Study Guide Pre hist Flashcards
Pleistocene environment:
Begins about 2.6 mya
1.7 my BP greater aridity and rainfall seasonality
Glacial period beginning 900,000 years to 10,000 years
BP
Holocene epoch
warming period, beginning ~12,000
years BP
Homo habilis
2 to 2.5 mya
Homo erectus
1.8 mya
H. erectus Developments
Acheulian technology
Control of fire
Morphological changes
Geological range
Homo erectus skeletal morphology
Larger brain than H. habilis: 960 cc avg.
75% as large as mod human
Tall, heavy
Less sexually dimorphic than
earlier hominids
Head shape is more “human like”:
forehead more vertical;
more globular occipital;
less prognathous jaws than H.
habilis
however,
prominent browridge (supraorbital
torus)
H. erectus:
Includes- H. ergaster in Africa
H. erectus in Asia
H. antecessor in Europe
Acheulean
Tools
Unlike Oldowan, large flakes in Acheulean
Acheulean handaxe: “Swiss army knife”
weapons, scraping, piercing, chopping, etc.
(however precise use is speculative)
possible status symbol
Subsistence
H. habilis: small game (some big game),
scavenging and gathering plants
H. erectus: big game hunting more prominent
(also evidence of wooden spears) but also
plants, nuts
Zhoukoudian:
Peking Man (770,000 to 400,000 BP)
(aka Sinanthropus PekinensisZhoukoudian: site
Site has more than 50 individuals-
Men, women and children
Sexually dimorphic and individual
Variability
Zhoukoudian: use of fire
burnt macrofaunal remains and discolored sediments
natural fires likely but probably also kindling
cultural adaptation to colder environments (site occupied during glacial stadial) Zhoukoudian artifacts lost in 1941- Japanese attack
Java: H. floresiensis
The hobbit species (35 kya- 18 kya)
Florees, Indonesia
associated with complex stone tools
Human with microcephaly? Or different species? (microcephaly discarded) Island dwarfism? Likely reached Flores from mainland - low water levels
Zhoukoudien use of fire
Swartkrans in South Africa
1.5 mya
burnt bone and rock
- possible campfire
H. Heidelbergensis
a little less than 1 mya
possible transitional human (H. erectus to Neanderthal?)
Eocene
(55 mya- 39 mya)
Abundance of prosimians
Prosmians occupied
Africa, Asia, Europe, and
North America
Oligocene
(35 mya to 23 mya)
- Prosimian population decline with cooler,
drier climatic conditions; still present in Asia and
Africa
- Possibly outcompeted by larger, diurnal monkeys
- Early anthropoid species- probably ancestor
to monkeys, apes and humans
- First New World monkeys-
most probably from Africa
The Miocene (23 mya- 5 mya)
Flora and fauna diversification
Warming of climate (mid epoch cooling)
Open vegetation systems (e.g. grasslands)
Ape fossils from Africa, Europe, Asia
Sahelanthropus
Fossil discovery: 2001 in Chad - human and apelike features
- no postcranial skeleton - missing a lot of information - bipedal
Levellois technology
focus on flakes themselves rather than
on cores
- more planning, standardization
Greater use from core,
- more sharp edges
- more specialized
Neanderthal culture
- Mousterian technology
- tools made from retouched flakes
(rather than cores) - more control in flake production
- tools made from retouched flakes
No more mousterian tech
Disappearance of neanderthals coincide
with disappearance of Mousterian tech.
(28,000 ya)
instead: Aurignacian tech. (H. sapien)
- modern H. sapiens: 40,000 yaOldest Homo sapien sapiens
Omo I and II: Ethiopia
195,000 ya
blade tool technology of the Aurignacian
different from Levallois and Mousterian
- blades are retouched
(not flakes)
- longer, more sharp edge
- tool standardization (from site to site)
- use of antler and bone
- pressure
