ANT 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 29: Olduvai Gorge, The First Stone, Swartkrans
Document Summary
Archaeology is the study of the stones and bones and myriad other artifacts that past humans created on their way to the present. Ancestors started becoming human long before evidence other than pieces of themselves appeared. First 3-4 million years of our existence produced almost no archaeological evidence. 3. 75 million year old footprints found at laetoli in east africa are the most dramatic and important evidence we have of early humans as two-footed animals. We are primates because we have grasping hands, flexible limbs, and a highly developed sense of vision. We are members of the family hominoidea because of the shape of our teeth, the absence of a tail, and our swinging arms. From the early apes (hominoidea approximately 25 m. y. a), dryopithecine emerged between 17 and 12 m. y. a during the miocene epoch probable ancestors of both living apes and humans. Some of the best evidence of humans coming from africa comes from sites such as.
