...Homo Erectus and Neanderthals. Two very different hominids. But are they really? Our ancestors were very versatile hominids they lived in different places and lived in different ways. They were all special in their own ways. They had similarities and differences that set them apart. They had similarities but the differences helped them survive in different ways. If they hadn’t adapted to how they lived in the future they would have lasted the same time that their ancestors have lived. The Neanderthals lived for an average lifespan 30 years. They had to have some mistake that decreased their lifespan. If the Homo Erectus had done the same there’s a chance that we might not be here right now. Their differences set the future that we live in today....
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...Question A: Where and when did homo neanderthals live? Homo Neanderthalensis fossils were found all over Europe, and near China, and in the far south of Russia. (O’Neil) A whole skeleton of an H. Neanderthalensis hominid was found in a cave in Neander Valley near Düsseldorf, Germany. (O’Neil) The Homo Neanderthalensis species lived from about 300,000 years ago until 25,000 years ago and lived alongside Homo Sapien Sapiens for as much as 20,000 years. (Mekie) Lockwood, Charles, and Chris Stringer. The Human Story: Where We Come from and How We Evolved. New York, Sterling, 2008. O'Neil, Dennis. “Evolution of Modern Humans: Neandertals.” Evolution of Modern Humans: Neandertals, Dennis O'Neil, 1 Jan. 2013, http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo2/mod_homo_2.htm. Mekie, Robin. Dawn of Man: the story of human evolution. Dorling Kindersley, 2000 Question B: How did they live?...
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...Abstract When taking a look at our ancestors of the past, Neanderthals being the closest in relationship to modern humans,I ask myself the simple question: what was the cause of Neanderthals extinction? Modern scientific technology and the ability to test DNA from our ancient ancestors bones are helping us get closer to explaining this phenomenon. According to Charles Q. Choi, a contributor for Live Science states, “about 1.5 to 2.1 percent of anyone outside Africa is Neanderthal in origin” (Choi, 2014). With roughly 2 percent of Neanderthal DNA in my genetic makeup, it makes sense that modern humans were involved in the extinction of the Neanderthal identity. As stated by many researchers before, neanderthals did not go extinct due to modern humans. New research is proving this claim false. Recently, researchers from the University of Cambridge and Oxford have identified the possibility of diseases are older than what we believed possible. New studies taken from pathogen genomes and DNA of ancient neanderthal bones are showing that diseases were part of neanderthals extinction (Houldcroft, 2016). With neanderthals DNA being similar to modern humans, they were susceptible to pass genes and inherit bad mutations. In the long run these bad mutations caused many problems within their population. Bad mutations are passed between individuals by way of sexual connectivity. With neanderthal DNA being part of...
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...Exam 4 Study Questions: 1. Write a short statement on Homo erectus. Be sure to 1) identify at least one important distinctive feature each of the head, chest and femur of H.erectus and discuss the way in which each of these structures is different from that found in modern humans; 2) discuss what the anatomy of H.erectus tells us about this species: a) diet and b) locomotor capabilities. * Head: H.erectus had a significant increase in brain size with a skull vault of about 1000 cc. This size is bigger than all the previous members of the genus Homo and similar to that of humans. * Chest: H.erectus had narrow rib cages similar to modern humans’, which indicates that H.erectus did not have complex guts like Lucy’s and was probably meat eaters. * Femur: H.erectus had extremely long femoral necks which were ever longer than humans’ which indicated that they might be even more adapted in bipedalism. * Diet and Locomotion: The anatomy of H.erectus indicates that their diet probably contained mainly meat and they are probably no longer foliovores. Like modern humans they relied on high protein, meat concentrated diet. Their means of locomotion was a kind of bipedalism probably even more efficient than modern humans’. 2. Identify what it means to be a) altricial, b) precocial and c) secondarily altricial. Then discuss the evidence that leads researchers to believe that H. erectus was secondarily altricial. * Altricial: Born helpless, the babies need time in...
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...The Human Spark; Becoming Us The documentary, The Human Spark; Becoming Us, shows many possible theories to why humans achieved the spark and Neanderthals died off. Focusing on only a few of the main points; why humans received the spark and Neanderthals did not. The discovery of tools, symbolic jewelry and art, are at the forefront of changing our understanding of what the human spark was. Helping scientists to understand why modern humans had the spark and Neanderthals did not. Neanderthals and human tools were very similar except that human tools show the ability of a mind that can adapt. They can explain many reasons behind the spark, all of which show evidence of how the spark might have begun in modern human beings. Tools to make weapons and artwork are far superior in humans with no symbolic art discovered being created by Neanderthals. The hand ax was a basic tool of our ancestors. By using soft percussion process to make tools they were able to create better tools and sharper, but not specific to one task. The Neanderthals used the same toolkit year after year and possibly for thousands of generations. There tools would be used in many different ways like chopping, scraping, cutting or smashing bones and to slice meat. The use of the soft percussion technique allowed for a sharper point and more finely designed tools. That was, one of the first signs that the brain was changing. It works so well there was no drive for evolutionary change. By not having the ability...
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...Asian Trek-April 7, 2007: Fossil puts ancient humans in Far East, In 2001 Chinese tree farmers discovered a few bones from an old cave called Tianyuan. The bones belonged to a 40,000 year old human. A Chinese Paleontologist by the name of Hong Shang led an excavation of the site. He found some teeth, a lower jaw bone, and limb bones. But they couldn’t find the gender of the human because Hong couldn’t find a pelvis. There were also no found stone artifacts or other remains. They got the age of the skeleton by measuring the radiocarbon in the bones. The skeleton was a mix of people today and Neanderthals. The jaw, legs, and arms resemble the bones of people today but the teeth and hands are from Neanderthals. That means as the modern humans spread out of East Asia the interbred with other people. But there’s not enough evidence to compare with the new find. This is the second skeleton that they’ve found in East Asia that’s over 35,000 years old. The first was found in Borneo in 1958. The skull was reported by Graeme Barker. Graeme goes to the University of Cambridge in England. He is a journalist for the Journal of Human Evolution. The skull is approximately 39,000-45,000 years old. But since you can’t get an exact age using the Radiocarbon measurements this is what they are estimating the age to be. Now you know about the fossil that scientists believe but ancient humans in East Asia. Thanks for reading. I hope you learned a little about fossils...
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...Then and Now Life, is it the same as it was millions of years ago? No, this is because of what is known as evolution. The world is forever changing. There seems to be something new discovered all the time. This maybe because the scientist have not had time to explorer everywhere and everything. However, there could also be another explanation to this, evolution. Evolution is a scientific theory that helps to explain the presences of new varieties of living things, both now, in the present as well as in the history of the earth. The theory of evolution is based on the differences and similarities that occur within living things over a period of time and among habitats. It takes in consideration the biological processes that occur of genetic drift, natural selection, gene mutations, and changes in the habitats that occur. This theory explains why in the past there may have been many different varieties of a species, but now there are far less of them. A species changes over time. It can grow bigger, smaller, develops new traits, or many other things can change in it. The evolution of a horse is an example of this. Over 50 million years ago, the horse was an animal that was about the size of today’s dog. The earlier horses were better suited for a tropical area than the plains of out west. However, because of evolution they adapted this maybe because of other animals that were predators or because of the lack of resources that were available. Horses even had multiple toes...
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...J.H Human Geography 1101 Becoming Human Response For many year there has been a worldwide controversy on the actual facts of evolution. Were we derived from ape? Did Neanderthal play an essential part if any in the culture that we have today? These are just some of the questions anthropologist and scientist have been trying to answer for ages. There are some disputable theories and some indisputable theories; you must come to a conclusion of your own. So we must take an in-depth look at the “Becoming Human” interactive documentary to arrive at our own theory and conclusion. In the beginning the documentary they takes us to Hardar, Ethiopia where the bones of the world renowned “Lucy” was discovered. With this discovery I believe this was the beginning of many more actually believing in these evolution theories. This discovery was the first to provide concrete facts that there were human like that species have walked the earth before us. Before Lucy there wasn’t one solid object or set of fossils that future findings to could be compared too. With that missing there would be a lack evidence, phases, and knowledge within the evolution theory. There are many scientists that make ape comparisons, being that they are genetically the closest species to humans. We very rarely talk about the probability cross mating, when I say cross mating I mean mating with another species in order to get these different aspects of the body. Mating with another...
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...The multi-regional hypothesis argues that our early hominid ancestors, including Homo ergaster and Homo heidelbergensis, migrated out of Africa and thus the evolution of modern humans took place in different parts of the world – a process termed regional continuity (Pettitt, P 2009a: 125-173) . This theory places great emphasis on the notion of steady evolutionary alterations or changes that happen in different regions and produce diverse variations of the species. Evolution of this kind is kept at a regular rate due to an amalgamation of cultural progress and ‘gene flow’ or interbreeding, thus keeping all lineages evolving at the same time (EP 2006a:70). This process is characterized as parallel evolution, which suggests a subtle morphological resemblance between populations of species who are geographically separated (EBO 2011). This idea was first postulated in 1940 by Franz Weidenreich (1873-1948), who noticed considerable similarities between the archaic Peking man fossils and modern humans from China. However, Weidenreich did not refer to his evolutionary hypothesis as the ‘multi-regional model’ - instead, he used the term ‘Polycentric’ (Wikipedia 2011). Milford Wolpoff, American Paleoanthropologist and advocate of the multi-regional hypothesis, developed Weidenriech’s theory along with Alan Thorne, allegorically suggesting that gene flow can be likened to that of individuals swimming in a pool – although they maintain their individuality, they are often influenced by...
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...nature of the problem, ranging from limited information, contradictory evidence, and an increasingly curious mystery regarding the gradual decline of the population while temporally coexistent with Homo sapiens. An interesting observation can be made about the peculiar way in which biological anthropologists have considered the development of their own species. The old maxim that it is nearly impossible to turn an objective eye towards one’s self is especially valid, even in this context. Historically, anthropologists have seen the development of Homo sapiens as something gradual and transformative. The presence of Homo neaderthalis throws a wrench into the quaint linearity of this way of thinking. The paleoanthropological record of the Neanderthals continues up to a certain point and their presumed extinction has always been troublesome and anthropologists continue to debate as to why they became extinct. There are several ideas competing for prominence, four of which being the major considerations. The first states that they entered into resource competition with Homo sapiens and lost, that climate change occurred and that they were unable to adapt, that Homo sapiens engaged in genocidal behavior, or that they genetically merged with Homo sapiens and thus disappeared as a distinct group. Speculation and scientific inquiry into this matter will be particularly useful as these to species represent a relatively recent epoch in our own...
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...The Evolution of Modern Humans Two origins are considered when thinking about the evolution of modern humans. There’s the “Multiregional Model” that concentrates on a multiple origins theory in which the different human populations or races had independent origins and evolved in isolation from each other, and there’s the recent single-orgin hypothesis or the “Out of Africa” which holds that anatomically modern humans evolved in Africa between 200,000 and 100,000 years ago. With this theory humans started to leave Africa after evolving. Both theories support that human evolution began in africa, but the “Out of Africa” theory has gotten much more support over the last decade, but there are still many people who support the the multiregional hypothesis. Until the recent years the only way to the only way of learning about ancient ancestors was through old fossils and stone tools. The “Multiregional Model” is the older model that consists of several models of human evolution which all posit that the human races evolved from separate archaic humans over millions of years. The “Multiregional Model” posits that 1.5 million years ago marked the beginning human evolution and that fossil samples represent the the evolving of homo sapiens. According to the theory there is no one place where homo sapiens evolved. They may have developed in Africa and then spreaded, or maybe they started in Europe and Asia and spreaded from there. Support for Multiregional The fossil record...
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...2 Abstract: Based on the breathtaking and scenic film Baraka, directed by Mark Magidson, this essay examines what makes us human internally and externally. Drawing on articles consistent in humanity and compassion exploration, biological research, chimpanzee research and analysis, and a look at our distant Neanderthal ancestors, we can combine the crucial pieces of humanity to look at it as a whole. Baraka depicts not only diversity, but importance of religion, ritual, traditions, and culture in the world. At first, the film seems to be a jumbled mixture of images and non-verbal sounds, but in fact it is strategically linked and results in one final theme: Life. 3 For centuries, humans have made themselves superior over our predecessor: Earth. While science has proved that the earth,with its animals and nature, have existed long before we have, we continue to oversee its power and lose our humanity. Our humanity, in my opinion, is not what makes us human biologically, but rather internally and cognitively. According to the dictionary, humanity is described as "the quality of being humane" and followed by words such as compassion, brotherly love, understanding, sympathy, and consideration. Is humanity an instinct, something we are born with? Or is humanity learned, taught, and projected? There are many things that we can relate to being human. Biologically, the DNA that lies within the cells that make up our physical body can tell whether we...
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...descriptions and images concerning her quick, but thought provoking run in with the reclusive weasel. Dillard is attempting to show us that we can discover a lot about the true way to live by observing nature's other creations. Yet, at the same time telling us that the way we live is totally up to us, which leads me to my personal interpretation. One could argue humans that lived during the Neanderthal period were similar to that of a weasel. Throughout time the mental capacity of the human has grown to be far more complex and sophisticated than earlier times. With that being said the weasel as we know acts off of pure instinct, whereas the human mind needs to process and articulate each move we make. People often search a definite answer on how to live their lives, as if there is a road map or instructions that will lead you to resolution. Actually, the truth is we, humans, are blessed with an ability that separates us from any other creature; the capacity to intelligently choose to live as we please, instead of how we were created to. I believe that in earlier times humans lived as Neanderthals and were definitely more like the weasel than they were different. Dillard alludes to us how the weasel acts and lives, when she notes “The weasel lives in necessity” (91). Similar to the weasel, back in those times humans only hunted out of necessity and for survival. Basically, these humans...
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...Within this essay it will be going back four million years to the present day, into the evolution of man. It was once believed that all species on earth were the creation of God. But in 1858 Charles Darwin published his findings into the theories of the evolutionary process (Human Biology, 2008). He suggested closely related species evolved from one ancestor. Man and ape evolved from a common ancestor. Natural selection was the mechanism for evolutionary change. Over time the characteristics of the fittest species gradually changed over time through generations to survive the environment around them. Humans evolved in Africa and shared a common ancestor with chimps and apes which lived millions of years ago. This common ancestor diverged over time which formed different types of species of hominid. Homo sapiens make up today’s society, the other species of hominids became extinct. The know how of some of our early relatives is known because of fossil evidence, and our understanding of our family tree grows as new fossils are revealed. These fossils show that modern humans are part of a large human evolutionary family. Some distinctive features of H. sapiens the modern human have large brains, adapted to walk on two feet, a small or absent brow ridge and a small chin on the lower chin. Some of the hominids found that are believed to be our ancestors are Australopithecus afarensis, Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo neanderthalensis and Homo floresiensis. Australopithecus...
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...Anthropology Describe LB1- LB1 was an adult of about 30, probably female. She was only about 3.3 feet (1 m) in height with a very small brain size of 417 cc. But, at her brain size she would not be able to think well enough to do basic functions, speak, organize her thoughts, and obtain food. The size of her brain meant she wasn’t a dwarf, but she wasn’t alone there are claims to be at least 8 or even 13 uncovered. LB1’s feet are long more than 60% the length of her femur, at least 10% more than with humans. She lacked a well developed arch, somewhat curved, suggesting wasn’t fast on ground, but good in trees. Her face is distinctive, no chin to speak of. Researchers have clashed over whether LB1 really does represent a species of its own, a descendant of Homo erectus or a pathological form of Homo sapiens. These specimens may represent a new hominin species, Homo floresiensis, descended from a local population of Homo erectus or from an earlier migration of a small-bodied and small-brained hominin out of Africa. Scientists found that the LB1 skull shows greater affinities to the fossil Homo sample than to pathological modern humans. Although some superficial similarities were found between LB1 and skulls of modern humans with pathologies, additional features linked LB1 exclusively with fossil Homo. Shows that LB1 is “clearly distinct from healthy modern humans and from those exhibiting hypothyroidism and Laron syndrome. The mandibles evidence suggests mandibles “share...
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