BIOLOGY 1M03 Lecture : 1MO3_Chapter 12.docx
11 Jun 2013
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The pleistocene epoch started 1. 8 mya and involved a cooling trend that started within the past 6 my. Derived: less prognathic, larger brain, smaller jaws and teeth. Long legs, narrow hips, barrel chest: modern human body proportions. Between 1. 6 and 1. 4 mya, h. ergaster improved on oldowan tools and added the stone biface, a mode 2 technological innovation that was part of the acheulean industry (standardised specifications, consistent for almost 1 my). Axes could have been used to butcher animals, to dig up tubers or water, to strip bark from trees, as projectiles to hurl at animals or people, or to generate flake tools. Carcass processing: unchanged for ~1 million years. Evidence that h. ergaster ate meat includes the abnormality of the bones of a h. ergaster woman, the ubiquity of hand axes, cut marks in animal bones from stone tools, the dental morphology of h. ergaster, and intestinal parasites.
