Transcript What Makes Us Human?

What Makes Us Human?
Anthropology's Answer
How Do Humans fit in?

Social scientists look
for answers in:
– Genetics: the science
of inheritance
– Influences of
environment and
heredity (transmitting
of characteristics from
parents to offspring)
– trace evolutionary
development of
humans
Anthropology
Age of Exploration – 1516th century – discovery of
new species of plants
 Explorers – interacted
with Aboriginal people in
North and South America

– Carolus Linnaeus – first to
classify plants and animals
according to structures

18/19th Century- discoveries indicated that
humans existed on earth for a long time
– Discovery of fossils Charles Darwin –
discoveries in South America lead to theory of
Evolution
Theory of Natural
Selection – process
by which animals and
plants best adapted
to their environment
survive and produce
similar offspring
Darwin’s Theory of
Evolution
The Galapagos Islands
Where Darwin studied
 He proposed that the
ancestral finches who came
to the islands, finding no
competitors or predators
came to occupy the variety
of ecological niches on the
islands
 geographic isolation
prevented breeding
between those in different
areas resulting in a

subspecies of finches
The Finches



He saw:
ground
finches
which ate
food on the
ground or in
low shrubs
tree finches
who live
primarily on
insects
The Science behind the Theory

We now know that inherited variation
comes about through mutation, random
assortment of chromosomes and genes,
sexual reproduction where two parents
contribute (different) genes to the
offspring, and out breeding between
different populations of the same species.
Converging
Evolution
Homologous structures are those that develop from similar
embryological origins. Analogous organs are those that are adapted to
the same purpose. Some organs are both homologous and analogous.
Humans and
Evolution

Gregor Mendal – provided
theoretical background for
genetics as part of evolution
– Patterns of evolutions established
– 1924 – R. DART discovers
fossilized child in South Africa
(Australopithecus Africanus),
postulates that Humans originated
in Africa not Asia as was believed
before
Classification

Classifying plants
and animals
according to
similarities and
differences in the
physical structures
Human classifications
Kingdom: animal
 Phylum: Chordata (having a backbone)
 Class: Mammalia
 Order: Primates
 Family: Hominidae
 Genus: Homo
 Species: Sapiens

Human Classifications

Primates: humans, apes,
monkeys
– Subdivided into 10 categories

Humans – HOMINIDAE – from
“Hominids” by anthropologists
– We have larger braincase than other
primates
– Teeth are placed in rounded arches
– Big toes are not opposable (able to
grasp things)
– Modern humans ONLY surviving
members of this group

HOMO – man, SAPIENS – “wise and
intelligent”