28/11/16
Anthr 1A
Hominin Research Paper The new fossil finds may tell us more about human evolution. Up to now, the anthropologists have found a lot of fossil that lead to the research and find the source of the human evolution from 2 milion years ago to 20,000 years ago. Throughout this research paper, it shows the analyze the ecological conditions and behavioral patterns that contributed to the evolution of Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Archaic Homo sapiens, Neanderthals and early modern Homo sapiens during that period of time. First of all, the Pleistocene Epoch is the main point of this paragraph. The Pleistocene Epoch takes place from 2.6 million to 15,700 years ago. it is considered as the reason of the demise of many …show more content…
What is Archaic Homo sapiens? “By about 500,000 years ago, there is considerable evidence of a more modern-human looking ancestor in Africa, Asia and Europe. Called “Archaic Homo sapiens” or H. heidelbergensis.” (Stanford) Archaic Homo sapiens is believed to be more modern-human-looking than earlier Homo species such as Homo habilis and Homo erectus because of their characteristics. Archaic Homo sapiens has human types of chin and forehead, smaller jaws and teeth, large brain, etc. But the important characteristics of Archaic Homo sapiens compares to Homo erectus is the torus, “Homo erectus generally has a straight-across supra-orbital torus, whereas Archaic Homo sapiens generally has a double-arched, thick supra-orbital torus.” (Stanford) There were 3 main arenas that contained Archaic Homo sapiens’s fossils: Europe, Africa and Asia. For Europe, there were Heidelberg in Germany, Sierra de Atapuerca in Spain and Petralona cranium in Greece, each of them were found at 3 different period of times. Firstly, at Germany, Heidelberg is dated to about 200,000-250,000 years ago and considered as the ancestral of Neanderthals, moreover, the study shows that they were able to make and use the wooden spears for hunting. Secondly, at Spain, fossils at 500,000-600,000 years ago of bones and pieces of Homo at that time, “Also called H. antecessor because of small differences between these specimens and H. heidelbergensis.” (Stanford) The third one is Petralona cranium, it was found in Greece at about 150,000-300,00 years ago. For Africa, there are Bobo(Ethiopia) and Kabwe(Broken hill), dated to about 600,000 and 300,000 years ago. In addition, the studies of Bobo show that it may be the ancestral to Homo heidelbergensis. For the last arena, Asia, a Dali cranium were found in China and dated about 130,000-200,00 years ago, it gives us the sign of the Homo sapiens communities may existed in Asia. Beside the