did-bigfoot-really-exist-how-gigantopithecus-became-extinct/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 A skull, a few jaw bones, teeth, etc. That's it? Yes, that's about it. Connecting these fossils, as an explanation for BF, or any of the multiple variations of hominid-like creatures seen world wide... is no better than any other theory. Just a guess, at this point. In addition... I can't understand how giganto , could ever be determined being a true biped (or not), by what has been found, so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest vilnoori Posted January 21, 2012 Share Posted January 21, 2012 imonacan, I am not sure how much of the skull they have found for giganto, but by the orientation of the eyes and face, and the position of the foramen magnum (the big hole at the base of the skull) they can get an idea just from one skull if the animal was upright or on all fours. However even great apes (non-human) are able to partially go upright at times, some better than others, when their hands are full. Gibbons are particularly adept, and they are a good example of an early, fairly non-specialized ape that precedes fist-walking. Have you seen this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 22, 2012 Share Posted January 22, 2012 With no fossil evidence that would suggest that they were in fact quadruped. Then we should compare the fossil with living animals to see which theory might be best suited for the possibillity for G. blacki for been either a quadruped or bipedal. Looking first ar G.g.gorilla we see that they are often aboreal this is showen best in there life style and foot. As compared to the genus Pongo where the big toe is located futher down the foot than G.g.gorilla. Where the genus Pongo is aboreal. The Gorilla beringe beringe is on average the largest of all the genus Gorilla. It is primarrly terrestral. However it will climb into fruit trees if the branches can carry it weight (the adaptaion of the big toe still has a function to help obtain food) it is capable of running bipedally up to 20 feet (6m). The bigtoe is located futher up on the foot of G.b.beringe (which looks very close to the foot of the genus Homo.) Then the more aboreal G.g.gorilla. So why would a even larger ape that would not be able to climb trees become bipedally then? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
masterbarber Posted January 22, 2012 Admin Share Posted January 22, 2012 I am not sure how much of the skull they have found for giganto, Four lower jaw bones and about a thousand teeth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest TooRisky Posted January 24, 2012 Share Posted January 24, 2012 Giganto is a slow moving, vegetarian quadruped with no reason to leave the Nirvana of the tropical Asian forest.... BF fast moving biped, omnivore, that is nothing like a Giganto... Giganto was put forth incorrectly and also admittedly by a simple conversation that took hold... Giganto has nothing to do with Bf in the least and it is time we stop this tail chasing with it... Giganto IS NOT BF.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 24, 2012 Share Posted January 24, 2012 I think one of the reasons gigantopithecus has been with us so long is because of the large size of both giganto and BF. I don't really think it's a stretch for giganto to evolve into BF over three to five million years. Species do that. A large plant eating ape moving northward into the temperate and then boreal forests of asia would likely alter its diet where bamboo was scarce. Adding meat isn't a big stretch either as many apes eat some meat and even pandas (the most well known bamboo eaters around) do too. However if giganto was quadrupedal then probably it's a poor fit. Without the fossil evidence we just can't know for sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobZenor Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 (edited) Krantz has even said in some of the old documentaries that he thought Giganto was closer to a human than a chimp. Then Giganto would make a logical candidate. It becomes a huge stretch when you suppose that convergent evolution of a relative of orangutans convergently evolving hominid features is a simpler explanation than one of the hominids growing larger. Here is a mandible fragment of one of the Java hominids commonly called meganthropus. How big of a stretch is it for some hominid simply growing larger? I just don't buy the notion that anyone knows how "human" any hominid was a million years ago let alone millions of years ago. The evidence doesn't really tell you that. The idea that bigfoot is too apelike to be a hominid implies that evolution doesn't really apply to humans. That is pretty much the bottom line. There is no justification of the "ape" theory without that bias. People almost universally see themselves as something fundamentally different than an animal. That is where what I consider nonobjective thinking comes from. They often assume they know things about sasqatch to maintain that bias like language abilities and intelligence. We couldn't have a human acting like an animal since we are fundamentally different. It would require that we redefine what it is to be human. That last statement would only be true if you think that humans and our distant ancestors really aren't animals. Edited January 25, 2012 by BobZenor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LAL Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 Krantz thought Giganto was a biped because of the width of the jaw (it would allow passage of a vertical spinal column). The canines are reduced as in hominids. Meldrum has said he thinks bipedalism would be a good way to get strain off the shoulders. Modern apes can walk quite well bipedally - just not for very long. Gibbons are even better at it. What would be wrong with a bipedal orangutan? The common ancestor was probably mostly upright. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest MikeG Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 People almost universally see themselves as something fundamentally different than an animal. Nobody I know thinks like that. I am an animal...........a mammal and a strange ape. So are my kids. And that's the way everyone I know sees themselves too. Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobZenor Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 link Peter Byrne, We think these things are human in form, a hominid form. We don't think they are animals. Grover apparently responding to Byrne. The fact of the matter is this is not an animal that is somewhere between an ape and human. It is flat out ape. Grover worked with that meganthropus mandible fragment. He certainly knew they existed. He apparently completely rejected it as a candidate bigfoot ancestor because it was "human". Something that existed a million years ago and likely diverged from our lineage 2 million years ago was a human, not enough of an ape by that logic. I don't see how he gets any certainty or how he makes that statement I quoted without a bias. If he didn't say flat out ape, I wouldn't accuse him of obvious bias. He apparently has an extreme version of it but that bias is part of our culture and nearly universal even in anthropologists where they clearly know that humans are evolved from animals and are technically apes. They think things like quadrupedalism is apelike. Chimps probably evolved from a biped so quadrupedalism apparently isn't apelike. There are several other examples of the conventional wisdom that shows the bias. There is the bias that a chimp and older is animal. Somehow we became human one day. Most anthropologists make this "day" when we became members of the genus Homo. They think in terms of them and us or human or animal. They feel the need to make an arbitrary distinction where we became human and many of them think that arbitrary distinction is relevant. They don't think of it in terms that we were less humanlike 2 million years ago even though most would realize that was true. "It is human if it is Homo." is the typical attitude. It is such an arbitrary distinction and the evidence they base it on is so weak that it is practically meaningless. An ape couldn't learn to make stone tools is conventional wisdom. You have to make huge assumptions about how close bigfoot is to a modern human and how "human" our ancient ancestors were to conclude convergent evolution is more logical as an explanation. All the reasons given to support the notion like lack of tools, fire, language abilities... are just ways to make us feel better by not having a "human" live like a wild animal. The excuses aren't even assumed to apply to all hominids or they even apply to chimps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 26, 2012 Share Posted January 26, 2012 I remember long ago reading about Von Koenigswald finding the Gigantopithecus. He wanted to call it Giganthropus if memory serves becuase he thought it looked close to human. Later it was decided to put it closer to Orangs. I also remember reading that it was often extremely difficult to tell the difference between Homo erectus and orangutan fossil teeth so I have always been skeptical of Giganto's exact place in the ape tree. If Giganto were a biped, I would think that would be evidence that Von Koenigswald's initial assumption were correct about Giganto, that it was closer to human. It would be a bigger stretch to assume some sort of convergent evolution of bipedalism in my opinion. It is just a simpler theory. It seemed to me that there was a long history of attempts to link Giganto to the bigfoot, not only because it was the right ape in the right place in the right time but because it was an APE. John Green wanted one shot and claimed that it shouldn't be any different than collecting an Ape for study. If it were actually a hominid, I doubt he would be so ready to promote the shooting of one. Krantz was generally insistent on it being an ape and he even wanted to give bigfoot a scientific designation as an ape. Meldrum has also displayed a very obvious ape bias. Byrne was one of the very few early researchers that seemed to hold on to the possibility that it might be a type of "man" rather than ape but Byrne didn't pretend to be a scientist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest WesT Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 (edited) A couple more giganto links: http://www.uiowa.edu/~bioanth/giganto.html http://www.skepticblog.org/2011/12/28/gigantopithecus-and-crackpot-cryptozoologists/ RayG Thanks for the links Ray. I saw this picture of Bill standing next to one of his Giganto re-creations. I'd like to know where they got the idea for the reddish-blonde hair. I thought of alot of things to logically explain to myself what it was I was looking at. I knew at the time what an orangutan looked like, but that didn't cross my mind. I thought someone rolled up in hideous colored shag carpet, someone with a genetic defect, even a BF. I ruled out BF because from what I knew at the time it only lived in the Pacific NW and was dark colored and 7-9 ft. tall. I thought at first I was looking at a person that had been hit on the hwy, maybe shot and then dumped there. It was of average human lenght, arms were to the side, the arms were big, the body was thick, legs were straight and about 1 1/2 times longer than the body, it was face down in the pavement. I saw no clothing on it and it was covered in reddish-blonde hair about 3-4 inches long. Link Nice re-creation job Bill, but you're messin with my mind... Edited January 28, 2012 by WesT Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 WesT: The reason for the reddish hair on my Giganto figure was that my scientific partner at the time, Dr. Russell Ciochon, felt that Gignato, being an asian ape, should more likely have reddist hair colors common to asian apes, while the african apes tended to have more grey/black hair colors. So that was the reasoning for specifying we use a reddish hair material for the figure. The lighter tones were simply to create some color variance, which is quite natural, and gave the figure a more lifelike appearance. When one solid color is used over the entire body, the figure often looks less real, so variances of color tone add to the realism. Bill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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