Review on 🦍 A Fascinating Exploration: Safariology Historical Australopithecus Neanderthal by Christian Barnes

Glad they exist as educational materials for teaching evolutionary concepts to young children are hard to come by in our sometimes anti-scientific culture. Choice of models, it was a disappointing purchase. First, the scale: not only are the figures very small, they are scaled up or down to the same size, so when you put them side by side you can't tell which species of hominid was smaller. or more. That said, Australopithecus afarensis (average 4'11" for males and 3'5" for females) is the same size as Homo sapiens sapiens (average 5'9"). Second, artistic leanings: Our most famous specimen of A. afarensis is "Lucy,” a 40% fully fossilized female skeleton, but here A. afarensis is either androgynous or male (and yes, there is some academic disagreement over gender, but mainstream anthropologists consider her female). .) Having at least one symbolic model that is clearly female would go a long way in aligning this educational material with the anti-prejudice curriculum that we as early childhood educators are supposed to use, we have reason to believe that the early modern people who migrated from Africa were most likely dark-skinned?It's not just about an unbiased curriculum, it's scientific me accuracy. Genetic analysis has confirmed that dark skin pigmentation is the basis for our evolution specification 1.2 million years ago (the same time as the body) and white skin is a much later phenomenon. Of course, the map says that this particular H. sapiens sapiens is a Cro-Magnon, but that just begs the question, why did we choose an early modern European and not an African? (It's not as if African H. sapiens sapiens simply stopped evolving when some of their members left Africa!) The choice of which species/culture to represent and which to exclude has real implications for children, who learn from these drawings. When the children arrange the shapes in order from first to last and see that the skin color gets lighter in that order, what conclusions do they draw? Not correct! Third, the quality of the simulation in general: it's not polite to call it, but it's an ugly number. The look is more outdated depictions (from the 50's to the 80's/90's I believe) depicting early humans as less human or inhuman - primitive, ugly, bestial - than modern interpretations which are more neutral/objective and scientifically accurate. And I just don't like some proportions, as if the artist wasn't sure about their interpretation and was therefore protecting himself. The arms of H. sapiens sapiens are too long, the head and arms are too large, and the limbs and torso are not as graceful as they should be. The chest of A. afarensis should be more conical, the forearms heavier, the shoulders more simian; This species showed strong sexual dimorphism, but it's hard to tell if it's male or female (I'm guessing male, but who knows). H. neanderthalensis (aka H. sapiens neanderthalensis) is really stocky, but the face seems too long to me. The skull of H. erectus should be flatter. Etc. Fourth, arbitrary tools: why give A. afarensis a stone tool when anthropologists haven't found one (yet)? (There is one study that suggests they used stone tools, but this is indicative and certainly dates these figures to a later date.) Why H. sapiens sapiens boots and not H. neanderthalensis? I can understand H. neanderthalensis having a pointed stick because they made soft hammer tools and therefore probably used wood; However, wooden tools have not been found (because they rot quickly), while special tools made of bone, horn and stone have been found. Again, the inclusion of one but not the other shows some implicit bias, as if the modeling was based on ancient notions of evolutionary progressivity. H. sapiens sapiens also used wooden tools, but this spear has an exquisite stone tip. The information is at least ten years old at the time of this review (in 2016). For example, I was referring to the H. sapiens sapiens figure as such, but on the map it is called "Cro-Magnon". "Cro-Magnon" is not a formal species but a cultural designation.