Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

Recently I discussed the evolution of pre-human primates, bringing the story up until about 3 million years ago.  Today, I'll say something about the timeline since then.  Three million years ago the most human-like species around was the australopithecus (southern apes).  There has been a lot of focus in recent years on Australopithecus Afarensis. Afarensis had a variegated diet, adapted it seems to plants both of the forest and the savanna. It likely ate meat too, judging from the stone tools it had available.  The heel bone was adapted for bipedality. Did the afarensis give rise to homo-something-or-other? The transition, if there was one, is difficult to pin down, but the two species have a close relationship of some sort. An abstract from a paleontological paper written in 2015, concerning the discovery of a partial mandible with teeth from circa 2.8 MYA,  reads in part:  " This specimen combines primitive traits seen in early  Australopithecus ...

I've recently read a fascinating item in Smithsonian.com, part of its Hominid Hunting blog. Clues to Evolution That's the link. If you follow that and read the material, you'll understand the headline of this post. I will have nothing more to say about it, except ... well, two points. First, the notions discussed there fit in rather nicely with a theme of some of the posts in the precursor to this blog. Those of my readers who have followed me from "Pragmatism Refreshed" will recall my discussions of human evolution as an example of path dependence. If you don't recall that, here's a link. Second, the next three posts in this blog will all involve Stephen Jay Gould, even though in a rather elliptical manner, so ... perhaps Hominid Hunting will help get you in the right frame of mind for that.