Americanus

The Punin skull assigned to Homo-aproscopinus (Americanus) puninensis.

### Species

*Homo-aproscopinus (Americanus) puninensis**Homo sapiens (Americanus) puninensis*

### Diet

Omnivorous

*Americanus* is a dubious subgenus of hominid that lived in Ecuador during the Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene.

## History

This name was coined by Frassetto (1948) and referred to *Homo-aproscopinus* to refer to *Homo sapiens* remains from Ecuador. However, this model of human evolution is abandoned. In the first model *Homo-aproscopinus* has 1 species. and in the second model, the specialized genus names are dropped for a generalized *Homo* that divides into two species: *Homo sapiens* and *Homo neanderthalensis*. The former has 1 subspecies assigned to this subgenus.

A team by the American Museum of Natural History discovered the Punin skull in the Andean highlands on November 1, 1923 by field assistant G.H.H. Tate while exploring the Chalan ravin near Punin, Chimboranzo, near Riobamba, Ecuador. It was found close to a river 9000 feet (2700 miles) in altitude and 3 feet (1 meter) below the top of an alluvial bank that is 2 meters (7 feet) high. It was very soggy and fragile upon discovery, according to E.H. Anthony, but dried and hardened upon removal. The first skull lacks the M3, which is a congenital defect that is found very rarely outside of Eastern Asia.

About 50 years later on September 8, 1972, the farmer Lucas Antonio Paredes finds a burial in Pailapara, 500 meters from the first skull and notified a fossil and antiquities trader, Florencio Samaniego Santillán, who arrived that same day and began excavations. They found possibly more than one individual inside volcanic ash that were comparable to the first Punin skull. Whittall notes that they are amateur "tomb raiders of the worst kind". They called it Punin 2 and was exhibited at the museum at Central Bank in 1979. It was dated to 1240 BCE, with no proof of the postcrania and crania being of the same individual.

## Description

Originally, it was considered 'archaic' due to a pronounced brow and robusticity. The skull is void and has a wide and short face with large teeth. The specimen lacks a mandible. It was associated (5-30 meters (50-100 feet) away) with horses, camelids and a mastodon, which suggests an old age. The woman this cranium belonged to was 45-50 years of age and embedded within volcanic ash strata assumed to be 10-20 thousand years old. However, redating in the 1980s by Brothwell suggests an age of ~4750-250 BCE. Although of such a recent age, it is not associated with any cultural items. Likely, the burial of this individual intruded older strata. E.H. Anthony believes otherwise, thinking that the strata is atypical for a burial, believing contemporeity.

## Classification

In the early 1920s, the cranium caused a stir amount anthropologists, with some such as Keith noted resemblance to Aboriginal Australians, postulating that this individual was an Aborigine who migrated to the Americas and was buried there. Houghton believed that it was like Australians, noting that North American burials resemble those in Australia. Some suggest that Patagonian natives have myths that resemble Aboriginal Australians. It was speculated that these people, coined the "Puninese", may be a relict who survived in isolation on the Ecuadorean plateau, until they were subsumed by other indigenous Americans. Others claim that they are a modern group restricted to engogamy in an isolate group. It was once believed that the dental traits and brow could be relics from a *Homo erectus* ancestor, with these populations possibly inspiring cryptohominid myths. This has been rejected today.

## References

* https://www.persee.fr/doc/bmsap\_0037-8984\_1948\_num\_9\_1\_2828
* http://patagoniamonsters.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-punin-skulls-from-ecuador-and-homo.html