How do anthropologists distinguish one homo species from another?

Answer 1

There are a variety of criteria for making species determinations. Dentition and cranial capacity are the most important criteria. Other features such as degree of prognathism (i.e., how much the mouth and brow project out from the profile of the skull), overall robustness, depth of the jaw, and so on are also used.

That said, scientists have found it difficult to agree on the diagnostic criteria for identifying different Homo spp. because they've found it difficult to agree on what the different Homo spp. are. One scientist might dig up a specimen with some variation to it, and identify it as a new species, but another scientist might judge it to be an example of a morphologically distinct population of a known species.

Answer 2

You guys are not wrong about the skeletal component to species differentiation - but there's a whole other set of factors involved. Homo species have been producers of material culture (tools, campsites, etc) in the archaeological record for over 2 million years. It is generally thought, though some disagree, that different behavior patterns, as well as different types of artifacts, distinguish different homo species in addition to the morphological differences in the skeleton. For example, what anthropologists call Homo Neanderthalensis, or Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis, and what everyone else calls Neanderthals, are distinguished from earlier Homo species not only by their skeletal characteristics, but also by the appearance of a new tool type (Levallois) as well as new forms of behavior, such as burials, in the arch. record. It should be noted that a huge debate rages over whether or not the burials are intentional, but the evidence is pretty good that they are.
It should also be noted that there's a LOT of debate in general over what distinguishes one Homo species from another, or even which species are which and how many there are. One of the main things that complicates the debate, apart from the fact that we can't ever be sure that these guys are separate species because a species is defined as a group of organisms that can only produce fertile offspring with each other and that isn't something we can observe because we can't travel back in time, is that really not very many specimens of any type of hominid fossil have been found, and all are incomplete and fragmentary, so reconstructing what they looked like and knowing their body shape well enough to distinguish each type, is a very complicated process.
DNA studies may play a larger role in this in the future. But getting viable DNA samples from bones that are hundreds of thousands or millions of years old is pretty unlikely at this point.

Answer 3

species are defined by being able to reproduce viable offspring.

a lot of anthropologists disagree, therefore, on the distinction and categoriaztion of homo species from oneanother.

look up milford wolpof... he's a professor at the University of Michigan and strongly believes that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens were of the same species. Interesting, eh?

Answer 4

Sacred obviously knows his stuff. It gets real muddled with the homo genus because that is obviously the one we belong to. There is a certain benefit that befalls those who find a "homo" fossil and therefore there is an incentive to try to name something into the homo genus. There is a great incentive to find a fossil that is in our ancestry. Many such as the first Paranthropus (Zinjanthropus by Leaky) and even such odd ones as Gigantopithecus have been argued to be human ancestors for this reason. Since we are the ones doing the naming, it is hard to be as objective as determining other species.

Answer 5

I remember looking at lucy's skull (well...a copy) and some of the features discussed were progmatism, nuchal torus (on top of the head in order to support more jaw muscles) an occipital bun (thing that sticks out in the back of the head to support kneck muscles and keep in heat) and a forum magnum (still can't spell it?) on the bottom of the skull used to tell if the thing mighta walked upright. Lucy had all of these features and she is called an australopithecus afarensis. The features of the skull are compared and contrasted with one other skull's features and somehow by the absense or instance of certain traits (phenotypes or visible traits instead of genotypes) one can tell the relation of certain skulls. You know what, alot of it is a bunch of guesswork and I saw parts of a chart with a bunch of questionmarks on what related to what. There are charts like a cladistics scale and some other one or other that is the outcome of looking at all these traits, not just the skull, one is a cladistics scale (I heard genetics, or genotypes, have been studied recently, instead of phenotypical traits). Dating is also used but I forgot the date of lucy and the whole dating thing.

Answer 6

Mainly by the skull size and the shape. Obviusly there are other means to do so as jaw structure, bone shape...etc but are less likely employed as a mean to distinguish on from the other

Answer 7

Morphology--looking at the shape, size and angle of skeletal remains, including skull, pelvis, vertebrae, teeth, scapulae, joints and others. Also geography--spatial distribution, and age--temporal distribution.

Answer 8

By analysing the skeleton and looking at the varying characteristics of them.

Answer 9

the brain size is another thing that separates one specoes from another

Answer 10

by look at the skull and the size of fore head.