Finals Study Guide Chapter 11

Question 1

Earliest stone tools

Answer 1

Location- sites in Ethiopia

Age- a little over 2.5 mya

Question 2

Tool use has been a part of hominin behavior since

Answer 2

Beginning of the lineage

Question 3

Apes use tools for

Answer 3

Sticks- to extract insects
Stone- to crack open nuts
Sticks- to test water depth

Question 4

Common ancestors of all the apes had

Answer 4

Some tool using abilities

Question 5

If tool use is a shared behavior,

Answer 5

Then extinct human ancestors most likely could use tools.

Question 6

Most of the potential tool using behaviors

Answer 6

Would not leave any evidence in the fossil records.

Question 7

Who were the first stone tool makers

Answer 7

The Oldowam toolmakers 
When - 3.4 mya
Who- Australopithecus afarensis
Location- Dikikia, Ethiopia
Evidence- 
Antelope bones had cut marks on them
No stone tools found
Cut marks suggest that Australopithecus May have used sharp rocks to cut meat off in the limb bones.

Question 8

Name some of the tools used by the Oldowan tool makers

Answer 8

Biracial chopper, hammer stone, discoid, flake scrapper, polyhedron, heavy duty core scraper.

Question 9

Australopithecus afarensis used tools when, where, evidence

Answer 9

When - 2.5 mya
Location-Gona , Ethiopia
Evidence-
Flakes found, showed hominins were using deliberate striking stones together to make sharp edges.
These flakes are part of Oldowan tool industry.

Question 10

Simple stone tool production

Answer 10

Is an example of Mode 1 technology

Question 11

Who used Mode 1 technology for stone tool production

Answer 11

Early hominin
When - 2.6 to 1.7 mya
Lower Paleolithic

Question 12

Oldowan toolmakers evidence can be found where else?

Answer 12

Location- Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania
When -1.9 mya
Who- Homo habilis

Question 13

Recent discoveries suggest first stone toolmakers

Answer 13

We’re not from the genus hominin

Question 14

First evidence for the deliberate modification of stone tool (Mode 1)

Answer 14

Location: Gona, Ethiopia
When: 2.5 mya
Who: Australopithecus garhi
• Small-brained, large toothed

Question 15

Current understanding- all Oldowan tool makers were

Answer 15

Right handed

Possibility- a larger brained hominin living at this time, but no fossil evidence

Question 16

Homo habilis

Answer 16

Homo habilis

• When: 2.3 to 1.4 mya

Question 17

Homo habilis similarity and differences with Australopithecus

Answer 17

H. habilis similarities with Australopithecus:
• Similar limb proportions and development to Australopith

• H. habilis differences with Australopithecus:
• Smaller teeth
• Larger, rounder braincase
  
  • ~600 cc (550 to 700 range) • Australopiths ~ 500 cc
  • Smaller, less prognathic face
• Larger body and more efficient walking

Question 18

Homo habilis is the

Answer 18

First one in the home lineage

Question 19

Methods of food acquisition used by humans

Answer 19

Three different food resources
1. Collected food
• Ready to eat at the moment it’s gathered
• I.e., fruit & leaves

2. Extracted food
   • May have to be unearthed
   • I.e., termites, honey, tubers
3. Hunted food
   • Must be caught or trapped
   • I.e., vertebrate prey

Question 20

Most primates eat

Answer 20

Collected food, only a small portion of extracted or hunted foods.

Question 21

Apes have a

Answer 21

Broader diet that consists of many extracted foods

Question 22

Chimpanzees hunt for

Answer 22

Colobus monkeys, use sticks to extract termites and honey.

Question 23

Humans use a

Answer 23

High amount of energy to hunt and forage for food.

Question 24

Human Complex Foraging Strategies: Characteristics

Answer 24

• Human foragers get a majority of their food from extracted or hunted resources
• Humans acquire over a time a diverse set of skills to hunt a diverse set of prey:
• Promotes long juvenile period
• Knowledge on local ecology
• Men will hunt (is a 20 year old or a 35 year old man more successful?)
• Women will dig up tubers and roots

Question 25

Division of labor

Answer 25

Division of Labor
• Men: hunting
• Women: extractive foraging
• Both skills require a long time to learn, cannot master both

Question 26

• Question: why do the men hunt and the women forage?

Answer 26

Women are either pregnant or lactating throughout their adult lives Usually have a child (or children) accompanying them
Is it safer for a woman to forage than hunt?
Hunting parties frequently return empty handed
Rely on the foods extracted by the women Foraging more consistent and reliable
Importance of food sharing to the survival of individuals in a group

Question 27

Food Sharing: Chimpanzees

Answer 27

• Food sharing happens most often between mothers
and infants
• Meat sharing happens among all members
• Chimpanzees are successful (collectively) in about
half of their hunting trips
• Small prey usually not shared
• Large prey shared with other members of the group

Question 28

Reciprocal altruism

Answer 28

Meat shared with individuals who previously shared meat with them.

Question 29

Male chimpanzees share meat with

Answer 29

Females and juveniles

Question 30

Vertebrae prey is

Answer 30

Only a small proportion of the caloric intake of chimps.

Question 31

Food Sharing: Humans

Answer 31

Food Sharing: Humans
• Age and sex are contributing factors
• What do we know?
• Juveniles consume more than they produce
• Middle-aged men and postmenopausal women produce more than they consume
• Food sharing between individuals in a group
make it sustainable

Question 32

What skills would be needed to hunt meat or extract tubers?

Answer 32

• Large brain
• Long juvenile period
• Increased longevity
• Paternal investment
• Reduced dimorphism

Question 33

Extractive foraging and hunting require

Answer 33

intelligence and learning

Question 34

Evolution of Slow Life History

Answer 34

• Studies of human foragers have suggested a shift from a
chimpanzee-like diet of mostly collected foods
to a humanlike one of extracted and hunted foods would
provide the selection pressures that would lead to many
of the important anatomical changes we see during human
evolution, like a larger brain and reduced sexual dimorphism.

• With this in mind, let’s return to the Oldowan toolmakers to
see if they are extractive foragers and/or hunters.

Question 35

Evidence for Meat Eating

Answer 35

• Archaeologists look at animal bone assemblages
• Concentrations of butchered bones and tools
Location: Olduvai Gorge
Age: 1.9 mya
Observe: most bones are elephant, black dots are stone tools
Another site at Olduvai had a high concentration of bovids (antelopes and gazelles) is unusually high
High concentrations of bone, together with stone tools,
can be found at sites like these throughout Olduvai Gorge
• Also at sites in Ethiopia, and at the Koobi For a site in
Kenya

Question 36

Taphonomy—

Answer 36

Taphonomy—a study of what happens to bone after death
• Bone transported by water
• Tooth vs. stone tool marks
• Naturally deteriorate

Question 37

Evidence for Meat Eating:

Answer 37

• Olduvai Gorge sites, there were a lot of accumulated bones
• How did the bones get there? What does that say about
human behavior?
At some sites
• Bones were not deposited by flowing water
• Some bones were the byproduct of carnivores

Question 38

Evidence proves that early hominin

Answer 38

Understood material properties of the different rocks in their environment.
Why is this important?
To understand the evolution of tools in certain species

Question 39

We’re early hominin hunters or scavenger

Answer 39

What if a bone has both cut marks from stone tools but also
bite marks from carnivores?
(1) Bones that have tooth impressions on top of hominin cut marks – hunters!
(2) Other sites in which fleshy limb bones are common and have cut marks on them, with very few carnivore tooth impressions – scavengers!
(3) Hominins acquiring carcasses after carnivores and smashing bones open for marrow

Question 40

Domestic Lives of Oldowan Toolmakers

Answer 40

• Where did early hominins bring back their meals?
• Home bases
• Human universal (even temporary ones)
• Food activities: food can be shared, processed, cooked,and eaten
• Other activities: tools can be made, interaction among other group members
• When did this begin in hominins?
• Archaeological evidence • Olduvai: 1.9 mya?

Question 41

Collected foods

Answer 41

Type of food resource, such as a leaf or fruit, that can be gathered and eaten directly.

Question 42

Cores

Answer 42

A piece of stone from which smaller flakes are removed. Cores and/or flakes may themselves be useful tools.

Question 43

Cortex

Answer 43

The original, unmodified surface of a stone used to make stone tools.

Question 44

Extracted foods

Answer 44

Food that is embedded in a matrix, encased in a hard shell, or otherwise difficult to extract. Extracted foods require complicated, carefully coordinated techniques to process.

Question 45

Flakes

Answer 45

A small chip of stone knocked from a larger stone core.

Question 46

Home base

Answer 46

A temporary camp that members of a group return to each day. At the home base, food is shared, processed, cooked, and eaten; subsistence tools are manufactured and repaired; and social life is conducted.

Question 47

Hunted foods

Answer 47

Live animal prey captured by human foragers or nonhuman primates.

Question 48

Knapping

Answer 48

The process of manufacturing stone tools.

Question 49

Oldowan tool industry

Answer 49

A set of simple stone tools made by removing flakes from cores without any systematic shaping of the core.
Both the flakes and the cores were probably used as tools.
This industry is found in Africa at sites that date from about 2.5 mya.

Question 50

Palimpsests

Answer 50

Palimpsests Term used to describe archaeological sites that accumulate artifacts from use or settlement across time.

Question 51

Taphonomy

Answer 51

The study of the processes that affect the state of the remains of an organism from the time the organism dies until it is fossilized.