Paleoanthropology and Primate Evolution

Question 1

What is Paleoanthropology?

Answer 1

Multidisciplinary study of human evolution, typically through the fossil record

Question 2

How do we know what it is?

Answer 2

Morphology

Question 3

How old is it?

Answer 3

Dating, Geology

Question 4

How did it get here?

Answer 4

Taphonomy

Question 5

What was it like where it lived?

Answer 5

Paleoecology

Question 6

Paleospecies

Answer 6

Fossil organisms who’s variation does not exceed that of living species.

Question 7

Relative Dating Techniques

Answer 7

Biostratigraphy

Paleomagnetic reversals

Question 8

Chronometric Dating Techniques

Answer 8

Carbon-14
Potassium-argon
Argon-argon

Question 9

Biostratigraphy

Answer 9

• Assigning age based on the similarity of animal remains to those from dated sites
• Requires that the lineage has undergone morphological change through the sequence

Question 10

Paleomagnetic Reversals

Answer 10

Dating based on the shifting on the Earth’s magnetic poles

Question 11

Potassium-argon and Argon-argon dating

Answer 11

• Use volcanic ash
• 1/2 life of 1.25 billion years
• samples must be > 1000k years old
• Dates strata around the fossil assemblage

Question 12

Carbon-14 dating

Answer 12

• Uses any once living thing
• 1/2 life of 5,730 years
• Samples must be < 50ky
• Dates the material itself

Question 13

Taphonomy

Answer 13

Study of the processes that transform components of the biosphere into the lithosphere
-How did the animal die, How have the bones been preserved, How have the bones been altered since death, What does the total assemblage look like

Question 14

How did it get there?

Answer 14

Predation, accidental/natural death, hominid activities

Question 15

Taphonomic Indicators of Fossil Assemblages

Answer 15

Damage Patterns
-Animal Modification
-Human Modification
-Weathering
Fracture Patterns
Skeletal Element Representation
Faunal Presence/ Relative Abundance