chapter 24

Question 1

primates

Answer 1

a member of an order of mammals that share a number of general features that distinguish them from other mammals. including nails rather than claws, front-facing eyes, and an opposable thumb

Question 2

hominins

Answer 2

a member of one of the different species in the group leading to humans

Question 3

Ardi

Answer 3

a specimen of Ardipethecus ramidus, an important early hominin, dating from about 4.4 million years ago

Question 4

Lucy

Answer 4

an unusually complete early hominin fossil, Australopithecus afarensis, found in 1974 in Ethiopia

Question 5

Bipedal

Answer 5

moving by two feet and habitually walking upright

Question 6

Neanderthals

Answer 6

Homo neanderthalensis, a species similar to humans, but with thicker bones and flatter heads that contained brains about the same size as humans’

Question 7

multiregional hypothesis

Answer 7

the idea that modern humans derive from the Homo ergaster populations that spread around the world starting 2 million years ago

Question 8

out-of-Africa hypothesis

Answer 8

the idea that modern humans arose from Homo ergaster descendants in Africa before dispersing beyond Africa around 60,000 years ago

Question 9

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA)

Answer 9

a small circle of DNA, about 17,000 base pairs long in humans, found in every mitochondrion

Question 10

Cro-Magnon

Answer 10

the first known population of Homo sapiens in Europe, named for the site in France where specimens were first described

Question 11

neoteny

Answer 11

the process in which the timing of development is altered so that a sexually mature organism retains the physical characteristics of the juvenile form

Question 12

culture

Answer 12

the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively