Comprehensive list of pre-human hominid fossils?

[Darth Wong]

Creationists love to attack Lucy. Recently, I actually got an E-mail from someone who believed that Lucy was the only primitive hominid fossil that had ever been discovered, and that literally the entire theory of evolution was based upon that single specimen.

Of course, there are many other ways to attack such a stupid argument, but it's very common, and it occurs to me that a comprehensive list of all the various pre-human hominid fossil discoveries would be really handy. Does anyone know where such a list could be found?

There's a good reason why none of the creationists ever mention Turkana Boy instead of Lucy, but it would be more compelling to swamp them with a really long list.

[Bounty]

Talk Origins has an extensive, though not exhaustive, list of finds.

[Twoyboy]

One I found while looking for other fossils was this database

The first one is hominids, and, though incomplete, the list is already quite large.

If he gets everything he's hoping to done, that'll be an awesome site.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Creationists love to attack Lucy. Recently, I actually got an E-mail from someone who believed that Lucy was the only primitive hominid fossil that had ever been discovered, and that literally the entire theory of evolution was based upon that single specimen.

Of course, there are many other ways to attack such a stupid argument, but it's very common, and it occurs to me that a comprehensive list of all the various pre-human hominid fossil discoveries would be really handy. Does anyone know where such a list could be found?

There's a good reason why none of the creationists ever mention Turkana Boy instead of Lucy, but it would be more compelling to swamp them with a really long list.

One of the benefits of being at ASU is I never get hit with that argument, because Dr. Johanson is just a hundred meters away at any given time...

I have actually used that tactic, go to the anthro department and introduce them to Johanson....

In any case The Smithsonian has a good site, not the least of which is the cladogram.

here is another section of the site. The table of contents has a good overview, as well as info on specific species.

[Kitsune]

I would love to meet Dr. Johanson myself

[Vehrec]

I would love to meet Dr. Johanson myself

He once dug up a modern grave to compare the bones in it to his fossils. And was then kicked out of the country for ten years or something, according to my professors.

Let me bust out my notebooks here, my notes on just a few of the species of Humanoid that have been described over the last century or so. I was taught this by a self-described 'lumper' of species, the current trend in paleoanthropology is to break up transitional or rapidly evolving species into a lot of different species with slight changes in morphology.

Sahelanthropus tchadensis:6-7mya, lived in woodlands bordering a near-desert. 1 fossil. Human-style teeth, possible biped, flat faced.

Orrorin tugenensis 6mya, lived in wooded environment. One specimin, not much known, poorly described.

Ardipithecus ramidus 5.8-4.4 mya, multiple specimens, odd mix of features in legs indicate partially bipedal.

Australopthecus anamensis

A. afarensis: THIS IS LUCY, two separate populations, Hadar and Laetoli. Hadar 3.6-2.9 mya, Laetoli 3.9-3.6mya. Notable for many individuals of 'First Family' deposit, over 14 in one grouping.

Kenyanthropus platyops: Weird species, flat faced and doesn't fit in normal progression of humanoids. 3.5 mya, discovered in 1999 at Lomekwi in Kenya. Some claim it is too broken and distorted, and must be an Australopithecus.


A. africanus: Multiple sites, including Taung(poorly dated due to removal in dynamite explosion) 2.6-2.8 mya, Sterkfontein Member 4 2.5-2.6mya and Makapansgat 3.0-3.2mya

A. garhi: Bouri Ethiopia, 2.5 mya. Very early stone tools.

A. robustus: Swartkans and other sites, mostly South African, 1.8-1.4mya.

A. boisei, Olduvai Gorge, 2.8-1.4 MYA HYPER-ROBUST species, very heavy musculature on face and skull, body roughly similar to Lucy.

A. aethiopicus, very poorly date, one skull only specimen 2.5-1.8 mya

H. habilis: Olduvai members 1,2; Turkana; Hadar 2.33-1.5mya; Sterkfontein mem5; Swartkrans mem1. Handy Man, gracile skull, large brain for body size.

H. rudolfensis: Eastern Turkana shore, 1.8-1.9 mya, Malawi 2.4mya.

H. erectis: v. thick cranial bones, sagital keel, no chin, mandablular bones parallel. JAVA AND PEKING MAN, 1.8-.5mya, Found in: Pakistan, Georgia, three sites in China, Ethiopia, Swartkrans, basically everywhere in asia, europe and africa.

H. ergaster: early form of erectus, lacking sagital keel, possible early form 1.8-1.6mya, south and east africa.

And after that you get into Archaic Homo sapiens, which is just a mess, but can be found in Span, Grece, Germany, England, and all over the place with all kinds of traits and I don't want to go into that right now.

[Kitsune]

He once dug up a modern grave to compare the bones in it to his fossils. And was then kicked out of the country for ten years or something, according to my professors.

The question is if her really did it or was accused of it by the Leakeys?