Lecture 10 - Case study - human evolution Flashcards
(38 cards)
what are the 6 stages of studying human evolution?
1) temporal framework
2) reconstructing paleogeography
3) reconstructing environment
4) evidence from living organisms
5) evidence from fossil organisms
6) evidence from archaeology
when is is thought the start of human evolution was?
7 million years ago when the chimp-human split occurred
top of miocene just before pliocene on geological column
why have we gotta a much better understanding of humans than dinosaurs?
much more recent so can use a variety of dating methods - accuracy of dating is getting better with time
how else is the fact that human evolution was relatively recent useful?
better knowledge of geology stratigraphy - the rocks still exist - therefore can subdivide the 7 million years much better
what is an added complication when studying human evolution?
glacial events - sea levels changing - temps changing - unstable environments
- need to understand where we are in the glacial cycles to understand human evolution
when were sea levels last lowest?
last glacial maximum - 18,000 yrs ago
when were sea levels at their highest?
middle miocene 14ma - before humans split from chimps (greenhouse world)
what are rainfall patterns effected by?
by which part of the glacial cycle the worl is in
what are the study of pollen cores in the East African rift lakes useful for?
- they can give you a chronology of the dramatic environmental changes as humans were evolving and what effects they have
how can you date sediments by drilling cores in the ocean crust?
study oxygen or boron isotopes from forams (single celled organisms that live in the ocean with a carbonate shell - so remain in ocean floor for years)
what can fine details about oxygen isotopes reflect?
how much ice was at the poles and therefore sea temperatures
what does boron show?
how much co2 was in the atmosphere and how acidic the ocean was
how can we get evidence from living organisms to help study human evolution?
1) look at nearest living relatives e.g. chimps
- look at their history, anatomy, genomics, physiology and behaviour
2) look at other human societies that havent advanced as much e.g. sandbush people in south Africa (still practice hunter-gatherer societies)
describe the human fossil record
- terrible fossil record - few terrestrial deposits
- human skulls are very delicate - mostly find teeth and body bones with cranium smashed too pieces
- get some footprints
what evidence can you find from archaeology?
- tools (very robust)
- charcoal (work out when fire was invented)
- find burials (instantly fossilises the bodies)
what are the 4 groups that 200 extant species of primates are classified into?
1) promisians (lemurs, lorises, bushbabies)
2) new world monkeys (spider monkeys, marmosetts)
3) old world monkeys (baboons , colobus monkeys)
4) hominoids (apes, includins humans (hominins - new term))
what are anthropoids?
collectively the monkeys and apes
when did primates appear in the fossil record?
85ma
when was the KT mass extinction?
65ma
what happened in terms of primate evolution 50ma?
- primates of modern aspect appear
- adaptive radiation of primates
- anthropoids evolve din Africa
when did hominoids appear in Africa?
20ma
when did hominoids migrate into Asia as Asia/Africa collide?
18ma - adaptive radiation of hominoids in Asia
what happened 10ma in terms of primate evolution?
as asian hominoid migrates back to Africa and is ancestral to all later hominoids (including hominins)
when was the earliest hominoid?
proconsul - 22ma from Africa