ANTA01H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Vocal Tract, Great Range, Striking Platform
Document Summary
The functional thing that makes humans different from all other animals is our ability to communicate. Timeline showing where primitive, gracile, and robust, australopithecines came up. Today we are jumping to pliocene-pleistocene borderline. What"s interesting about this time period is a short range for first olduvan tools. The tools appear before the fossils, homo habilis. We also have overlap with the development of homo erectus who is much more advanced than early homos. Trend over past 20 million years has been toward cooling and drying. Today we are focusing on the bottom of the most right chart. The important take home observation from chart is that during that time period, it is not just cold or warm, it is fluctuating, and it is not fluctuating as drastically as pleistocene. Africa was not the most supported place to look for fossil remains; most people thought fossils would be found in asia.
