Bones, teeth & genes Flashcards
What fields does the American system split anthropology into?
Ethnology, linguistics, archaeology and biological anthropology
What is “the great chain of being”?
The belief that God’s creation followed a plan and that humans were the highest form - this was permanent and unchanging.
Who created the original taxonomic classification system?
Linnaeus
When was On the origin of species published?
1859
What is neo-Darwinism?
A combination of Darwin’s theories with modern understandings of genetics
How are old world monkeys classified?
Cattarhines
How are new world monkeys classified?
Platyrrhines
When did the first hominins appear?
During the miocene, about 6mya
What is a hominin?
- All great apes
- Large brain, bipedal and toolmaking
What does the term derived mean?
Different from what was before
What are the most widely dispersed early African hominins known as?
The Australopiths
What are the major features of Australopiths?
- Small brains
- Bipedal
- Large teeth
- Lost 1st premolar
When did hominins begin to move out of Africa?
2 mya
When has the oldest Homo erectus fossil been dated to?
1.7 mya
What era is usually associated with modern humans?
The upper palaeolitic
What is Chatelperronian?
The idea that Neanderthals may have copied modern human tool use
What is the regional continuity model?
The idea that humans evolved independantly in each region
What is the complete replacement model?
The idea that hominin migration from Africa led to complete replacement of other species in other areas.
What is the partial replacement model?
The idea that hominins expanded out of Africa and interbred with premodern humans leading to assimilation of DNA
What did Adam Smith suggest?
That societies pass through stages: Hunting & gathering Pastoralism Nomadism Agriculturalism Commerce
How did Georges Louis Leclerc define species?
Groups of organisms that could reproduce offspring that resemble parents
When was on the origin of species written?
1859
How many finch species did Darwin discover on the Galápagos Islands?
13
What are the 3 stages of evolutionary development as suggested by Tylor?
Savagery
Barbarism
Civilisation
What are the 3 parts to Darwins theory of evolution?
Struggle for existence
Variation
Inheritance
When are the earliest primates dated to?
Palaeocene (65-56mya) - The plesiadapiforms
What do primates from the Eocene display?
Distinctive primate features.
E.g. Teeth & flat fingernails
In what era are several species of anthropoids attributed to?
Oligocene (33-23mya)
What do hominin a encompass?
All great apes. Name for members of the tribe hominini Bipedal Large brains Toolmaking
What are the advantages of bipedalism?
- Freed the hands for carrying objects and making tools
- Wider visual field
- Efficient way of covering large distances
- Temperature regulation
What structural and anatomical changes occurred with the hominins?
- pelvis becomes shorter and broader
- Elongated legs
- Forensic magnum underneath the skull
When was Australopithecus Africanus first discovered and by whom?
1924 by Raymond Dart
When did hominins first begin to move out of Africa?
2mya
What is the species name given to Homo in Africa?
Homo ergaster (may simply be geographical variation rather than a different species to homo erectus
What is a grade?
A grouping of organisms sharing similar adaptive patterns
How many glacial advances occurred in Europe during the Pleistocene?
15 major
50 minor
What characterises homo naledi?
- Curved finger bones
- Small brain
- Human like teeth
Where does obsidian come from?
Volcanoes
What are the 4 types of Flint knapping?
- Hard hammer percussion
- Soft hammer percussion
- Indirect percussion
- Pressure flaking
Who came up with the modal system of classification in 1977?
Clark
What is relative dating?
Placing something in a sequence but to tied to a certain time
What is absolute dating?
Determining the time period to which something belongs
What methods are used in relative dating?
Architectural styles Stratigraphy Typology and seriation Biostratigraphy Pollen sequences
What methods are used in absolute dating?
Historical sources Writing Coins Marine and ice cores Glacial carve sediments Dendrochronology Amino acid racemization Obsidian hydration Paleomagnetism Tephrachronology
What radio metric dating methods are used?
Potassium-argon dating Uranium series dating Luminescence dating Electron spin resonance Radiocarbon dating
What is a genotype?
A particular combination of genes or alleles that an individual carries
What is a phenotype?
The observable characteristics of an organism
How many amino acid molecules are there?
20
What infraorders are the Strepsirrhines divided into?
Lemuriformes and Lorisiformes
What infraorders are the Haplorrhines divided into?
Tarsiiformes, Platyrrhini and Catarrhini
What belongs to the Catarrhines?
Old world monkeys & apes and humans
What is included in the superfamily Hominoidea?
Hylobatidae (gibbons) and Hominidae (orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, humans)
What is potassium-Argon dating used for?
Dating the age of volcanic rocks found in association with fossils.
How does potassium-Argon dating work?
Argon gas is boiled out of the rock when it emerges from a volcano, this means any argon present must be due to the decay of potassium, which has a known half-life.
How does carbon-14 dating work?
When an organism is alive, C14:C12 is the same as in the atmosphere, but after death C14 decays into N14 at a known rate.
How does thermoluminescence dating work?
Heatng a rock relaxes the bonds that hold the atoms in a crystal lattice together, which means the trapped electrons can be recaptured by their atoms, this process gives off light.
How does electron-spin-resonance dating work?
- Used to age apatite crystals in tooth enamel.
Initially, these crystals contain no trapped electrons but when the teeth are subjected to a variable magnetic field, it is possible to estimate how many years its been since the tooth was formed.
What are angiosperms?
Flowering plants that spread during the cretaceous
What are gymnosperms?
Trees like pine, redwood and fir that dominated the mesozoic.
When was the Miocene epoch?
Between 23mya and 5mya
What was the climate during the Miocene?
It became warmer and Europe was dominated by evergreens.
What happened to the climate during the middle miocene?
Gradual cooling
When did the last common ancestor of humans, gorillas and cimpanzees live?
9-8mya
When did the last common ancestor of chimpanzees live?
7-5mya
It makes sense that the last common ancestor of chimps and humans would come from Africa as this is where the earliest hominin fossils are found. Why did this logic not fit until recently?
Late miocene apes had only been found in European sites until recently.
What features distinguish modern humans from other living hominoids?
- Bipedalism
- Larger brain
- Slower development
- Smaller canines
What is the earliest known hominin?
Sahelanthropus tchadensis
When was Sahelanthropus discovered?
2002
How many species are there in the genus Ardipithecus? And where were they found?
- Ar. Kadabba (5.8-5.2mya) and Ar. ramidus (4.4mya).
Ethiopia
Dentally, Ar. ramidus is similar to what? Which suggests what kind of diet?
Chimpanzees. Frugivorus
How can we tell that Ardipithecus was bipedal?
4 toes were apapted for bipedality, along with the pelvis which is much shorter and broader than chimpanzees.
There are several explanations for the evolution of bipedalism. What are they?
- Bipedalism first evolved among arboreal miocene apes as a feeding adaptation and was retained.
- Bipedalism allows harvesting from trees
- Cooling mechanism
- Hands free to carry things
How many species are included in Australopithecus?
- Au. anamensis, Au. afarensis, Au. africanus, Au. garhi, Au. sediba
How many species of paranthropus are there?
- P. aethiopicus, P. robustus, P. boisei
How many species of Kenyanthropus are there?
- K. platyops pp.248
What is the main aim of geometric morphometrics?
To explore shape variability in organisms using multivariate statistical tools. It uses Cartesian geometric coordinates rather than linear, areal, or volumetric variables
Plotted points when using geometric morphometrics represent what?
landmarks, curves, outlines or surfaces
How can geometric morphometrics be applied to mutations?
It can be used to analyse the effect of a certain mutation on the shape of an organism or part of an organism.
What is the half-life of Carbon-14?
5730 +/- 40 years
What is isotope fractionation?
A process which results in a change in the relative proportions of the isotopes compared to the initial proportions of the substrates.
Which isotopes are studied in researching past diets?
C12, C13, N14, N15
What values are studied when distinguishing C3 and C4 plants?
delta C13
What photosynthesis pathway normally occurs in the ocean?
C3