Transcript From tree-dwelling primate to genus Homo

From tree-dwelling primate
to genus Homo
THE EMERGENCE OF THE
FIRST HUMAN BEINGS
Overview of the lecture
 The dwindling forest habitat
 The earliest ground dwelling Hominids
 Evolution of the foot: Bipedal locomotion
 Evolution of the hand: Tool use
 Evolving brain: path to language and culture
 Homo erectus
 Homo sapiens.
The dwindlng forest habitat
 Impact of climate change
 Retreat to the tree at night: chimps.
 Full-time life on the ground: Australopithecus
 Requirements for life on the dangerous ground.
 Improved tool use.
 Stronger social organization
 Group communication
Bipedal locomotion and tool use
 Why not return to quadruped movement?
 Need to carry tools and food.
 Need to see on the grassy savannah.
 “Natural selection”: Differential mortality
Key evolutionary process:
Evolution of the human brain
 Increase in brain / body size.
 Restructuring of the brain.
Cross section of the human brain
The localization of cerebral functions
Impact on females and childbirth
 The dilemma of painful childbirth.
 Prolonged childhood dependence
 The antecedents to human family and marriage.
From biological to cultural evolution
 From genetically programmed to learned behavior.
 The emergence of a cultural mode of survival.
 The relation between “culture” and “intelligence”
 Biological evolution and racial differences.
Homo erectus and migration to China
 African origins of the genus Homo.
 Homo erectus: 100% increase in brain size
 The Homo erectus tool kit
 Homo erectus and long distance migration.
Peking Man
北京猿人Běijīng Yuánrén
Peking man
 Found at Zhoukoudian near Beijing in 1920s.
 Goes back as far as 770,000 years.
 Began with a tooth. Later excavations yielded
 skullcaps
 jawbones,
 facial and limb bones,
 the teeth of about 40 individuals
 Average cranial capacity: 1,000 cc.
 Special features: first documented use of fire.
 The disappearance of the fossils.
The emergence of modern humans
 The increased brain: from 800 to 1,250 cc.
 From core tools to flake tools
 The Neanderthal question.
 Cro-Magnons, hunting, and long-distance running.
 The Cro-Magnon cave paintings
The evolutionary sequence to Homo sapiens
Altamira cave bison
Cave painting hunting scene
Dancing shaman
The question of language origins
 No direct evidence in the fossil record.
 Homo erectus and the theory of “proto language”
 Cro-magnons almost certainly had language
“Stone age” technologies
 Paleolithic big game hunting.
 Mesolothic: hunting / gathering
 Neolithic: the transition to agriculture
Disappearance of big game hunters
 Impact of climate change.
 Retreat of the animals.
 Migration to the Americas
 “Paleolithic overkill”:
 Emergence of the “Mesolithic”
From Paleolithic to Mesolithic
 Paleolithic economies disappeared millennia ago.
 Definition of “Paleolithic” and “Mesolithic”
 Cultural anthropologists have studied groups using
Mesolithic technology: hunting and gathering.
 Examples:
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Inuit (Eskimo)
Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert
Australian aborigines
Pygmies of Central Africa
Ethnographic Strategy:
Participant observation
 “Holistic” description as the first task.
 Search for universal components of human cultures.
 Economic base: making a living.
 Kinship and marriage.
 The raising of children.
 Expressive dimensions of culture: music, art, etc.
 Power and conflict resolution
 Healing of illness.
 Disposal of the dead
 Religion: dealing with invisible spirits.
Hunter-gatherer features
 Economy: hunting wild animals, gathering vegetation.
 Long distance running.
 Occupational specialization only by age and gender.
 Monogamous egalitarian gender relations.
 Domestic economy: Sharing of meat.
 Social organization: Nomadic bands.
 Much leisure time.
 Relgion: zoomorphic spirits.