Anthropology what does it mean to be human chapter 5
Anatomically modern human beings
Hominin fossils assigned to the species Homo sapiens with anatomical features similar to those of living human populations shirt and round stalls small brow ridges and faces prominent chins and light skeletal build
Archaic homo sapiens
Hominins dating from 500,000 to 200,000 years ago that possessed morphological features found in both homo erectus and Homo sapiens
Blades
Stone tools that are at least twice as long as they are wide
Archeulean tradition
A lower Paleolithic stone tool tradition associated with homo erectus and characterized by stone bifaces, or "hand axes"
Mousterian tradition
A middle Paleolithic stone tool tradition associated with Neandertals in Europe and south west Asia and with anatomically modern human beings in Africa
Mosaic evolution
A phenotypic pattern that shows how different traits of an organism, responding to different selection pressures, may evolve at different rates
Derisovans
A population of Pleistocene hominin known only from ancient DNA recorded from two tiny 41,000 y/o fossils deposited in denisova cave Russia Siberia. Denisomans abs Neandertals are thought to share a common ancestor that left Africa 500,000 y/ago. Parts of the denisovan genome resembles the genome resemble the genomes of modern humans from New Guinea
Oldowan tradition
A stone tool tradition named after the oldual gorge where the first specimens of the oldest human tools were found. The earliest specimens of this tradition are 2.6 million y/o and were found in Gone, Ethiopia
Intrusions
Artifacts made by more populations that find their way into more ancient strata as the result of natural forces
Neandertals
An archaic species of homo that lived in Europe and Western Asia 130,000-35,000 years ago
Omnivorous
Eating a wide range of plant and animal food
Australopithecus
The genus in which taxonomists place most early hominins showing skeletal evidence of bipedalism
Homo
The genus to which taxonomists assign large brained hominins two million years old and younger
Regional continuity model
The hypothesis that evolution from homo erectus to Homo sapiens occurred gradually throughout the traditional range of h.erectus
Replacement model
The hypothesis that only one sub population of Homo sapiens probably located in Africa underwent a rapid spurt of evolution to produce Homo sapiens 200-100,000 years ago. After that time h.sapiens would itself have multiples and moved out of Africa gradually populating the globe and eventually replacing any remaining population of h.erectus of their descendants
Upper Paleolithic Stone Age
The name given to the period of highly elaborate stone tool traditions in Europe in which blades were important 40,000-10,300 years ago
Middle stone age
The name given to the period of mousterian stone tool tradition in Africa 200,000-40,000 years ago
Early Stone Age
The name given to the period of oldowan and archeulean stone tool traditions in Africa
Cranial capacity
The size of the brain case
Homo erectus
The species of large brained, robust hominins that lived between 1.8 and 0.4 mya
Taphonomy
The study of the various process that objects undergo in the course of becoming part of the fossil and archaeological records
Composite tools
Tools such as bows and arrows in which several different materials are combined to produce the ritual working implement
Bipedalism
Walking on two feet rather than four