Anthropologist Urges 5 Million Years of Hominins Be Folded Into Homo

3 articles · Updated · Sci.News · Aug 19

Dr. Ian Towle proposes expanding Homo to include Australopithecus and Paranthropus, saying the three-genus system taught in textbooks and museums no longer matches the fossil record.
Traits long used to separate the groups—especially large brains and tool use—have blurred as finds such as Homo naledi, Homo floresiensis and Australopithecus garhi undercut those boundaries.
Towle argues Australopithecus has become a non-monophyletic taxonomic "wastebasket" and says interbreeding among closely related primate lineages suggests narrowly defined hominin genera are inherently unstable.
Under the proposal, Homo would extend back roughly 4 to 5 million years from Australopithecus anamensis, while Hominini would be recast as the pan-Homo clade and Hominina created for the human branch.
The paper, published this week in the American Journal of Biological Anthropology, challenges distinctions many researchers still see as meaningful, especially between Homo and the dietarily distinct Paranthropus.