ANTH 1013

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ANTH 1013

• Week 2

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Hominid evolution

• Hominids bipedal primates including direct
  ancestors of humans
• Earliest Ardipithecus ramidus, 5.7 mya
• Evolved as African forests shrunk and grasslands
  expanded
• Bipedalism advantages see danger, hands free for
  tasks, run faster, throwing
• Bipedalism led to body hair loss - insulation
  mainly needed on scalp

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Australopithecines

• Australopithecus (genus) afarensis (species)
• Horse and donkey example
• Lucy 440 cc brain 75 lbs 4 feet, 4 mya
• A. africanus gracile
• A. robustus, boisei robust, stocky
• Made bone digging sticks
• Had huge teeth for chewing uncooked food

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Hominids

• Who begat genus Homo?
• Australopithecus afarensis
• Australopithecus africanus
• Kenyanthropus platyops (diff. econiche)
• Homo habilis
• Handy man - made first stone tools?

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Oldowan Technology - Olduvai Gorge

• Bifacial
• Choppers
• Flakes
• Hammerstones
• Homo habilis?
• Australopithe- cines?

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Homo erectus

• Evolved from H. habilis
• Refined stone tool making
• Acheulian handaxe
• Soft hammer percussion
• Controlled fire - cooking, smoking food
• Made spears for hunting
• Migrated out of Africa 1.7 mya
• Never in North or South America

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Homo erectus

• Brain 1000 cc
• Communication skills
• Made shelters
• By 300,000 adapted to seaside life
• Intelligence selected for - brain size increased
  through time

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Archaic Homo sapiens

• 300,000 to 40,000 Homo erectus evolved into Homo
  sapiens neanderthalensis
• Neanderthals
• Large brain, heavy brow ridges
• Mousterian stone tools
• Buried their dead
• Disappear by 30,000 BP

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Archaic Homo sapiens

• Homo erectus also evolved into archaic H. sapiens
  in China, Java, and Africa
• African H. sapiens adapted to coastal niche by
  120,000 BP - first shell middens
• Better diet - healthier, smarter population
• Fishing gave adaptive advantage
• African H. sapiens radiated through Europe, Asia,
  replacing and/or interbreeding with locals

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Origins of Homo sapiens sapiens

• MRE model
• Multiregional evolution, w. gene flow
• Based on fossil evidence
• Replacement model
• African Eve theory
• Based on genetic evidence

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Upper Paleolithic Culture

• Paleoold, lithicstone (Old Stone Age)
• Upper because nearer surface younger
• 40,000 to 10,000 BP
• During last part of Pleistocene Ice Age
• Creative explosion
• Neanderthals out-competed
• First artists

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Upper Paleolithic Blade Technology

• Pressure flaking
• Composite tools
• Bone and antler
• Specialist flint-knappers
• Atlatl

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Upper Paleolithic dwellings in Ice-Age Europe
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European Upper Paleolithic Culture

• Fire-starting
• Needles - tailored clothes
• Nets - communal hunting by drives
• Tattoos
• Jewelry - shell beads - long distance trade
• Primitive calendars
• Cave paintings, Venus figurines
• Cro-Magnons

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U. P. in Americas Paleoindian period

• Recent find in Siberia 30,000 BP site
• Between 30 and 15,000 BP, Upper Paleolithic
  migrated to North and South America
• Ice-free corridor hypothesis
• Unlikely scenario
• Coastal entry hypothesis
• Sea level lower by 150 m
• Watercraft a possibility

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U. P. in Americas Paleoindian period

• Clovis spear points found all over North America
• Major Paleoindian site at Debert, NS
• 10,600 BP radiocarbon yrs 12,500 calendar yrs

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Human Variation

• Different environmental conditions select for
  (favour the survival of individuals with)
  different traits
• Skin colour a good example
• 18th century white, black, red and yellow
  races

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Explaining skin colour

• More melanin darker skin
• Melanin filters out UV rays, prevents sunburn
• Melanin is antibiotic - fewer jungle sores
• Melanin prevents over-production of Vitamin D
• Pale skin - maximize UV absorption in winter,
  ensuring production of Vitamin D
• Vitamin D deficiency - rickets, soft bones
• Some Neanderthals had rickets - bowed legs
• Pale skin - more resistant to frostbite

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TEST I Preparation

• Read chapters 1 and 2
• Read notes from class
• Do practice exercises on companion web site
  www.prenhal.com/scupin

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Chapter 2 Culture

• Culture is a shared way of life that includes
• Values
• Beliefs
• Norms
• All transmitted from generation to generation in
  a society
• Society is a particular group of animals in a
  particular territory (ants, humans, baboons,
  etc.).
• The pattern of relationships defines the society
• Sociocultural system combines the two preceding
  concepts - a society with its culture

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Culture is learned

• Enculturation is process of learning and
  acquiring culture
• Situational learning (trial and error
  conditioning)
• Social learning (monkey see, monkey do)
• Symbols
• Arbitrary meaningful units we use to represent
  reality
• Used to communicate abstract ideas
• Symbolic learning
• Relies on our linguistic capacity
• Learn most of our culture this way

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Culture is learned

• Signs are directly associated with items or
  activities
• Symbols are arbitrary
• Highway signs - curve ahead
• Symbol - red maple leaf
• Culture is the historical accumulation of
  symbolic knowledge that is shared by a society

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Culture is shared

• Schemas are cultural models in ones mind
• Templates for social behaviour
• Common understandings permit culture to function
• But cultural knowledge is never distributed
  uniformly through all members of a society
• Culture is contested
• E.g., same-sex marriage

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Components of culture

• Material culture
• Physical products of human society (artifacts,
  clothes, buildings)
• Nonmaterial culture
• Intangible elements
• Values
• Beliefs
• Norms

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Values

• Standards by which members of a society judge
  something or someone as acceptable or not
• Widely-held assumptions about right/wrong
• Generalized notions
• Canadian values?

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Beliefs

• More specific than values
• Cultural conventions of true or false
• The combined beliefs of a cultures comprise its
  worldview
• Beliefs can be combined to form an ideology
• Ideology comprises symbols and beliefs that
  support a special interest group in society
  (examples?)
• Ideologies can be used to create cultural
  hegemony (imposing an ideology on another group)

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Norms

• Guidelines for behaviour in a particular society
• Based on values and beliefs
• E.g., children expected to leave their parental
  home after completing education
• Body of socially acceptable norms called an ethos
• Folkways are standards of etiquette, usually
  taken for granted by all a societys members
• E.g., using a fork instead of chopsticks
• Ideal culture what people say they do
• Real culture what people really do