ANTB14H3 Chapter 12: Chapter 12
Document Summary
Hominins of lower pleistocene: homo ergaster: pleistocene epoch began 1. 8 mya and saw a cooling of world"s climate, divided into 3 parts: lower, middle, upper pleistocene. Robust and heavily muscled: reduced in sexual dimorphism. Tools and subsistence: homo ergaster made fancier tools than earlier hominins, biface: toolmaker strikes large piece of rock from boulder to make a core and then flakes this core. Ideas about what hand axes used for: butchering large animals, digging up tubers, burrowing animals, water, stripping bark from trees to get at nutritious cambium layer underneath, hurling at prey animals, dispensing flake tools. Dispersal out of africa: ergaster occupied almost all of africa and extended its range into eurasia, able to adapt to broad range to environmental conditions. In dmanisi discovered lower jaw and oldowan tools: mix of primitive and derived features, have same limb proportions as modern humans and lower limbs and feet well suited for long-distance walking and running.
