Intro to Human Evolution

Question 1

What are 4 groups are extant primates classified in?

Answer 1

• Prosimians (lemurs, bush babies, lorises)
• New world monkeys (spider monkeys, marmosets)
• Old world monkeys (macaques, baboons)
• Hominoids (apes, including humans/hominins)

Question 2

Why is the human fossil record poor?

Answer 2

Due to small populations in isolated areas

Question 3

How can we study human evolution?

Answer 3

• Temporal framework
• Various dating methods (radio carbon dating, amino acid racemization)
• Pollen
• Complexity of glacial events

Question 4

When was the last glacial maximum?

Answer 4

18,000 years ago

Question 5

When did humans first appear?

Answer 5

Middle Miocene
Huge expansion of ice caps made easier migration

Question 6

How can environment be reconstructed?

Answer 6

• Plotting climatically sensitive sediments on map
• Pollen grains
• Ice cores (measuring CO2)

Question 7

What evidence from archaeology is there for human evolution?

Answer 7

As brain size increased, there would be more tools, more fire, more art on rocks

Question 8

Give a brief timeline of human evolution.

Answer 8

• 85 MYA: primates appeared
• 60 MYA: KT mass extinction
• 20 MYA: hominoids in Africa
• 18 MYA: hominoid migrates to Asia
• 10 MYA: Asian hominoid migrates to Africa, is ancestral to all later hominoids

Question 9

What were human remains discovered pre 1980 thought to be?

Answer 9

• Human remains discovered in caves were often believed to be soldiers from the horde of Genghis Kahn, or the remains of Cossacks
  They were actually the remains of Neanderthals etc.

Question 10

What did Darwin conclude in 1981?

Answer 10

That humans are most closely related to African apes.

Question 11

What were the first human remains discovered?

Answer 11

Java man (1891-1893)
Homo erectus
Leg and skull bone
Used as evidence of ape to human evolution

Question 12

What was the Piltdown man and when was it discovered?

Answer 12

1908-1913
Skull with partial jaw bone, hand axes. Suggested humans originated from orangutans.
HOWEVER
1953
Piltdown man was accepted as a hoax.
Modern human skull dyed brown with orangutan jaw welded on.

Question 13

What was the Taung boy?

Answer 13

1925
3.5-2.5 MYA
Australopithecus africanus
Brain endocast, small but not an ape

Question 14

What was the Peking man?

Answer 14

1927
0.4-0.7 MYA
Human origins in far east
Homo erectus

Question 15

When was Australapithecus robustus found and when did it live?

Answer 15

1935
2-1MYA