ANTHRO FINAL

What are the main changes that occurred from australopithecines to Homo?

-Increase in brain and body size -Reduction in tooth size -More organathic/less prognathic (flatter faces) -More efficient striding bipedalism

What australopithecine species did we most likely evolve from?

- Homo Habilis
-2.5-1.6 Ma
-Odulvai Gorge, Tanzania
-Reduced facial size
-Parabolic palate
-Tools
-Twiggy

What evidence do we have for reorganization and expansion of the human brain?

Increased cranium casts

ER 1470

-752 cc (large cranial capacity)
-Big brain, primitive (not shared traits) face
-Large face
-Large posterior teeth
-1.8 Ma
-H. rudolfensis (because large cc)
-Male

ER 1813

-510 cc -1.9 Ma
-Small brain, derived (shared traits) face
-Small face
-Small posterior teeth
-H. Habilis
-Female

Lumpers

Similarities of specimens

Splitters

Difference of specimens

Stone tools

-First found 2.5 may
-Hammerstones: used to crack open bones of large animals, and remove meat/marrow
-Flakes were used to cut, scrape, and skin animals

What type of fracture patterns do we look for at a site when a carnivore has manipulated the assemblage versus when a hominin manipulates the assemblages?

Carnivores: chew carcass first, then butcher it -Hunter: cut flesh from bones after it was already chewed by predator OR break open middle
Hominin: find already killed animal and take meat

How are stone tools made?

- Percussion method
- hitting rock on rock

Oldowan Tool Industry

-First stone tool industry, 2.6 ma
-Lower paleolithic
-Africa, Republic of Georgia
-Made from cobblestone rocks

What cultural features are associated with Homo erectus?

- Cooking
-Language
-Fire
-Tool making
-Very adaptable

How are brain structure and diet correlated and how do they influence behavior?

- Brain size increases with more meat consumed

What is significant about the fossil distribution of Homo erectus?

- Wide distribution found throughout the world at the same time period

What are some examples of Homo erectus in the Old World?

- "Java man"

Where was Homo erectus first found?

-Indonesia
-1.8 ma
- 250,000 Ka
-1891 by Eugene Dubois

Acheulean Industry

- 1.4 ma
-300,000 years ago
- Stone tool industry of early and middle pleistocene
- Hand axe (bifacially worked, teardrop shaped)
- Bifacial retouch (took a long time to make, so would keep it and retouch it)

"Homo ergaster" vs Homo erectus

Ergaster: Found in AFRICA, smaller skull and dental arcade, larger cc than Homo erectus, broader nasal opening. Thinner cranial bones.

Erectus: Smaller brain cc, large face and thick skull, more robust than ergaster. From ASIA

What are some of the possible anatomical clues to language?

- Hyoid placement (position of it tells range and pitch of sound. Changes depending on location in throat)
- Reorganization of brain (Wernicke's area and Broca's area- areas important to speak of brain expanded)
- Hypoglossal canal

Define Archaic Homo sapiens

Intermediate between H. erectus and modern H. sapiens (us)
- Most well known are Neandertals
- Found in Asia, Europe and Africa 200,000-500,000 ya

What is interesting about the taphonomic marks found on Bodo and Florisbad?

Bodo had cut marks on his face made by stone tools that reflect a burial or ritual practice

Why is Atapuerca such an amazing site?

- Able to study variation
- It had the greatest number and oldest of the archaic H. sapiens fossils recovered from a single locality from same cave system
- Known as Sima de los Huesos
- Yielded at least 28 individuals
- Mix of neandertal and non-neandertal characteristics

Neandertals- morphological features, dates, geographic range, social life, tools, culture

- Lack of chin
- Projecting midface
- Large arching browridges
- Low forehead
- Large cranial capacity (1200-1750 ml)
- Occipital Bun
- Retromolar space - "older/vintage" space behind last molars
- Large teeth
- 100% incidence of shovel-shaped incisors

What do we know about their behavior and what evidence do we use to back this up?

- Used Middle Paleolithic tools
- Used teeth to hold objects
- Fire- evidence of charcoal deposits
- Used animal skins and hides to protect themselves from the cold
- Moved south during glacial times
- Ate a lot of meat
- Cannibalism
- Burials

Levalloisian Technique

- Prepared cores to produce uniform flakes
- Slice rock
-Middle paleolithic

Mousterian Tool Technology

- Advanced stone tool technique
- Hand axes, scrapers, flakes, borers

What are some of the cultural advances of archaic Homo sapiens?

- Mass large game kill sites
- Long term habitation
- Moldova, Ukraine- oval ring of mammoth
- Language (high voices)

What are the general characteristics of anatomically modern Homo sapiens (AMHs)

High, vertical horsehead
- Definite chin
-Small anterior teeth
- More vertical occipital region
- More gracile post cranial skeleton
-Thinner walled bones
-Longer hands
-Short, thick pubic bones

When did anatomical humans first appear and where?

-160 Ka to present
-First found in Africa
-Herto, Ethiopia (160 Ka)

Multiregional Hypothesis

-AMH developed from many regions at the same time
-No single location where humans first evolved
-Need gene flow and migration
-Regional continuity

Out of Africa Hypothesis

- All humans developed from a single AMH population in Africa
- Replaced all other species
- No transitional species outside of Africa
- No geneflow between populations

Partial Replacement Hypothesis

- African origins but some geneflow between populations

Why are Skhul and Qafzeh and Tabun and St Cesaire important for understanding tool usage among early humans?

Important because they have modern African body proportions in Israel
- Could be considered the first sign of expansion out of Africa

When did the Upper Paleolithic start?

40,000 year ago

What tool technology is the Upper Paleolithic dominated by?

Microliths: small, shaped flakes that were designed to be hafted to wood or bone

What other types of tools were they using?

- spears
- harpoons
- ATL ATL
- Needles
- Stone bowls

Were these tools used only as weapons? Can you name any examples?

Also use in fashioning clothes and housing

What are Venus figurines and what do they (potentially) represent?

- Self representations of women looking down at themselves
- Made by females
- Depictions of fertility or the hunt

Why art?

- Ritual purposes: ceremony to prepare for the hunt
- Fertility
- Larger social structures so people can focus on art because someone can bring you food
- Advancement in cognitive ability

Why have Neandertals been considered ignorant for so long?

Parts of society do not want to believe we ace from primitive beings, even though Neandertals were really smart

Paleolithic Art- portable, parietal; figurative, non-figurative

Parietal: Cave etchings, chip it away
Figurative: Animals
Non-figurative: Hand prints
Portable: Able to carry with them

Lower, Middle and Upper Paleolithic

Lower: Oldowan/Aucheulean
Middle: Prepare core technology, Levallois technique
Upper: Revolutionary- Neandertals used Mousterian stone tool technology

What specific Homo sapien fossils were mentioned in class?

Africa
- Florisbad, 400, Ka
- Kabwe, 400-200 Ka
Europe
- 500-200 Ka
- Sierra de Atapuerca
- Mixture of neandertal and non-neandertal characteristics
Asia
- Dali, 200-180 Ka

Describe the differences between the Paleolithic Diet and modern diet. Why are scientists concerned with the Paleolithic diet? What are some of the results of the change to a modern diet?

Paleo:
-Many calories to support active lifestyle
Micronutrients: 70% of diet
Electrolytes: High consumption of K and Na
Carbs: 50% of daily caloric intake from veggies and fruits
Fat: 25% of daily caloric intake from lean animals
Protein: 30% of daily caloric intake is from protein
Fiber: 50-100g/day

Modern:
Energy: Less physical lifestyle requires less calories
Micronutrients: low consumption
Electrolytes: Low K and high Na
Carbs: 50% of daily intake from processed grains, sugars
Fat: 40% daily from meat and dairy
Protein: High protein intake - high heart disease rates
Fiver: 20g/day

- Contemporary diet is generalized low nutrition from poor quality and processed foods.

- This has lead to the thrifty genotype thesis and the thrifty pleiotropic genotype thesis which states that our bodies are designed to hold on to fats and store them for times of nonabundance and, in the second thesis, that some populations have vitamin deficiencies based their location and diet.

What is ancestry based on?

Geographic origin
- Skeletal and dental traits.

Dubois

1890's found Homo Erectus in Indonesia

Black and Weindenreich

"Peking Man"
- 40 m/f adults and children
- stone tools
- burned bone
- China

Homo Naledi

- modern skull; no sagittal kneeling; 465-560 cc
- closest to H erectus
- small anterior teeth and post canine both similar to Homo
-"Human Stars"
- many ages within

"Homo heidelbergensis"

- intermediate between H erectus and H sapiens
- most well known is Neanderthals

What are some cultural advances of Neanderthals?

- burial
- language; can they speak like us? evidence of a wide range of sounds

Why is this time period so important?

- can show variation in population of extinct hominins

What are the first fossil example of those first AMHs?

archaic Homo sapiens ; Neanderthals

What are some of the major behavioral changes that took place in the Upper Paleolithic period?

- art
- stone tools

Blade Technique

creation of blade in Upper Paleolithic time

Pressure Flaking

pointed nutriment used to pry (flake) away in order to leave tiny marks

Temporal variation

(function of time)

regional variation

multiple areas at a simultaneous time creating variation

diversity of tools

bone needles, stone tools, harpoons, stone oil lantern

Migration to Americas

50,000 to 15,000 years ago
-Bering Straight Land Bridge

Monte Verde, Chile

- hunter-gathers
- 45-40 Ka adapted to living in harsh climates

race

- same thing as subspecies
-cultural and biological construct

What is significant about the census?

with a subspecies there is a difference in allele frequencies, without subspecies allele frequency changes are clinal

ethnic groups / ethnicity

people who share cultural beliefs

phenotype

physical traits

Herodotus

- 5th century BC
- enviro and culture cause variation
- Persians, Egyptians

Aristotle

- human variation from enviro
- Great Chain of Being
- Sub- saharan Africans, Scythians

What was one of the major developments in Western Europe that led to the concept of race?

discovery of a mixed pattern of characteristics and some quite unexpected

Linnaeus

- essentialism
- typology

Biological Determinism

- cultural and biological variations are inherited

Galton

eugenics : controlled bredding for desired traits to "improve the human race"
- important through forced contribution

Socio-political arena of race

slavery and indentured servants
- 1882 Chinese exclusion act
- 1915 KKK revived
- 1917,21,24 national origins act
- 1924 89,000Mexican immigrants

Franz Boas

surveys the physical shape and size of immigrants
- found that over time they differed

Variation within the human species

more variation between them than similarities

Five objections to race

1. emphasized homogeneity between groups
2. human species can't be divided into discrete groups that NEVER mate with anyone outside of group
3. no biological reality to race (social construct)
4. typological concept that is anti-evolutionary
5. socially loaded : too vague

nationality

- status of belonging to a certain nation
- ethnic group forming a part of one or more nations

clines

gradual change in frequency of a single trait in populations dispersed over geographical space

adaptation

- any response to environmental conditions that improves an organisms chance of survival

inherited adaptation

ex) skin color

not inherited adaptation

ex) lung capacity, larger chest, better heart

acclimatization

process by which an organism adjusts to a change in its enviroment

acclimation

change in physiology during the lifetime of the individual

Adult Physiological Adaptations

-short term response to new environmental stressors
-ex) Hypoxia : more RBC

Developmental Physiological Adaptations

- irreversible
- not genetic
- acts at an individual level
ex) larger chest, lung and heart, better at diffusing oxygen from blood

Behavioral/Cultural Adaptations

changes an organism makes in their habits in order to survive

Genetic Adaptation

the natural selection of the progeny of a mutant better adapted to a new environment (aka random variation)

Glover's Rule

populations living in warmer climates make more melanin than populations of the same species in cooler climates
- (think of why Jamaicans are naturally more tan-- sunnier climate)

skin color

- hemoglobin: when carrying oxygen, gives a red tint to scan
- carotene: plant pigment that body synthesizes vitamin a and produces a yellowish cast
- melanin: ability to absorb uv radiation preventing damage to dna

theory for change in skin color (4)

1. polygenic trait
2. environmentally influenced
3. hemoglobin, carotene, melanin
4. natural sunscreen

bergmann's rule

body size is small in hot climates and large in cold climates

allen's rule

body shape is linear in warm climates and more rounded in cold, compacted climates

lactose intolerance

inability to digest lactose (milk sugar)
- insufficient production of Lactase
- all infants/children can digest milk but can "switch off" in adolescence
- geographical distribution is related to cultural dependence on fresh milk products

vasodilation

- adaption to heat
- physiological
- sweating

vasoconstriction

- adaptation to cold
- physiological heat conservation

Homo habilis features of hand and foot

- walked on two legs
- proportioned like an ape
- finger bones are slightly curved and show resemblance to apes and modern humans
- finger bone proportions suggest the ability to form a precision grip and climbing

From the movie "dawn of humanity," what is Africa also known as?

the cradle of humankind

what did a space odyssey give way to?

the idea of a "killer ape"

Who made the idea of a killer ape?

Raymond Dart and dramatized by Robert Ardrey

Why was the "killer ape" idea disproven?

because Australopithecus ate vegetation;
found in teeth samples

Rising Star Expedition

- comprised of mostly young women;
- found H. Naledi fossils after getting through Superman's Crawl and Dragon's Back Chamber

In 1880s, what was Johannesburg known as?

a gold rush town