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Re: Explain 'Little Lucy's deposition?

Subject: Re: Explain 'Little Lucy's deposition?
From: "deowll"
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2006 19:22:02 -0500
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology.paleo, sci.bio.paleontology
"Gerrit Hanenburg" <G.Hanenburg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message 
news:v9g8h2ll390s46c75ge2igd5nemtudjuja@xxxxxxxxxx
> "Paul Crowley" <slkwuoiutiuytciuyik@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>>>>> Alemseged's team believes that a flood rolled the child's body
>>>>> into a ball and buried it in sand soon after her death, before
>>>>> the bones could be weathered or pulled apart by scavengers.
>>>>
>>>>Every year numerous bodies are deposited by
>>>>floods (such as by the tsunami of 20 months
>>>>ago)  How many are 'rolled into a ball'?
>>>
>>> There is no indication that it was "rolled into a ball".
>>
>>"Alemseged's team believes that a flood rolled the
>>child's body into a ball".   Gerrit Hanenburg can't
>>see any sign of that.  They have worked with the
>>fossil for years.  Gerrit has never seen it.
>>
>>Whom should we believe?
>>
>>Hmmm . . . . tough.
>
> I've read the research papers (have you?) on both the specimen and the
> geology of site and the description "rolled into a ball" is nowhere to
> be found. That turns out to be some secondary comment from
> NewScientist.com:
> http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19125703.300-the-amazing-fossil-of-lucys-little-sister.html
> and not even a quote.
> So, what should we consider more accurate, the primary literature or
> secondary comments by the popular media?
> Part of the postcranium is described as displaced from the original
> anatomical position and compressed superiorly under the cranial base
> and palate. That could well be a result of postdepositional
> deformation. Given that the Dikika child is not exceptional in its
> state of preservation with regard to the rest of the fauna at this
> site there is no need to invoke twisted logic to explain its
> taphonomy.
>
> Gerrit

Thank you for clearing up the curled into a ball thing.



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