Studying Human Evolution and Evidence

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8 Terms

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How do you study human evolution?

  1. Always start with an observation

  2. Hypothesis

  3. Prediction

  4. Gather evidence, test with experiments (statistical analysis)

  5. Create theory

2
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What are the forms of primary evidence?

  • Anatomy (fossil and comparative anatomy)

  • Artefacts (stone/bone tools, site patterning)

  • Genetics/molecular evidence (proteins and enzymes, chromosomes, comparative genetics and ancient DNA, DNA (nuclear, mtDNA, Y chromosome))

3
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What are the limitations of primary evidence?

Time depth for some lines of evidence like history

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How do fossils form?

  • Phase 1: death

  • Phase 2: deposition

  • Phase 3: perimineralisation (replacement of the original organic tissues with minerals from the surrounding rock)

  • Phase 4: exposure

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How are fossils dated?

Relative dating and numerical dating

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What is relative dating?

A method of determining the order in which geologic events occurred, specifically establishing whether one rock or event is older or younger than another

  • Comparison to other similar material of know age

  • Palaeomagnetism: changes in Earth’s magnetic field

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What is numerical dating?

A method of determining the age of Earth materials by assigning a specific number of years to an event or interval of time in Earth's history

  • Isotope analysis (decay other time): potassium-argon, argon-argon, carbon-14 (or radiocarbon), and uranium series

  • Thermo-luminescence: amount of electrons trapped inside

  • Molecular clock: DNA-based, mutation over time

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What are recent developments in the field?

New discoveries keep changing our understanding and new technologies allows old evidence to be re-analysed