2015 midatlantic archaeological research panel: hominid dig findings
TRANSCRIPT
2015 MIDATLANTIC ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH PANEL: HOMINID DIG FINDINGS
Australopithecus
Physical features (similar to both humans and apes)
Strong brow ridge (apes)
Small brain case (apes)
Bipedal (humans)
Beginnings of opposable thumbs
and “big toe”
Homo erectus(1.8 million-300,000 years ago)
First hominid species found outside of Africa (found in Indonesia, China, and Eastern Europe)
Survived for nearly 1.8 million years. In comparison, humans have only been around for 196,000 years!
Physical characteristics First hominid to share similar proportions to modern humans- looked
more human than ape
Long legs, shorter arms, larger brain than Australopithecus
Pelvis and hips had developed so they could walk MORE upright/taller
First species to have actively used fire
“Cooked Food Hypothesis”
With fire, homo erectus could cook their food Made food tastier and easier to digest
Made the extraction of energy from raw ingredients quicker and more efficient.
useful for powering an over-sized, energy-hungry brain
Homo erectus brain was 50% bigger than the preceding species of human, Homo habilis.
Advancement in brain size attributed to development of cooked foods
It gave extra energy, used for evolutionary success
reduced feeding time, freeing men to hunt
lowered weaning time, creating bigger families
Homo neanderthalis(lived 150,000-30,000 years ago)
Found in Belgium, Spain, Germany
Coexisted with homo sapiens in Europe and Western Asia
Huge Skeletons
Short, wide hips/legs, big chest
SUPER STRONG- could crush a modern-day wrestler
Protruding jaw, basically no chin
Effects of big muscle mass= draining for body. Required a lot of calories to maintain energy (think Michael Phelps)
Evidence suggests Neanderthals may have interbred with homo sapiens
As much as 4% of our DNA matches that of Neanderthals
Cultural elements of Neanderthals
Limited cognitive abilities Strong evidence that all tools found at
Neanderthal sites were copied from Cro-Magnon tools
Replicas of knives, spears, arrowheads
Possibly buried their dead?
Homo Sapiens(35,000-10,000 years ago)
Found in Southern Europe and Eastern Asia
First appeared about 150,000 years ago
Brain size Smaller than Neanderthals; HOWEVER,
proportionally to body size, homo sapiens have the larger brain
Anatomically identical to modern humans
Unique behavior
Hunted animals of all sizes, as well as fished Able to craft tools made of different materials and sizes so that they
could hunt many different types of animals
Basic knives/handaxes spears, harpoons, nets, needles, bow and arrows
Symbolic behavior- evidence of this did not appear until about 47,000 years ago