ANTH 1000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Sahelanthropus, Foramen Magnum, Piltdown Man
9 Feb 2017
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Platyrrhines (new world monkeys) vs. catarrhines (old world monkeys and apes) Cercopithecidae (old world monkeys) vs. homonoidea (apes) Cultural diversity: male dominated vs. female dominated, violence vs. sex, hunting techniques. The movie repeatedly referred to our shared ancestry with chimps, distant ancestor, etc. The search for the last common ancestor of humans and chimps: the most recent organism from which all humans, chimps, and bonobos descended from, the difficulties in finding a specific species. Early scientists made assumptions about the directionality of human evolution: brain evolved first, body second, evolution of humanity occurred in europe. Went in search of fossls to confirm. Evolutionay psychology: theoretical branch of psychology that seeks to explain modern psychological traits as part of evolutionary history. Directional selection towards a larger, more specialized brain. East africa is (and was) geologically active. Bipedalism s the sigle most critical defining factor for hominids, as it occurred first.
