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