Primates:
 Binocular
 Hands
Human Ancestors?
Fossil Evidence
claws)
 Monkeys:
(tails)
no tails
 Hominids (bipedalism, slower, but
able to use hands for purposes other
than ambulation).
 Apes:
Pangea
Primitive Primates

 70

 Small
Super continent
200 m BP
 Plate tectonics caused super continent to
break apart.
 Change in land mass location led to
climate change.
 Global cooling also led to shrinking of
forests which permitted the emergence of
grasslands.
– 30 m BP
eyesight: depth perception
that can grasp (nails not
m BP (Montana)
the size of squirrels, tree
shrews.
 Arboreal (tree dwelling)
 The forest savannah fringe was a
new unexploited habitat, the
emancipation from the trees favored
a larger body size.
– Larger primates are no longer arboreal
Limitations of Physical
Anthropology
Tree Shrew
 New
fossil discoveries lead to
revisions of previous facts!
 Unclear where to look for fossils, and
when they
y will be found. Unclear
when you should stop looking at one
site and begin to explore another
one.
 The rules to document ancestry are
unclear.
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Lumpers vs. splitters
It is unclear how much range of variation
occurs within a species.
 No two “experts” evaluate the available
y
data the same way.
 Lumpers: individuals who see differences
as variation within the same species.
 Splitters: individuals who perceive the
differences as evidence for a new species.

Debates
 Scientist
challenges
interpretation of new find, the
oldest primate fossil ever
discovered
 Find opens debate about whether
man's earliest ancestors came
from Asia and were diurnal or
nocturnal
Debates
 "It
was once thought that primates
originated in North America because
that's where the earliest fossils were
found initially; but we should be
more open
open--minded. We still do not
know the area of origin of the
primate lineage that eventually led
to humans, and this new find firmly
brings Asia into the picture."
Current Thinking
Several species of early hominids may
be living at the same time.
Debates
 "I
disagree with the authors on both
statistical and biological grounds!"
Time Line: Note that as many as 4-5 species of
early hominids were living at the same time. A
parental species may continue to exist after a
daughter species evolved.
A parental species may continue to
exist after a daughter species
emerges.
2
Current Thinking
 Bipedalism
brain size
Bipedalism precedes increments in brain size
precedes increments in
Aegyptopithecus
Aegyptopithecus
 28
28--30
m BP
 Tail
Tail--less
 Africa/Asia
 Ancestral
to all apes and hominids
– Gave rise to three genera (12 m BP):
 Gigantopithecus
 Dryopithecus
 Ramapithecus
Keel Dimorphism
Sagital keel differences
 The
large keel is evidence of large
strong muscle insertion.
 Is the dimorphism evidence of sexual
dimorphism,
dimorphism or two different
species?
3
Gigantopithecus
Gigantopithecus
 Asia
– wide spread
 Size of modern gorilla
 Extinct @ 1 m BP
Dryopithecus
Dryopithecus
 Woodland
 Ancestor
ape
to all modern apes
Ramapithecus
Ramapithecus
 Africa,
Asia, Europe
 Up right posture
 Forest/savannah fringe
 Seed eater: good molars
molars, small
canine teeth
 3 ½’ tall
 No evidence of tool use
 Rather small brain
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Fossils Density
 Poor
between 12 m BP and 3 m BP.
Australopithecus afarensis
3
m BP to present much richer fossil
d
density.
it
Australopithecus afarensis
Australopithecus africanus
3
½ m BP
Australopithecus africanus
Australopithecus boisei
3
m BP
tall
 60#
 600 cc
 4’
5
Australopithecus boisei
Homo erectus
2
¼ m BP
 5’ tall
 150#
 600 + cc
Homo erectus
1
m BP
‘ tall
 700 to 1,300 cc (modern humans
1 300 cc)
1,300
 Reduction in sexual dimorphism
 H. erectus was once believed to be
ancestral to modern humans.
Currently some authorities believe
that it is not ancestral to humans.
5
Oldest tools @ 2.6 m BP
Homo sp??
 Unclear
when the 1st members of the
Homo genus emerged.
 2 ½ m BP is a common estimate.
 Stone
tools emerged 22-3 m BP.
Oldest tools @ 2.6 m BP
 About
2,600 tools in this age bracket
have been found in Ethopia.
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Tool Industries
Oldowan tools (choppers)
 Oldowan
– Primative choppers and scrapers
 Acheulean
h l
– Well formed hand axes
Acheulean flake tools (Zambia, 200,000-400,000 ybp)
Oldowan tools (flake)
Tool Industries
 Both
the Oldowan and Ascheulean
tools are found at the same sites and
the same period in time.
 Were they made by separate
species???
Acheulean scrapper (left) from Zambia, late stone age scrapper
(right) from Texas. These tools were made 200,000 years apart in
time.
7
The tool on the right..
Homo sapiens (archaic)
 Was
made in Texas by a fully
modern human after Columbus
discovered the New World.
H. Sapiens
17,000 BP
Homo sapiens
 Modern
people emerged 200,000 to
@ 90,000 BP.
 Extended use of fire
 Burial
B i l off dead
d d
 Cave art
 Language?
Homo sapiens neanderthalensis
Homo sapiens neanderthalensis
200,000 – 35,000 BP.
Use of fire
 Burial of dead
 Cave art?
 Language??
 Brain @ 1600 cc (larger than modern
humans?)
 Heavy brow ridge – primitive trait?
 Extinct line of humans, or natural
variation??


8
Cave Art?






Oldest Cave Paintings
@ 35,000 BP
If Neanderthal man created any form of art, no traces of it have
yet been found.
These are probably the oldest cave paintings, although we cannot
affirm that with scientific certainty.
The cave contains traces of Neanderthal man and evidence of
habitation by modern Homo sapiens.
"The traces we have found show a clean break between
Neanderthal and modern man both in terms of culture and
lifestyle. There is an abrupt change in the techniques of
decoration and the use of flint and bone tools.
Everything changes, in a radical, brutal fashion."
fashion."
"It's not impossible that the Chauvet cave
was painted by Neanderthals.”
Neanderthal Art?
Homo Brain Volume
Neanderthal Flute??
Time Line: Note that as many as 4-5 species of
early hominids were living at the same time. A
parental species may continue to exist after a
daughter species evolved.
9
Earliest Use of Fire??
 Archaeologists
in Israel may have
unearthed the oldest evidence of fire
use by our ancestors.
 The site,
site on the banks of the Jordan
River, dates to about 790,000 years
ago. There are older sites in Africa,
but the evidence from these is much
more hotly contested.
Fire
 The
team analyzed over 50,000
pieces of wood and nearly 36,000
pieces of flint from what was once
probably a Homo erectus
settlement on the shores of an
ancient lake. Flint was examined
because it was used for tool making
and shows a characteristic pitting
when exposed to fire.
Fire
 The
oldest evidence of fire use in
Europe dates from around 500,000
BP.
 Early
y use of fire precedes
p
modern
Homo sapiens by about 500,000
years.
 Fire may have been used by
hominids not ancestral to modern
humans.
Hobbit--Like Human Ancestor
Hobbit
Found in Asia
Homo sapiens (modern)
Note: the primitive trait of the retention of facial fur
Flores
 Scientists
have found skeletons of a
hobbit-like species of human that
hobbitgrew no larger than a threethree-year
year--old
modern child
child. The tiny humans,
humans who
had skulls about the size of
grapefruits, lived with pygmy
elephants and Komodo dragons on a
remote island in Indonesia 18,000
years ago.
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Hobbit--like Human
Hobbit
Relative size: pygmy, European, flores
Recent Discoveries
Flores skull compared to modern humans
Homo floresiensis
Flores tools
 Brain
volume: 380 cc in the lower
range for chimps, and primitive
Australopithecines.
 3 ½ ‘ tall
 55 #
 Stone tools
11
Flores
 Became
extinct about 18,000 BP.
 This is about 12,000 after humans
crossed into North and South
America.
America
 A totally unexpected discovery.
Oldest Pottery
 China:
Oldest Writing?
 Egypt
– 5,500 BP
16,000 – 13,000 BP
Oldest Alphabet??
 Late
Bronze Age – 3,500 BP
Modern Times
@ 16,000 BP
@ 12,000 BP
 Agriculture @ 10,000 BP
Tool Ages
 Pottery
 Stone
 Domestication
 Copper
@ 3 m BP
@ 6,000 BP
 Bronze @ 5,500 BP
 Iron @ 3,000 BP
 Writing:
pictographic @ 5,500 BP
 Writing: phonetic @ 3,500 BP
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