Paleontogly Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Paleontogly - Research Paper Example The contemporary representation of this sexual dimorphism is that it is a â€Å"single, unidimensional phenomenon that is displayed to greater (e.g. gorillas, orangutans) or lesser (e.g. humans) degrees in the different primate species† (Oxnard, 1987, 2). Furthermore, it is commonly believed to be mainly related to variations in general size of the body between sexes (Levinton, 2001). The implication for evolutionary theory is, that human sexual dimorphism in the past must have been significantly greater than it is in the present day, possibly more like that in the living primates (Oxnard, 1987). Understanding the human ancestry is regarded as one of the challenges in exploring human evolution. Nonetheless, several fossil hunters appear to believe that this implies that their mission is to find the pieces of the exact human antecedent in the field (Elewa, 2004). Similarly, several laboratory examiners appear to believe that this implies that their mission is proving that a certain fossil relic is that ancestor (Serafini, 1993). Exploring human evolution, even in the mind of the public, appears to be this issue of moving from ‘missing’ to ‘found’ links (Oxnard, 1987, 2). The challenge appears to be the unearthing of ancestors. But what is the certainty of this undertaking? Even from a population as large and concentrated as that of any major metropolitan area, and over as many as hundreds of generations, the statistical changes of any particular individual ever becoming fossilized and found by a paleontologist millions of years later must be almost infinitesimal. How much less must be the chances of finding representatives of populations of perhaps only a few thousand, scattered over an area of the world as large as Africa or Asia, during periods of time measured in hundreds of thousands, even millions of years (Oxnard, 1987, 3). Once humans are thousand years ahead of a death, possibly tens of thousands of