Abstract
WOLPOFF1 has recently argued that the cranial capacity of the type specimen of Homo habilis2 from Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania (Olduvai hominid 7), is not sufficiently different from those of South African Australopithecus africanus to warrant placement in a separate species. He arrives at this conclusion by pooling the sets of observations from Olduvai and South Africa, calculating the mean and standard deviation of this “sample”, and showing that the sample coefficient of variation is not unduly high. He also shows that Olduvai hominid 7 falls only 2.03 standard deviations from the sample mean.
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References
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Tobias, P. V., Olduvai Gorge, 2 (Cambridge University Press, 1967).
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PILBEAM, D. Early Hominidae and Cranial Capacity. Nature 224, 386 (1969). https://doi.org/10.1038/224386a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/224386a0
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