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99 Cards in this Set

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1. What are the 4 sub-disciplines of Anthropology?
Linguistics, psychical anthropology, cultural anthropology, and archeology
2. Define Physical Anthropology.
Study of humans as a biological creature
3. Why is the search for human origins very basic to human nature?
Curiosity
4. Briefly, what was the world view of Western European Civilization before evolution and Darwin?
Static world view, human centered, creation transpired recently, unchanging, non dynamic
5. Was Darwin a child prodigy?
No
6. Was Darwin's formal training at Cambridge in theology?
Yes
7. What was the impact on Darwin of his voyage on the Beagle?
Information on his views of evolution, writings based on experience. Witnessed changing dynamics and evolution at work.
8. What was the real reason that Darwin was asked to join the Beagle expedition?
As a companion to the captain
9. What was the impact of Captain Fitzroy on Darwin's view of evolution?
Highly religious views pushed Darwin to have a purely mechanical explanation for human existence/evolution
10. What was the impact of Alfred Wallace's writings on Charles Darwin?
Forced a since of urgency in publication of discoveries.
11. What were Darwin's two contributions to the theory of evolution?
Great synthesizer and natural selection
12. Darwin did not stand alone in the creation of the theory of evolution. Name two other individuals, from before or during Darwin’s time, that contributed ideas to his theory of evolution and describe their contributed?
Copernicus – Humans not the center of the universe.
Charles Lyell – Time depth, geologic change as the steady accumulation of minute changes over enormously long spans of time
13. What is the theory of catastrophism?
Explanation of geographic phenomenon due to a disaster. (shells on top f mountains)
14. What is the principle of uniformitarianism?
Gradual formation of earth due to natural occurrences (erosion) Perceiving the past from a view of the present.
15. Are organisms more or less evolved, and explain your answer.
Evolution is non-directional, evolution is relative to given environment.
16. Name three lines of evidence that Darwin used to support the theory of evolution?
Domestication of plants and animals, geological distribution, geological and fossil record
17. What two things do pepper moths in Manchester England tell us about the processes of natural selection?
Variation is necessary to have natural selection work on it, traits must be inherited
18. What was the major short coming of Darwin's work on evolution?
Did not understand how inheritance worked
19. How did the ancient Greeks think human inheritance worked?
Whoever dominant in sex act passed on genes
20. How did Linnaeus think human inheritance worked?
Outer, physical features, inherited from father. Inner, cardiovascular system from mother
21. When Mendel failed at his first attempts at education, where did he turn?
Monastery
22. Because Mendel was so sensitive, the Abbot decided to give him what assignment?
Substitute teacher
23. Why did Gregor Mendel's experiments succeed in discovering the laws of heredity, when so many others failed? Please name three reasons.
Choice of right plant, separated generations, significant and larger sample size.
24. Why were Mendel's results ignored when they first came out?
Too complex an idea for his time
25. Why did Hugo De Vries study the Evening Primrose?
He was interested in mutation, eventually developing a mutation theory in he early 1900s based off of his finds
26. Who rediscovered Gregor Mendel’s work?
Hugo De Vries
27. The Mutationists thought that the case of mimicry in butterflys proved the dominance of mutation in the evolutionary process, but what line of evidence disproved this?
Mathematics, statistics
28. If large scale mutations kill off most organisms that are born with them, how can mutations have any impact on evolution?
Small mutations can provide a competitive advantage and spread through population, resulting in adaptive radiation
29. What is the role of mutation in natural selection?
Provides genetic variation that natural selection can work on
30. What role did Theodosius Dobzhansky play in our modern understanding of evolution?
Integrated micro and macro evolutionary views
31. What is the difference between population migration and gene flow?
Migration = travel, gene flow = passing of genes from one pop to another through procreation
32. What is founder effect and what impact can it have on evolution?
Small group of individuals relocating, limited gene selection being passed on based on random chance of those who successfully relocate.
33. What did Crick, Watson, and Wilkins get their Nobel Prize for?
Forming the double helix model
of DNA
34. Who contributed to the search for the structure of DNA, but did not get a Nobel Prize, and why?
Rosalind Franklin, dead and sexism
35. What do the twin studies tell us about human behavior?
Genetic component to behavior
36. The new gene studies provide what opportunities for medicine?
Curing genetic diseases
37. What is Taphonomy?
The study of how fossils are formed
38. Why is fossilization a rare event?
Requires opportune conditions: bones right, buried quickly, low acid high mineral soil, and no geographic processes present to destroy them
39. Name two things that can cause biases in the fossil record.
Political unrest, and degree of preservation
40. Tell me three things that fossils can teach us.
Age, growth and development, sex, and health of the specimen at death
41. What is sexual dimorphism and how does it effect our interpretation of fossils?
Difference in gender. Females often considerably smaller, Males larger. Variation can be confusing, hard to determine separate species.
42. What is a Paleospecies and how does it differ from a species classified based on living organisms?
Paleospecies is a species based on a range of variation within all the fossil specimens that does not exceed the observed range which exists in a closely related living species. Living species is based on the ability to produce viable offspring
43. What is the law of association?
Artifacts found in the same strata of earth come from the same time period.
44. What is the principle of stratigraphy?
The higher up the younger the find the low the older the find
45. Give three examples of artifacts.
Tools, arrow head, ax, burned bones by humans, modified animal bones by humans
46. Give three examples of features.
Cluster of artifacts: base of a house, cash of rocks left by human, fire pit
47. Give three examples of sites.
Where protohumans worked, lived, camped, or died
48. Name 2 relative dating methods?
Style of artifacts indicative of certain time period and dating of animal bones associated with fossils
49. Name 2 absolute dating methods?
Carbon 14, Potassium Argon
50. Why is potassium argon dating very useful for paleoanthropology?
Ration of Potassium / Argon, can date >400,00. Must be used in volcanically active areas as lava and ash deposit potassium. No volcanically active areas can be dated.Time period and location (volcanically active areas such as the Great rift Valley) for dating many fossils is ideal for dating methodology
51. What are the two lines of evidence we can use to explore Primate evolution?
Living primates and fossils.
52. What can Tree Shrew tell us about the evolution of Primates?
Similar to very early primates. Gives insight into anatomy and level of adaptation of early primates
53. Why are there so many different types of Lemurs on Madagascar?
Isolated Madagascar resulted in Lemurs having no competition. Adaptive radiation ensued as the Lemurs began to fill all niches within the environment.
54. Why did Lorises and Tarsier survive the competition with monkeys when many other primitive primates like them died off?
They adapted to become nocturnal animals
55. Why is Apidium of interest to us in studying our earliest ancestors?
Roots of anthropoid evolution, example of an early primitive primate.
56. Why is Aegyptopithecus of interest to us in studying our earliest ancestors?
Ancestor to both apes and monkeys, lived before ape/monkey split, lived in the early Oligocene
57. What Primate, other than Humans, is found in more varied environmental zones?
Monkeys (Old World Monkeys)
58. What two major divisions do monkeys separate into?
Old and New World Monkeys
59. What can New World Monkeys do with their tails that Old World Monkeys can not?
Prehensile (grabbing) tail which serves as another appendage.
60. Why is Proconsul of interest to us in studying our earliest ancestors?
Ancestral to apes solely (not monkeys). Lived after Ape/Monkey split
61. Why is Heliopithecus of interest to us in studying our earliest ancestors?
Lived in Arab area having thicker enamel adapted to its diet of roots ect.
62. Why is Oreopithecus of interest to us in studying our earliest ancestors?
Found outside of Africa, in Europe which evidenced of migration. Existed 9 to 7 million years ago in the Tusco-Sardinian area
63. Why is Sivapithecus of interest to us in studying our earliest ancestors?
Ancestor to modern orangutan
64. What are the two basic patterns that one finds over and over in hominoid and hominid evolution?
Burst of diversity followed by extinction
65. Name three primitive primate characteristics.
Claws, protruding snout, lacking ability for facial expressions, small brain size
66. Name two examples of primates that are alive today that have primitive primate characteristics.
Tree Shrew and Tarsier
67. Name three advanced primate characteristics.
Round and flat face, facial expression, large brain size
68. Name three examples of primates that are alive today that have advanced primate characteristics.
Chimps, gorillas, orangutans
69. Name the three basic categories of information that are used to study our earliest ancestors.
Fossils, archeology, living primates
70. What are two reasons why Charles Darwin's suggestion that humans originated in Africa was largely ignored?
Racism, no physical evidence as all fossils to date had been found in Europe, belief that humans were outside the natural evolutionary cycle.
71. Where were the first discoveries of our early human ancestors made?
Neader Valley, Germany
72. Where was the first discovery of Australopithecus and who found it?
Raymond Dart, Transvaal Region of South Africa
73. What are two major problems with the South African finds?
Location was a active limestone quarry and no way to date finds
74. Why was the Piltdown hoax so convincing?
Matched human evolutionary preconceptions of the time
75. What role did Robert Broom play in the search for human origins?
Searched quarries in Africa, added considerably to the fossil record.
76. What two types of Australopithecus were found in South Africa?
Robustus and Africanus
77. Describe two reasons why Olduvai Gorge was such a special place for the recovery of fossils?
Deep strata are exposed, vocanically active -> buried quickly and able to date
78. Who discovered the first fossil evidence of our early ancestors at Olduvai?
Marry Leaky
79. Who discovered the first stone tools at Olduvai?
Louis Leaky
80. What is the significance of the Black Skull?
Early ancestor of Australopithecus Robustus, Australopithecus aethiopicus
81. What are the two major things that separate Homo habilis from the Australopithecines?
Use of tools and brain capacity
82. What is the significance of the more recent Homo habilis finds from East Africa?
Pushes the dates back for existence of species
83. Why can Richard Leakey be called the “reluctant Leakey”?
Initially did not want to follow father’s footsteps, intimated by parents’ fame
84. Where was the first Australopithecus afarensis discovered and who found it?
Hadar, Ehtopia. Don Johanson
85. What is so important about the Lucy find?
90% complete, much was intact
86. Tell me three things that Lucy can tell us about what she was like when she was alive.
Grasping abilities, sex, bipedal, body size
87. What is so important about the "first family finds"?
Showed the range of variability in a population
88. Have we found any Australopithecus finds in Asia?
No
89. Have we found any Homo habilis finds in Europe?
No
90. What evidence was there from Laetoli for the bipedalism of A. afarensis?
Footprints preserved in ash deposit
91. Why is Ardipithecus ramidus a hominid?
Yes, bipedial evidenced in hip and leg structure. Discovered by Tim White
92. Why is the finds of Ardipithecus ramidus so important?
Common ancestor with chimps (closest living relatives). Palm walker. Provides insight into one of the oldest early hominid
93. Is Australopithicus anamensis the immediate ancestor to Homo habilis?
No
94. What does the finds of Ardi (the nearly complete Australopithicus ramidus) tell us about human evolution?
Good early example of early bipedalism on the ground, common ancestor to humans and chimps, shows an unexpected mix of advanced characteristics and of primitive traits seen in much older apes, long arms for trees, palms
95. Why was the Lothagam site potentially so important for the investigation of the split between hominoids and hominids?
Date is perfect for the Ape/Monkey split, lack of finds
96. Who is the latest in the "Leakey dynasty"?
Louise and Meave Leakey
97. What was found at Allia Bay and Kanapoi?
Australopithecus anamensis
98. Why is Sahelanthropus tchadensis so important?
Potentially oldest hominid
99. Why is Sahelanthropus tchadensis a hominid?
Bipedal