11. Rise of the Genus Homo

Question 1

Oldowan

Answer 1

The tool industry characterized by simple, usually unifacial core and flake tools.

Question 2

Tool industry

Answer 2

A particular style or tradition of making stone tools.

Question 3

Core

Answer 3

The raw material source (a river cobble or a large flake) from which flakes are removed.

Question 4

Flake

Answer 4

The stone fragment struck from a core, thought to have been the primary tools of the Oldowan.

Question 5

Hammerstone

Answer 5

A stone used for striking cores to produces flakes or bones to expose marrow.

Question 6

Butchering site

Answer 6

A place where there is archaeological evidence of the butchering of carcasses by hominins. The evidence usually consists of tool cut marks on fossilized animal bones or the presence of the stone tools themselves.

Question 7

Quarrying site

Answer 7

An archaeological site at which there is evidence that early hominins were obtaining the raw material to make stone tools.

Question 8

Home base

Answer 8

Archaeological term for an area to which early hominins may have brought tools and carcasses and around which their activities were centered.

Question 9

Supraorbital bone

Answer 9

Thickened ridge of bone above the eye orbits of the skull; a brow ridge.

Question 10

Angular torus

Answer 10

A thickened ridge of bone at the posterior angle of the parietal bone.

Question 11

Occipital torus

Answer 11

A thickened horizontal ridge of bone on the occipital bone at the rear of the cranium.

Question 12

Sagittal keel

Answer 12

Longitudinal ridge or thickening of bone on the Sagittal suture not associated with any muscle attachment.

Question 13

Metopic keel

Answer 13

Longitudinal ridge or thickening of bone on the Sagittal suture not associated with any muscle attachment.

Question 14

Shovel-shaped incisors

Answer 14

Anterior teeth that, on their lingual (tongue) surface, are concave with two raised edges that make them look like tiny shovels.

Question 15

Calotte

Answer 15

The skullcap, or the bones of the skull, excluding those that form the face and the base of the cranium.

Question 16

Calvaria

Answer 16

The braincase; includes the bones of the calotte and those that form the base of the cranium but excludes the bones of the face.

Question 17

Canine fossa

Answer 17

An indentation on the maxilla above the root of the canine, an anatomical feature usually associated with modern humans that may be present in some archaic Homo species in Europe.

Question 18

Acheulean

Answer 18

Stone tool industry of the early and middle Pleistocene characterized by the presence of bifacial hand axes and cleavers. This industry is made by a number of Homo species, including H. erectus and early H. sapiens.

Question 19

Early Stone Age (or Lower Paleolithic)

Answer 19

The earliest stone tool industries including the Oldowan and Acheulean industries, called the ESA in Africa and the Lower Paleolithic outside Africa.

Question 20

Biface

Answer 20

A stone tool that has been flaked on two faces or opposing sides forming a cutting edge between the two flake scars.

Question 21

Hand axe

Answer 21

Type of Acheulean bifacial tool, usually teardrop shaped, with a long cutting edge.

Question 22

Cleaver

Answer 22

Type of Acheulean bifacial tools, usually oblong with a broad cutting edge on one end.

Question 23

Movius line

Answer 23

The separation between areas of the Old World in which Acheulean technology occurs and those in which it does not; named by archaeologist Hallam Movius.