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The Yowie

Editorial on Yowie

Found this editorial in the Newcastle (Australia) Herald about yowie sightings in the Newcastle region.

http://www.theherald.com.au/blogs/jeff- ... 12445.aspx

In search of yowies
The yowie is a concoction of raconteurs and sensationalists, right? The idea that huge and hairy ape-like creatures are roaming the bush of Australia's east coast must be a nonsense because you've never seen one or known anyone who has. But I've just spoken to someone who did see such a creature, and I have no doubt that she is sincere. That person is Belinda Garfoot. She is 54 years old and lives in the Newcastle suburb of Elermore Vale with husband Peter, and in 1996 while on a driving holiday she and Peter watched a yowie cross the Kings Highway between Braidwood and the coast. Peter had pulled to the side of the road to rest the car's brakes when he saw the creature in the rear-vision mirror, and both turned to watch it for five to 10 seconds. It was, they say, at least 2.1 metres, or seven feet, tall, with disproportionally long arms, no neck, shaggy and with an upright walk.
I came across the Garfoots' account of their yowie experience in a book, The Yowie - In Search of Australia's Bigfoot, by Tony Healy and Paul Cropper (Mackay's Books, Epping, has copies), which is a serious look at a great many reports of yowies stretching back many years. As I detail in my column in the Herald today, the Kempsey area is a yowie hotspot, and closer to Newcastle Oxley Island near Taree, Krambach and Nowendoc have been the scene for credible reports of sightings. Common to many of these reports is that the creature has a pervasive stench, no visible neck, a brown shaggy coat, a huge stride and a height of between two and three metres. Some describe it as bear like, and it does not appear to be a friendly or even passive animal.

I don't mind admitting that since I've spoken to Belinda I've taken the latch off my closed mind, but I am far from a believer. Are you? Have you seen a yowie?

----

There are also about 50 odd comments on the article discussing what the sightings could be.

Z
 
Supposed recent sighting

next thing I knew my headlights started to light it up and it took one giant step off the road, it went from standing up like a person to going down on all fours and then it disappeared into the scrub in about three bounds.
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In our book we recorded around 350 reports going back to the late 1700s, early 1800s, but I imagine there's a lot more than that which don't ever reach the media – people have these experiences and then just keep it to themselves,” Mr Cropper said.

Theories abound as to what yowies could be, including an unknown species of ape or even an undiscovered close relative to homo sapiens, he said
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They must have been marvelous swimmers.

Full article

http://www.dailymercury.com.au/story/20 ... big-yowie/
 
Well, weren't the Floresian hobbits supposed to be H. erectus, and Flores has never been connected to any other land mass.

As for the yowie, I thought H. erectus was shorter than H. sapiens sapiens (in general, not just the hobbits), while the yowie is supposed to be taller.
 
Thanks that really is a very interesting article. There was a short series on BBC 2 a few years back which looked at the prospect of homo erectus making short sea voyages.

I can't see any implications for the yowie though.
 
130 000 years in the Mediterranean is too recent for Homo Erectus. But is it possible that archanthropians (Homo Erectus) or paleanthropians (intermediary forms) reach Australia ? Yes.
Does this cast yowie reports in a new light ? No. Homo erectus was very close to Homo Sapiens, to the point that there is no agreement about the classification of many fossils. A well-taylored archanthropian would not attract much attention in the midst of a modern crowd. I read from R. Leakey that the experiment had already been made with success.

The yowies are a very different bunch. Ape-like, often compared to "gorillas", morphologically very distinct from human beings in every respect. In fact, like other BHMs, they can't be put in relation with any known fossil hominid. In some cases, their general shape would be more akin to robust australopithecines, but the morphology of their foot is different.
 
I've got to say you are right Analis, but then really who knows. Erectus was certainly still around 130,000 years ago but probably not in Europe as I understand it. The date given is well into the anatomically modern human era, but the tools seem most similar to much more ancient examples.

Either way in the context of the post about yowies, erectus making sea voyages is on the cards as evidenced by the hobbits, whom I seriously doubt have a connection with Australopithecus, although in comparative studies certain of their measurements do full into their range. As I said, I see no connection with the yowie though.

I'm so glad no one's mentioned Kow swamp by the way.
 
I was talking to paelontologist Dr Darren Naish last weekend and hesaysthat it nowseemsthat the Flores creaturs were not Homo but Australopithacine. I was amazed but i seemsthat's what they were!
 
I'm really surprised to find literature which is a few years old saying Hobbits weren't descended from Erectus. Is there any chance of you finding out what the basis for this seemingly confident new classification is from him?
 
Hi Oldrover
This is new stuff. I'm not even sure if its released yet by Dr Daz has his fingers on the pulse of this stuff. He hastold me about findngs far in advance of their offical revelations .
I'll see if i can get more details out of him befor i go off up the jungle again.
 
Australopithecine presents even more of a problem with regards getting to Flores. Is there any evidence of Australopithecus outside Africa? (Aside from Flores, assuming this proves to be correct.)
 
oldrover said:
I've got to say you are right Analis, but then really who knows. Erectus was certainly still around 130,000 years ago but probably not in Europe as I understand it. The date given is well into the anatomically modern human era, but the tools seem most similar to much more ancient examples.
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In Europe, only paleanthropians have been known for 500 000 years. The distinction is not easy, because these names, Erectus and Sapiens probably refer to evolutionnary grades, not to true species. There is much evidence of interbreeding and of progressive evolution. Paleanthropian, sometimes erroneously equated with Neanderthalian, means in fact anything that is closer to modern human than archanthropians (Erectus) were. They are sometimes called archaic Sapiens, but there is no general agreement, because boundaries are unclear.
As for the tools, it is admitted that there is no strict relation between them and the physical appearance.

The only region where what could be called Erectus might have remained present around 130 000 years ago is in fact Indonesia. The recent Solo and Ndandong were only slightly modified from the earlier fossils (Dubois' Pithecanthropus or Java Man). The only difference being a slightly enlarged cranium, but similar in shape to earlier forms, and lacking distinctive features present in paleanthropian all over the world. This may have been due to greater isolation. But there is a disagreement in their datation : while their usually accepted estimated age was around 250 000 years ago, two recent studies have concluded that it was between 27 000 and 53 000 years only (published in Science, 13 December 1996, by C. C. SWISHER III, W. J. RINK, S. C. ANTON, H. P. SCHWARCZ, G. H. CURTIS, A. SUPRIJO, WIDIASMORO).

oldrover said:
Either way in the context of the post about yowies, erectus making sea voyages is on the cards as evidenced by the hobbits, whom I seriously doubt have a connection with Australopithecus, although in comparative studies certain of their measurements do full into their range.
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As the article given in link shows, their post-cranial measurements suggests a relationship with the Australopithecine, while their cranium suggests a relationship with Homo. Whatever the truth is, an amount of convergent evolution seems involved. In any case, they seem very removed from the Indonesian archanthropians. But if they really prove to be australopithecs, it would be remarkable that they had travelled to Flores.

oldrover said:
As I said, I see no connection with the yowie though.
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I agree with this statement.

oldrover said:
I'm so glad no one's mentioned Kow swamp by the way.
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I had thought of mentioning them, but I think they are irrelevant with the thread... However, the new datations for the recent Solo men suggest that after all, the possibility that they were really the product of erectus-modern human interbreeding is not so far-fetched.

@Anome_ : I remember that some fragmentary old remains, around 1,9 millions years ago, in Indonesia again, had been tentatively ascribed to Australopithecine. I don't know if this is still taken into consideration. Some stone fragments, found in southern France and Italy, dated to more than 2 millions years, have been considered by some as tools, but it is controversial.
So I'd say that there is evidence, but none that would be considered as decisive until now.
 
Analis do you have the name of the study? I've tried searching with the names but got nowhere.

As for the hobbits the cranial capacity was most similar to Australopithecus, but I think the shape was more suggestive of Homo.

There's nothing as far as I'm aware that suggests the Kow Swamp, which would be highly relevant to the idea of earlier humans making sea voyages as they were found in Australia, was anything other than modern human.

Lormongrove thanks for that, and good luck with your next expedition, you use the word jungle so I'm hoping it's in Sumatra.

Off topic, yesterday I finally got of my arse and went to Paviland which is practically on my doorstep. On the way back of course I stopped to look across at the sea when I saw a huge white platform moored of the North Devon coast, where I believe you're based, any idea what it is?
 
oldrover said:
Analis do you have the name of the study? I've tried searching with the names but got nowhere.
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Here's what I found :
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/274/5 ... 0.abstract

Science 13 December 1996:
Vol. 274 no. 5294 pp. 1870-1874
DOI: 10.1126/science.274.5294.1870
•Report

Latest Homo erectus of Java: Potential Contemporaneity with Homo sapiens in Southeast Asia
C. C. Swisher III, W. J. Rink, S. C. Antón, H. P. Schwarcz, G. H. Curtis, A. Suprijo Widiasmoro+ Author Affiliations

C. C. Swisher III and G. H. Curtis, Berkeley Geochronology Center, 2455 Ridge Road, Berkeley, CA 94709 USA.
W. J. Rink and H. P. Schwarcz, Department of Geology, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8S 4M1.
S. C. Antón, Department of Anthropology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA.
A. Suprijo and Widiasmoro, Laboratory of Bioanthropology and Paleoanthropology, Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, 55281.
Abstract
Hominid fossils from Ngandong and Sambungmacan, Central Java, are considered the most morphologically advanced representatives of Homo erectus. Electron spin resonance (ESR) and mass spectrometric U-series dating of fossil bovid teeth collected from the hominid-bearing levels at these sites gave mean ages of 27 ± 2 to 53.3 ± 4 thousand years ago; the range in ages reflects uncertainties in uranium migration histories. These ages are 20,000 to 400,000 years younger than previous age estimates for these hominids and indicate that H. erectus may have survived on Java at least 250,000 years longer than on the Asian mainland, and perhaps 1 million years longer than in Africa. The new ages raise the possibility that H. erectus overlapped in time with anatomically modern humans (H. sapiens) in Southeast Asia.

Accepted for publication 23 October 1996.
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Bumping a thread from “not a million years ago” – my doing this, prompted by recent thoughts about its overall topic.

Australia’s Yowie – there would appear to be, in the whole general domain, a great range of offered data / opinion, about the Australian Aborigines’ “take” on the Yowie phenomenon. This would appear to vary from “if you ask Aborigines about Yowies, they laugh and say that this whole thing was dreamed up by the whites, in very recent times”; to “all Aboriginal tribal cultures have copious lore about the Yowie” – including (recent example noted on a message board) a traditional account of a full-scale war long ago, between the recounter’s ancestors, and Yowie-kind.

As is often the case with matters cryptozoological, confirmation bias can be suspected to be in play -- people seize, at however-manyth-hand, on the Aboriginal version which would tend to support what they are inclined to opine. Hard to know what to conclude – especially with the (from Western rational-and-scientific perspective) particular strangeness of Aboriginal world-views. Would be interested to hear any data / ideas, re this matter.
 
Would be interested to hear any data / ideas, re this matter.
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Mungo Man was an anatomically modern human but appeared to come from an extinct branch of the human family (no DNA relationship to any living peoples, including modern Aborigines). Could there have been some sort of even earlier human occupation of Australia and some sort of conflict took place?

There's a reference to "brown jacks" earlier in the thread. I read somewhere, possibly on this board, of Aboriginal traditions regarding these hominids which seem much smaller than Yowies - but maybe both are a memory of a relict hominid population? I can't believe they exist today.
 
Mungo Man was an anatomically modern human but appeared to come from an extinct branch of the human family (no DNA relationship to any living peoples, including modern Aborigines). Could there have been some sort of even earlier human occupation of Australia and some sort of conflict took place?
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Mungo Man's DNA isn't certain as yet as far as I know, there's only been the one study and its results are controversial. Either way though it's a pretty interesting idea that the winners of some ancient conflict would dehumanise the losers leading to a yowie like myth.

Trouble is though as yet we, on this board, don't seem to have any concrete evidence for an Aboriginal lore of that kind, there must be and I'd be very surprised if there wasn't though.
 
Earlier-and-differnt branch of humanity, in Australia before the Aborigines, and conflict big-time between the two -- feels initially, like a very "radical" notion; but really, I suppose, no conclusive proof that it's outright impossible.

As I've remarked -- potential muddying of the waters, from the fact that supposed Aboriginal Yowie lore (or lack thereof) is cited on the Net, by people with a vested interest -- proponents, or debunkers, of the Yowie ("bigger, or smaller, kinds") -- distortion arising from confirmation bias one way or the other, to be suspected. This could prompt one to try to look at the work of anthropologists with no particular interest in Yowie stuff, who would thus be impartial about it. Suspectably, a mighty amount of work, and I wouldn't know right now, where to start; though if one were truly interested, no doubt Google would give some initial pointers.
 
I remember vague references, they suggested the existence of something called yowie or yahoo in aborigine lore, but it was removed from the modern yowie imagery. The yowies could be small, lived in trees, were man-eaters, had their feet turned backwards...
Very faerie-like. In fact, this situation looks suspiciously like the search for so-called precedents for Sasquatch in native american lore.
 
The feet turned backwards is similar to that Curupira creature of myth.

A yahoo is a creature from Gulliver's Travel, though I think a slightly yowie like one.
 
To thoroughly tangle and confuse things -- Swift's Yahoos (in the fourth book of "Gulliver's Travels") were allegorised humans -- brute-like and nasty, and the slaves / serfs of the noble race of horses who were the heroes of the book.

I recall a correspondence -- as ever, probably in the lost archives of the older version of the site -- on the American "BigfootForums", concerning an 18th-century pioneer -- who was at any rate able to write, hence his written account -- telling of his having shot and possibly killed, somewhere in the eastern half of what is now the USA, a large hairy bipedal creature which he referred to as a "yeawho", or spelling approximating thereto. Discussion followed as to whether the guy was familiar with "Gulliver", and got the word from that. Of course, the man could have been telling tall tales, borrowing from "the master thereof"...
 
This is getting more interesting all the time. I don't suppose you can remember the date at all just to which half of the 18thC.

Also yes this is true of the Curupira this came up the other day somewhere here. If we can also find that trait in Aboriginal tradition then we really will be into something I think.
 
oldrover said:
This is getting more interesting all the time. I don't suppose you can remember the date at all just to which half of the 18thC.
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I can, and will, try, via BigfootForums -- probably a better chance of going into the Kerinci Seblat and finally emerging hand-in-hand with an Orang Pendek -- but you never know. The shooter-and-recorder might even have been Daniel Boone; but truly, I don't recall.
 
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