Reply to Washburn

Abstract

It is gracious of Washburn to come to defense of Richard Leakey, and he is to be commended for chiding me on my excess of zeal. The errors to which I referred in my review are real enough, however, and cannot be attributed to my dogmatism or to my use of simplistic biometry on teeth and jaws. Finally, my initial suggestions concerning what came to be called the single species hypothesis were tentative at outset (Brace 1969, 1971, 1973), and, following Richard Leakey's conclusive demonstration of presence of two hominid taxa in same early Pleistocene stratum (Leakey and Walker 1976), I incorporated newer material and its implications in my subsequent treatments (Brace and Montagu 1977; Brace 1979 a, b; Brace, Nelson, Korn, and Brace 1979). The matter of editorial policy raised by Washburn requires some further comment. When I wrote review, I was editor for physical anthropology for American Anthropologist and charged with processing of all manuscripts pertaining to that subfield. Articles generally are volunteered and in any case are evaluated by a panel of referees before decisions are made concerning suitability for publication. Book reviews, on other hand, are requested by editor from scholars whom he deems to be appropriate. The review then is subject to no more than scrutiny of editor and editor-in-chief before it is