Exam 3 COPY Flashcards
biocultural evolution
- confers the notion that biology makes culture possible
- developing culture further influences the direction of biological evolution
what have biocultural interactions caused in humans?
- anatomical, biological, and behavioral changes
worldview
cultural perspective shared by the members of a society
what are humans the result of?
the long-term interactions between biology and culture
what are fossils?
- traces or remnants of organisms found in geological beds on the earth’s surface
- can include once-living forms as animals, plants, insects, and algae
trace fossils
related to an organisms way of life, its behavior, not necessarily the remains of the animal itself
who studies fossils?
paleontologists
paleontology
the study of fossil remains, their context and their evolution
- subfield of geology
geology
the study of earth’s physical characteristics and their formation
what are fossils good for?
fossils tell us about otherwise unknown totally extinct species
- phylogeny
- paleoecology
- paleoenvironment
what do fossils tells us when dated?
when dated, fossils allow us to add a time scale to a phylogenetic tree, and the evolutionary events it depicts
- phylogeny
paleoecology
the settings in which the fossils lived
paleoenvironment
reconstruct the ancient events of evolution and how it occurred and what transpired
teeth and jaws
- ready made fossils
- highly heritable (phylogenetic info)
- sensitive to selection (functional info)
homology
the same organ in different animals under every variety of form and function
- similarities between organisms based on descent from a common ancestor
richard owen
father of homology
analogies (homoplasy)
- similarities between organisms based strictly on common function with no assumed common evolutionary descent
- convergent evolution
taphonomy
- bias in the fossil record is unavoidable
- there will always be a loss of information from the present to the past
plesiadapiformes
- stem primates who split off the tree before the last common ancestor of euprimates
carpolestes
- late paleocene and early eocene
- distribution: north america europe, and asia
- body size: small
- evidence: abundant, nearly entire skeleton known
- divergent, opposable hallux with a nail instead of a claw
- 3.1.3.3. dental formula
- highly aboreal
where in the fossil record is hominid fossil material poor?
- late miocene (12-7 mya) in sub-saharan africa
- but a key time period to explore divergence between humans and our closest cousins, the african apes
molecular clocks
- best when used with the fossil record
divergence estimates between humans and chimpanzees
5-6 mya
divergence estimates between humans and gorillas
6-8 mya