Lecture 17 - Discovering the origins of mankind Flashcards
Is there a missing link between humans and other species?
No. The missing link idea is a misconception
What was the book “Paleontological Tree of Vertebrates (1879)” by Ernst Haeckel about?
Made human seem like the ultimate outcome of evolution – final stage of a slow and gradual progress towards something of higher complexity) – but that is not true as humans are not at the top of the evolution tree
Not accepted at all in a biological or Darwinian sense
Are the Neanderthals our ancestor?
No. They are our cousins and we share a common ancestor
What species was the Java man?
Homo Erectus
Was the Piltdown Man real?
No it was a hoax
Are Neanderthals intelligent creatures?
Yes. They had fire and they made complex tools
What are hominids?
Creatures that walked on 2 legs
Which came first? Bipedalism or Big brains?
Bipedalism
Why did humans start walking on 2 legs?
• Hunting theory:
o Can run more efficiently – able to run farther distance on 2 legs than 4
o Higher viewpoint – able to spot prey/predators more easily
• Tree theory:
o Orang Utans spent a considerable portion of their time walking on their hind legs in trees – already comfortable with walking on 2 legs
o Habitat: trees – but started to live on the ground due to the widespread lost of forests in Africa
• Aquatic ape theory:
o substantial part of our evolutionary past was conducted in the water, there would have been a phase of the evolution of these creatures in which they would have done a lot of wading (this is supposed to explain the lost of body hair, because wading with almost naked skin is better than being covered in hair which will slow you down).
o Ancestors have to wade and to keep their head out of the water to look for food
o Not a successful theory
What are Homo Floresiensis
Dwarf sized ape like creatures - Hobbits
Where did humans evolve in?
Africa
What theory did Darwin use to explain why different human race exists?
Darwin used the theory of sexual selection to try to explain why different human races existed, he didn’t think that the earlier theory that humans were adapted to their local environment was correct. He tried to argue that humans have domesticated ourselves and made our own races through sexual choice, by mating based on their standard of beauty.
This is nonsense and is not accepted
What is race synonymous with?
Varieties
Are we still evolving?
Meaningless to ask if anything is still evolving because big changes take thousands of years to occur (the process is a slow and gradual change – invisible to us because we have short life spans
