Jenova Explains Anthropology

     Sephy, you need to be taught a lesson.
     "Oh great, on what now, Mother?" Sephiroth asked.
     Anthropology.
     "That's exactly what I want."
     Where should I start?
     "I dunno. Darwin maybe?"
     Nah. Let's skip all that natural selection stuff. Darwin wasn't that important in Anthropology.
     "Oh. Of course not. So where are we starting?"
     In the Neander Valley! That's the place with the rock quarry!
     "Is that all you're telling me?"
     Yep.
     "So I'm to make my own inferences about how in 1856 a bunch of Germans at a rock quarry brought in people from around the town to help them dig up this specimen that was later dated to be 70,000 years old?"
     Right. Damn Nazis.
     "They weren't Nazis."
     Yet.
     "But didn't they completely screw up the dig?"
     Yeah, but it was a good try. That's what I call "good science."
     "Okay, so they were the first to discover a hominid that wasn't completely modern. Any other awesome stuff?"
     No, not really. But let's talk about Darwin now.
     "I thought we weren't-"
     DARWIN! He wrote his book On the Origin of Species in 1859. That's three years after the Neander Valley thing. Those Neander dudes were pretty good, eh?
     "No."
     This one guy, Owen, he wanted to be Darwin. He's all "Hey Darwin! More like Darweiner! You suck! You forgot humans in the evolution stuff!" and Darwin's like, "I did it on PURPOSE!"
     "He did?"
     Probably not. But then this dude Huxley comes to Darwin's rescue and he's like, "Look, Owen! More like Oweiner. I wrote this book Man's Place that explains what a tool you are! A-and my buddy Lyell, he wrote a book called Antiquity of Man in 1863 that demonstrates that humans have been around for a long ass time!
     "That's an odd segway."
     So then, in 1871, Darwin publishes Descent of Man, which is a collection of all human evolution theories. Isn't that wild!?
     "Wow. These guys sound killer."
     Speaking of killer, at the turn of the century, they all DIE! And suddenly there aren't any experts in Anthropology!
     "Cool. So we're done?"
     You wish! This guy, Eugene Dubois decides he wants to dig in Java! I mean, Dubois is only a medicine guy from Holland, but he was like "I wonder why a human brain is 3x bigger than a chimps..." And he decides the answers are in Java. Now that's good coffee.
     "So they paid for him to go to Java?"
     Oh hell no! Nobody else gave a shit! Nobody's gonna pay. No, Dubois has to join the army, which is conveniently going to Java! So he breaks off from the group in his spare time and gets bones. Alone.
     "Okay, you're going some place nasty with this."
     No no no! For seriously! He digs up bones in Trinil on the Solo River! Then, in 1892, he finds erect-
     "No, please no. Don't say it."
     It's okay, Sephy. I'm a scientist....'s creation. I can say anything scientifically. So he finds this brain case (that's the top part of the cranium) and decides it is way too big for a chimp, but not big enough for a human. He also finds this femur of fury and starts killing mosquitoes-
     "That would be Secret of Evermore. Get back to science."
     Fine. So this femur proves that they walk up right, and since this CAN'T be from the genus Homo-
     "You gonna comment on that? Or let it go?"
     Make your own joke, Sephy. So he decides that this new thing is Pithecanthropus erectus.
     "Why pith-"
     Because. Don't worry, he was wrong. It was actually Homo erectus, which was later dated 800,000 years ago. But anyway, he's a self-proclaimed genus now!
     "Y-yeah. Good one, Mother. So did people like, love him for it?"
     Oh hell no. He came back home, and there were two people waiting for him at the dock. Me and Arthur Keith.
     "You weren't there."
     Don't ruin the moment. So we watched him, and we were like "Boo! You suck! You found shit, but took such bad care of it and analyzed it so poorly that now NOBODY can tell what the hell you found! You HACK!" So Dubois went home and binged on bon-bons and was never heard from again.
     "What a fag."
     Right. So Keith was gettin' pissed the hell off, so he decided to make up a rule book of standard procedures so that people will stop breaking his toys. He also made up the aptly named "Keith Model" that people can use to stop breaking stuff. In it, he organizes brain size based on encephalization (that's where the brain grows bigger), locomotion based on bipedalism (that's walking on those "leg" things), and dentition based on canine reduction (that's where your dog gets smaller).
     "I thought that was where canine teeth and their diastema got smaller to allow for communication."
     Well, you say tomato, I say lechuga. Moving on. Keith was like, big shit now. Such big shit that he goes over to Dawson's own dig site! Piltdown! In merry ol' England! Too bad Charles Dawson and all the people he hired died in World War I.
     "I thought Darwin was already dead."
     No, no. DAWSON. Not Darwin. You'd do well to remember that on the test.
     "Yeah, I'll try," Bob said.
     "Get the $#(% out of the story, Bob," Sephiroth said.
     So Keith is diggin' up stuff, and suddenly this dude is all, "Hey. What's up?" That dude was Raymond Dart. But this Dart guy, he was a douche. He was all like, stupid, so Keith told him to eff off. But then, Keith finds this thing. It's NEW! So he names it in memory of Dawson and calls it Eoanthropus dawsonii on account of it's 1200 cc brain. I guess he thought Dawson was a 'tard. But anyway, they use this specimen to write up this interpretive hypothesis for human evolution. Don't worry too much about that though. It turns out this specimen has been like, filed down and shit and is complete crap, but Keith uses it to call a bunch more people dumb.
     "Now this discovery is in what year again?"
     1912. And it's technically discovered by Charles DAWSON. It's fake though.
     "So did Dart binge on bon-bons too?"
     Nah. Dart's too dumb for that. He just goes to South Africa and gets a job teaching where he pays people to dig stuff up in the Taung site in South Africa. People send him fossils and he pays for the fossils. Nothing that great comes in until 1924 where he gets this tiny head impression! It could talk while he drank water!
     "Seriously. What's with the tiny head impression?"
     Well, it was an impression of a tiny brain so he knew exactly how big the brain was! He could even see the Foramen Magnum, which was a big hole in the skull that connects to the spinal cord and the medulla oblongata! That's where alligators' anger comes from. Anyway, it turns out Dart's fossil is 1-2 million years old! And he'd found a specimen of Australopithecus africanus! Those are monkeys! Too bad Keith comes back and bitchslaps him for finding this thing.
     "Why? Isn't it important?"
     Yeah, but Keith is all "Hey! That fossil is just a kid, so you can't judge anything based on that! Besides, it discredits all the forgery I've been doing!" So yeah, it's gone now. Anyway, off to China, 1927!
     "Oh, China. That's random."
     Yep. We're off to Zoukoudein! That's where this Black dude-
     "Black dude? I thought it was China..."
     Yeah. But his name is Black. Davidson Black. Anyway, he finds this thing that he calls Sinanthropus pekinsis.
     "Why'd he call it that?"
     Had a certain ring to it. Don't worry. It turns out to be Homo erectus. But this thing was dated at 500,000 years ago! And you know what that means!
     "Uhh, no. What does it mean?"
     It means that tool use and bipedalism preceded full encephalization! Like, duh! So anyway, Black and his foreign friend W.C. Pei learn Keith's rules and finally submit this thing.
     "And Keith says...?"
     I don't think Keith really cared. He was more concerned with things found in 1936 by Raymond Dart and Robert Broom.
     "Dart and Broom? Two household objects. That should be easy to associate with each other."
     No, not really. Let's continue. So Dart is at Sterkfontein Valley out in South Africa. He's actually out there now. Guess what he finds.
     "No."
     A sample of a 2.6 million year old Australopithecus africanus! Exactly, Sephy! It was a complete and total bitchslap to Keith! It proved that Keith was retarded! Also it validated Australopithicus as a hominid and further proved bipedalism came before encephalization! Dart and Broom also dig in Swartkrans South Africa and find a 2-2.6 million year old specimen of Australopithecus robustus! It was the first discovery of such a 'robust' Australopithecine! And now, from 1936 to 1939, Keith's model is complete crap. All his stuff was in the wrong order and stuff. So now that takes us to our intermission. Anthropology stops for a while. For World War II! And you know what that means!
     "What?"
     NAZIS! I told you they'd factor in here. Anyway, back from intermission. We move on to Kenneth Oakley. He studied under Keith and was made into a chemist in World War II, and you'll never guess what he learned!
     "Good, then I won't guess."
     WATER DISSOLVES FLUORINE! He could use this to tell now if fossils were from the same time! And you know what he learned? His own teacher, Arthur Keith, was a HACK! Piltdown was a FAKE! Yes, it's official. Keith was on his way home to binge on bon-bons. That left good ol' Sherwood Washburn to do methodical and theoretical revisions of the 1950s and 60s in the wake of the Piltdown exposure!
     "Good ol' Sherwood? Did we mention him before?"
     Nope. But I did now. Anyway, on to Louis Leakey! He was friends with Keith. Good thing I told you, cuz that's important shiz right there. Anyway, Leakey is digging things up with his super sexy wife, Mary, down there in Tanzania at Olduvai Gorge in 1959! They find this thing in Lowerbed I, way down there at the bottom. They call it Zinjanthropus boisei, but upon retard inspection, it turns out it was Australopithecus robustus. They thought it was 2.8 million years old, but it was the first ever fossil to be dated with Potassium/Argon dating and it was only 1.8 million years ago. This Potassium/Argon dating was invented by Garniss Curtis and published in his article "A Clock for the Ages."
     "Oh. Thanks for telling me."
     They dated it by ESTIMATION! See, this top lens was 1.7 million years ago, and the bottom lens was 1.8 million years ago, so they found the fossil in the middle and guestimated it to 1.75ish! Science! So get this. Five years later, that's 1964 to be exact, Louis Leakey makes another discovery! He finds Homo habilis and it's 650cc brain! That's the EARLIEST HOMO EVER!
     "We done?"
     Sephy, please! We're just getting started! Now, there's this new digsite called Omo Valley that has so much volcanic activity that radiometric dating is SOOO easy, that they all come up with this new system. See, Basil Cooke is the leading pig evolution expert. He knows EVERYTHING about pigs. We'll call him the Pig @#$*er. So what he does is he finds the pigs in the lenses and says "Hey guys! This pig is X years old! Therefore, anything in this lens is X years old! Therefore, anything buried with this type of pig is X years old! Get it!? Anyway, This guy Clark Howell writes that down and marks it using 40 genera of pigs! This mystical invention is called the Omo Valley Yardstick! Don't leave home without it! So now they can "cross-date" other digsites based on pigs! They could date anything as old as 7 million years old! And they did all of this from 1967-1972!
     "I'm gonna get some water."
     Omo was filled with scientists! Howell, Donald Johanson, Richard Leakey. Brilliant people! But after the yardstick, they left. Richard Leakey went to Koobi Fora, Johanson went to Hadar, and Howell just went home for bon-bons and sex. So next, in Kenya's Koobi Fora digsite at Lake Turkana (or Lake Rudolf as I called it) in 1972, Richard Leakey finds stuff that looks EXACTLY like the hominid stuff his daddy found at Olduvai Gorge! He found Homo habilis, Australopithicus africanus, Australopithicus robustus, McDonalds... Everything! He calls his Homo habilis friend KNM-ER-1470. I was going to name you that, Sephy, but EVERYBODY was naming their kids KNM-ER-1470. So they thought this stuff was 2.8 million years ago, just like Leakey's old stuff, but because of the Pig #$%*er's findings and cross-dating, it turned out that EVERYTHING was 1.8 million years old or so. KNM-ER-1470 was somewhere between 1.8 and 2.0 million years old. That's older than you, Sephy!
     "I'm back. What'd I miss?"
     Now off to Ethiopia with Donald Johanson at Hadar! In 1973, Johanson finds Lucy! She was in the sky! With diamonds! Also she was an Australopithicus afarensis! She was a 60% complete fossil with a 250cc brain! What a dumbass! So Johanson also find the "first family" that showed things were moving in families. The family was 40% complete. Both of these guys were dated to 3.0 million years ago.
     "I can't wait to hear what happens next!"
     Good! I'll tell you! Boy, I'm glad you're paying attention still. Now we go to Mary Leakey at Kenya's Laetoli digsite in 1976! She makes a RADICAL discovery. They find these hard layers pressed together, right? So they lift up these hardened lenses to date them and stuff, and they find these 3.7 million year old footprints! They were probably left by Australopithecus afarensis! She and her dig partner Tim White were like, "Wow! Footprints!" That PROVED that Australopithecus afarensis goes back as early as 3.7 million years ago!
     "Great. I'm going to bed now."
     So then Tim White digs in Ethiopia's Aramis dig site in 1994 and finds Australopithicus ramidus, which existed 4.4 million years ago. But nobody cares. It may not even be classified correctly. You look asleep, Sephy. I think this is a good place to stop. Would you like to record your progress?

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