Neandertal Quiz

Question 1

Engis Cave

Answer 1

1830- 1st neandertal fossil found, a child. Was not recognized for 80 years as a neandertal fossil. The cranium of a neandertal child is not much different from that of a human child. Was classified long after other discoveries were made

Question 2

Feldhofer Cave Germany

Answer 2

1856 neander valley in west Germany. Older neandertal man started a debate about human evolution.

Question 3

Spy d’Orneau Cave Belgium

Answer 3

1886 (2 complete .skeletons) so similar to Feldhover

Question 4

the earliest representatives of the Neandertals make their first appearance.. when and where?

Answer 4

In Europe… middle Pleistocene…it is possible that the earliest mod-ern humans made their first appearance, at the very end of the middle Pleistocene in Africa

Question 5

Archaic H. sapiens differ from modern humans by ?

Answer 5

retaining large faces and thicker-walled, lower cranial vaults.

Question 6

The Mauer mandible

Answer 6

Homo heidelbergensis.

the Mauer mandible differs from classic H. erectus in both its bony anatomy and its dentition and resembles several more complete specimens that were discovered later and are often called archaic H. sapiens. For the many research-ers who think that the informal label “archaic H. sapiens” should be replaced with a formal species designation, the species name H. heidelbergensis would have priority because the Mauer mandible was the first of the group to be discovered and named.

Question 7

The greatest number of archaic H. sapiens fossils recov-ered from a single locality

Answer 7

the middle Pleistocene part of the same cave system where H. antecessor was discovered, the Sierra de Atapuerca, Spain. . This cave (or pit) known as “Sima de los Huesos” (literally, the “bone pit”), is about 430,000 years old and yielded around thirty individuals, ranging in age from 4 to 35 years at their death, and probably included both males and females

double-arched supraorbital torus and midfacial prognathism, the forward projection of the middle facial region, including the nose, and an incipient fossa on the occipital. And their lower fourth premolar and lower molars also show Neandertal features. These traits suggest that the Sima de los Huesos hominins and other European archaic H. sapiens may be directly ancestral to the later Neandertals.

Question 8

Krapina, Croatia

Answer 8

Excavated in 1899 * MNI of around 2 dozen *, unlike most neandertal remains. all bones were fragmented * cutmarks, burning = cannibalism? Since then, 2 or 3 other sites have been found with similar evidence for cannibalism.

Question 9

La Chapelle-aux-Saints, France

Answer 9

• 1908 * mostly complete * almost complete skeleton of an old man with arthritis and lost most of his teeth * “Intentional Burial- if this is true the implication is that Neandertals were more like us than we thought and may have had religion.

Question 10

La Ferrassie, France

Answer 10

• 1907-1922 * 6 individuals * “intentional burials”. Adult male and female, 3 children and 1 infant. They had special objects- grave goods—but that was not true; that was what they thought.

Question 11

Shanidar Cave, Iraq

Answer 11

the 1950s * 9 neandertals individuals * “intentional burials”, but it did look like falling rocks had crushed some.

Question 12

Shanidar #4

Answer 12

buried with wildflowers? This sounds like a modern thing to do, but later research questioned this, and most likely the flowers were brought in by a rodent that uses them to line their burrows. Recently, more excavations have happened, and there are more remains, and now the debate of intentional burials is revived.

Question 13

Roc de Marsal, France

Answer 13

One of the most complete: * 1960s-70s * 3-year-old child * claimed to be “intentional burial”

Question 14

Who did Neandertals evolve from?

Answer 14

European H. heidelbergensis is the direct ancestor of Neandertals
Appeared to evolve directly from European h helidelbregneiss. Have similarities like midfacieal prognatism.
Neandertals were the first species indigenous to Eurasia that we know of.

Question 15

Homo heidelbergensis and Homo (sapiens) neanderthalensis … when?

Answer 15

Homo heidelbergensis 600 to 200 kya –> Homo (sapiens) neanderthalensis 250 to 40 kya

Question 16

Ehringsdorf, Germany

Answer 16

Germany excavated at the same time as La Ferrersie in France from * 1908-1925
No complete skeletons but 2 mandibles, a partial cranium and a few other bits.
* dated to 250 kya

Question 17

Typical Neandertal teeth:

Answer 17

‘taurodontism’ in molars – enlarged pulp cavities, the small space where the blood vessels are. * shovel-shaped incisors

Question 18

When did Neandertals disappear?

Answer 18

Latest (most recent) fossils: date to about 40 k years ago.
They disappeared about 40k years ago or earlier.

Question 19

Mezmaiskaya, Russia

Answer 19

• 2-week-old infant * 40,000 ya. One of the late surviving Neandertals.

Question 20

Neandertal Geographic Distribution

Answer 20

Sites and fossils are found across Europe, the middle east and central Asia, but the majority are in Europe. Europe is a geographic cul de sac and they evolved here in isolation from other hominin species. The ones living at the southern or eastern edges, like isreal and the easter edge in Siberia that, came into contact with and interbred with other hominin species.

Question 21

Wonderwekr Cave in South Africa

Answer 21

potential evidence of neandertal fire.. 30 m in the cave, thin lenses of ash and burned bone dating to 1 million years ago. How would this get so deep in the cave? Seems most likely that homo erectus collected burning branches and took them into the cave. They likely didn’t make their own fire

Question 22

The oldest definitive evidence for people using fire

Answer 22

300-250,000 bp: obvious hearths in caves in Israel
Really well-preserved camp fires or herths in the layers.
This is a record of Neandertals or their ancestors repeatedly building a fire in the same place each time they stayed in the cave.
Maybe Neandertals we the first species to learn to make fire?
But there are a lot more neandertal sites with no evidence of fire than with evidence of fire, and there are many cold spots with no evidence of fire, so if they could make it, then they likely would have in the cold. So it’s assumed that when they did use fire, they got it from natural fires.

Question 23

Neandertal Diet?

Answer 23

Meat!
Likely top-level carnivores.
Tens of thousands of butchered animal bones- clearly skilled hunters.
Ice age fauna: Horse Reindeer, Bison Mammoth, Wooley Rhinoceros
Even more than during warm species as the above-cold species were abundant.
Does not seem like Neanderthal hunter mammoth or woolly rhinoceros.

Question 24

“Hypercarnivores”?

Answer 24

likely ate some plants but their diet consisted of 75-100% meat,
Nitrogen-15 isotope
Bone chemistry and stable isotope analysis
Michale Richards at SFU did a lot of this research.
Levels of N15 increase the higher up they are on the food chain.
In deer, the levels are only a bit higher than in plants, but in carnivores, they are much higher.
Neandertals have higher nitrogen 15 levels than other top carnivores which is a mystery.

Question 25

Neandertal Material Culture

Answer 25

Uncountable stone tools- billions of tons left behind by Neandertals in the archeological record.
Very rare use of bone for tools- a few simple tools found at sites that date back to shortly before they went extinct. This is different from modern humans, we regularly make tools and art from bone and ivory.
Wooden tools were likely common- digging sticks and spears, we have found a dozen spears from neanderthal sites but it does preserve, but there were likely a lot around at the time.

Question 26

Lithic Technology

Answer 26

Mode 3: Prepared Core Technology- The core is source of flakes, usually.
With the eschewing industry, hominins remove flakes and shape the nodule (core ) into a hand axe. The flakes, in this case, were by-products in manufacturing a hand axe.
Even with Oldowan and eschewing, they were already producing flake from cores, but they were doing it haphazardly, not caring how wasteful they were with the raw materials.
Prepared core technology:
Produces more flakes (tools) per volume of stone = economical of raw material
With mode 3 you can produce more flakes per core than the hominis had done previously.

Question 27

Neandertal Skeletal Morphology

Answer 27

Wider, stockier build-
Stature? Described as being much shorter than us but the data do not support this claim.
Average Neandertal female = 156 cm * Average Modern Human female = 160 cm * Average Neandertal male = 166 cm * Average Modern Human male = 172 cm
Only 1. 5 inches shorter for women, 2 inches shorter for men. Wouldn’t even notice if we met them today.
Like heidelbregensis, they had larger bones and muscles than us. Very strongly built bones.
large muscle attachment locations
Also, more robust than modern humans (more than Heidelbergensis)
Neandertal rib cages are slightly more conically shaped- perhaps increased lung capacity or changes in internal organs to adapt to cold environments, or they could just be stocky.
Just a reflection of their wider, stockier body?
Neandertal Shoulders
Have slightly shorter arms than us, they had features that allowed them to swing arms powerfully good for throwing spears.
Neandertal shoulder structure enabled them to swing their arms powerfully
Neandertal Hands
expanded apical tufts “spatulated” even wider than us, spatulated means flattened piece of wood, perhaps had better finger dexterity and easier to make stone tools or help with the cold as it can help prevent frostbite by having wider fingertips.
very strong hands- good for carving wooden spears.
Legs- these are bigger than our

Question 28

crural index

Answer 28

tibia length/femur length x 100

Question 29

Neandertals vs. Us Crural Index

Answer 29

The femur and tibia are similar in length for modern humans and ergaster, erectus and heidelbregensis.
This is the crural index.
If your tibia is half the length of ur femur, th e crural index would be 50
Our crural index is roughly over80
In Neandertals, the tibia is shorter than the femur, meaning the crural index is consistently below 80.
Unlike other hominins with overlapping n features, the neandertal crural index does not overlap.
Trinkhaus noted:
“Crural index of Neandertals is close to modern indigenous Arctic populations.” A study by E. Trinkaus Short and Stocky: reflecting a cold climate adaptation …

Question 30

Crural Indices and Climate:

Answer 30

The pattern is clear; crural index is strongly associated with climate and Neandertals lived in cold climates. Lower crural index in colder temps

Question 31

19th-century biologist Bergmann’s rule

Answer 31

: Body mass tends to be greater in populations that live in cold environments. E.g. bear family: bear species include polar, grizzly, black bear, and several other smaller species. The same pattern applies.

Question 32

Allen’s rule

Answer 32

Shorter appendages are adaptive in cold climates. Animals in warm environments have longer limbs.

Question 33

Body mass and climate

Answer 33

: surface area of skin. Reduced skin surface area to lose heat at and in hot environments. A lower body mass with longer limbs increases the ability to avoid overheating.
Neandertals evolved robust bodies with shorter libs to increase body heat retention.

Question 34

Neandertal Cranium

Answer 34

Long low cranial vault similar to early hominins.
Average VCC 1450 cc large cranial capacity.
Backward-sloping forehead – not much of a forehead but more than earlier hominins.
Supraorbital torus- theirs is smaller than erectus and heidelbregensis. Even though Neandertals are associated with this, they reflect a decrease in this feather.
mid-facial prognathism inherited form h heidelbregensis.
no chin – some have a bit of a chin developing. k
retro-molar gap – gap behind third molar- unique neandertal feather.
small mastoid process } protuberance for neck muscles to attach to.
Occipital “bun” home erectus also had this but It was more angular with neanderthals it’s rounded.
flattening on the back of the skull’
long, low cranial vault
Very large brain. Mean cranial capacity = 1450 cc
Many of these features evolve and change together.
Big face! Large eye orbits- we would notice this if we were to meet one.
Eye orbits were more circular (not square like us) not sure if their eyes were big or if it was proportional to their big head and face.
Large nasal aperture (= big nose). The old theory that this evolved as an adaptation to cold. Since they lived in the ice age the cold air would have needed to be warmed through large noses. BUT this is now discarded. If there is a difference between nose size it turns out that ppl in cold regions have smaller noses!

Question 35

Why did most hominins have a heavy supraorbital torus (brow ridge) … and why did we lose it?

Answer 35

Some recent hypothesis that are not widely accepted:
Evolved to protect from brain damage when being punched. BUT face punching is uncommon among great apes with large brow ridges.
Perhaps played a role in facial expressions and early communication- but they are bone and don’t move
Longes hypothesis- acts as structural support. Heavy bite force does put pressure on the face, so the brow ridge does offer support. But then we would expect the changes in brow ridge to change with diet, and this would mean that they all ate tough food until us, as we have more minor brow ridge.
This could perhaps be evidence for the invention of cooking; perhaps when cooking started, brow ridges disappeared.
This means that cooking started 250k years ago in our huma lineage.

Question 36

Neandertals Disappeared about 40k years ago- why?

Answer 36

Climate? * disappearance coincides with the start of the last glacial maximum (which began about 60k years ago, and reached its peak cold at 25 kya): one of the coldest ice ages and periods in millions of years. Perhaps it was too cold for them. The problem is that they did survive at least 2 earlier periods that were almost as cold.
Arrival of us modern humans? * They disappeared shortly after we arrived in Europe. * We may have overlap with them for less than 2000 years – not very long. Some argue this is not a coincidence, but what role did we play?
Did we: * actively ‘remove’ them through violence? There is evidence for this, and this behaviour is not common in hunter gatherer societies. * outcompete them? * Better technology perhaps? May not have been able to compete for access to resources. * swamp them with more significant numbers of people?- we were small groups back then but there seem to be fewer neanderthals than us. If we interbred then it would mean that they disappeared as a separate species.
Neandertals interbred with some of our ancestors

Question 37

When did Neandertals and Modern Humans come into contact? How did it go down?

Answer 37

We came into contact in the Middle East 100k and 60k years ago, and again between 40 and 45k years ago in Europe.
They announced that they found we have neanderthal dna.
Today, in the modern human genome, * people of European and Asian ancestry have 1 to 2% of DNA in our genome. Neandertal DNA * people of strictly African ancestry have little or none * interbreeding occurred before modern humans reached Asia – in the Middle East? Occurred when we were leaving Africa.
Our Neanderthal genes? We have the same genes or we couldn’t have interbred. (actually alleles) we have up to 20% of neandertal alleles. Analysis of alleles we inherited from Neandertals indicates they are still influencing our phenotype in traits like * colouring * stature * sleep patterns * immunity to or propensity to get certain diseases

Question 38

Denisova Cave, Siberia

Answer 38

Was assumed to be a neanderthal or modern human.
The DNA was compared to us and Neandertals, but it was significantly different. 3rd species we didn’t know about.
2010: DNA from 50,000 bp bones from Denisova Cave, Russia * compared Denisovan DNA to our DNA and Neandertal DNA A new hominin: Denisova Cave, Siberia * Denisovan DNA differs from modern humans and Neandertals

Question 39

Neandertal split from us; from denisovans?

Answer 39

Difference between Neandertal and our DNA suggests an evolutionary split ~500 kya
* Denisovans genetically closer to Neandertals: split ~400-300 kya

Question 40

Us vs. Neandertals; cranium

Answer 40

We have small faces compared to our brain case and compared to Neandertals. It’s almost triangular.
tall, rounded cranial vault
more vertical forehead
flat face
prominent chin
large mastoid process
rounded Occipital (back of skull) there is some variability among living people.
little or no browridge
frontier or anterial view:
Cranium (continued)
more rectangular orbits
small nasal aperature – small nose
Because your face is flatter over time, our teeth are becoming crowded.
The widest point is high up on the sides. We are even losing space for our 3rd molars (‘wisdom teeth’). We lack a retromolar gap … unlike this Neandertal.
For many people today, their 3rd molars are either ‘impacted’ or don’t develop at all.

Question 41

Modern Human Dental formula

Answer 41

is slowly changing from 2:1:2:3 to 2:1:2:2. This is an evolution in action.

Question 42

CC us vs. Neandertal

Answer 42

Early modern humans had a similar cc to Neanderthals but we dropped over the last 30-50000 years a bit to 1350 cc average from Neandertal size of 1450cc

Question 43

Jebel Irhoud, Morocco

Answer 43

These are representative of our species but not our sub species, homo sapient sapiens.

Several fossils found, including § 2 crania and a mandible discovered in 1990 and a second cranium discovered in 2007.
Pleasomorphic traits:
Robust features, a long low cranial vault, prominent brow ridge and small occipital bun.
But also have more of a forehead, a smaller, flatter face and a large mastoid process. § cranial capacity of 1450 cc
§ 2ns cranium is 300,000 years old… by far the oldest anatomically modern fossil we have found so far- this is why it has archaic features, it also shows that our lineage was emerging in Africa around the same time Neanderthals emerged in Europe.

Question 44

Omo Kibish SW Ethiopia

Answer 44

2 crania, 4 mandibles, other assorted bits about 200 teeth.
This is near Lake Turkana and Koobi For a.
* 200,000 bp * cranial capacity >1400cc . cannot see actual brain size but we can tell its bigger at least.
* clearly AMH. Rounded cranial vault, forehead, chin, likely looked like a modern person living in Africa today.

Question 45

Grotte des Contrebandiers in morocco

Answer 45

Somewhat More Recent AMH Fossils – even more similar to us than the above fossils. (100 to 80 kya)

Question 46

Caves on coast of S. Africa:

Answer 46

Several cave sites on South African coast Fully modern human remains with earliest clear evidence of symbolic behaviour at 100,000 years ago: shell beads used for jewellery red ochre. Different than things like stone tools which are used cuz they need it.
In the back of a cave, they found ochre in a seashell and a rock for grinding it. Some people still do this like in Namibia, they dye their hair with it.

Question 47

Grotte des Contrebandiers (Smugglers’ Cave) Morocco

Answer 47

Atlantic coast. Large cave. Found it was occupied from 115000 years ago to about 10000 years ago.

Dennis excavated this and in 2009 found:
* fully modern child: 8-10 yrs old a cranium. Named her:
* ‘Bouchra’ (good news) died about 100k years ago. Also found:
* 100 kya * possible shell beads in the same layers
Bouchra reconstructed: can learn more in the national geo, specia; the world’s oldest child.

Question 48

Qafzeh Cave, Israel

Answer 48

excavated in the 1930s.
5 “intentionally buried” individuals * adult female and child at her feet * fully anatomically modern * 100,000 ya
Recent Modern Cranial Capacity = 1350 cc Qafzeh 9 Cranial capacity = 1510 cc. Has a rounded value, large masteoir process, prominent chin, .. similar modern huma traits.

Question 49

Skhul Cave, Mount Carmel, Israel

Answer 49

• excavated in 1930s * remains of at least 10 individuals * a bit younger than Quafzeh 80,000 ya * variability among the skeletons: * some like Qafzeh - others more Neandertal-like
  Skhul 5 cranial capacity = 1520 cc Recent modern human Neandertal Modern Human-Neandertal Hybrid?? Has a bit of a brow ridge, slightly protruding face and occipital bun, but has a bit of a forehead and some other modern human features.
  Looks like it’s a mixture of neandertal and modern human. Could be a hybrid. No DNA from these fossils yet.

Question 50

Liujiang, China

Answer 50

one of the oldest anatomically modern human fossils found in Asia so far. well-preserved cranium * some say its 130k years old but its likely closer to 70,000 ya * oldest example of AMH from East Asia. S=Sinodonty which means Chinese teeth ‘shovel-shaped’ incisors

Question 51

When did modern Humans arrive in Europe?

Answer 51

just before 45000 years ago. We took our time moving to Europe likely because it is cold.

Question 52

Its surprising how few fossils we found.. why could this be?

Answer 52

. Could be explained by limited # of intentional burials before 35000 years ago.

Question 53

Cro Magnon, France

Answer 53

up to 8 individuals all were thought to be intentional burials. This term cro agon man is gone because they were just modern humans like us. * 27,000 bp * bone points and flint blades very typical of the period.
He lost teeth and likely had osteoporosis

Question 54

Předmostí, Moravia, Czech Republic *

Answer 54

• 18 individuals discovered in 1894 in a large communal grave covered with stone slabs and mammoth bones. It is hard to say if it is intentional, as those are common features of sites like this. Male cc is 1580 cc. Could mean it’s a mixture of traits. * 30,000 ya * mixture of AMH & Neandertal traits – hybrids like at Skhul?? No DNA.

Question 55

Peştera cu Oase, Romania

Answer 55

cave bear and some fragmentary human bones scattered on cave floor (not buried)
The cave was sealed off at about 40,000 bp, making it a bit of a time capsule. Need ot be very careful here.
One of the oldest AMH skeletons in Europe
Has 5-10% Neandertal DNA (most people today have only 1-2%)
They are clearly modern but are a bit robust, so looks like hybrid. Don’t seem to be direct ancestor to modern Europeans as they evolved form later groups that made their way to Europe.

Question 56

When did homo sapiens sapiens appear?

Answer 56

Appeard as early as 300k years ago and by 100k years ago they looked like how we do today.
Until 40,000 bp there was always a variety of hominin species around. Neandertals, denosivians, homo florensis, anatomically modern humans…

Question 57

Complete Replacement or “Out of Africa”

Answer 57

1. AMH evolved exclusively in Africa between 300,000 and 150,000 years ago
2. Shortly after 100,000 bp, we 9anatomically modern humans) spread out from Africa into the old world, eventually moving to the new world.
   3.Between 70,000 and 40,000 bp, we replaced all other hominin species in the world (with little interbreeding). All the indigenous groups in Asia were replaced without interbreeding.
   We have a pretty good idea of what the migration looked like.
   We have fully modern humans around 100k years ago.

This is the accepted hypothesis

Question 58

when did our ancestors started leaving Africa?

Answer 58

Sometime between 100 and 60k years ago

Question 59

when did out ancestors Spread through south and east asia

Answer 59

70 k years ago

Question 60

When did our ancestors get to Australia?

Answer 60

60k years ago

Question 61

When did our ancestors move to Europe?

Answer 61

Around 45k years ago..during an ice age so that’s maybe why slow.

Question 62

out ancestors Moved to Siberia

Answer 62

30k years ago.

Question 63

our ancestors made it to Americas

Answer 63

20k years ago 15k years ago into South America.

Question 64

“Mitochondrial Eve.”

Answer 64

.” A woman living in Africa before AMH began spreading out from Africa. She is our ancient grandmother. She lived between 250 and 100 k years ago.
We all come from a single small population and everyone’s mtDNA traces back to a woman who lived in Africa pre-100,000 bp:

Question 65

Regional Continuity Hypothesis

Answer 65

1. AMH evolved as multiple populations in multiple regions across the Old World (Africa, Asia, and Europe) from the local archaic groups
2. 2/ anatomically modern humans appeared more or less at same time in Africa, Asia, and Europe
3. 3/ This occurred through constant gene flow between regions: interacted like a single population - not parallel evolution.
   Great distances from these regios allowed some diversity to exist. But these populations were not isolated, saying one single hominin population across the old word.

Slow constant gene flow would maintain strong genetic similarities between AMH

Question 66

Evidence in Support of “Out of Africa”

Answer 66

1/ The fossil record
2/ Genetics: * esp. mtDNA and Y chromosome data b/
* mitochondrial DNA plays an important role: More mt DNA n each cell as there are several copies. MT DNA is shorter than nuclear DNA, so it is easier to study, with hundreeds of base pairs compared to billions.
* Only past down from mother so reflects a single line to trace.
* Not affected by recombination. Only source of variability is random mutations.
* Nuclear dna: the y chromosome is a short chromosome so its easy to study. Its not affected by crossing over because of a size difference between it and x chromosome which is tewice as long. Its also only passed down from father to son.
* Important characterises of modern human DNA:
a/ Compared to most other animal species, modern humans have a very low degree of variability in our mtDNA . we different from each other about .1%. we are 99.9 % identical to each other.
* b/ similar lack of genetic variability in men. Also appears to be a very low degree of variability in the Y chromosome among modern males.

1/ The fossil record Africa was our place of origin prior to the bottleneck: we all originate from a small African group
These data indicate we went through a recent genetic bottleneck: 70-80,000 yrs ago (example of Founder Effect)our gene pool comes from a small # of people perhaps just a few thousand. A classic example of the founder effect.
c/ Among modern humans, African groups have the greatest degree of variability in their mtDNA and y chromosome. Suggests that as a population, africans are older than non-African groups, and Africans are the descendants of all people.
Dating our Mdna- points of coalescence: if we trace the changes in our DNA back in time, to coalesces at this ancient common ancestor.

Question 67

Genetic diversity Time Bottleneck

Answer 67

Bottleneck The longer a species is around, the more mutations accumulate in its mtDNA Mutations occur randomly, which means that over long periods of time they will occur at a relatively constant rate. Even in 2 or 3 generations, the changes can be significant, so it doesn’t look consistent, but if you look over more time, you see it’s consistent.
If we can determine this rate, we can compute dates of coalescence of the mt dna of all of us humans.
Attempts to do this have found the point of coalescence is between 100 and 200k years ago which matches our fossil record well enough.

Question 68

Dennis haplogroup

Answer 68

haplogroup H which emerged 18k years ago. Common ancestors lived in the Middle east 18k years ago, and some descendants went to Europe, but the majority was 9k years ago. Today over 40% of Europeans belong to H.
His y chromosome is haplogroup I M 253, which emerged 30k years ago. Traces back to haplogroup A which all men can trace y chromosome to.
Men with haplogroup I were some of the first humans that made it to Europ while Neanderthals were there e make up 20% of the population in Europe. . Dennis has some neanderthal DNA. 2%

Question 69

3/ Modern language origins

Answer 69

Phoneme = basic unit of language: individual sounds which are combined to form meaningful units (words). Used to date languages.
Count phonemes to determine age: Older the language the higher phoneme diversity
Khoisan languages Indigenous people in south and eas Africa. Have far more phonemes than other languages.
Indo-European languages 30-50 phonemes
Mandarin 32 phonemes
Hawaiian 13 phonemes
Pirah 11 phonemes !
Xu 140 phonemes
Garawa 22 phonemes
As we move out of Africa into the rest of the world, languages get younger and younger, less phonemes.

Question 70

advanced material culture appears earliest in Africa (lithics)

Answer 70

70,000 years ago: south Africa.
* Mode 4: Blade Technology
60,000 years ago:
* Mode 5: Microlith Technology
* Small bifacial spear points
* Bone tools

Question 71

Mode 4: Blade Technology

Answer 71

Blade being flaked off a blade core ‘Blade’ (long, narrow flake) technically a prepared core technology like mode 3 but its more sophisticated. More like modern knife blade. Can be made into specific shapes for different purposes. More versatile. Mode 4 is a significant advance in lithic technology.

Question 72

Mode 5: Microlith Technology

Answer 72

Microblade modified into Microliths to give them simple shapes like trapezoids or crescents. Then gloed to produce composite tools like arrows or knives.
Composite Tool In South Africa by 60,000 bp Outside Africa after 30,000 bp
bone tools not common before modern humans.
Fewer than 10 bone tools have been found in neandertal times but modern humans we made lots of practical tools out of bone but also made art.
bifacial spear points- rare until modern humans. This is much smaller than Aucheleean IndustryWeek they were crude bifaces.

Question 73

The appearance and spread of blade technology and bone tools:

Answer 73

• S Africa at 70,000 bp.
• Middle East at 50,000 bp.
• SE Europe at 45,000 bp.
• W Europe at 40,000 bp.

Question 74

Hominin evolution over the last half million years?

Answer 74

H. heidelbergensis 600 k yeas ago.
500,000 bp spread to Europe
300,000 bp splits into 2 lineages: Neandertal lineage Denisovan lineage
Same time back n Africa the heidelbregensis in Africa evolved into homo sapiens. Then 80k yeas ago a small # of modern humans moved to Europe. The small # left in Africa ate the ancestors of current Africana.

Question 75

Other Early Modern Human Developments:

Answer 75

Tailored clothing – no evidence for Neanderthals, but they must have as it was cold
First evidence for clothing: modern humans in Europe. Well-made bone needles and a scraper that turned animal hides into leather. Then human figurines that were wearing warm clothing.
The first real evidence was early modern humans; some say Neanderthals did, but those claims don’t hold up.
Art First rock art appears 40,000 years ago Alta Mira, Spain Kimberly, Australia Chauvet Cave, France Chauvet Cave, France Lascaux Cave, France Chauvet Cave, France First carvings appear
40,000 years ago oldest examples of cave art. Also carvings.
Not necessarily because we were smarter but perhaps we had a need for it. There were more of us and our groups were larger, more population density and increased competition for resources. Would require more elaborate levels of communication between groups. Perhaps rock art was territorial markings.