> Pulley writes: "The theme park concept probably never penetrated
> the thick skulls or shadowy minds of the prehistoric men who once
> dragged their knuckles across what is now present-day Haymarket.
> Certainly, no caveman ever grunted Disney. According to some
> local historians, the Walt Disney Co. regards the legacy of those
> primal progenitors with equal indifference."
I must say that the tone is offensive, and the ignorance displayed
extensive. To begin, Native Americans are and always were modern humans --
physically and intellectually the same as any person living today. By the time
of the first migrations to the Americas, the only living hominids were US
(*Homo sapiens sapiens*).
Second, no direct human ancestor (hominid) ever knuckle walked. The
very definition of a direct human ancestor is bipedal (upright) walking (first
example: *Australopithecus afarensis*, circa 4 million years ago). Knuckle
walking is a specialized form of locomotion used by some modern apes (gorillas,
chimpanzees, and orangutans). While these apes are close collateral relatives
of humans (distant cousins, if you will), they are not human ancestors. Rather,
they and we share very distant common ancestors.
Patricia M. Clay
Anthropologist
pclay@whsun1.wh.whoi.edu