Final Exam Flashcards
Why Bipedality?
Energy Efficiency
Ecological Influences
Dietary Influences
Energy Efficiency
bipedality decreases risk of overheating
maintains group size while also increasing access to resources
Ecological Influences
Standing up right in grasslands and predation
Dietary Influences
Feeding on fruit trees?
Standing upright on limbs?
Origins and evolution of primate intelligence: 3 schools of thought
Technical intelligence and tool use
Ecological intelligence
Social intelligence
Technical Intelligence
Tools and access to food
The ability to use/construct tools uses sophisticated cognitive skills
Technical Intelligence Problem
There were bipeds 6 MYA but tools weren’t until 2.5 MYA and brain size didn’t change dramatically until 300KYA
Ecological Intelligence
Navigate and find food in highly complex environments and remember patchy distribution
Ecological Intelligence Problem
Other organisms did just fine, and it appears that our early fossils appear in forest, not savannah, environments
Social Intelligence
Large brain size allows apes to cope with and exploit increasingly complex social relations
Social Intelligence Problem
Brian to body ratio of early homo similar to great apes, other animals with regular brains also live in complex groups (wolves)
Characteristics of Hominins
bipedal
smaller canines
slightly larger brain to body ratio
Australopithecus
anamensis(oldest), afarensis, africanus
Afarensis and “Lucy”
Biped
Small Brian
Small Body
Adult
Africanus and Taung Child
baby teeth
placement of FM argument for bipedality
no flared zygomatics
Robust Australopithecines
Wide flaring zygomatics Heavy molars Large teeth Sagittal crest Dished face Extreme specialization
Homo erectus: time frame
1.7 to 1.8 MYA
Pleistocene
Characterized by CHANGE and MASSIVE CLIMATIC OSCILLATION
What would we see in the fossil record after glacial change?
Massive extinction events
Massive speciation
Larger warm blooded organisms
What made H. erectus so special?
Had extreme variation in morphology and potentially behavior (maybe onset of culture)
Asian archaics
1150-1400 cc
Coexisting with H. erectus
African archaics
large cc, but not very neanderthal like
European archaics
larger cc than H. erectus
Neanderthals
30-15 KYA
Europe, northern climates
Overlap with anatomically modern humans
Not sure if separate species or not
Neanderthals distinguishing characteristics
heavy ROBUST bones large brow ridges OCCIPITAL BUN barrel chest larger cranium than H. erectus large nose no chin shorter limbs
Human Characteristics
high forehead mental eminence smaller teeth gracile features symbolic culture
Bergman’s rule
Stipulates that body size is larger in colder climates to conserve body temperature
Allen’s rule
Stipulates that in warmer climates, the limbs of the body are longer relative to body size to dissipate heat
Neanderthal Life History
similar to humans
Neanderthal Behavior
Few are found with upper paleolithic tools
Upper paleolithic tools
characterized by blade-based technology
Blades
flakes that are twice as long as they are wide
Neanderthals are cold adapted:
hearth has been found
ate alot of meat (cannibalism?)
probably mobile
How are Nean. related to sapiens? Lumpers
Argue that archaic H. sapiens and Neanderthals were a part of the same potentially interbreeding species
How are Nean. related to sapiens? Splitters
Argue that Neanderthals are separate and distinct species that rarely interbred with H. sapiens
Sapiens dispersal: Replacement prediction
See modern human fossils in Africa
2 distinct hominids in old world
they overlap in time/space but not in genetics
abrupt changes in technology and behavior
Sapiens dispersal: Multiregional prediction
Single evolving lineage slightly different trends in each region intermediate fossils behavioral continuity all contribute to gene pool
developmental plasticity
is a general term referring to changes in neural connections during development as a result of environmental interactions
What defines australopithecines from earlier forms?
earliest hominids 6 MYA, australo 4 MYA
increased cranial capacity
bipedalism
smaller teeth
allometric effects
larger brains, larger bodies
prognathism
projection of the face well in front of the brain case
Homo habilis
‘handy man’
2.5 MYA
Oldowan industry
“old one” characterized by
Homo erectus
1.8-1.9 MYA
Major adaptive shift
body/brain increase
tooth size decrease
First homonid to leave Africa?
H. erectus
Acheulean Industry
bi-facial hand-axes and cleavers
H. erectus and sapiens
Movius line
division between hand-axe bearing and those without hand axes
Why does Movius line exist hypotheses (2)
1) Absense in Africa reflects loss of technology caused by differences in selective pressures and raw materials between Asia and Africa
2) Hominids who left Africa left before Acheulean tools were developed
What are some things that may have increased dietary quality?
More meat
Higher quality plant foods
Cooking
How would you expect H. erectus life history to change?
longer life span
greater juvenile period
Archaic Homo sapiens
Intermediate between H. erectus and H. sapiens
What is language? (5)
spoken semantic phonemic grammatical has recursion
sematic
have meaning and represent real-world objects
phonemic
sounds make up words and there is no intrinsic association between a word and its concept
recursion
the ability to string together sentences, imbed clauses, imbed levels of ideas
When cave art?
End of pliestocene
Why did language evolve? (4)
throwing ability, handedness
replacement for grooming
symbols and sex
gesture and spoken language
4 approaches of evolution of human behavior
Paleontological reconstructions
biocultural approach
human evolutionary ecology
evolutionary psychology
Paleontological reconstructions
using fossils etc. to reconstruct behavior of earlier hominids and then extrapolating them to modern humans
Biocultural Apporaches
How human cultural behavior has influenced biological change (lactase persisitance, sickle cell)
Evolutionary Psych
behavior should be interpreted through the terms of EEA
EEA
Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness
Human Evolutionary Ecology
Reproductive success in existing hunter-gatherer societies
Intensification
Increase in productivity of the same amount of land -> leads to surplus
Consequences of the rise of food production
Declining health
Elaboration of material possessions
What happens when you get a bunch of organisms living together?
Disease
Dependence on crops for food
Focal Sampling
1 subject for amt of time
Scan Sampling
Multiple subjects
