Chapter 12 Flashcards
(19 cards)
The Bodo cranium is most likely what?
An African archaic H.sapiens
The Bodo cranium is from Bodo Ethiopia and dates to as much as 600,000 years ago.
What is one way scientists knew that the Mauer mandible, the first archaic H.sapiens discovered in Europe, was a hominin species distinct from our own?
It lacked a chin.
The Mauer mandible was robust and lacked a chin, distinguishing it from anatomically modern H.sapiens mandibles.
Why are informal labels used to designate early hominins?
No consensus exists on how to label them.
What did the Schieningen, Germany coal pit yield?
Tools from the middle Pleistocene.
It is an important site because it yielded four lower Paleolithic wooden spears.
Together, the middle and late Pleistocene correspond to which time period?
From 900,000 to 10,000 years ago.
Mastoid process
The protrusion from the temporal bone of the skull located behind the ear.
What is the cranial capacity of archaic Homo sapiens?
1,000cc to 1,400cc
Larger braincase than H.erectus.
Levallois technique
A middle Paleolithic stone tool technique that made use of prepared cores to produce uniform Levallois flakes.
When was the first Neandertal discovered?
The early 1800’s.
The cranium of a small child found in 1830 in Belgium.
Châtelperronian
An upper Paleolithic tool industry that has been found in association with later Neandertals.
What is the growth and development of Neandertals like as contrasted to that of H.erectus?
Slower overall.
A study that showed H.erectus growth was faster than that of modern humans and Neandertals.
Midfacial prognathism
The forward projection of the middle facial region, including the nose.
A key feature that distinguishes the Neandertals anatomically from both H.erectus and modern humans.
Occipital bun
A backward projecting bulge on the back of the skull.
Middle Paleolithic (middle Stone Age)
Stone tool industry that used prepared-core technologies.
Creates more cutting surface from a given amount of raw material.
Using a bone as a hammerstone to make tools is called a soft hammer technique and is characteristic of the middle Paleolithic industries used by archaic H.sapiens.
Taurodontism
Molar teeth that have expanded pulp cavities and fused roots.
Allows a hominin to use teeth as tools because the teeth can sustain more wear.
Anthropologists labeled a “lumper”.
An anthropologist who considers archaic Homo sapiens and Neandertals as being members of the same species.
Blades
Flakes that are twice as long as they are wide.
Juxtamastoid eminence
A ridge of bone next to the mastoid process.
In Neandertals it is larger than the mastoid process itself.
Upper Paleolithic (Later Stone Age)
Stone tool industries that are characterized by the development if blade-based technology.
