Physical anthro

a conventional term used to refer to the period of time before appearance of written records; does not deny the existence of history, merely of written history.

any object fashioned or altered by humans

the durable aspects of culture, such as tools, structures, and arts.

the natural remains of plants and animals found in the archaeological record.

a non portable element such as a hearth or an architectural element such as a wall that is preserved in the archaeological record.

any mineralized trace or impression of an organism that has been preserved in the earth's crust from past geological time.

a stain that shows up on the surface of recently plowed fields that reveals an archaeological site.

a refuse or garbage disposal area in an archaeological site.

a system for recording data in three dimensions for an archaeological excavation.

the starting point, or reference, for a grid system.

an archaeological technique employed to recover very tiny objects by immersion of soil samples in water to separate heavy from light particles.

layered; term used to describe archaeological sites where the remains lie in layers, one upon another.

a cast of the inside of a skull; used to help determine the size and shape of the brain.

a technique for amplifying or creating multiple copies of fragments of DNA so that it can be studied in the laboratory.

designating an event, object, or fossil as being older or younger than another.

dating recovered material based on solar years, centuries or other units of absolute time.

the most reliable method of relative dating by means of strata.

a technique for relative dating based on the fact that the amount of flourine in bones is proportional to their age.

a technique of relative dating based on putting groups of objects into a sequence in relation to one another.

a technique of relative dating based on changes in fossil pollen over time.

a technique of chronometric dating based on the number of rings of growth found in a tree trunk.

a technique of chronometric dating that measures the ratio of radio active potassium to argon in volcanic debris associated with human remains.

evolution above the species level

the process of forming new species

a factor that separates breeding populations, thereby preventing gene flow, creating divergent subspecies and ultimately divergent species.

speciation through a branching mechanism whereby an ancestral population gives rise to two or more descendant populations.

change in the timing of developmental events that is often responsible for changes in the shape or size of a body part.

a gene responsible for large scale effects on growth and development that are frequently responsible for major reorganization of body plans in organisms.

a model of macroevolutionary change that suggest evolution occurs via long periods of stability or stasis punctuated by periods of rapid change.

a sustained directional shift in a populations average characteristics.

characteristics that define a group of organisms and that did not exist in ancestral populations.

characteristics that define a group of organisms that are due to shared ancestry.

in biological evolution, a process by which unrelated populations develop similarities to one another due to similar function rather than shared ancestry.

according to the theory of plate tectonics, the movement of continents embedded in underlying plates on the earth's surface in relation to one another over the history of life on earth.

rapid diversification of an evolving population as it adapts to a variety of available niches.

possessing characteristics that, by chance, are advantageous in future environmental conditions.

an animal that maintains a relatively constant body temperature despite environmental fluctuations

an animal whose body temperature rises or falls according to the temperature of the surrounding environment.

reproduction involving the production of relatively few offspring with high parental investment in each.

reproduction involving the production of large numbers of offspring with relatively low parental investment in each.

a theory for primate evolution that proposes that life in the trees was responsible for enhanced visual acuity and manual dexterity in primates.

a theory for primate evolution that proposes that hunting behavior in tree dwelling primates was responsible for their enhanced visual acuity and dexterity.

the mode of locomotion in which an organism walks upright on its two hind legs, characteristics of humans and their ancestors; bipedality.

one of the earliest bipeds that lived in forested portions of eastern Africa about 4.4 million years ago.

the genus including several species of early bipeds from East, South, and Central Africa living between about 1.1 and 4.3 million years ago, one of whom was directly ancestral to humans.

semi-arid plains environment as in eastern Africa.

a space between the canines and other teeth allowing the large projecting canines to fit within the jaw.

a proposed genus and species of biped contemporary with early australopithecines; may not be a separate genus.

members of the genus Australopithecus possessing more lightly built chewing apparatus; likely had a diet that included more meat than that of the robust Australopithecines; best represented by the South African species A. africanus.

several species within the genus australopithecus, who lived from 2.5 to 1.1 million years ago in East and Southern Africa; known for the rugged nature of their chewing apparatus (large back teeth, large chewing muscles, and a bony ridge on their skull tops for the insertion of these large muscles).

a crest running from front to back on the top of the skull along the midline to provide a surface of bone for the attachment of the large temporal muscles for chewing.

when two closely related species compete for the same niche, one will out-compete the other, bringing about the latter's extinction.