The origin of modern humans L17

Question 1

When and where did our species originate?

Answer 1

Modern humans originated in Africa around 350,000ya

Question 2

Describe the cranium of modern humans.

Answer 2

1) High vertical forehead
2) Small supraorbital superstructures
3) Orthognathic face
4) Proper chin
5) No retromolar space
6) Projecting mastoid process
7) Projecting mastoid process
8) Small nasal apertures
9) Canine fossa
10) Shorter face

Question 3

Why is it difficult to define human-only characteristics?

Answer 3

Due to the high level of variation in modern humans an the effect of activity and climate on the skeleton

Question 4

What did people used to think about the origin of humans?

Answer 4

They thought they appeared roughly at the same time throughout the old world between 40kya and 35kya

(This was not actually the case)

Question 5

What are two theories that might explain why Europe was colonised later?

Answer 5

1) Climate (cold)

2) It was occupied by neanderthals and Denisovans

Question 6

Where was the last place to be colonised by humans?

Answer 6

The Americas (approx. 14kya)

Question 7

What evidence from mtDNA phylogeny supports an out-of-Africa expansion theory?

Answer 7

1) Greatest diversity in Africa
2) Root of the tree in Africa
3) No haplotype in Europe that cannot be traced back to Africa

Question 8

How is mtDNA passed down?

Answer 8

Through the maternal line only

Question 9

What do more recent analyses including the full genome tell us?

Answer 9

Non-Africans are a subpopulation of East Africans (see slide 20)

Question 10

Genetic diversity _______ with increase in distance from Africa

Answer 10

Genetic diversity DECREASES with increase in distance from Africa

Question 11

What kind of stone tools were early modern humans using?

Answer 11

The same as neanderthals, so palaeoanthropologists can’t use stone tools to tell which species were there.

Question 12

What evidence is there of tools that H. sapiens probably used?

Answer 12

1) Levallois technique tools (280-50kya)
2) Control of fire
3) Iron and manganese compounds probably used as pigments
4) Intentional burials (but no unambiguous evidence of rituals).

Question 13

How did tools change in the later stone age (Upper Paleolithic in Europe)?

Answer 13

There was higher variability in stone tool types and raw materials (bones and ivory, not just stone).

Also evidence of bows and arrows (they probably warmed stone and used antler or wood to take off little flecks)

Question 14

How do we know that the stone flecks were used for bow and arrows?

Answer 14

They were too small to be anything else, they were so small they would have had to be mounted on something small

Question 15

What evidence is there that humans had art?

Answer 15

Paintings in a cave in Chauvet (France) dated to 32kya and in Altamira (Spain) dated to 14kya. The paintings were so wonderful and well preserved that there were accusations of forgery and people thought it must have been done by a much more recent artist

Question 16

What evidence is there of portable art objects?

Answer 16

Discovered in Europe 50kya (when humans arrived) like Ivory horse of voghelerd, Germany or Venus Willendorf, Austria.

This is a difference to neanderthals

Question 17

Describe the theory linking art with language

Answer 17

Theory that art and language evolved together. Representation of a bison in 2D or 3D is already assigning a symbol to the representation. A painting of a bison is not a bison, it only represents it. Similar situation with words, although they are ever farther from the reality of the object. Not applicable to geometric art, though.
Problem with this approach: if the revolution happened in connection with the exit from Africa, what about African people? They are not less intelligent or less adept to speaking than Eurasian people are!
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence! Many historical populations produced art that would not have left any archaeological sign

Question 18

Why do people now think there was a gradual accumulation of modern behaviour in Africa before humans dispersed outside Africa?

Answer 18

Most likely gradual accumulation because Africans aren’t any less adept at art or language than Europeans. It makes more sense that humans popping up in Europe that are suddenly adept at these things.

Question 19

What do grindstones appearing in the middle stone age imply?

Answer 19

They were eating grains (you have to grind them first)

Question 20

Why do some people think art was present in H. erectus?

Answer 20

They used Acheulean handaxes which were symmetrical - why would someone make something so symmetrical is not simply for the pleasure of seeing it?

Question 21

Where and when are the oldest stone-tipped javelins from?

Answer 21

Ethiopia 280kya

Fractures on the stones indicate throwing impact, not thrusting so they were javelins not spears

Question 22

When was one of the first pieces of evidence of H. sapiens burial?

Answer 22

In a cave in Israel 90-100kya

Burial of a child with fallow deer antler near the hands and head

Question 23

Describe the evidence of tools and decorations at Blombos cave?

Answer 23

2,000 pieces of ochre, some showing signs of usage and at least two decorated (dating 75-100kya)

65 shell beads carefully perforated with a bone tool (75kya) for a necklace or other ornament

Evidence of fishing might date back to 140kya at Blombos

Question 24

Give an example of a population losing culture traits

Answer 24

Tasmanian populations did not practice fishing (it was colonised by australians who did fish) so over the centuries they lost knowledge and so the cultural set that they had was smaller

Question 25

If you have a more populations in one area then you’re more likely to have a higher rate of expansion in ________ ________

Answer 25

If you have a more populations in one area then you’re more likely to have a higher rate of expansion in cultural complexity

Question 26

Which fossil first showed human-like time of dental development? How does this compare to neanderthals?

Answer 26

Jebel Irhoud 3

Comparison with similar age (7-8 years old) Neandertal from Scladina shows the much slower development in Homo sapiens

Question 27

How do the brains of H. sapiens and H. neanderthalensis compare?

Answer 27

Humans have an increase in the frontal lobe and neanderthals have an increase in the visual cortex

Humans is taller and theirs is more elongated

Question 28

How did the brain shape of humans change over time?

Answer 28

Early human brain shape more similar to H erectus and Neanderthals.
Only after 40kya you get fossils that have the same shape as modern humans.
So there has been a gradual change over the past few hundred thousand years.

Question 29

Why is the language of humans so complex?

Answer 29

With only a limited number of sounds you can still create a large number of words/express more concepts by arranging the sounds in different ways

Our language is complex because a different order and combinations of sound give a sound a new meaning

Question 30

Where is the origin of language?

Answer 30

All humans have language. If we accept the large evidence in support of an African origin of modern humans and an expansion out of Africa only after about 100-70kya, then the origin of language is in Africa

The evolution of language is fast, meaning you can’t really go back to early human language because it’s too difficult to find origin language.

Question 31

Who thought language was genetically encoded?

Answer 31

Noam Chomsky

Question 32

Explain the theory that language may have evolved as a consequence?

Answer 32

Changes may have occurred for other reasons e.g. part of the brain that is involved in fine manipulation is associated with the language part of the brain so this part of the brain could have developed so that tools could be made and language arose as a consequence

Question 33

Why do we think neanderthals could produce the same sounds as us?

Answer 33

Neanderthals had the hyoid bone in the same shape as humans

Question 34

What is glottochronology?

Answer 34

Glottochronology uses shared words to estimate the divergence between languages. However, because words change very fast, they can only go back in time for a few thousand years

We can only trace Language up to 6000 years ago

Question 35

Describe the pattern of diversity in sounds.

Answer 35

The number of different sounds present in different populations around the world were measured. The most diverse sounds were in Africa so it is the same pattern as genetic diversity, the further away from Africa the more you have lost in terms of diversity. Therefore, language must have developed before humans left African

Question 36

When did language originate?

Answer 36

150-230kya

This contradicts sudden development of language in association with the expansion out of Africa