Department of Archaeology, Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
Evol Anthropol. 2022 Jul;31(4):166-174. doi: 10.1002/evan.21946. Epub 2022 Jun 27.
A longstanding debate in hominin taxonomy is that between "lumpers" and "splitters." We argue that both approaches assume an unrealistically static model of speciation. Speciation is an extended process, of which fossils provide a record. Fossils should be interpreted in a more dynamic framework than is the norm. We introduce the process-based approach (PBA), in which we suggest that "splitters" recognize and name units at an earlier stage of speciation than "lumpers" do. The "determinants" of speciation can control the rate at which population isolates form, or the rate at which these complete the speciation process, or both. Embedded in the PBA, differences between existing lumped and split taxonomies are a heuristic tool to study these processes. We apply the PBA to show that not all hominin populations reached later stages of the speciation process and that populations have a disproportionate likelihood of doing so from ∼3.1 to ∼1.5 Ma. We outline and discuss resulting new research questions.
在人属分类学中，长期以来一直存在着“合并派”和“分裂派”之争。我们认为，这两种方法都假设了一个不切实际的物种形成静态模型。物种形成是一个扩展的过程，化石提供了其记录。化石的解释应该比通常情况下更具动态性。我们引入了基于过程的方法（PBA），在这种方法中，我们建议“分裂派”比“合并派”更早地识别和命名物种形成的单位。物种形成的“决定因素”可以控制种群隔离形成的速度，或者这些种群完成物种形成过程的速度，或者两者兼而有之。嵌入在 PBA 中的现有分类学差异是研究这些过程的启发式工具。我们应用 PBA 表明，并非所有的人类种群都达到了物种形成过程的后期阶段，而且从 310 万年前到 150 万年前，种群达到后期阶段的可能性不成比例。我们概述并讨论了由此产生的新的研究问题。
