Chapter 14 Hominids

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Chapter 14 Hominids
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Objectives

• How do humans differ from apes?
• Why was Homo erectus so successful?
• What happened to Neandertals?
• Be able to briefly trace the cultural development
  of
• tools, fire, clothing, shelter, art
• Know 5 examples of hominids

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Early Primates

• Prosimians (65mya)
• Lemurs, tarsiers, lorises
• Monkeys (35mya)
• Apes (23mya)
• Hominids (5mya)

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Early Primates - Traits

• Common physical primate traits
• Dense hair or fur covering
• Warm-blooded
• Live young
• Suckle
• Infant dependence
• Common social primate traits
• Social life
• Play
• Observation and imitation
• Pecking order

Common Primate Traits
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Primate Family Tree
Orangutan
Crown lemur
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Hominids Show Bipedalism

• Anatomical changes
• Neck (1), chest (2), lower back (3), hips and
  pelvis (4), thighs (5), knees (6), feet (7)
• Theories
• Tool use and bipedalism (Darwin/Washburn)
• Energy efficiency and bipedalism (Isbell/Young)
• Radiator theory (Falk)
• Body temperature and bipedalism (Wheeler)
• Habitat variability and bipedalism (Potts)
• Reproduction and bipedalism (Lovejoy)
• Canine reduction and bipedalism (Jolly)

(Click for interactive skeleton)
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Pre-hominid Species

• Ardipithecus ramidus 4.4 - ? mya
• A. anamensis 4.2 - 3.9
• A. afarensis 4.2 - 2.5
• A. bahrelghazali 3.5 - 3.0
• A. africanus 3.5 - 2.5
• P. aethiopicus 2.7 - 2.3
• A. garhi 2.5 - ?
• P. boisei 2.3 - 1.3
• P. robustus 2.0 - 1.0
• Bipedalism
• Tools
• Language

Reconstruction of Australopithecine
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Early Anthropiods

• Ardipithecus ramidus, 4.4 mya, oldest known
  hominids
• Australopithecus anamensis, completely bipedal,
  4.2 mya, lived in grasslands of the savanna
• Ape Man Australopithecus africanus, brain is
  one third of the size of modern humans, 4.5 mya
• Lucy Australopithecus afarensis discovered in
  1974, stood 1m tall, 3.2 million years old,
  pelvis indicted bipedalism
• Other species thought to diverge
• Australopithecus boisei (2.3 mya)
• Australopithecus robutus (2 mya)

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Hominid Species

• Homo habilis (2.0 1.6mya)
• H. rudolfensis (2.4-1.6mya)
• H. erectus (1.9-27kyBP)
• H. heidelbergensis (800-100kyBP)
• H. neanderthalensis (300-30kyBP)
• H. sapiens (130kyBP present)

Scale Millions of Years BP
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Hominid Advances

• Major Homo advances
• Brain size
• Better bipedalism
• Hunting
• Fire Tools
• Built shelters
• Clothing
• Language (Neandertals?)

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Homo habilis

• 612 cc brain
• 2.3 - 1.6 mya
• first toolmaker
• prognathic face, brow ridge
• probable meat-eater
• possibly arboreal (trees)
• discovered in 1960 by Leakeys
• no speech

Artists representation of a Homo habilis band as
it might have existed two million years ago.
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Homo erectus

• 1891 - Eugene Dubois discovers H. erectus in Java
• Dubois calls it Pithecanthropus erectus
  initially, also dubbed Java Man
• dates from 1.9 mya to 27,000 years B.P.
• 994 cc brain size (compare to 612 for H. habilis)
• Migrates

Photograph of Nariokotome boy, an early Homo
erectus found near Lake Turkana, Kenya.
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Homo erectus 1.9mya to 27k yBP

• Why was H. erectus so successful?
• Less sexual dimorphism possible pair bonds,
  marriage
• Less hair on body wearing of furs, other
  clothing
• Wearing of furs ability to live further north

• Quick adaptation to environment without physical
  changes
• Culture is main reason H. erectus was so
  successful
• organization for hunting
• ability to protect against predators
• control of fire?
• possible campsites
• tools (stone industry)

Distribution of H. erectus
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Homo neanderthalensis

• discovered in the Neander Valley (Tal) near
  Dusseldorf, 1856
• massive brain--about 1,400cc on average
• large torso, short limbs, broad nasal passages
• decrease in robustness of the front teeth and
  face, suggesting use of tools replaced teeth
• retained occipital torus, some mid-facial
  prognathism

The skull of the classic Neandertal found in 1908
at La Chapelle-aux-Saints.
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Neandertal Culture

• Homesites In caves, also in the open (near
  rivers, framed with wood and covered with skins)
• Burial evidence of purposeful burial and
  ritual?
• Language
• Tools flints

Top Reconstruction of Neandertal burial from
Shanidar cave Bottom Mousterian tools
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What happened to Neandertals?

• H. neanderthalensis coexisted with H. sapiens for
  at least 20,000 years, perhaps as long as 60,000
  years
• What happened?
• Neandertals interbred with H. sapiens
• Neandertals were killed off by H. sapiens
• H. sapiens drove Neandertals into extinction by
  competition

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Homo sapiens

• Archaic 100,000 to 35,000 years BP
• Sometimes called Homo sapiens and Homo sapiens
  neanderthalensis
• Modern 35,000 years BP to present
• Anatomically modern
• Sometimes called Homo sapiens sapiens

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Cro-Magnon Man

• Cro-Magnon humans
• 35,000 years B.P. in western Europe to 17,000
  years B.P.
• 1,600 cc cranial capacity
• Name comes from a hotel in France
• Not a different species, just old Homo sapiens
  from Europe

Artists reconstruction of a Cro-Magnon man
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Archaic H. sapiens Culture

• Art
• Traces of art found in beads, carvings, and
  paintings
• Cave paintings in Spain and southern France
  showed a marked degree of skill
• Female figurines
• 27,000 to 22,000 years B.P.
• Called venuses, these figurines depicted women
  with large breasts and broad hips
• Perhaps it was an example of an ideal type, or
  perhaps an expression of a desire for fertility

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Archaic H. sapiens Culture
Cave paintings from 20,000 years ago at
Vallon-Pont-dArc in southern France (left) and
from Lascaux, in southwest France

• Cave paintings
• Mostly animals on bare walls
• Subjects were animals favored for their meat and
  skins
• Human figures were rarely drawn due to taboos and
  fears that it would somehow harm others

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Upper Palaeolithic Hotbed of Culture

• 40 10k yBP
• Shelters
• 15,000 yBP Ukraine
• Some made with mammoth bones
• Wood, leather working carpentry
• Tools
• From cores to blades
• Specialization
• Composite tools
• Bow and arrow
• Domestication of dogs
• Gathering rather than hunting became the mainstay
  of human economies.

Top Straw Hut Left Mammoth bone hut Bottom
Tool progression
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Social Organization

• Hunter-gatherer analogy
• Small group, low population density, nomadism,
  kinship groups
• Migration
• North America was the last colonized by hominids.
• Beringia (land bridge) between Russia and Alaska
• Asian origin of Native Americans
• 30,000 to 12,000 years B.P. was first migration