Perspectives

Proconsul africanus: lutionists claim P. africanus lived from 19–17 Ma an examination of (though some sources extend the range to 23–14 its anatomy and Ma) with the KNM-RU evidence for its 7290 specimen falling in the middle at 18 million extinction in a post- years old. Flood catastrophe With the scarcity of hominid fossils from sites alleged to be 3 million Matthew Murdock years old, it is unlikely that so many of the delicate In 1948, Dr Mary Leakey found a Proconsul bones, such as distorted skull at Site R106 on Rusinga vertebrae, wrist and ankle Island, Western Kenya. The find was bones, and ‘thousands of a nearly complete cranium, mandi­ finger bones’ of baby pro­ ble and full dentition. Because the Figure 1. Left side of P. africanus cranium KNM-RU 7290 consuls, found during later showing crushed and distorted parietal. skull did not resemble any previously excavations would survive found, a new genus was named for six times longer. These KNM-RU 7290 is remarkable this individual. Arthur Hopwood of bones are most likely post-Flood, and in that it preserves all 32 teeth. The 11 the Natural History Museum (London) only a few thousand years old. dental formula is 2:1:2:3 in both the coined the name ‘Proconsul’ in honour upper and lower jaw. Proconsul has of the circus chimp ‘Consul the Great’, The skull the typical 5-Y pattern of cusps which which had become famous for riding is seen in the lower molars of other a bicycle, and smoking cigarettes.1,2 The distorted cranium possesses hominoids (Figure 2). The genus Proconsul currently in­ a complete maxilla, frontal bone, P. africanus is a sexually 12 cludes five species which range in size with both left and right parietals. dimorphic species with males being from a macaque (10 kg) to a bonobo The left parietal was pressed into the larger than females. The small size of (38 kg).3 braincase during fossilization (Figure the canine teeth indicates that KNM- 5 1). Alan Walker corrected much of RU 7290 is a female individual. The Names and numbers this distortion using plaster casts. The mandible is complete and lacks a simian new reconstruction gave Proconsul a shelf (Figure 2). Distortion in the body Proconsul africanus is sometimes less prognathic face7 and it appears of the mandible does not permit contact known by the names Dryopithecus to have had a smaller snout than of the front teeth (Figure 3). Proconsul africanus4 and Proconsul heseloni. Aegyptopithecus.3 also had thin molar enamel consistent 3 Mary Leakey’s find was labelled KNM- Part of the nuchal crest8 of KNM- with a diet of fruit. RU 7290 (Kenya National Museum, RU 7290 was actually found a year Postcranial remains Rusinga) by the National Museums earlier than the skull. The fossils were of Kenya. The British Museum of not recognized as hominoid, and had Natural History renumbered the skull been labelled as turtle bones.7 Three as M32363 while the skull was in their decades later Martin Pickford realized possession.5 the fossils had come from site R106, KNM-RU 7290 was loaned to and combined them with the rest of the British museum in 1949 where the skull.5 it remained until Richard Leakey Falk had originally estimated the requested its return in 1982. The cranial capacity of KNM-RU 7290 at British Museum claimed that the 150 cm3.9 Now that the occipital has Proconsul skull was given to them as been added, a new estimate of 167.3 a gift and refused to return it. A year cm3 has been obtained by Walker.10 If later Mary Leakey’s secretary found accurate, the brain size of P. africanus the original letter outlining the loan is larger than living (extant) monkeys of similar body size, but smaller than agreement, and the skull was returned Figure 2. The mandible reveals complete 6 to Kenya (35 years later) in 1983. extant apes (such as the chimpanzee dentition, cusp pattern, and lack of simian 3 KNM-RU 7290 was discovered which averages 400 cm or gorillas at shelf. Distortion during fossilization has 3 9 in early Miocene sediments.5 Evo­ 500 cm ). twisted the body of the mandible.

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site (Rusinga Island) in 1984–1985. chimpanzee. The 245 phalanges and phalangeal Evolutionists do not know when the fragments reveal that Proconsul had tail of our supposed ancestors was lost. powerful grasping hands and feet.16 They merely insist that it must have oc­ What makes Proconsul unique is curred early in the course of evolution. that it possesses traits of both apes and However there is no evidence of any ape monkeys. ‘losing its tail’ in the fossil record. • The shoulder and elbow regions of This quote from Ward et al. dem­ Proconsul are like those of an ape. onstrates that many evolutionists are But the wrist anatomy is monkey- guided by their theories, not fossils: like17 and suggest it was a tree Proconsuls ‘lack of a tail indicates dweller. that tails were lost early in hominoid • There is also no evidence in the evolution’.24 Figure 3. The right side of the KNM-RU 7290 hand or wrist anatomy of knuckle- The only thing this indicates is that cranium is more complete, and less distorted walking ability.18 Proconsul did not have a tail. Conclud­ than the left. The twisted mandible does not permit contact between upper and lower inci- • The lumbar vertebrae of P. afri- ing that Proconsul (and subsequently 17 sors causing a post-mortem open bite. canus are gibbon-like, while the humans) must have come from an spine and illium of Proconsul nyan- ancestor with a tail is not science as zae (specimen KNM-MW 13142) much as science fiction. This is a In 1979 Alan Walker and Martin resemble a monkey more so than case of someone allowing their theory Pickford found more Proconsul fossils they do an ape’s.19 (rather than the fossils) to dictate their in a drawer at the museum. These A nearly complete hip bone of conclusions. fossils had been misclassified as pig P. nyanzae and several pelvic fragments bones in the 1950s. When they put of P. africanus have been found recently. Ancestral status these fossils together they were able to The new finds come from Rusinga and reconstruct nearly 75% of the Proconsul Mfangano Island. Most of these also had Proconsul has been placed in skeleton. Walker looked in other trays associated femurs.20 An examination of the family Proconsulidae and is said and found more fossils that were still these bones reveals that Proconsul had to be the first hominoid. Hominoids embedded in stone. These fossils a long femoral neck and high neck shaft are members of the superfamily resembled the green rocks from the angles. The pelvic and femur bones Hominoidea, which include humans, Rusinga site. Walker realized that part tell us that there were a variety of hip all living apes, and extinct apes from of the leg and foot had also been found postures (including abduction21) in the the Miocene, Pliocene and Pleistocene years before but had gone unrecognized. locomotion of Proconsul.20 epochs.3 Evolutionists have hailed This prompted him to return to Rusinga Anatomists have determined Proconsul as the direct common in 1984 (more than 30 years after the that Proconsul was unable to hang ancestor of both humans and apes4 and skull had been found) in hopes of below or swing from branches. Their directly ancestral to Ramapithecus, finding more remains. It was there anatomy would only allow them to walk Sivapithecus, and Gigantopithecus.25 that Walker found thirteen more partial quadrapedally on the tops of branches From a creationist view, Pro­ Proconsul skeletons.13 A complete like arboreal (mainly tree dwelling) consul’s ancestors lived with Adam and death assemblage with what appeared monkeys.3 Eve, and were not ancestral to them. to be a family of P. africanus had been The fossils tell us that Proconsul’s found. One of the remains appeared to Lack of tail ancestors survived both the effects of be that of a pregnant female.14 the Curse (Genesis 3) and the Flood Le Gros Clark scaled down the Whether Proconsul had a tail, as in (Genesis 6). Those that survived the forelimb of a chimpanzee and P. monkeys, or lacked this appendage as Flood gave rise to a variety of species africanus so that they were the same in apes, had been the subject of great (within the biblical ‘kind’) some of length. He observed that Proconsul debate. When more Proconsul remains which migrated to east Africa. They had a shorter forearm relative to the were found in 1984 the question seemed appear to have flourished there for upper arm than a chimpanzee.15 The to be settled. One of the new skeletons many years. limb proportions in Proconsul appear preserved the last sacral vertebrae. If to have been similar to those of modern Proconsul had a tail, then there would Post-Flood death assemblage quadruped monkeys.3 Yet Proconsul had need to be a large distal sacral vertebral a greater ability to rotate its forelimbs body to articulate with a large caudal22 Like many animals, Proconsul than extant monkeys do. vertebrae.23 To the contrary, the distal went extinct in the years following the A large sample of phalanges was sacral vertebra had a ‘small, distinctly Flood (many ‘kinds’ are near extinction recovered from the Kaswanga Primate tapering body’, resembling that of the today). It is unclear whether their

14 TJ 17(2) 2003 Perspectives numbers dwindled gradually, or if the the upper jaw and one incisor, no canines, two entire population was wiped out in a premolars, and three molars on each side of the lower jaw. single post-Flood catastrophe. Rocks 12. Sexual dimorphism: phenomenon in which on the shores of Lake Victoria, Kenya homologous nonreproductive structures are have abundant fossils in soils that are of greatly different size and/or shape in males ‘sandwiched together’ with ash-filled and females of the same species. lava flows. This area would have been 13. Willis, Ref. 6, pp. 123–124. covered in deciduous trees in between 14. Lewin, R., In the Age of Mankind, Smithsonian 26 these flows and would have sustained Books, Washington, p. 43, 1988. great amounts of wildlife. 15. Le Gros Clark, W.E., History of the Primates: According to research published in An Introduction to the Study of Fossil Man, 5th the Journal of the Geological Society Edition, Phoenix Books, University of Chicago an entire population of P. africanus Press, p. 60, 1966. may have been killed instantly in a 16. Begun, D.R., Teaford, M.F. and Walker, A., 26 Comparative and functional anatomy of Pro­ single volcanic explosion. Much consul phalanges from the Kaswanga Primate volcanic activity can be linked directly Site, Rusinga Island, Kenya, J. Human Evolu- to the Flood itself (when the fountains tion 26:163, 1994. of the great deep burst open, Genesis 17. Lewin, Ref. 14, p. 42. 7:11) and other such activity to post- 18. Tattersall, Ref. 2, p. 58. Flood after shocks (Job 9:6). 19. Ward, C.V. The lumbar region of the Miocene The ability of volcanic rocks to hominoid Proconsul nyanzae, American J. give radiometric dates much older than Physical Anthropology 81(2):314, 1990. 27 their true age is well documented. 20. Ward, C.V., Hip joints of Proconsul nyanzae Thus a volcano may be both the cause and P. africanus, American J. Physical Anthro- of death for Proconsul, and also the pology Suppl. 14:171, 1992. source of the associated erroneous 21. Abduction: movement of a limb or part of a radiometric dates. limb away from the midline of the body. 22. Caudal: of or near the tail or hind part. References: 23. Ward, C.V., Walker, A. and Teaford, M. F., Pro- consul did not have a tail, J. Human Evolution 1. Leakey, R.E. and Lewin, R., Origins: What 21:217, 1991. New Discoveries Reveal about the Emergence 24. Ward et al., Ref. 23, p. 219. of Our Species and Its Possible Future, E.P. Dutton, New York, p. 56, 1977. 25. Lewin, Ref. 14, p. 44. 2. Tattersall, I., The Human Odyssey, Prentice 26. Volcano may have wiped out our African Hall, p. 55, 1993. ancestors, Geographical (London, England: 1997) 71(7):12, July 1999. The volcano of 3. Boyd, R. and Silk, J.B., How Humans Evolved, Kisingiri was active during the time Proconsul rd 3 Edition, W.W. Norton & Company, New inhabited the area of East Africa. York, London, p. 272, 2003. 27. Snelling, A.A. Radioactive ‘dating’ failure: 4. Leakey and Lewin, Ref. 1, p. 55. recent New Zealand lava flows yield ‘ages’ 5. Walker, A., Falk, D., Smith, R. and Pickford, of millions of years, Creation 22(1):18–21, M., The skull of Proconsul africanus: recon­ 1999. Note: A recent example comes from struction and cranial capacity, Nature 305: lava flows at Mt Ngauruhoe, New Zealand. 525–527, 1983. These flows gave erroneous dates (from K-Ar analyses) ranging from <0.27 to 3.5 (± 0.2) 6. Willis, D., The Hominid Gang, Penguin books million years old. These rocks were “observed USA, p. 119, 1989. to have cooled from lavas 25–50 years ago. 7. Willis, Ref. 6, p. 121. 8. Nuchal crest: a flange of bone in the occipital (posterior) region of the skull that serves as the attachment of the posterior neck (nuchal) muscles. 9. Walker et al., Ref. 5, p. 525. 10. Walker et al., Ref. 5, p. 526. 11. Dental formula: shorthand notation denoting the number of teeth in each quadrant of the upper and lower jaws; for example, 2:1:3:3/1: 0:2:3 denotes two incisors, one canine, three premolars, and three molars on each side of

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