The Pliocene hominin diversity conundrum: Do more fossils mean less clarity?
The Pliocene hominin diversity conundrum: Do more fossils mean less clarity?
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上新世人类多样性难题：更多化石是否意味着清晰度降低？
DOI：
10.1073/pnas.1521266113
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发表时间：
2016
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Denise F. Su
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Y. Haile;Stephanie M. Melillo;Denise F. Su
最近发现的多个上新世中期的人类提出了早期人类和晚期人类一样物种多样的可能性。然而，围绕这些新分类群的有效性的争论仍在继续，主要是基于正模标本保存不佳，样本量小，或缺乏生态多样性的证据。对目前在埃塞俄比亚、肯尼亚和乍得发现的化石证据的进一步研究表明，南方古猿阿法种并不是上新世中期唯一的人类物种，还有其他物种通过运动适应和饮食与之明显区分开来。虽然毫无疑问，上新世中期多个物种的存在为我们的进化历史打开了新的窗口，但它也使我们对早期人类分类和系统发育关系的理解变得复杂。
Recent discoveries of multiple middle Pliocene hominins have raised the possibility that early hominins were as speciose as later hominins. However, debates continue to arise around the validity of most of these new taxa, largely based on poor preservation of holotype specimens, small sample size, or the lack of evidence for ecological diversity. A closer look at the currently available fossil evidence from Ethiopia, Kenya, and Chad indicate that Australopithecus afarensis was not the only hominin species during the middle Pliocene, and that there were other species clearly distinguishable from it by their locomotor adaptation and diet. Although there is no doubt that the presence of multiple species during the middle Pliocene opens new windows into our evolutionary past, it also complicates our understanding of early hominin taxonomy and phylogenetic relationships.