Pleistocene

Throughout history, in all forms of life, there has been one undeniable trend that has evolved and altered but still remained one of the basic necessities of life, eating. In Kristen J. Gremillion’s Ancestral Appetite: Food in Prehistory she sets up the history of eating, what and how people have eaten in the past few million years and her theory on how that has led to modern diets. As this work is set up in chronological order, Gremillion points out the major inventions, events, and changes to…

evidence of bipedality in their skeletal features supports the idea of there being a savanna to thrive in as well. A. africanus is estimated to have existed in southern africa 3.2 to 2 million years ago (Price). During the late Pliocene and early Pleistocene times, the terrain in southern africa was increasingly dry and changing into a grass plain with few trees (deMenocal). A. africanus is a prime example of meeting that need as its skeleton shows how it was able branch away from climbing trees…

These lived during the Gelasian and early Calabrian stages of the Pleistocene period. These also lived between 2.4 to 1.4 million years ago. The Homo Habilis lived in Eastern and Southern Africa. Also, the Homo Habilis has a larger braincase and smaller face and teeth than the Australopithecus. This hominin had ape like characteristics…

Introduction Humans have an enormous impact on our global environment. For centuries human activity has always been known to disturb the earth’s land, oceans, and atmosphere. As we 've growth we made our footprint in our world environment. We alter more than 50% of the world land (Stromberg, 2013 ). One of the most arguable questions is when did human influence on the earth global environment began? There have been multiple studies suggesting different way discover this answer, but the most…

Megafauna in Australia consisted mammals such as the large kangaroos, wombats, and wallaroos, large birds such as large emus and cassowaries, large reptiles such as goanna, saltwater and freshwater crocodiles. The megafauna went extinct around the Pleistocene period which was 2,588,000 to 11,700 years ago. There are…

ODUCTION The Paleolithic period originated at the beginning of human life and continued until 10,000 B.C.E. During this time, humans lived in groups of twenty to thirty people and obtained their food by hunting and gathering. This form of food obtainment forced humans to travel frequently, which subsequently prevented permanent settlement. The reason for the transition from hunting and gathering to farming and domestication of animals remains unknown. However, there are several theories that…

There were several kinds of giant sloths in South America in the Pleistocene era around 500,000 years ago, and living alongside them were giant armadillos like the glyptodonts. They were as big as rhinoceroses, with armour-plating fitted so tightly together that they looked like huge tortoises. All of these giants were edentata, an order of animals which has evolved into today’s sloths, armadillos and anteaters of South America. Edentata literally means without teeth. The anteaters, which catch…

The infamous event of the Piltdown hoax is one that continues to draw speculative attention over a century after the initial announcement of the paleoanthropological findings. Although many scientists, especially those involved in the field of paleoanthropology, would like to forget the incident entirely, the Piltdown man—otherwise taxonomically referred to as Eoanthropus dawsoni—is perhaps the greatest hoax in anthropological history. Since the exposure of the Piltdown discovery as a forgery in…

Paleopathological Middle Pleistocene archaic human cranium from Maba, South China was found. It showed a right frontal squamous [exocranial] concave and a ridged lesion with endocranial protrusion. Diagnosis then concluded that the concave and ridged lesion resulted from localized blunt force trauma, due to an accident or a fight with another person. Its remodeled condition also indicates survival of a serious pathological condition that was spreading through South China in the Middle…

Darwin’s Theory of normal choice was known as a hereditary change in a populace coming about because of differential conceptive achievement. Darwin had persuaded the vast majority of mainstream researchers that new species emerge through plunge through change in a spreading example of difference from regular precursors, however while most researchers acknowledged that normal choice is a legitimate and experimentally testable speculation, Darwin's view that it is the essential instrument of…