Anthropology - Test 3 Part 5

• 1. Increase range of vision
• (Scan the savanna for predators and/or food resources)

• 2. Free hands to carry tools
• (Problem: Earliest definitive evidence of bipedality is 4.4mya and stones tools is 3.3mya or 2.6mya)

• 3. Free hands to harvest fruit
• (Based on chimps who are bipedal when foraging fruit from bushes and short trees. 
• Problem: early hominins & chimps differ in dental size and by inference, differ in diet)

1) Early hominin females had a shorter birth interval and correspondingly higher fertility rate, than chimpanzees

2) Early hominin males and females foraged for food at different locations.

3) Natural selective advantage of bipedality was to enable a male to carry good to share with (i.e., provision) his mate and his offspring

4) A male knew who his offspring were because early hominins were monogamous

No evidence in fossil record to determine birth interval in early hominins

Australopithecus afarensis was markedly sexually dimorphic in body size. Among modern primates, marked sexual dimorphism is associated with polygyny, not monogamy.

1) (At least) two species of early hominins were living in the same area during the same time period (e.g., early Homo and Paranthropus boisei).

2) Two species minimized competition between them by having different lifestyles, as evidenced by differences in cranial capacity and dentition

postcranial bones,

Bipedality similar to humans

Alternative theories

• 1. Home-base forager theory:
• - Lifestyle of early Homo may have been similar to that of modern gatherers-hunters
• - Division of labor in food procurement (though not necessarily based on sex)
• - Sharing of food (meat and plants)
• - Home camp served as a central living area and protective refuge

• 2. Oldowan tool cache (i.e., stockpile) theory:
• - Early Homo stored stone tools at srategic locations across landscape, such as near likely predator kill sites (e.g., water source).
• - Early homo would find an abandoned carcass to the nearby cache of tools; use the tools to eat the meat.
• - The site was not a home-base of early Homo, but rather it was a food processing area.

• Dates:
• 1.8 mya

• Geographical distribution:
• Africa by 1.7 mya
• Eastern Europe by 1.8 mya and Western Europe by 1.2 mya
• Asia by 1.6 mya

Africa

Homo erectus

• 1) Africa
• Lake Turkana, Kenya
• Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania

• 2) Asia
• Trinil, Indonesia
• Zhoukoudian, China

3) Europe

• Person: Eugene Dubois
• Date: 1891
• Location: Trinil, Java (Indonesia)

• 1) KNM-ER 3733
• Kenya
• 1.7 mya (earliest African H. erectus)
• Cranial capacity: 848 cm3

• 2) KNM-WT 1500
• Kenya
• 1.6 mya
• Juvenile boy
• Tall structure; body proportions are similar to modern humans

• Australopithecus: 442 cm3
• Early Homo: 631 cm3
• Homo erectus: 900 cm3
• Modern Humans: 1,350 cm3

• Homo erectus cranial capacity:
• 1. 2x larger than that of australopithecines
• 2. 50% larger than that of early Homo
• 3. 33% smaller than that of modern humans

increases

Homo erectus is associated with new stone tool industry- Acheulian

• 1.7-1.6 mya,
• Africa

Called a hand axe

Hand held tools; were not affixed or hafted to spears or other wooden implements

Used for variety of tasks (skinning, slicing, digging)

smaller

• 500,000
• Zhoukoudian, China

• 1 mya
• South Africa

low, long, and widest at it's base

Homo erectus

• Prominent supraorbital torus
• Thickened midline of skull
• Angulation of back of skull
• Prominent of nuchal torus
• Facial prognathism
• No chin

H. erectus used its mouth as a tool (clamp or vise)

erectus

Homo erectus had thicker bones possible due to different levels of physical activity or as protection against suffering a broken bone during hunting

• 1. Successful hunters-and-gatherers
• 2. Used Acheulian tools
• 3. Probable use of fire
• 4. Probable use of clothing
• 5. No evidence of burial