1.
Paleolithic
–
The Paleolithic is a prehistoric period of human history distinguished by the development of the most primitive stone tools and covers roughly 95% of human technological prehistory. It extends from the earliest known use of tools, probably by Homo habilis initially,2.6 million years ago. The Paleolithic era is followed by the Mesolithic, the date of the Paleolithic–Mesolithic boundary may vary by locality as much as several thousand years. During the Paleolithic period, humans grouped together in small societies such as bands, the Paleolithic is characterized by the use of knapped stone tools, although at the time humans also used wood and bone tools. Other organic commodities were adapted for use as tools, including leather and vegetable fibers, however, due to their nature, surviving artifacts of the Paleolithic era are known as paleoliths. About 50,000 years ago, there was a increase in the diversity of artifacts. For the first time in Africa, bone artifacts and the first art appear in the archaeological record, the first evidence of human fishing is also noted, from artifacts in places such as Blombos cave in South Africa. The new technology generated an explosion of modern humans which is believed to have led to the extinction of the Neanderthals. Humankind gradually evolved from members of the genus Homo—such as Homo habilis. The climate during the Paleolithic consisted of a set of glacial and interglacial periods in which the climate periodically fluctuated between warm and cool temperatures, by c. 50,000 – c. 40,000 BP, the first humans set foot in Australia. By c. 45,000 BP, humans lived at 61°N latitude in Europe, by c. 30,000 BP, Japan was reached, and by c. 27,000 BP humans were present in Siberia, above the Arctic Circle. At the end of the Upper Paleolithic, a group of humans crossed Beringia, the term Paleolithic was coined by archaeologist John Lubbock in 1865. It derives from Greek, παλαιός, palaios, old, and λίθος, lithos, stone, human evolution is the part of biological evolution concerning the emergence of anatomically modern humans as a distinct species. The Paleolithic Period coincides almost exactly with the Pleistocene epoch of geologic time and this epoch experienced important geographic and climatic changes that affected human societies. During the preceding Pliocene, continents had continued to drift from possibly as far as 250 km from their present locations to positions only 70 km from their current location. South America became linked to North America through the Isthmus of Panama, most of Central America formed during the Pliocene to connect the continents of North and South America, allowing fauna from these continents to leave their native habitats and colonize new areas. Africas collision with Asia created the Mediterranean Sea, cutting off the remnants of the Tethys Ocean, climates during the Pliocene became cooler and drier, and seasonal, similar to modern climates. The formation of an Arctic ice cap around 3 million years ago is signaled by a shift in oxygen isotope ratios and ice-rafted cobbles in the North Atlantic
Paleolithic
–
This
cranium, of
Homo heidelbergensis, a
Lower Paleolithic predecessor to
Homo neanderthalensis and possibly
Homo sapiens, dates to sometime between 500,000 and 400,000 BP.
Paleolithic
–
The Paleolithic climate consisted of a set of glacial and interglacial periods.
Paleolithic
–
Many great mammals such as
woolly mammoths,
woolly rhinoceros, and
cave lions inhabited places like Siberia during the Pleistocene.
Paleolithic
–
Paleoindians hunting a
glyptodon. Glyptodons were hunted to extinction within two millennia after humans' arrival to South America.
2.
Pliocene
–
The Pliocene Epoch is the epoch in the geologic timescale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58 million years BP. It is the second and youngest epoch of the Neogene Period in the Cenozoic Era, the Pliocene follows the Miocene Epoch and is followed by the Pleistocene Epoch.588 to 1.806 million years ago, and is now included in the Pleistocene. As with other geologic periods, the geological strata that define the start and end are well identified but the exact dates of the start. The boundaries defining the Pliocene are not set at an easily identified worldwide event, the upper boundary was set at the start of the Pleistocene glaciations. The Pliocene was named by Sir Charles Lyell, the name comes from the Greek words πλεῖον and καινός and means roughly continuation of the recent, referring to the essentially modern marine mollusc faunas. H. W. Fowler called the term a regrettable barbarism, in the official timescale of the ICS, the Pliocene is subdivided into two stages. From youngest to oldest they are, Piacenzian Zanclean The Piacenzian is sometimes referred to as the Late Pliocene, in the system of North American Land Mammal Ages include Hemphillian, and Blancan. The Blancan extends forward into the Pleistocene, South American Land Mammal Ages include Montehermosan, Chapadmalalan and Uquian. In the Paratethys area the Pliocene contains the Dacian and Romanian stages, as usual in stratigraphy, there are many other regional and local subdivisions in use. In Britain the Pliocene is divided into the stages, Gedgravian, Waltonian, Pre-Ludhamian, Ludhamian, Thurnian, Bramertonian or Antian, Pre-Pastonian or Baventian, Pastonian and Beestonian. The exact correlations between these stages and the ICS stages is still a matter of detail. The formation of an Arctic ice cap is signaled by a shift in oxygen isotope ratios and ice-rafted cobbles in the North Atlantic. Mid-latitude glaciation was probably underway before the end of the epoch, the global cooling that occurred during the Pliocene may have spurred on the disappearance of forests and the spread of grasslands and savannas. Continents continued to drift, moving from positions possibly as far as 250 km from their present locations to positions only 70 km from their current locations, africas collision with Europe formed the Mediterranean Sea, cutting off the remnants of the Tethys Ocean. The border between the Miocene and the Pliocene is also the time of the Messinian salinity crisis, Sea level changes exposed the land-bridge between Alaska and Asia. Pliocene marine rocks are exposed in the Mediterranean, India. Elsewhere, they are exposed largely near shores, the change to a cooler, dry, seasonal climate had considerable impacts on Pliocene vegetation, reducing tropical species worldwide. Deciduous forests proliferated, coniferous forests and tundra covered much of the north, tropical forests were limited to a tight band around the equator, and in addition to dry savannahs, deserts appeared in Asia and Africa
Pliocene
–
The
gastropod Oliva sayana, from the Pliocene of
Florida.
Pliocene
–
Mid-Pliocene reconstructed annual sea surface temperature anomaly
Pliocene
–
The
coral Cladocora from the Pliocene of
Cyprus.
Pliocene
–
A gastropod and attached serpulid wormtube from the Pliocene of Cyprus.
3.
Hominina
–
The genus is between 2 and 3 million years old, taken to emerge with the appearance of Homo habilis. It is derived from the genus Australopithecus, which itself had previously split from the lineage of Pan, taxonomically, Homo is the only genus assigned to the subtribe Hominina which, with the subtribes Australopithecina and Panina, comprise the tribe Hominini. All species of the genus Homo plus those species of the australopithecines that arose after the split from Pan are called hominins, Homo erectus appeared about two million years ago in East Africa and, in several early migrations, it spread throughout Africa and Eurasia. It was likely the first hominin to live in a hunter-gatherer society, Homo sapiens sapiens, or anatomically modern humans, emerged about 200,000 years ago in East Africa. DNA analysis provides evidence of interbreeding between archaic and modern humans. See Hominidae for an overview of taxonomy, the Latin noun homō means human being or man in the generic sense of human being, mankind. The binomial name Homo sapiens was coined by Carl Linnaeus, names for other species of the genus were introduced beginning in the second half of the 19th century. Even today, the genus Homo has not been properly defined, since the early human fossil record began to slowly emerge from the earth, the boundaries and definitions of the genus Homo have been poorly defined and constantly in flux. Because there was no reason to think it would ever have any additional members, the discovery of Neanderthal brought the first addition. The genus Homo was given its name to suggest that its member species can be classified as human. Many such names are now dubbed as synonyms with Homo, including Pithecanthropus, Protanthropus, Sinanthropus, Cyphanthropus, Africanthropus, Telanthropus, Atlanthropus, classifying the genus Homo into species and subspecies is subject to incomplete information and remains poorly done. Some recently extinct species in the genus Homo are only recently discovered, john Edward Gray was an early advocate of classifying taxa by designating tribes and families. Several species, including Australopithecus garhi, Australopithecus sediba, Australopithecus africanus and these species have morphological features that align them with Homo, but there is no consensus as to which gave rise to Homo. The advent of Homo was traditionally taken to coincide with the first use of stone tools, the emergence of Homo also coincides roughly with the onset of Quaternary glaciation, the beginning of the current ice age. A fossil mandible fragment dated to 2.8 million years ago which may represent a stage between Australopithecus and Homo was discovered in 2015 in Afar, Ethiopia. Some authors would push the development of Homo past 3 Mya, the most salient physiological development between the earlier australopithecine species and Homo is the increase in cranial capacity, from about 450 cm3 in A. garhi to 600 cm3 in H. habilis. Within the genus Homo, cranial capacity again doubled from H. habilis through Homo ergaster or H. erectus to Homo heidelbergensis by 0.6 million years ago, the cranial capacity of H. heidelbergensis overlaps with the range found in modern humans. Homo erectus has often been assumed to have developed anagenetically from Homo habilis from about 2 million years ago
Hominina
4.
Year
–
A year is the orbital period of the Earth moving in its orbit around the Sun. Due to the Earths axial tilt, the course of a year sees the passing of the seasons, marked by changes in weather, the hours of daylight, and, consequently, vegetation and soil fertility. In temperate and subpolar regions around the globe, four seasons are recognized, spring, summer, autumn. In tropical and subtropical regions several geographical sectors do not present defined seasons, but in the seasonal tropics, a calendar year is an approximation of the number of days of the Earths orbital period as counted in a given calendar. The Gregorian, or modern, calendar, presents its calendar year to be either a common year of 365 days or a year of 366 days, as do the Julian calendars. For the Gregorian calendar the average length of the year across the complete leap cycle of 400 years is 365.2425 days. The ISO standard ISO 80000-3, Annex C, supports the symbol a to represent a year of either 365 or 366 days, in English, the abbreviations y and yr are commonly used. In astronomy, the Julian year is a unit of time, it is defined as 365.25 days of exactly 86400 seconds, totalling exactly 31557600 seconds in the Julian astronomical year. The word year is used for periods loosely associated with, but not identical to, the calendar or astronomical year, such as the seasonal year, the fiscal year. Similarly, year can mean the period of any planet, for example. The term can also be used in reference to any long period or cycle, west Saxon ġēar, Anglian ġēr continues Proto-Germanic *jǣran. Cognates are German Jahr, Old High German jār, Old Norse ár and Gothic jer, all the descendants of the Proto-Indo-European noun *yeh₁rom year, season. Cognates also descended from the same Proto-Indo-European noun are Avestan yārǝ year, Greek ὥρα year, season, period of time, Old Church Slavonic jarŭ, Latin annus is from a PIE noun *h₂et-no-, which also yielded Gothic aþn year. Both *yeh₁-ro- and *h₂et-no- are based on verbal roots expressing movement, *h₁ey- and *h₂et- respectively, the Greek word for year, ἔτος, is cognate with Latin vetus old, from the PIE word *wetos- year, also preserved in this meaning in Sanskrit vat-sa- yearling and vat-sa-ras year. Derived from Latin annus are a number of English words, such as annual, annuity, anniversary, etc. per annum means each year, anno Domini means in the year of the Lord. No astronomical year has an number of days or lunar months. Financial and scientific calculations often use a 365-day calendar to simplify daily rates, in the Julian calendar, the average length of a year is 365.25 days. In a non-leap year, there are 365 days, in a year there are 366 days
Year
–
Key concepts
5.
Oldowan
–
The Oldowan, sometimes spelled Olduwan, is the earliest widespread stone tool archaeological industry in prehistory. Oldowan tools were used during the Lower Paleolithic period,2.6 million years ago up until 1.7 million years ago, by ancient hominids across much of Africa, South Asia and this technological industry was followed by the more sophisticated Acheulean industry. The term Oldowan is taken from the site of Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, classification of Oldowan tools is still somewhat contentious. Mary Leakey was the first to create a system to classify Oldowan assemblages, the system included choppers, scrapers, and pounders. However, more recent classifications of Oldowan assemblages have been made that focus primarily on manufacture due to the nature of assuming use from stone artefacts. An example is Isaac et al. s tri-modal categories of Flaked Pieces, Detached Pieces, Pounded Pieces, Oldowan tools are sometimes called pebble tools, so named because the blanks chosen for their production already resemble, in pebble form, the final product. It is not known for sure which hominin species actually created and used Oldowan tools and its emergence is often associated with the species Australopithecus garhi and its flourishing with early species of Homo such as H. habilis and H. ergaster. Early Homo erectus appears to inherit Oldowan technology and refines it into the Acheulean industry beginning 1.7 million years ago, the oldest known Oldowan tools have been found in Gona, Ethiopia, and are dated to about 2.6 mya. The use of tools by apes including chimpanzees and orangutans can be used to argue in favour of tool-use as a feature of the hominin family. Tools made from bone, wood, or other materials were therefore in all probability used before the Oldowan. Oldowan stone tools are simply the oldest recognisable tools which have preserved in the archaeological record. There is a flourishing of Oldowan tools in eastern Africa, spreading to southern Africa, at 1.7 mya. the first Acheulean tools appear even as Oldowan assemblages continue to be produced. Both technologies are found in the same areas, dating to the same time periods. This realisation required a rethinking of old cultural sequences in which the more advanced Acheulean was supposed to have succeeded the Oldowan. Sometime before 1.8 mya Homo erectus had spread outside of Africa, reaching as far east as Java by 1.8 mya, in these newly colonised areas, no Acheulean assemblages have been found. In China, only Mode 1 Oldowan assemblages were produced, while in Indonesia stone tools from this age are unknown, by 1.8 mya early Homo was present in Europe, as shown by the discovery of fossil remains and Oldowan tools in Dmanisi, Georgia. Remains of their activities have also excavated in Spain at sites in the Guadix-Baza basin. Most early European sites yield Mode 1 or Oldowan assemblages, the earliest Acheulean sites in Europe only appear around 0.5 mya
Oldowan
–
Oldowan tradition chopper
Oldowan
–
A reconstruction of a female member of the
Australopithecus genus. The emergence of Oldowan tools is often associated with the species
Australopithecus garhi.
Oldowan
–
Oldowan
choppers dating to 1.7 million years BP, from
Melka Kunture, Ethiopia
Oldowan
–
Chopper from
Olduvai Gorge, some 1.8 million years old
6.
Soanian
–
The Soanian is an archaeological culture of the Lower Paleolithic in Pakistan. Contemporary to the Acheulean, it is named after the Soan Valley in Pakistan, Soanian sites are found along the Sivalik region in present-day India, Nepal and Pakistan. The term Soan Culture was first used by Hellmut De Terra in 1936, further archaeological research was conducted by Stephen Lycett in order to determine the morphometric assessment of the Soanian techno-complex. The result of this experiment concluded that the Soanian techno-complex contains a Mode 3 Levallois technique core component, on Adiyala and Khasala, about 16 km from Rawalpindi terrace on the bend of the river, hundreds of edged pebble tools were discovered. At Chauntra in Himachal Pradesh, hand axes and cleavers were found, tools up to two million years old have been recovered. In the Soan River Gorge, many fossil bearing rocks are exposed on the surface,14 million year old fossils of gazelle, rhinoceros, crocodile, giraffe and rodents have been found there. Some of these fossils are on display at the Pakistan Museum of Natural History in Islamabad, madrasian Culture Synoptic table of the principal old world prehistoric cultures V. A. Ranov, D. Dorj, Lu Zün-E. History of civilizations of Central Asia, early man, as depicted by leading authorities at the International symposium, the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, March 1937. Ayer Publishing, Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, the Middle Pleistocene Pebble Tool Site of Durkadi in Central India. The Emergence of the Handaxe Tradition in Asia, with Special Reference to India, in V. N. Misra, Peter S. Bellwood. Recent advances in Indo-Pacific prehistory, proceedings of the symposium held at Poona. A Decade of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Archaeology in India, 1951-1960
Soanian
–
Soanian
7.
Acheulean
–
Acheulean, from the French acheuléen, is an archaeological industry of stone tool manufacture characterized by distinctive oval and pear-shaped hand-axes associated with early humans. Acheulean tools were produced during the Lower Palaeolithic era across Africa and much of West Asia, South Asia, and Europe, and are typically found with Homo erectus remains. It is thought that Acheulean technologies first developed in Africa out of the more primitive Oldowan technology as long ago as 1.76 million years ago, Acheulean tools were the dominant technology for the vast majority of human history. The type site for the Acheulean is Saint-Acheul, a suburb of Amiens, the capital of the Somme department in Picardy, john Frere is generally credited as being the first to suggest a very ancient date for Acheulean hand-axes. In 1797, he sent two examples to the Royal Academy in London from Hoxne in Suffolk and his ideas were, however, ignored by his contemporaries, who subscribed to a pre-Darwinian view of human evolution. Following visits to both Abbeville and Saint Acheul by the geologist Joseph Prestwich, the age of the tools was finally accepted, in 1872, Louis Laurent Gabriel de Mortillet described the characteristic hand-axe tools as belonging to LEpoque de St Acheul. The industry was renamed as the Acheulean in 1925, from the Konso Formation of Ethiopia, Acheulean hand-axes are dated to about 1.5 million years ago using radiometric dating of deposits containing volcanic ashes. Acheulean tools in South Asia have also found to be dated as far as 1.5 million years ago. However, the earliest accepted examples of the Acheulean currently known come from the West Turkana region of Kenya and were first described by a French-led archaeology team. These particular Acheulean tools were dated through the method of magnetostratigraphy to about 1.76 million years ago, making them the oldest not only in Africa. The earliest user of Acheulean tools was Homo ergaster, who first appeared about 1.8 million years ago, not all researchers use this formal name, and instead prefer to call these users early Homo erectus. In individual regions, this dating can be refined, in Europe for example. However more recent research demonstrated that hand-axes from Spain were made more than 900,000 years ago, the enormous geographic spread of Acheulean techniques also makes the name unwieldy as it represents numerous regional variations on a similar theme. The term Acheulean does not represent a culture in the modern sense. The very earliest Acheulean assemblages often contain numerous Oldowan-style flakes and core forms and these industries are known as the Developed Oldowan and are almost certainly transitional between the Oldowan and Acheulean. The Mode 1 industries created rough flake tools by hitting a stone with a hammerstone. The resulting flake that broke off would have a sharp edge for cutting. These early toolmakers may also have worked the stone they took the flake from to create chopper cores although there is debate over whether these items were tools or just discarded cores
Acheulean
–
A reconstruction of
Homo habilis at the Westfälisches Museum für Archäologie, Herne. It is thought that Acheulean technologies first developed in Africa out of the more primitive
Oldowan technology as long ago as 1.76 million years ago, by Homo habilis.
Acheulean
–
Acheulean hand-axes from
Kent. The types shown are (clockwise from top) cordate, ficron, and ovate. [
citation needed]
Acheulean
–
Pigments in
Zambia may have been used for
body painting as far back as 400 thousand years ago.
Acheulean
–
An Acheulean handaxe, Haute-Garonne France –
MHNT
8.
Clactonian
–
Clactonian tools were made by Homo erectus rather than modern humans. The term is applied to early, crude flint tools from other regions that were made using similar methods. It is named after 400, 000-year-old finds made by Hazzledine Warren in a palaeochannel at Clacton-on-Sea in the English county of Essex in 1911. The artefacts found there included flint chopping tools, flint flakes, the Clactonian industry involved striking thick, irregular flakes from a core of flint, which was then employed as a chopper. The flakes would have used as crude knives or scrapers. Unlike the Oldowan tools from which Clactonian ones derived, some were notched implying that they were attached to a handle or shaft, retouch is uncommon and the prominent bulb of percussion on the flakes indicates use of a hammerstone. Within the banks of the Nile River, at the 100 foot terrace, the Clactonian industry may have co-existed with the Acheulean industry, which used identical basic techniques but which also had handaxe technology, tools made by bifacially working a flint core. In the 1990s it was argued that the difference between Clactonian and Acheulean may be a false distinction, however, the 2004 excavation of a butchered Pleistocene elephant at the Southfleet Road site of High Speed 1 in Kent recovered numerous Clactonian flint tools but no handaxes. As a handaxe would have been more useful than a chopper in dismembering an elephant carcass it is considered evidence of the Clactonian being a separate industry. Flint of sufficient quality was available in the area and it is likely that the people who carved up the elephant did not possess the knowledge to make the more advanced bifacial handaxe. Proponents of the Clactonian as an independent industry point to the lack of evidence in favour of it being an anomalous Acheulean industry. The precise provenance of the few attributed bifacial Clactonian tools is in dispute, the traditional chronology of Clactonian being followed by Acheulean is also being increasingly challenged since finds of Acheulean tools were made at Boxgrove in Sussex and High Lodge in Suffolk. These finds came from deposits connected with the Anglian Stage, the glaciation that preceded the Hoxnian Stage, whether or not they are separate industries it would seem that the Clactonian and Acheulean stone tool makers would have had cultural contact with each other. Acheulean Synoptic table of the old world prehistoric cultures Butler, C, Prehistoric Flintwork, Tempus
Clactonian
–
A reconstruction of
Homo erectus at the Westfälisches Landesmuseum, Herne, Germany, in a 2006 exhibition. Clactonian tools were made by Homo erectus rather than modern humans.
Clactonian
–
Clactonian Hand-axe from Rickson’s Farm pit, Clacton, Essex.
9.
Middle Paleolithic
–
The Middle Paleolithic is the second subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. The term Middle Stone Age is used as an equivalent or a synonym for the Middle Paleolithic in African archeology, the Middle Paleolithic broadly spanned from 300,000 to 30,000 years ago. There are considerable dating differences between regions, the Middle Paleolithic was succeeded by the Upper Paleolithic subdivision which first began between 50,000 and 40,000 years ago. Activities such as catching fish and hunting large game animals with specialized tools connote increased group-wide cooperation. Both Neandertal and modern human societies took care of the members of their societies during the Middle Paleolithic. Typically, it has assumed that women gathered plants and firewood. Anthropologists such as Tim D. Cannibalism in the Middle Paleolithic may have occurred because of food shortages, around 200,000 BP Middle Paleolithic Stone tool manufacturing spawned a tool-making technique known as the prepared-core technique, that was more elaborate than previous Acheulean techniques. Wallace and Shea split the core artifacts into two different types, formal cores and expedient cores, formal cores are designed to extract the maximum amount from the raw material while expedient cores are more based on function need. This method increased efficiency by permitting the creation of more controlled and this method allowed Middle Paleolithic humans correspondingly to create stone-tipped spears, which were the earliest composite tools, by hafting sharp, pointy stone flakes onto wooden shafts. The use of fire became widespread for the first time in human prehistory during the Middle Paleolithic, some scientists have hypothesized that hominids began cooking food to defrost frozen meat which would help ensure their survival in cold regions
Middle Paleolithic
–
Bifacial points, engraved ochre and bone tools from the c. 75,000- to 80,000-year-old M1 & M2 phases at Blombos cave.
Middle Paleolithic
–
A model of a Neanderthal male by modern scientists at the
Zagros Paleolithic Museum
Middle Paleolithic
–
This is a drawing of a replica of an Acheulean hand-axe found during the Lower Paleolithic period. The raw material this tool is made of in this drawing is black Obsidian and is even worked on both sides.
10.
Mousterian
–
Mousterian is a name given by archaeologists to a style of predominantly flint tools associated primarily with Neanderthals. They date to the Middle Paleolithic, the part of the European Old Stone Age. The culture was named after the site of Le Moustier. Similar flintwork has been all over unglaciated Europe and also the Near East. Handaxes, racloirs and points constitute the industry, sometimes a Levallois technique or another prepared-core technique was employed in making the flint flakes, Mousterian tools that have been found in Europe were made by Neanderthals and date from around 160,000 BP and 40,000 BP. In North Africa and the Near East, Mouseterian tools were produced by anatomically modern humans. In the Levant, for example, assemblages produced by Neanderthals are indistinguishable from those made by Qafzeh type modern humans, possible variants are Denticulate, Charentian named after the Charente region, Typical and the Acheulean Tradition - Type-A and Type-B. The industry continued alongside the new Châtelperronian industry during the 45, Mousterian artifacts have been found in Haua Fteah in Cyrenaica and other sites in Northwest Africa. Contained within a cave in the Syria region, along with a Neanderthaloid skeleton, located in the Haibak valley of Afghanistan. Zagros and Central Iran The archaeological site of Atapuerca, Spain, gorhams Cave in Gibraltar contains Mousterian objects. Uzbekistan has sites of Mousterian culture, including Teshik-Tash, siberia has many sites with Mousterian style implements, eg Denisova Cave. Neanderthal extinction hypotheses Synoptic table of the old world prehistoric cultures Levallois technique Neanderthals’ Last Stand Is Traced — New York Times article
Mousterian
–
Mousterian
Mousterian
–
A reconstruction of the head of the
Shanidar 1 fossil, a
Homo neanderthalensis male who lived circa 70000 BCE discovered in the mid-20th century at the Mousterian
archaeological site Shanidar Cave
Mousterian
–
Restoration of
Le Moustier Homo neanderthalensis by
Charles R. Knight
Mousterian
–
Levallois points
11.
Micoquien
–
The Micoquien is an early middle paleolithic industry, that is found in the Eemian and in an early episode of the Würm glaciation. The Micoquien is distinguished technologically by the appearance of distinctly asymmetrical bifaces and its discoverer and namer was the archeologist and art trader Otto Hauser. Hauser then sold a number of so-called Micoque-wedges that he found in excavations in La Micoque to museums. The specially formed handaxes from La Micoque exhibited an often a rounded base, the problem with the term Micoquien is that later excavations have revealed an older time placement for the La Micoque axes, which are now dated in the Riss glaciation. A wider artifact from the Micoquien is the Keilmesser, which has a clearer chronology in Central Europe, from this some archeologists have proposed substituting the term Keilmesser group for Micoquien. Micoquien artifacts are distributed all of Eastern Europe and Central Europe. In Germany they can be found at Balver Höhle and Lonetal, le gisement de La Micoque. - in, Rigaud, J. -Ph. Informa-tions archéologiques, circonscription dAquitaine, Gallia Préhist, La Micoque. - Gallia Informations Préhistoire et Histoire, 1991-1, CNRS, Paris, 21-25. La Micoque, die Kultur einer neuen Diluvialrasse, leur signification. - Bulletin de la Société Pré-historique Française 35, Paris,121, 257-288. La Micoque und das Micoquien in den altsteinzeitlichen Sammlungen des Reiss-Museums Mannheim. - Mannh, geschichtsblätter N. F.6, Ubstadt-Weiher, 315-351. Media related to Micoquien at Wikimedia Commons Geröllgeräte-Industrien Rosendahl, G. Die oberen Schichten von La Micoque
Micoquien
–
Micoquien
12.
Aterian
–
The Aterian is a Middle Stone Age stone tool industry centered in the Maghreb, but also found in Oman and the Thar Desert. The earliest Aterian dates to c.145,000 years ago, however, most of the early dates cluster around the beginning of the Last Interglacial, around 130,000 years ago, when the environment of North Africa began to ameliorate. The Aterian disappeared around 30,000 years ago and it is not thought to have influenced subsequent archaeological cultures in the region. The Aterian is primarily distinguished through the presence of tanged or pedunculated tools, bifacially-worked, leaf-shaped tools are also a common artefact type, and so are racloirs and Levallois flakes and cores. Items of personal adornment are known from at least one Aterian site, the appropriateness of the term Mousterian is contested in a North African context, however. The technological character of the Aterian has been debated for almost a century, Levallois reduction is widespread across the whole of North Africa throughout the Middle Stone Age, and scrapers and denticulates are ubiquitous. Bifacial foliates moreover represent a huge taxonomic category and the form, there is also a significant variation of tanged tools themselves, with various forms representing both different tool types and the degree tool resharpening. For example, bifacial leaf points are found widely across North Africa in assemblages that lack tanged tools and this notwithstanding, the term still usefully denotes the presence of tanged tools in North African Middle Stone Age assemblages. Tanged tools persisted in North Africa until around 30,000 years ago, by this time, the Aterian lithic industry had long ceased to exist in the rest of North Africa due to the onset of the Ice Age, which in North Africa, resulted in hyperarid conditions. Assemblages with tanged tools, the Aterian, therefore have a significant temporal and spatial range, however, they have not yet been found east of the Nile and no Aterian sites are known from the Nile Valley. The Aterian is associated with early Homo sapiens at a number of sites in Morocco, the Aterian fossils also display similarities to the earliest modern humans found out of Africa at Skhul and Qafzeh in the Levant, and they are broadly contemporary to them. Such examples of shell beads have been found far inland, suggesting the presence of long distance social networks, such a subdivided population structure has also been inferred from the pattern of variation observed in early African fossils of Homo sapiens. Associated faunal studies suggest that the making the Aterian exploited coastal resources as well as engaging in hunting. It has so far been difficult to estimate whether Aterian populations further inland were exploiting freshwater resources as well, studies have suggested that hafting was widespread, perhaps to maintain flexibility in the face of strongly seasonal environment with a pronounced dry season. Scrapers, knives and points all seem to have been hafted and it is probably that plant resources were also exploited. Although there is no evidence from the Aterian yet, plant processing is evidenced in North Africa from as much as 182,000 years ago. Aterian lithic tools have also discovered in Middle Paleolithic deposits in Oman. Ifri nAmmar Contrebandiers Taforalt Rhafas Dar es Soltan I El Mnasra Kharga Oasis Uan Tabu Oued el Akarit Adrar Bous Oman Thar Desert Synoptic table of the old world prehistoric cultures
Aterian
13.
Upper Paleolithic
–
The Upper Paleolithic is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. Very broadly, it dates to between 50,000 and 10,000 years ago, roughly coinciding with the appearance of behavioral modernity, modern humans are believed to have emerged about 195,000 years ago in Africa. Although these humans were modern in anatomy, their lifestyle changed very little from their contemporaries, such as Homo erectus, about 50,000 years ago, there was a marked increase in the diversity of artifacts. In Africa, bone artifacts and the first art appear in the archeological record, between 45,000 and 43,000 years ago, this new tool technology spread with human migration to Europe. The new technology generated an explosion of modern humans which is believed to have contributed to the extinction of the Neanderthals. The Upper Paleolithic has the earliest known evidence of organized settlements, in the form of campsites, artistic work blossomed, with cave painting, petroglyphs, carvings and engravings on bone or ivory. The first evidence of fishing is also noted, from artifacts in places such as Blombos cave in South Africa. More complex social groupings emerged, supported by more varied and reliable food sources and this probably contributed to increasing group identification or ethnicity. By 50, 000–40,000 BP, the first humans set foot in Australia, by 45,000 BP, humans lived at 61° north latitude in Europe. By 30,000 BP, Japan was reached, and by 27,000 BP humans were present in Siberia above the Arctic Circle, at the end of the Upper Paleolithic, a group of humans crossed the Bering land bridge and quickly expanded throughout North and South America. Both Homo erectus and Neanderthals used the same crude stone tools, archaeologist Richard G. Klein, who has worked extensively on ancient stone tools, describes the stone tool kit of archaic hominids as impossible to categorize. It was as if the Neanderthals made stone tools, and were not much concerned about their final forms and he argues that almost everywhere, whether Asia, Africa or Europe, before 50,000 years ago all the stone tools are much alike and unsophisticated. These new stone-tool types have been described as being distinctly differentiated from each other, the invaders, commonly referred to as the Cro-Magnons, left many sophisticated stone tools, carved and engraved pieces on bone, ivory and antler, cave paintings and Venus figurines. The Neanderthals continued to use Mousterian stone tool technology and possibly Chatelperronian technology and these tools disappeared from the archeological record at around the same time the Neanderthals themselves disappeared from the fossil record, about 40,000 years ago. Settlements were often located in valley bottoms, possibly associated with hunting of passing herds of animals. Hunting was important, and caribou/wild reindeer may well be the species of single greatest importance in the anthropological literature on hunting. Technological advances included significant developments in flint tool manufacturing, with industries based on fine blades rather than simpler and shorter flakes, burins and racloirs were used to work bone, antler and hides. Advanced darts and harpoons also appear in period, along with the fish hook, the oil lamp, rope
Upper Paleolithic
–
Venus of Laussel, an Upper Paleolithic (Aurignacian) carving.
Upper Paleolithic
–
The
Venus of Brassempouy is preserved in the
Musée d'Archéologie Nationale at
Saint-Germain-en-Laye, near Paris.
Upper Paleolithic
–
Lascaux, a
UNESCO World Heritage Site.
14.
Aurignacian
–
The Aurignacian culture is an archaeological culture of the Upper Palaeolithic. It is the earliest modern human culture in Europe, and is associated with the immigration of anatomically modern humans from the Near East and it first appeared in Eastern Europe around 43,000 BP, and in Western Europe between 40,000 and 36,000 years BP. It was replaced by the Gravettian culture around 28,000 to 26,000 years ago, the name originates from the type site of Aurignac, Haute-Garonne, which is a town in the south-west of France near Toulouse or Andorra. The oldest undisputed example of figurative art, the Venus of Hohle Fels. It was discovered in September 2008 in a cave at Schelklingen in Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany, the Bacho Kiro site is one of the earliest known Aurignacian burials. The Aurignacian tool industry is characterized by worked bone or antler points with grooves cut in the bottom. Their flint tools include blades and bladelets struck from prepared cores rather than using crude flakes. )The people of this culture also produced some of the earliest known cave art, such as the animal engravings at Trois Freres. They also made pendants, bracelets, and ivory beads, as well as three-dimensional figurines, perforated rods, thought to be spear throwers or shaft wrenches, also are found at their sites. The sophistication and self-awareness demonstrated in the work led archaeologists to consider the makers of Aurignacian artifacts the first modern humans in Europe, human remains and Late Aurignacian artifacts found in juxtaposition support this inference. Although finds of human remains in direct association with Proto-Aurignacian technologies are scarce in Europe. At least three robust, but typically anatomically-modern individuals from the Peștera cu Oase cave in Romania, were dated directly from the bones to ca, although not associated directly with archaeological material, these finds are within the chronological and geographical range of the Early Aurignacian in southeastern Europe. On genetic evidence it has argued that both Aurignacian and the Dabba culture of North Africa came from an earlier big game hunting Aurignacian culture of the Levant. Many 35, 000-year-old animal figurines were discovered in the Vogelherd Cave in Germany, one of the horses, amongst six tiny mammoth and horse ivory figures found previously at Vogelherd, was sculpted as skillfully as any piece found throughout the Upper Paleolithic. The production of ivory beads for body ornamentation was also important during the Aurignacian, there is a notable absence of painted caves, however, which begin to appear within the Solutrean. Typical statuettes consist of women that are called Venus figurines and they emphasize the hips, breasts, and other body parts associated with fertility. Feet and arms are lacking or minimized, one of the most ancient figurines was discovered in 2008 in the Hohle Fels cave in Germany. The figurine has been dated to 35,000 years ago, the oldest undisputed musical instrument was the Hohle Fels Flute discovered in the Hohle Fels cave in Germanys Swabian Alb in 2008. The flute is made from a wing bone perforated with five finger holes
Aurignacian
–
Bone point
Aurignacian
–
Aurignacian
Aurignacian
–
Löwenmensch figurine, found in the
Hohlenstein-Stadel cave of Germany's
Swabian Alb and dated at 40,000 years old, is associated with the Aurignacian culture and is the oldest known anthropomorphic animal figurine in the world
Aurignacian
–
Entrance to the
Potočka Zijalka, a cave in the Eastern
Karavanke, where the remains of a human residence dated to the Aurignacian (40,000 to 30,000
BP) were found by
Srečko Brodar in the 1920s and 1930s, and being the first discovered high-altitude Aurignacian site that significantly influenced the knowledge of the culture
15.
Gravettian
–
The Gravettian was an archaeological industry of the European Upper Paleolithic that succeeded the Aurignacian c.31,000 BC. It is archaeologically the last unified European culture, and lasted until c.22,000 BC, at this point it developed into the Epigravettian in Italy, the Balkans, and Russia, and was replaced abruptly by the Solutrean in France and Spain. The origins of the Gravettian people are not clear, they seem to appear all over Europe. Like their Aurignacian predecessors, they are well-known for their Venus figurines, the culture was first identified at the site of La Gravette in Southwestern France. One typical artefact of the industry, once considered diagnostic, is a pointed blade with a straight blunt back. These were used to hunt big game including bison, horse, reindeer, Gravettians also used nets to hunt small game. Archaeologists usually describe two regional variants, the western Gravettian, known namely from cave sites in France, Spain and Britain, and the eastern Gravettian in Central Europe and Russia. The eastern Gravettians — they include the Pavlovian culture — were specialized mammoth hunters, whose remains are found not in caves. The Aurignacian and Gravettian cultures are featured in Earths children, a series of set in prehistory. In this piece of fiction, the Venus figurines play an important role at the center of a fertility rite
Gravettian
–
Venus of Lespugue These Venus figurines are typical of the Gravettian culture.
Gravettian
–
Burins of the Gravettian culture.
16.
Solutrean
–
The Solutrean industry is a relatively advanced flint tool-making style of the Upper Palaeolithic, from around 22,000 to 17,000 BP. The term Solutrean comes from the type-site of Cros du Charnier, dating to around 21,000 years ago and located at Solutré, the Rock of Solutré site was discovered in 1866 by the French geologist and paleontologist Henry Testot-Ferry. It is now preserved as the Parc archéologique et botanique de Solutré, the eras finds include tools, ornamental beads, and bone pins as well as prehistoric art. Solutrean tool-making employed techniques not seen before and not rediscovered for millennia, the Solutrean has relatively finely worked, bifacial points made with lithic reduction percussion and pressure flaking rather than cruder flintknapping. Knapping was done using antler batons, hardwood batons and soft stone hammers and this method permitted the working of delicate slivers of flint to make light projectiles and even elaborate barbed and tanged arrowheads. Bone and antler were used as well, the Solutrean may be seen as a transitory stage between the flint implements of the Mousterian and the bone implements of the Magdalenian epochs. Faunal finds include horse, reindeer, mammoth, cave lion, rhinoceros, bear, Solutrean finds have been also made in the caves of Les Eyzies and Laugerie Haute, and in the Lower Beds of Creswell Crags in Derbyshire, England. The industry first appeared in what is now Spain, and disappears from the record around 17,000 BP. The migrants arrived in northeastern North America and served as the culture for what eventually developed into Clovis tool-making technology. The idea of a Clovis-Solutrean link remains controversial and does not enjoy wide acceptance, in 2014, the autosomal DNA of a male infant from a 12, 500-year-old deposit in Montana was sequenced. The DNA was taken from a referred to as Anzick-1. The skeleton was found in association with several Clovis artifacts. Comparisons showed strong affinities with DNA from Siberian sites, and virtually ruled out any close affinity of Anzick-1 with European sources, Clovis and Solutrean, Is There a Common Thread. by James M
Solutrean
–
Solutrean tools, 22,000–17,000
BP, Crot du Charnier,
Solutré-Pouilly,
Saône-et-Loire, France
Solutrean
–
Solutrean
Solutrean
–
Leaf-shaped point from Volgu,
Saône-et-Loire, France, 16,000 years old,
British Museum
Solutrean
–
The Solutrean toolkit includes the world's earliest identifiable
sewing needles.
17.
Epigravettian
–
The Epigravettian was one of the last archaeological industries of the European Upper Paleolithic. It arose after the last glacial maximum around 21,000 cal and it succeeded the Gravettian, of which it is considered a continuation by some scholars. Its known range extends from southeast France to the shores of the Volga River
Epigravettian
–
Venus of Lespugue These Venus figurines are typical of the Gravettian culture.
Epigravettian
–
Burins of the Gravettian culture.
18.
Ahrensburg culture
–
The most important prey was the wild reindeer. The earliest definite finds of arrow and bow date to this culture, the Ahrensburgian was preceded by the Hamburg and Federmesser cultures and superseded by the Maglemosian and Swiderian cultures. Ahrensburgian finds were made in southern and western Scandinavia, the North German plain, the Ahrensburgian area also included vast stretches of land now at the bottom of the North and Baltic Sea, since during the Younger Dryas the coastline took a much more northern course than today. Artefacts with tanged points are associated with both the Bromme and the Ahrensburg cultures. The extinction of mammoth and other megafauna provided for an incentive to exploit other forms of subsistence that included maritime resources, northward migrations coincided with the warm Bølling and Allerød events, but much of northern Eurasia remained inhabited during the Younger Dryas. The different technolithic complexes are chronologically associated with the climatic chronozones.700 BCE, palynological results demonstrate a close connection between the prominent temperature rise at the beginning of the Interstadial and the expansion of the hunter-gatherers into the northern Lowlands. The existence of a primary “pioneer phase” in the re-colonisation is contradicted by proof of e. g. an early Central European Magdalenian in Poland. Today it is accepted that the Hamburgian, featured by Shouldered Point lithics, is a techno-complex closely related to the Creswellian. Within the Hamburgian techno-complex, a younger dating is found for the Havelte phase, sometimes interpreted as a northwestern phenomenon, the Hamburgian culture existed during the warm Bølling period, the brief Dryas II glaciation and in the early warmer Allerød period. However, the distribution of the Hamburgian east of the Oder River has been confirmed, finds in Jutland indicates the expansion of early Hamburgian hunters and gatherers reached further north than previously expected. The Hamburgian sites with shouldered point lithics reach as far north as the Pomeranian ice margin, the younger Havelte phase has been proven for the area beyond the Pomeranian ice margin and on the Danish Isles after circa 12.300 BCE. The Backed Point lithics of Federmesser culture are dated in the Allerød Interstadial. Early Federmesser finds follows shortly or are contemporary to Havelte, the culture lasted approximately 1200 years from 11.900 to 10.700 BCE. and is located in Northern Germany and Poland to south Lithuania. Fish-hooks were discovered in Allerød layers and emphasize the importance of fishing in the Late Palaeolithic, Bromme culture sites are found in the entire southern and southeastern Baltic, and are dated to the second half of Allerød and the early cold Dryas III period. The classical Brommian complex is typified by simple and fast, but uneconomical, a new development noticed in Lithuania introduced both massive and smaller Tanged Points. In Bromme culture this technology is proposed to be a derived from tanged Havelte groups. Ahrensburg culture is associated with the Younger Dryas glacialization and the Pre-boreal period. Some recent finds, such as the Hintersee 24 site in southern Landkreis Vorpommern-Greifswald, would contribute to the argument of an early Ahrensburgian in northern Germany
Ahrensburg culture
–
Ahrensburg culture
19.
Swiderian culture
–
Swiderian culture, also published in English literature as Sviderian and Swederian, is the name of Final Palaeolithic cultural complexes in Poland and the surrounding areas. The type-site is Świdry Wielkie, in Otwock near the Swider River, the Swiderian is recognized as a distinctive culture that developed on the sand dunes left behind by the retreating glaciers. The crude flint blades of Early Swiderian are found in the area of Nowy Mlyn in the Holy Cross Mountains region, late Swiderian is characterized by blades with a blunted back. The Swiderian culture plays a role in the Palaeolithic-Mesolithic transition. It has been accepted that most of the Swiderian population emigrated at the very end of the Pleistocene to the northeast following the retreating tundra. Recent radiocarbon dates prove that some groups of the Svidero-Ahrensburgian Complex persisted into the Preboreal, unlike western Europe, the Mesolithic groups now inhabiting the Polish Plain were newcomers. This has been attested by a 300-year-long gap between the youngest Palaeolithic and the oldest Mesolithic occupation, the oldest Mesolithic site is Chwalim, located in western Silesia, Poland, it outdates the Mesolithic sites situated to the east in central and northeastern Poland by about 150 years. Thus, the Mesolithic population progressed from the west after a 300-year-long settlement break, the Ukrainian archaeologist L. Zalizniak believes Kunda culture of Central Russia and the Baltic zone, and other so-called post-Swiderian cultures, derive from the Swiderian culture. The raw materials of the assemblage at Sujala originate in the Varanger Peninsula in northern Norway. Proposed parallels with the blade technology among the earliest Mesolithic finds in southern Norway would have placed the find closer or even before 10000 BP. However, a connection to early North Norwegian settlements is contradicted by the shape of the tanged points. There, counterparts of the Sujala cores can also be found, the Sujala assemblage is currently considered unquestionably post-Swiderian and is dated by radiocarbon to 9265-8930 BP, the true age being approximately 8300-8200 CalBC. Such an Early Mesolithic influence from Russia or the Baltic might imply an adjustment to previous thoughts on the colonization of the Barents Sea coast
Swiderian culture
–
Swiderian culture
20.
Mesolithic
–
In archaeology, the Mesolithic is the culture between Paleolithic and Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used for areas outside northern Europe, Mesolithic has different time spans in different parts of Eurasia. It was originally post-Pleistocene, pre-agricultural material in northwest Europe about 10,000 to 5000 BC, in the archaeology of Northern Europe, for example for archaeological sites in Great Britain, Germany, Scandinavia, Ukraine, and Russia, the term Mesolithic is almost always used. In the archaeology of other areas, the term Epipaleolithic may be preferred by most authors, in the New World, neither term is used. Other authors use the term Mesolithic for a variety of Late Paleolithic cultures subsequent to the end of the last glacial period whether they are transitional towards agriculture or not, conversely, those that are in course of transition toward artificial food production are assigned to the Mesolithic. Therefore, care must be taken in translating Mesolithic as Middle Stone Age, subdivisions of earlier and later were added to the Stone Age by Thomsen and especially his junior colleague and employee Jens Jacob Asmussen Worsaae. John Lubbock kept these divisions in his work Pre-historic Times in 1865 and he saw no need for an intermediate category. When Hodder Westropp introduced the Mesolithic in 1866, as an intermediate between Paleolithic and Neolithic, a storm of controversy immediately arose around it. A British school led by John Evans denied any need for an intermediate, the ages blended together like the colors of a rainbow, he said. A European school led by Louis Laurent Gabriel de Mortillet asserted that there was a gap between the earlier and later, edouard Piette claimed to have filled the gap with his discovery of the Azilian Culture. Knut Stjerna offered an alternative in the Epipaleolithic, a continuation of the use of Paleolithic technology, the start and end dates of the Mesolithic vary by geographical region. Childes view prevails that the term covers the period between the end of the Pleistocene and the start of the Neolithic. If the Mesolithic is more similar to the Paleolithic it is called the Epipaleolithic, the Paleolithic was an age of purely hunting and gathering while in the Neolithic domestication of plants and animals had occurred. Some Mesolithic peoples continued with intensive hunting, others were practising the initial stages of domestication. The type of remains the diagnostic factor, The Mesolithic featured composite devices manufactured with Mode V chipped stone tools. The Paleolithic had utilized Modes I–IV and the Neolithic mainly abandoned the chipped microliths in favor of polished, not chipped, the first period, known as Mesolithic 1, followed the Aurignacian or Levantine Upper Paleolithic periods throughout the Levant. By the end of the Aurignacian, gradual changes took place in stone industries, small stone tools called microliths and retouched bladelets can be found for the first time. The microliths of this period differ greatly from the Aurignacian artifacts
Mesolithic
–
Mesolithic microliths
Mesolithic
–
Two skeletons of women aged between 25 and 35 years, dated between 6740 and 5680 BP, both of whom died a violent death. Found at
Téviec,
France in 1938.
21.
Stone Age
–
The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make implements with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted roughly 3.4 million years, and ended between 8700 BCE and 2000 BCE with the advent of metalworking, bone tools were used during this period as well but are rarely preserved in the archaeological record. The Stone Age is further subdivided by the types of tools in use. According to the age and location of the current evidence, the cradle of the genus is the East African Rift System, especially toward the north in Ethiopia, where it is bordered by grasslands. The closest relative among the living primates, the genus Pan, represents a branch that continued on in the deep forest. The rift served as a conduit for movement into southern Africa and also north down the Nile into North Africa and through the continuation of the rift in the Levant to the vast grasslands of Asia. The oldest indirect evidence found of stone tool use is fossilised animal bones with tool marks, the oldest stone tools were excavated from the site of Lomekwi 3 in West Turkana, northwestern Kenya, and date to 3.3 million years old. Prior to the discovery of these Lomekwian tools, the oldest known stone tools had been found at sites at Gona, Ethiopia, on the sediments of the paleo-Awash River. All the tools come from the Busidama Formation, which lies above a disconformity, or missing layer, the oldest sites containing tools are dated to 2. 6–2.55 mya. One of the most striking circumstances about these sites is that they are from the Late Pliocene, excavators at the locality point out that. the earliest stone tool makers were skilled flintknappers. The possible reasons behind this seeming abrupt transition from the absence of tools to the presence thereof include. The species who made the Pliocene tools remains unknown, fragments of Australopithecus garhi, Australopithecus aethiopicus and Homo, possibly Homo habilis, have been found in sites near the age of the Gona tools. Innovation of the technique of smelting ore ended the Stone Age, the first most significant metal manufactured was bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, each of which was smelted separately. The Chalcolithic by convention is the period of the Bronze Age. The Bronze Age was followed by the Iron Age, the transition out of the Stone Age occurred between 6000 BCE and 2500 BCE for much of humanity living in North Africa and Eurasia. Note the Rudna Glava mine in Serbia, Ötzi the Iceman, a mummy from about 3300 BCE carried with him a copper axe and a flint knife. In regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa, the Stone Age was followed directly by the Iron Age, the Middle East and southeastern Asian regions progressed past Stone Age technology around 6000 BCE. Europe, and the rest of Asia became post–Stone Age societies by about 4000 BCE, the proto-Inca cultures of South America continued at a Stone Age level until around 2000 BCE, when gold, copper and silver made their entrance
Stone Age
–
Obsidian projectile point
Stone Age
–
Modern
Awash River, Ethiopia, descendant of the Palaeo-Awash, source of the sediments in which the oldest Stone Age tools have been found
Stone Age
–
A variety of
stone tools
Stone Age
–
This is a Mode 1, or Oldowan,
stone tool from the western Sahara.
22.
Lomekwi
–
Lomekwi 3 is the name of an archaeological site in Kenya where ancient stone tools have been discovered dating to 3.3 million years ago, which make them the oldest ever found. The group made a turn on the way and ended up at a previously unexplored region. They quickly found some stone artifacts on the site, which they named Lomekwi 3, a year later they returned to the site for a full excavation. Harmand presented her findings at the meeting of the Paleoanthropology Society on April 14,2015 and published the full announcement. Around 20 well preserved artifacts have been dug up at Lomekwi 3 including anvils, cores, an additional 130 artifacts were found on the surface. In one instance, Harmands team was able to match a flake to its core, suggesting a hominin had made, the tools were generally quite large – larger than the oldest known stone tools, recovered near Gona, in the Afar Region of Ethiopia, in 1992. According to Harmand, it appeared that the makers had purposely selected large, heavy blocks of strong stone. She ruled out the possibility that the tools were actually natural rock formations, saying The artifacts were clearly knapped, analysis suggested the cores had been rotated as flakes were struck off. The purpose of the tools found at Lomekwi 3 is unclear, based on the buried artifacts stratigraphic position relative to two layers of volcanic ash and known magnetic reversals, Harmand and her team dated the tools to 3.3 million years ago. The finds at Lomekwi therefore represent the oldest stone tools ever discovered, the date also predates the Homo genus by 500,000 years, suggesting tool making arose with Australopithecus or Kenyanthropus. Harmand said the Lomekwi 3 artifacts do not fit into the Oldowan tool making tradition and should be considered part of a distinct tradition and it has been hypothesized that tool making may have aided in the evolution of Homo into a distinct genus. However, it is whether the Lomekwian tools are related to those made by Homo species – it is possible the technology was forgotten. Independent researchers who have seen the tools are generally supportive of Harmands conclusions, george Washington University anthropologist Alison Brooks said the tools could not have been created by natural forces. The dating evidence is fairly solid, theres no doubt its purposeful toolmaking, he remarked. Paleoanthropologist Zeresenay Alemseged, who was responsible for the earlier research suggesting Australopithecus had made tools, University College London repository - Spoor, F, Leakey, L, Leakey, M, A comparative study of Pliocene hominin fossils from Lomekwi, west of Lake Turkana. In, AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY Stone tools may have used before our genus came on the scene, The Washington Post List of stone tools
Lomekwi
–
Lomekwi is near the west bank of
Lake Turkana, which is pictured in green on this satellite image.
23.
Stone tool
–
A stone tool is, in the most general sense, any tool made either partially or entirely out of stone. Although stone tool-dependent societies and cultures still exist today, most stone tools are associated with prehistoric, archaeologists often study such prehistoric societies, and refer to the study of stone tools as lithic analysis. Ethnoarchaeology has been a research field in order to further the understanding and cultural implications of stone tool use. Stone has been used to make a variety of different tools throughout history, including arrow heads, spearpoints. Stone tools may be made of ground stone or chipped stone. Chipped stone tools are made from materials such as chert or flint, radiolarite, chalcedony, obsidian, basalt. One simple form of reduction is to strike stone flakes from a nucleus of material using a hammerstone or similar hard hammer fabricator, if the goal of the reduction strategy is to produce flakes, the remnant lithic core may be discarded once it has become too small to use. In some strategies, however, a flintknapper reduces the core to a rough unifacial or bifacial preform, more complex forms of reduction include the production of highly standardized blades, which can then be fashioned into a variety of tools such as scrapers, knives, sickles and microliths. Archaeologists classify stone tools into industries that share distinctive technological or morphological characteristics and he assigned to them relative dates, Modes 1 and 2 to the Lower Palaeolithic,3 to the Middle Palaeolithic,4 to the Advanced and 5 to the Mesolithic. They were not to be conceived, however, as either universal—that is, they did not account for all lithic technology, Mode 1, for example, was in use in Europe long after it had been replaced by Mode 2 in Africa. Clarkes scheme was adopted enthusiastically by the archaeological community, one of its advantages was the simplicity of terminology, for example, the Mode 1 / Mode 2 Transition. The transitions are currently of greatest interest, Kenya Stone tools found from 2011 to 2014 at Lake Turkana in Kenya, are dated to be 3.3 million years old, and predate the genus Homo by half million years. The oldest known Homo fossil is 2.8 million years old compared to the 3.3 million year old stone tools. Dating of the tools was by dating volcanic ash layers in which the tools were found, Oldowan tools were characterised by their simple construction, predominantly using core forms. The blunt end is the surface, the sharp, the distal. Grasping the proximal surface, the hominid brought the surface down hard on an object he wished to detach or shatter. The earliest known Oldowan tools yet found date from 2.6 million years ago, during the Lower Palaeolithic period, and have been uncovered at Gona in Ethiopia. Homo habilis was the hominin who used the tools for most of the Oldowan in Africa, eventually, more complex, Mode 2 tools began to be developed through the Acheulean Industry, named after the site of Saint-Acheul in France
Stone tool
–
A selection of
prehistoric stone tools.
Stone tool
–
An array of
Neolithic artifacts, including bracelets, axe heads, chisels, and polishing tools.
Stone tool
–
Polished Neolithic
jadeitite axe from the Museum of Toulouse
Stone tool
–
Axe heads found at a 2700 BC Neolithic manufacture site in
Switzerland, arranged in the various stages of production from left to right. Click to see individual images.
24.
Hominini
–
Members of the human clade, that is, the Hominina, including Homo and those species of the australopithecines that arose after the split from the chimpanzees, are called homininans. Not all homininans are directly related to the emergence of early Homo and this is a modern cladogram, For each clade, the cladogram above shows approximately when newer extant clades emerged. Some texts refer to Homonini as the Hominina branch, the subtribe Hominina is the human branch, that is, it contains only the genus Homo. Researchers proposed the taxon Hominini on the basis that the least similar species of a trichotomy should be separated from the other two. The common chimpanzee and the bonobo of the genus Pan are the closest living relatives to humans. All the extinct genera listed to the right are ancestral to, or offshoots of, however, both Orrorin and Sahelanthropus existed around the time of the split, and so may be ancestral to both Pan and Homo. In the proposal of Mann and Weiss, the tribe Hominini includes Pan as well as Homo, Homo and all bipedal apes are referred to the subtribe Hominina, while Pan is assigned to the subtribe Panina. Wood discusses the different views of this taxonomy, the assumption of late hybridization was in particular based on the similarity of the X chromosome in humans and chimpanzees, suggesting a divergence as late as some 4 million years ago. Sahelanthropus tchadensis is an extinct species that lived seven million years ago. Human Timeline – Smithsonian, National Museum of Natural History
Hominini
25.
Prepared-core technique
–
The prepared-core technique is means of producing stone tools by first preparing common stone cores that can then be shaped into the desired implement. Although there had different types of tools created prior to this technique, mostly that of handaxes and cleavers. Believed roughly to have been first used 200,000 years ago this technique involved a removal of flakes from a piece of stone to achieve desired shape and thickness. The technique is defined by the direction of percussion from the perimeter of the core towards the centre. The perimeter of the circular to oval-shaped core served as a platform for striking off flakes, blades and points, several technological criteria characterise the definition of the centripetal cores. The primary reduction surface is shaped such that the morphology of the product is a function of the lateral and distal convexities of the surface, which serve to guide the shock wave of each flake. Centripetally worked cores may possess one or two faces of detachment and striking platforms can vary from unprepared, cortical to faceted chapeau de gendarme shapes. Centripetally-reduced cores were made via hard hammer percussion, which was necessary when attempting to work steep platform angles. Centripetal core reduction techniques are found in most Middle Paleolithic assemblages known from Africa, there are a number of different methods of technological actions involving centripetal core reduction, the most extensively documented of which is the so-called Levallois technology. The recognition of Levallois as a distinct core reduction strategy dates to the late 19th Century, the term was used to describe specific flakes with certain surface attributes that were recovered during that period in northern France. These early descriptions were purely typological and based on the morphology of the products themselves. However, there was never a deal of consensus among scholars. Gradually, more and more emphasis was put on the idea that Levallois flakes were the products of a method or process of production. Indeed, F. Bordes emphasised that Levallois was essentially a method, however, the shape and character of a Levallois blank is also thought to be predetermined by the elaborate Levallois core preparation process. While a shape control system undoubtedly exists for the Levallois cores, indeed, how applied force will propagate through a specific core is determined by a number of variables and not only by the will or the desire of the Middle Palaeolithic flintknapper. Given the imprecision of hand-eye co-ordination, a high probability for only partial core reduction success is very real. Furthermore, it has also demonstrated that very different core reduction strategies can produce seemingly diagnostic Levallois blanks. The fact of the matter is that the Levallois Method is a term, the lineal or preferential Levallois method corresponds best to the classic definition of Levallois
Prepared-core technique
–
An example of a core prepared through centripetal reduction, with the direction of flaking towards the center of the core.
Prepared-core technique
–
An example of Preferential Levallois flake and core.
26.
Control of fire
–
The control of fire by early humans was a turning point in the cultural aspect of human evolution. Fire provided a source of warmth, protection, and a method for cooking food and these cultural advancements allowed for human geographic dispersal, cultural innovations, and changes to diet and behavior. Additionally, creating fire allowed the expansion of activity to proceed into the dark. Claims for the earliest definitive evidence of control of fire by a member of Homo range from 0.2 to 1.7 million years ago, evidence for the controlled use of fire by Homo erectus, beginning some 600,000 years ago, has wide scholarly support. Evidence of widespread control of fire by anatomically modern humans dates to approximately 125,000 years ago, most of the evidence of controlled use of fire during the Lower Paleolithic is uncertain and has limited scholarly support. The inconclusiveness of some of the lies behind the fact that there exist other plausible explanations, such as natural processes. Recent findings strongly support that the earliest known controlled use of fire took place in Wonderwerk Cave, over time, early humans figured out how to create fire. Archaeological evidence, suggests that happened between 700,000 years ago and 120,000 years ago. Findings from the Wonderwerk Cave site, in the Northern Cape province of South Africa, east African sites, such as Chesowanja near Lake Baringo, Koobi Fora, and Olorgesailie in Kenya, show some possible evidence that fire was controlled by early humans. In Chesowanja archaeologists found red clay clasts dated to be from 1.4 Mya and these clasts must have been heated to 400 °C to harden. However, deliberate use of fire in Chesowanja is still debatable because there are reasons to believe that the burning of clay might have happened by chance. In Koobi Fora, sites FxJjzoE and FxJj50 show evidence of control of fire by Homo erectus at 1.5 Mya with findings of reddened sediment that could come from heating at 200–400 °C. A hearth-like depression that could have used to burn bones was found at a site in Olorgesailie. However, it did not contain any charcoal and no signs of fire have been observed, some microscopic charcoal was found, but it could have resulted from a natural brush fire. In Gadeb, Ethiopia, fragments of welded tuff that appeared to have been burned were found in Locality 8E, in the Middle Awash River Valley, cone-shaped depressions of reddish clay were found that could have been formed by temperatures of 200 °C. These features are thought to be burned tree stumps such that the early hominids could have fire away from their habitation site, burned stones are also found in Awash Valley, but volcanic welded tuff is also found in the area which could explain the burned stones. In Xihoudu in Shanxi Province, China, the black, blue, in 1985, a parallel site in China, Yuanmou in the Yunnan Province, archaeologists found blackened mammal bones which date back to 1.7 Mya BP. A site at Bnot Yaakov Bridge, Israel, has claimed to show that H. erectus or H. ergaster controlled fires between 790,000 and 690,000 BP
Control of fire
–
A reconstruction of
Homo erectus, the earliest human species that is known to have controlled fire (reconstruction shown in Westfälisches Landesmuseum, Herne, Germany, in a 2006 exhibition)
Control of fire
–
Zhoukoudian Caves, a
World Heritage Site and an early site of human use of fire in
China
27.
Homo habilis
–
Homo habilis is a species of the tribe Hominini, during the Gelasian and early Calabrian stages of the Pleistocene period, which lived between roughly 2.1 and 1.5 million years ago. LD 350-1 is a fossil jawbone fragment discovered in 2013 which has dated to 2.8 million years ago. There has been debate regarding its placement in the genus Homo rather than the genus Australopithecus. The small size and rather primitive attributes have led experts to propose excluding H. habilis from the genus Homo. These were later classified as milk teeth, and therefore considered difficult to link to taxa unlike permanent teeth, however, in 1959, Mary Leakey recovered the cranium of a young adult which had a small brain, large face, tiny canines and massive chewing teeth. H. habilis was short and had long arms compared to modern humans, however. H. habilis had a capacity slightly less than half of the size of modern humans. Despite the ape-like morphology of the bodies, H. habilis remains are accompanied by primitive stone tools. Homo habilis has often thought to be the ancestor of the more gracile and sophisticated Homo ergaster. New findings in 2007 seemed to confirm the view that H. habilis and H. erectus coexisted, an alternative explanation would be that any ancestral relationship from H. habilis to H. erectus would have to have been cladogenetic rather than anagenetic. Its brain size has been shown to range from 550 cm3 to 687 cm3, a virtual reconstruction published in 2015 estimated the endocranial volume at between 729 and 824 ml, larger than any previously published value. H. habilis brain capacity of around 640 cm³ was on average 50% larger than australopithecines and these hominins were smaller than modern humans, on average standing no more than 1.3 m tall. A fragment of fossilized jawbone, dated to around 2.8 million years ago, was discovered in the Ledi-Geraru research area in Afar Regional State in 2013. The fossil is considered the earliest evidence of the Homo genus known to date, the individual in question lived just after a major climate shift in the region, when forests and waterways were rapidly replaced by arid savannah. One set of remains, discovered by Donald Johanson and Tim White in Olduvai Gorge in 1986, included the important upper and lower limbs, specifically the humerus. Their finding stimulated some debate at the time, locomotor affinities of OH62 have been assessed primarily on the basis of its forelimb to hind limb proportions, which are known to be associated with locomotor behavior among living primates. Initial analyses concentrated on comparisons to the Australopithecus afarensis A. L. 288-1, in most dimensions—measured or estimated—the OH62 upper limb remains equaled or exceeded those of A. L. 288-1, while its lower limb remains appeared to be smaller. In this sense, it was more ‘‘primitive than A. L. 288-1, KNM ER1813 is a relatively complete cranium which dates to 1.9 million years old, discovered at Koobi Fora, Kenya by Kamoya Kimeu in 1973
Homo habilis
–
Skull of Homo Habilis,
Indian Museum -
Paranthropus boisei to right
Homo habilis
Homo habilis
–
KNM ER 1813.
Homo habilis
–
Reconstruction of Homo habilis at the Westfälisches Museum für Archäologie, Herne
28.
Olduvai Gorge
–
Olduvai Gorge, or Oldupai Gorge, in Tanzania is one of the most important paleoanthropological sites in the world, it has proven invaluable in furthering understanding of early human evolution. Homo sapiens is dated to have occupied the site 17,000 years ago, the site is significant in showing the increasing developmental and social complexities in the earliest humans, or hominins, largely as revealed in the production and use of stone tools. And prior to tools, the evidence of scavenging and hunting—highlighted by the presence of gnaw marks that predate cut marks—and of the ratio of meat versus plant material in the hominin diet. The collecting of tools and animal remains in an area is evidence of developing social interaction. All these factors indicate increase in cognitive capacities at the beginning of the period of transitioning to hominin—that is, to human—form. German neurologist Wilhelm Kattwinkel traveled to Olduvai Gorge in 1911, where he observed many fossil bones of an extinct three-toed horse, inspired by Kattwinkels discovery, German geologist Hans Reck led a team to Olduvai in 1913. There, he found remains, but the start of World War I halted his research. In 1929, Louis Leakey visited Reck and viewed the Olduvai fossils, he convinced that Olduvai Gorge held critical information on human origins. Louis and Mary Leakey are responsible for most of the excavations and their finds and research in East Africa and the prior work of Raymond Dart and Robert Broom in South Africa eventually convinced most paleoanthropologists that humans did indeed evolve in Africa. In addition to an abundance of remains the Leakeys found more than 2,000 stone tools and lithic flakes. In 1960, the Leakeys son Jonathan found a jaw fragment that proved to be the first fossil specimen of Homo habilis, researchers have dated Olduvai Gorge layers with radiometric dating of the embedded artifacts, using potassium-argon and argon-argon methodology. Hay studied the Olduvai Gorge and surrounding region between 1961 and 2002 and his findings revealed that the site once contained a large lake, with shores covered by deposits of volcanic ash. Around 500,000 years ago, seismic activity diverted a nearby stream which proceeded to cut down through the sediments, the name Olduvai is a misspelling of Oldupai Gorge, which was adopted as the official name in 2005. Oldupai is the Maasai word for the wild sisal plant Sansevieria ehrenbergii, Homo habilis occupied Olduvai from 1.9 mya. The australopithecine Paranthropus boisei was found to occupy the site from approximately 1.8 until 1.2 mya, remains of Homo erectus have been dated at the site from 1.2 mya until 700,000 years ago. Homo sapiens came to occupy the gorge some 17,000 years ago, in the 1930s, as Mary and Louis Leakey opted to search for stone tools in East Africa, many, if not most, scholars were skeptical that Africa was the place where humans evolved. The Leakeys soon turned the evidence that confirmed their intuition and they found stone tools in the lowest geological beds. These tools presented both shaped edges and sharp points, and lithic flakes—struck off the stone in the intentional shaping of those points
Olduvai Gorge
–
Olduvai Gorge
Olduvai Gorge
–
Olduvai Gorge from space
Olduvai Gorge
–
Close-up of monolith
29.
Homo
–
On January 1,2009, it was merged with other ombudsman officers into the new Discrimination Ombudsman. HomO was the most recently instituted Swedish ombudsman, in the sense of a government official who addresses the complaints of individual citizens, HomO had the status of a government agency. In 2005 it received around 8 million SEK in government funding, HomO was the officially mandated short form, but is not a true acronym or abbreviation. Instead the word alludes to both homo = homosexual and to traditional Swedish ombudsman abbreviations which do expand into descriptive terms, the HomO office also took a number of initiatives of its own and submitted parliamentary proposals, most recently for a gender neutral marriage act. LGBT rights in Sweden List of LGBT rights organisations Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights, RFSL Official site for HomO
Homo
30.
Australopithecine
–
Australopithecines are generally all species in the related Australopithecus and Paranthropus genera, and it typically includes Kenyanthropus, Ardipithecus, and Praeanthropus. All these related species are now sometimes collectively classified as a subtribe of the Hominini tribe called Australopithecina and they are the extinct, close relatives of humans and, with the extant genus Homo, comprise the human clade. Members of the clade, i. e. the Hominini after the split from the chimpanzees, are now called homonina. The terms australopithecine, et al. come from a classification as members of a distinct subfamily. Members of Australopithecus are sometimes referred to as the gracile australopithecines, humans may have descended from australopithecine ancestors and the genus Ardipithecus is a possible ancestor of the australopithecines. Phylogeny of subtribe Australopithecina according to Briggs & Crowther 2008, p.124 and they have a high brachial index when compared to other hominins, and they exhibit greater sexual dimorphism than members of Homo or Pan but less so than Gorilla or Pongo. It is thought that they averaged heights of 1. 2–1.5 metres, the brain size may have been 350 cc to 600 cc. Most scientists maintain that one of the species evolved into the Homo genus in Africa around two million years ago. Nearly every possible species has been suggested as a likely candidate, presently, it appears that A. garhi has the potential to occupy this coveted place in paleoanthropology, but the lack of fossil evidence is a serious problem. Another problem presents itself in the fact that it has very difficult to assess which hominid represents the first member of the genus Homo. Without knowing this, it is not possible to determine which species of australopithecine may have been ancestral to Homo, marc Verhaegen has argued that an australopithecine species could have also been ancestral to the Pan genus. A minority held viewpoint among palaeoanthropologists is that australopithecines moved outside of Africa, a notable proponent of this theory is Jens Lorenz Franzen, formerly Head of Paleoanthropology at the Research Institute Senckenberg. In 1957, an Early Pleistocene Chinese fossil tooth of unknown province was described as resembling P. robustus, three fossilized molars from Jianshi, China were later identified as belonging to an Australopithecus species. However further examination questioned this interpretation, Zhang argued the Jianshi teeth, but, Wolpoff notes that in China persistent claims of australopithecine or australopithecine-like remains continue. Dawn of Humanity Human taxonomy Informative lecture on Australopithecines
Australopithecine
31.
Australopithecus garhi
–
The hominin remains are believed to be a human ancestor species and possibly the direct ancestor to the human genus, Homo. Tim White was the scientist to find the first of the key A. garhi fossils in 1996 in the Bouri Formation, the species was confirmed and established as A. garhi on November 20,1997 by the Ethiopian paleoanthropologist Yohannes Haile-Selassie. The species epithet garhi means surprise in the local Afar language, the traits of A. garhi fossils such as BOU-VP-12/130 are somewhat distinctive from traits typically seen in Australopithecus afarensis and Australopithecus africanus. An example of the distinction can be seen comparing the Hadar maxilla to the Bouri specimen of A. garhi. The cranial capacity of A. garhi measures 450cc, the size as other australopithecines. Studies made on the premolars and molar teeth have a few similarities with those of Paranthropus boisei since they are larger than any other form of australopithecine. It has been suggested that if A. garhi is ancestral to Homo the maxillary morphology would have undergone a rapid change in roughly 200,000 and 300,000 years. Few primitive shaped stone tool artifacts closely resembling Olduwan technology were discovered with the A. garhi fossils, the tools are suggested to be older than those acquired by Homo habilis, which is thought to be a possible direct ancestor of more modern hominins. For a long time assumed that only members of early genus Homo had the ability to produce sophisticated tools. However, the ancient tools lack several techniques that are generally seen in later forms Olduwan and Acheulean such as strong rock-outcroppings. In another site in Bouri, Ethiopia, roughly 3,000 stone artifacts had been found to be an estimated 2.5 million years old in age, List of fossil sites List of human evolution fossils Australopithecus garhi. The Smithsonian Institutions Human Origins Program, the Earliest Human Ancestors, New Finds, New Interpretations. Archived from the original on December 23,2010, Australopithecus garhi, A New Species of Early Hominid from Ethiopia. Archived from the original on June 7,2011, Human Timeline – Smithsonian, National Museum of Natural History
Australopithecus garhi
–
Australopithecus garhi Temporal range:
Pliocene
32.
Scavenging
–
Scavenging or Saprophagy is both a carnivorous and a herbivorous feeding behavior in which the scavenger feeds on dead animal and plant material present in its habitat. The eating of carrion from the species is referred to as cannibalism. Scavengers play an important role in the ecosystem by consuming the dead animal, decomposers and detritivores complete this process, by consuming the remains left by scavengers. Obligate scavenging is very rare in the kingdom, due to the difficulty of finding enough carrion without expending too much energy. In vertebrates, only vultures and possibly some pterosaurs are obligate scavengers, well-known invertebrate scavengers of animal material include burying beetles and blowflies, which are obligate scavengers, and yellowjackets. Most scavenging animals are facultative scavengers that gain most of their food through other methods, especially predation. Many large carnivores that hunt regularly, such as hyenas, but also animals rarely thought of as scavengers, such as African lions, leopards, jackals and they may also use their size and ferocity to intimidate the original hunters. Scavenger wild dogs and crows frequently exploit roadkill, scavengers of dead plant material include termites that build nests in grasslands and then collect dead plant material for consumption within the nest. The interaction between scavenging animals and humans is today most commonly in suburban settings with animals such as opossums, polecats. In some African towns and villages, scavenging from hyenas is also common, animals which consume feces, such as dung beetles, are referred to as coprovores. Animals that collect particles of dead organic material of both animal and plant origin are referred to as detritivores. In humans, necrophagy is taboo in most societies, many instances have occurred in history, especially in war times, where necrophagy was a survival behavior. In the 1950s, Louis Binford suggested that humans were obtaining meat via scavenging. In 2010, Dennis Bramble and Daniel Lieberman however proposed that humans used long-distance running to hunt, pursuing a single animal until it died of exhaustion. Such behavior has been suggested as an adaptation to ensure a supply that in turn made large brains possible. The eating of meat, a practice known as anthropophagy, is extremely taboo in almost every culture. Scavenger appears as an occupation in the 1911 Census of England and this job title was used to describe someone who cleans the streets and removes refuse, generally a workman employed by the local public health authority. Young people in developing countries revert to scavenging to develop skills in order to operate in hostile economic contexts
Scavenging
–
Sarcophaga nodosa, a species of
flesh fly feeding on decaying meat.
Scavenging
–
Gyps fulvus eating the carcass of a
red deer in Spain
Scavenging
–
Men scavenging a dead horse during
World War II (at the end of the
Battle of Berlin), on Manfred-von-Richthofen-Straße in
Tempelhof borough, 1945
Scavenging
–
Vultures feed on a carcass of a wildebeest
33.
Frugivorous
–
A frugivore /fruːdʒᵻvɔːr/ is a fruit eater. It can be any type of herbivore or omnivore where fruit is a preferred food type, because approximately 20% of all mammalian herbivores also eat fruit, frugivory is common among mammals. Since frugivores eat a lot of fruit, they are dependent on the abundance. Frugivores can either benefit fruit-producing plants by dispersing seeds, or they can hinder plants by digesting seeds along with the fruits, when both the fruit-producing plant and the frugivore species benefit by fruit-eating behavior, their interaction is called mutualism. Seed dispersal is important for plants because it allows their progeny to move away from their parents over time, the advantages of seed dispersal may have led to the evolution of fleshy fruits, which entice animals to eat the fruits and move the plants seeds from place to place. While many fruit-producing plant species would not disperse far without frugivores, many types of animals are seed dispersers. Mammal and bird species represent the majority of seed-dispersing species, however, frugivorous tortoises, lizards, amphibians, and even fish also disperse seeds. For example, cassowaries are a species because they spread fruit through digestion. While frugivores and fruit-producing plant species are present worldwide, there is evidence that tropical forests have more frugivore seed dispersers than the temperate zone. Frugivore seed dispersal is a phenomenon in many ecosystems. However, it is not a specific type of plant–animal interaction. For example, a species of frugivorous bird may disperse fruits from several species of plants. This lack of specialization could be because fruit availability varies by season and year, furthermore, different seed dispersers tend to disperse seeds to different habitats, at different abundances, and distances, depending on their behavior and numbers. There are a number of characteristics that seem to be adaptive characteristics to attract frugivores. Many animal-dispersed fruits advertise their palatability to animals with bright colors, Fruit pulp is generally rich in water and carbohydrates and low in protein and lipids. However, the nutritional composition of fruits varies widely. The seeds of animal-dispersed fruits are often adapted to survive digestion by frugivores, for example, seeds can become more permeable to water after passage through an animals gut. This leads to higher germination rates, some mistletoe seeds even germinate inside the dispersers intestine
Frugivorous
–
A
Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus)
Frugivorous
–
Carnivores
34.
Omnivorous
–
Omnivore /ˈɒmnivɔər/ is a consumption classification for animals that have the capability to obtain chemical energy and nutrients from materials originating from plant and animal origin. Often, omnivores also have the ability to incorporate food sources such as algae, fungi, omnivores come from diverse backgrounds that often independently evolved sophisticated consumption capabilities. For instance, dogs evolved from primarily carnivorous organisms while pigs evolved from primarily herbivorous organisms, what this means is that physical characteristics are often not reliable indicators of whether an animal has the ability to obtain energy and nutrients from both plant and animal matter. The variety of different animals that are classified as omnivores can be placed into categories depending on their feeding behaviors. Frugivores include maned wolves and orangutans, insectivores include swallows and pink fairy armadillos, granivores include large ground finches, all of these animals are omnivores, yet still fall into special niches in terms of feeding behaviors and preferred foods. Being omnivores gives these animals more food security in times or makes possible living in less consistent environments. The word omnivore derives from the Latin omnis, and vora, from vorare, having been coined by the French, traditionally the definition for omnivory was entirely behavioral by means of simply including both animal and vegetable tissue in the diet. This has subsequently conditioned two context specific definitions, behavioral, This definition is used to specify if a species or individual is actively consuming both plant and animal materials. Physiological, This definition is used in academia to specify species that have the capability to obtain energy. Though Carnivora is a taxon for species classification, no equivalent exists for omnivores. The Carnivora order does not include all species, and not all species within the Carnivora taxon are carnivorous. It is common to find physiological carnivores consuming materials from plants or physiological herbivores consuming material from animals, e. g. felines eating grass, from a behavioral aspect, this would make them omnivores, but from the physiological standpoint, this may be due to zoopharmacognosy. Physiologically, animals must be able to both energy and nutrients from plant and animal materials to be considered omnivorous. For instance, it is documented that animals such as giraffes, camels. Felines, which are regarded as obligate carnivores, occasionally eat grass to regurgitate indigestibles, aid with hemoglobin production. Occasionally, it is found that animals historically classified as carnivorous may deliberately eat plant material, for example, in 2013 it was considered that American alligators may be physiologically omnivorous once investigations had been conducted on why they occasionally eat fruits. It was suggested that alligators probably ate fruits both accidentally but also deliberately, life-history omnivores is a specialized classification given to organisms that change their eating habits during their life cycle. Some species, such as grazing waterfowl like geese, are known to eat animal tissue at one stage of their lives
Omnivorous
–
Most bear species are omnivores
Omnivorous
–
General
Omnivorous
–
Population ecology
Omnivorous
–
Carnivores
35.
Carnivorous
–
Animals that depend solely on animal flesh for their nutrient requirements are called obligate carnivores while those that also consume non-animal food are called facultative carnivores. A carnivore that sits at the top of the chain is termed an apex predator. Plants that capture and digest insects are called carnivorous plants, similarly, fungi that capture microscopic animals are often called carnivorous fungi. The word carnivore sometimes refers to the mammalian order Carnivora, while many Carnivora meet the definition of being meat eaters, not all do, and even fewer are true obligate carnivores. In addition, there are plenty of species that are not members of Carnivora. Outside the animal kingdom, there are several genera containing carnivorous plants, the former are predominantly insectivores, while the latter prey mostly on microscopic invertebrates, such as nematodes, amoebae and springtails. Carnivores are sometimes characterized by the type of prey that they consume, for example, animals that eat insects and similar invertebrates primarily or exclusively are called insectivores, while those that eat fish primarily or exclusively are called piscivores. The first tetrapods, or land-dwelling vertebrates, were piscivorous amphibians known as labyrinthodonts and they gave rise to insectivorous vertebrates and, later, to predators of other tetrapods. Carnivores may alternatively be classified according to the percentage of meat in their diet, obligate carnivores or true carnivores depend on the nutrients found only in animal flesh for their survival. For instance, felids including the cat are obligate carnivores requiring a diet of primarily animal flesh. Characteristics commonly associated with carnivores include organs for capturing and disarticulating prey, in truth, these assumptions may be misleading, as some carnivores do not hunt and are scavengers. Thus they do not have the associated with hunting carnivores. Carnivores have comparatively short digestive systems, as they are not required to break down tough cellulose found in plants, many animals that hunt other animals have evolved eyes that face forward, thus making depth perception possible. This is almost universal among mammalian predators, other predators, like crocodiles, as well as most reptiles and amphibians, have sideways facing eyes and hunt by ambush rather than pursuit. The first vertebrate carnivores were fish, and then amphibians that moved on to land, early tetrapods were large amphibious piscivores. Some scientists assert that Dimetrodon was the first terrestrial vertebrate to develop the curved, serrated teeth that enable a predator to eat prey much larger than itself. While amphibians continued to feed on fish and later insects, reptiles began exploring two new types, tetrapods, and later, plants. Carnivory was a transition from insectivory for medium and large tetrapods
Carnivorous
–
Lions are obligate carnivores. A major component of their diet is the flesh of large
mammals, like this
African buffalo.
Carnivorous
–
The
Venus flytrap, a well known
carnivorous plant
Carnivorous
–
This
Bengal tiger 's sharp
teeth and strong jaws are the classical physical traits expected from carnivorous mammalian
predators
Carnivorous
–
Carnivores
36.
East Africa
–
East Africa or Eastern Africa is the easterly region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics. The first five are included in the African Great Lakes region. Burundi and Rwanda are sometimes considered to be part of Central Africa. Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia – collectively known as the Horn of Africa, Comoros, Mauritius and Seychelles – small island nations in the Indian Ocean. Réunion and Mayotte – French overseas territories also in the Indian Ocean, Mozambique and Madagascar – often considered part of Southern Africa, on the eastern side of the sub-continent. Madagascar has close ties to Southeast Asia and the islands of the Indian Ocean. Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe – often also included in Southern Africa, Egypt, Sudan and South Sudan – collectively part of the Nile Valley. Situated in the portion of the continent, and Egypt. Also members of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa free trade area, the geography of East Africa is often stunning and scenic. Shaped by global plate tectonic forces that have created the East African Rift, East Africa is the site of Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya and it also includes the worlds second largest freshwater lake Lake Victoria, and the worlds second deepest lake Lake Tanganyika. The climate of East Africa is rather atypical of equatorial regions, in fact, on the coast of Somaliland and Puntland, many years can go by without any rain whatsoever. Unusually, most of the falls in two distinct wet seasons, one centred on April and the other in October or November. Annual rainfall here ranges from over 1,600 millimetres on the slopes to around 1,250 millimetres at Addis Ababa and 550 millimetres at Asmara. In the high rainfall can be over 2,500 millimetres. Temperatures in East Africa, except on the hot and generally humid coastal belt, are moderate, with maxima of around 25 °C, at altitudes of above 2,500 metres, frosts are common during the dry season and maxima typically about 21 °C or less. The unique geography and apparent suitability for farming made East Africa a target for European exploration, exploitation and colonialization in the nineteenth century, today, tourism is an important part of the economies of Kenya, Tanzania, Seychelles, and Uganda. The easternmost point of the continent, that is Ras Hafun in Somalia, is of archaeological, historical and economical importance, there are differing theories on whether there was a single exodus or several, a multiple dispersal model involves the Southern Dispersal theory. A growing number of researchers suspect that North Africa was instead the home of the modern humans who first trekked out of the continent
East Africa
–
Image of the region between
Lake Victoria (on the right) and Lakes
Albert,
Kivu and
Tanganyika (from north to south) showing dense vegetation (bright green) and fires (red)
East Africa
–
Eastern Africa (
United Nations Statistics Division subregion)
37.
Quaternary glaciation
–
During this period, ice sheets expanded, notably from out of Antarctica and Greenland, and fluctuating ice sheets occurred elsewhere. It affected oceans, flooding, and biological communities, the ice sheets themselves, by raising the albedo, affect a major feedback on climate cooling. The Quaternary glaciation was the first ice age to be demonstrated in geology and this was done over the 1700s and 1800s CE. Over the last century, extensive field observations have provided evidence that continental glaciers covered large parts of Europe, North America, even before the theory of worldwide glaciation was generally accepted, many observers recognized that more than a single advance and retreat of the ice had occurred. Since then other, earlier ice ages have been identified, the Quaternary glaciation is the last of five known glaciations during Earths history. The other four are the Huronian glaciation, Cryogenian, Andean-Saharan glaciation, over the past 740,000 years there have been eight glacial cycles. The entire Quaternary Period, starting 2.58 Ma, is referred to as an ice age because at least one permanent large ice sheet—the Antarctic ice sheet—has existed continuously, there is uncertainty over how much of Greenland was covered by ice during the previous and earlier interglacials. During the colder episodes—referred to as glacial ice sheets at least 4 km thick at their maximum also existed in Europe, North America. The shorter and warmer intervals between glacials are referred to as interglacials, currently, Earth is in an interglacial period, which marked the beginning of the Holocene epoch. The current interglacial began between 10,000 and 15,000 years ago, which caused the ice sheets from the last glacial period to begin to disappear. Remnants of these last glaciers, now occupying about 10% of the land surface, still exist in Greenland, Antarctica. During the glacial periods, the present hydrologic system was completely interrupted throughout large areas of the world and was modified in others. Due to the volume of ice on land, sea level was approximately 120 meters lower than present, extensive evidence now shows that a number of periods of growth and retreat of continental glaciers occurred during the ice age, called glacials and interglacials. The interglacial periods of climate are represented by buried soil profiles, peat beds. No completely satisfactory theory has been proposed to account for Earths history of glaciation, the cause of glaciation may be related to several simultaneous factors, such as astronomical cycles, atmospheric composition, plate tectonics, and ocean currents. The role of Earths orbital changes in controlling climate was first advanced by James Croll in the late 19th century, later, Milutin Milanković, a Serbian geophysicist, elaborated on the theory and calculated these irregularities in Earths orbit could cause the climatic cycles known as Milankovitch cycles. They are the result of the behavior of several types of cyclical changes in Earths orbital properties. Changes in the eccentricity of Earth occur on a cycle of about 100,000 years
Quaternary glaciation
–
Northern Hemisphere glaciation during the
Last Glacial Maximum. The creation of 3 to 4 km (1.9 to 2.5 mi) thick ice sheets equate to a global sea level drop of about 120 m (390 ft).
38.
Savannah
–
A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland grassland ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to support a herbaceous layer consisting primarily of grasses. Savannas maintain an open canopy despite a high tree density and it is often believed that savannas feature widely spaced, scattered trees. However, in savannas, tree densities are higher and trees are more regularly spaced than in forests. Savanna covers approximately 20% of the Earths land area, the word originally entered English in 1555 as the Latin Zauana, equivalent in the orthography of the times to zavana. Peter Martyr reported it as the name for the plain around Comagre. The accounts are inexact, but this is placed in present-day Madugandí or at points on the nearby Guna Yala coast opposite Ustupo or on Point Mosquitos. These areas are now given over to modern cropland or jungle. The common usage meaning to describe vegetation now conflicts with a simplified yet widespread climatic concept meaning, the divergence has sometimes caused areas such as extensive savannas north and south of the Congo and Amazon Rivers to be excluded from mapped savanna categories. Barrens has been used almost interchangeably with savanna in different parts of North America, sometimes midwestern savanna were described as grassland with trees. Different authors have defined the limits of savanna tree coverage as 5–10%. Two factors common to all environments are rainfall variations from year to year. In the Americas, e. g. in Belize, Central America, savanna vegetation is similar from Mexico to South America, savannas are subject to regular wildfires and the ecosystem appears to be the result of human use of fire. For example, Native Americans created the Pre-Columbian savannas of North America by periodically burning where fire-resistant plants were the dominant species, pine barrens in scattered locations from New Jersey to coastal New England are remnants of these savannas. Aboriginal burning appears to have responsible for the widespread occurrence of savanna in tropical Australia and New Guinea. The maquis shrub savannas of the Mediterranean region were created and maintained by anthropogenic fire. These fires are usually confined to the layer and do little long term damage to mature trees. However, these either kill or suppress tree seedlings, thus preventing the establishment of a continuous tree canopy which would prevent further grass growth
Savannah
–
Typical tropical savanna in Northern
Australia demonstrating the high tree density and regular spacing characteristic of many savannas.
Savannah
–
Prescribed burn; Wisconsin
bur oak savanna
Savannah
–
Oak savanna,
United States
Savannah
–
Acacia savanna,
Taita Hills Wildlife Sanctuary,
Kenya.
39.
Australopithecines
–
Australopithecines are generally all species in the related Australopithecus and Paranthropus genera, and it typically includes Kenyanthropus, Ardipithecus, and Praeanthropus. All these related species are now sometimes collectively classified as a subtribe of the Hominini tribe called Australopithecina and they are the extinct, close relatives of humans and, with the extant genus Homo, comprise the human clade. Members of the clade, i. e. the Hominini after the split from the chimpanzees, are now called homonina. The terms australopithecine, et al. come from a classification as members of a distinct subfamily. Members of Australopithecus are sometimes referred to as the gracile australopithecines, humans may have descended from australopithecine ancestors and the genus Ardipithecus is a possible ancestor of the australopithecines. Phylogeny of subtribe Australopithecina according to Briggs & Crowther 2008, p.124 and they have a high brachial index when compared to other hominins, and they exhibit greater sexual dimorphism than members of Homo or Pan but less so than Gorilla or Pongo. It is thought that they averaged heights of 1. 2–1.5 metres, the brain size may have been 350 cc to 600 cc. Most scientists maintain that one of the species evolved into the Homo genus in Africa around two million years ago. Nearly every possible species has been suggested as a likely candidate, presently, it appears that A. garhi has the potential to occupy this coveted place in paleoanthropology, but the lack of fossil evidence is a serious problem. Another problem presents itself in the fact that it has very difficult to assess which hominid represents the first member of the genus Homo. Without knowing this, it is not possible to determine which species of australopithecine may have been ancestral to Homo, marc Verhaegen has argued that an australopithecine species could have also been ancestral to the Pan genus. A minority held viewpoint among palaeoanthropologists is that australopithecines moved outside of Africa, a notable proponent of this theory is Jens Lorenz Franzen, formerly Head of Paleoanthropology at the Research Institute Senckenberg. In 1957, an Early Pleistocene Chinese fossil tooth of unknown province was described as resembling P. robustus, three fossilized molars from Jianshi, China were later identified as belonging to an Australopithecus species. However further examination questioned this interpretation, Zhang argued the Jianshi teeth, but, Wolpoff notes that in China persistent claims of australopithecine or australopithecine-like remains continue. Dawn of Humanity Human taxonomy Informative lecture on Australopithecines
Australopithecines
40.
Derek Bickerton
–
Derek Bickerton is a linguist and Professor Emeritus at the University of Hawaii, Manoa. He is the father of contemporary artist Ashley Bickerton and his novels have been featured in the works of the Sun Ra Revival Post Krautrock Archestra, through spoken word and musical themes. Bickerton was born in Cheshire in 1926, for twenty-four years he was a Professor of Linguistics at the University of Hawaii, having meanwhile received a Ph. D. in linguistics from the University of Cambridge. The NSF deemed the proposed experiment unethical and refused to fund it, in his book Roots of Language, Bickerton speculates on a theory to answer three questions, How did creole languages originate. How did the language faculty originate as a feature of the human species, using primitive communication faculties, which then evolved in parallel, mental models became shared representations subject to cultural evolution. In Lingua ex Machina he and William Calvin revise this speculative theory by considering the biological foundations of symbolic representation, in Adam’s Tongue, he makes an argument for the origin of language with niche construction as the catalyst. He claims that human language is not on a continuum from a communication system but is a separate entity entirely. Animal communication systems only convey information that relates to individual survival, mating and reproduction, yet above all, an ACS only acts to coerce others within the species and cannot be removed from the present circumstances. Human language on the hand is capable of displacement. Bickerton argues that niche construction by early man allowed this breakthrough from an ACS into language and they had moved into the high-end scavenging niche. This was a niche that required the cooperation of all the humans in a group. By imitating an animal, like a mammoth, one could attempt to convince others to them to the body - a large source of meat. Granted, imitation is iconic, but these instances were an act of displacement in communication since the body could be miles away, over time, the sounds signifying something like a mammoth would be decontextualized and come to resemble something much more closely resembling a word. Displacement, he claims, is the breakthrough that leads to language and he claims that these words allowed the formation of concepts. Words began as the anchors for sensory information and memories about an animal or object. Once the brain had words it could create concepts which came together as a protolanguage, the protolanguage remained much like a pidgin for a million years or more, eventually it went from the “beads-on-a-string” model of speech to a hierarchical structure through Merge. 1963 Dynamics Of A Creole System,1975 Bickerton, Derek, the language bioprogram hypothesis, in, Behavioral and Brain Sciences,7, 173-221. Language and Human Behavior,1995 Lingua ex Machina, Reconciling Darwin and Chomsky with the Human Brain,2000 Bickerton, more than Nature Needs, Language, Mind, and Evolution
Derek Bickerton
–
Conference of Derek Bickerton at the
2004 Universal Forum of Cultures in Barcelona
41.
Animal communication systems
–
Animal communication is the transfer of information from one or a group of animals to one or more other animals that affects the current or future behaviour of the receivers. Information may be sent intentionally, as in a display, or unintentionally. Information may be transferred to an audience of several receivers, Animal communication is a rapidly growing area of study in disciplines including animal behaviour, sociobiology, neurobiology and animal cognition. Many aspects of behaviour, such as symbolic name use, emotional expression, learning. When the information from the changes the behaviour of a receiver. Signalling theory predicts that for a signal to be maintained in the population, signal production by senders and the perception and subsequent response of receivers are thought to coevolve. Signals often involve multiple mechanisms, e. g. both visual and auditory, and for a signal to be understood the behaviour of both sender and receiver require careful study. A notable example is the presentation of a parent herring gull’s bill to its chick as a signal for feeding, like many gulls, the herring gull has a brightly coloured bill, yellow with a red spot on the lower mandible near the tip. The complete signal therefore involves a distinctive feature, the red-spotted bill. While all primates use some form of gesture, Frans de Waal concluded that apes and he tested the hypothesis that gestures evolve into language by studying the gestures of bonobos and chimps. Facial expression, Facial gestures play an important role in animal communication, often a facial gesture is a signal of emotion. Dogs, for example, express anger through snarling and showing their teeth, in alarm their ears perk up, in fear the ears flatten while the dogs expose their teeth slightly and squint their eyes. Gaze following, Social animals coordinate their communication by monitoring of each others head, such behaviour has long been recognized as an important component of communication during human development, and gaze-following has recently received much attention in animals. g. By repositioning themselves to follow a gaze cue when faced with a barrier blocking their view, Color change, Color change can be separated into changes that occur during growth and development, and those triggered by mood, social context, or abiotic factors such as temperature. The latter are seen in many taxa, Some cephalopods, such as the octopus and the cuttlefish, have specialized skin cells that can change the apparent colour, opacity, and reflectiveness of their skin. In addition to their use for camouflage, rapid changes in color are used while hunting. Cuttlefish may display two different signals simultaneously from opposite sides of their body. When a male cuttlefish courts a female in the presence of males, he displays a male pattern facing the female
Animal communication systems
–
A lamb investigates a
rabbit, an example of interspecific communication using body posture and olfaction.
Animal communication systems
–
Bird calls can serve as alarms or keep members of a
flock in contact, while the longer and more complex
bird songs are associated with
courtship and mating.
Animal communication systems
–
This
Chihuahua is baring his teeth to signify an attack is imminent if the photographer comes closer to take his bone
Animal communication systems
–
The apparently excessive eye-spot signalling by the male peacock tail may be
runaway selection
42.
Great apes
–
Several revisions in classifying the great apes have caused the use of the term hominid to vary over time. Its original meaning referred only to humans and their closest non-extant relatives and that restrictive meaning has now been largely assumed by the term hominin, which comprises all members of the human clade after the split from the chimpanzees. The current, 21st-century meaning of hominid includes all the great apes including humans, the most recent common ancestor of all Hominidae lived roughly 14 million years ago, when the ancestors of the orangutans speciated from the ancestral line of the other three genera. Those ancestors of the family Hominidae had already speciated from the family Hylobatidae, in the early Miocene, about 22 million years ago, there were many species of arboreally adapted primitive catarrhines from East Africa, the variety suggests a long history of prior diversification. Fossils at 20 million years ago include fragments attributed to Victoriapithecus, the most recent of these far-flung Miocene apes is Oreopithecus, from the fossil-rich coal beds in northern Italy and dated to 9 million years ago. Species close to the last common ancestor of gorillas, chimpanzees and humans may be represented by Nakalipithecus fossils found in Kenya and Ouranopithecus found in Greece. Molecular evidence suggests that between 8 and 4 million years ago, first the gorillas, and then the split off from the line leading to the humans. Human DNA is approximately 98. 4% identical to that of chimpanzees when comparing single nucleotide polymorphisms, the earliest fossils argued by some to belong to the human lineage are Sahelanthropus tchadensis and Orrorin tugenensis, followed by Ardipithecus, with species Ar. kadabba and Ar. ramidus. The classification of the apes has been revised several times in the last few decades. The original meaning of the referred to only humans and their closest relatives—what is now the modern meaning of the term hominin. And the meaning of the taxon Hominidae changed gradually, leading to a different usage of hominid that today all the great apes including humans. A hominid is a member of the family Hominidae, the apes, orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees. A hominine is a member of the subfamily Homininae, gorillas, chimpanzees, a hominin is a member of the tribe Hominini, Chimpanzees and humans. A homininan is a member of the subtribe Hominina of the tribe Hominini, a human is a member of the genus Homo, of which Homo sapiens is the only extant species, and within that Homo sapiens sapiens is the only surviving subspecies. For each clade it is indicated approximately when newer extant clades emerged, some texts will refer to Homonini as the Hominina branch. Many scientists, including paleoanthropologists, continue to use the term hominid to mean humans, as mentioned, Hominidae was originally the name given to the family of humans and their close relatives, with the other great apes all being placed in a separate family, the Pongidae. However, that eventually made Pongidae paraphyletic because at least one great ape species proved to be more closely related to humans than to other great apes. Most taxonomists today encourage monophyletic groups—this would require, in this case, thus, many biologists now assign Pongo to the family Hominidae
Great apes
Great apes
–
Sumatran orangutan (Pongo abelii)
Great apes
–
A reconstruction of a female
Australopithecus afarensis (
National Museum of Natural History)
Great apes
–
Humans are one of the four
extant hominid genera.
43.
Homo erectus
–
Homo erectus is an extinct species of hominid that lived throughout most of the Pleistocene geological epoch. Its earliest fossil evidence dates to 1.9 million years ago and extends to 70,000 years ago, or, possibly, as recently as 35,000 years ago. It is generally thought that H. erectus originated in Africa and spread from there, migrating throughout Eurasia as far as Georgia, India, Sri Lanka, China, a new debate appeared in 2013, with the documentation of the Dmanisi skulls.58 million years ago. From there it migrated, in part, by 2, the fossil record shows that its development from about 1.8 mya to one mya was widely distributed, in Africa, the Transcaucasus, Indonesia, and in Vietnam, China, and India. The second hypothesis is that H. erectus evolved in Eurasia and they occupied the Dmanisi site from 1.85 million to 1.77 million years ago, which was about the same time or slightly before their earliest evidence in Africa. There are several proposed explanations of the dispersal of H. erectus georgicus—including whether or not Africa is the source), the Dutch anatomist Eugène Dubois was fascinated by Darwins theory of evolution especially as it applied to humankind. In 1886, he set out for Asia—which then was the region accepted as the cradle of evolution despite Darwins theory of African origin. In 1891, his team discovered a human fossil on the island of Java, the Java fossil from Indonesia aroused much public interest. It was dubbed by the press as Java Man, but few scientists accepted Dubois argument that his fossil was the transitional form—the so-called missing link—between apes. Java Man is now classified as Homo erectus, most of the spectacular discoveries of H. erectus next took place at the Zhoukoudian Project, now known as the Peking Man Site, in Zhoukoudian, China. This site was first discovered by Johan Gunnar Andersson in 1921 and was first excavated in 1921, canadian anatomist Davidson Blacks initial description of a lower molar as belonging to a previously unknown species prompted widely publicized interest. Extensive excavations followed, which altogether uncovered 200 human fossils from more than 40 individuals including five nearly complete skullcaps, german anatomist Franz Weidenreich provided much of the detailed description of this material in several monographs published in the journal Palaeontologica Sinica. Throughout much of the 20th century, anthropologists debated the role of H. erectus in human evolution, early in the century, due in part to the discoveries at Java and Zhoukoudian, it was widely accepted that modern humans first evolved in Asia. From the 1950s forward, numerous finds in East Africa confirmed the hypothesis of an African genesis and it is now generally accepted that H. erectus descended from either, 1) the earliest hominin genera, or 2) the earliest Homo-species. East Africa provided sympatric coexistence for H. erectus and H, in the 1950s, archaeologists John T. Robinson and Robert Broom named Telanthropus capensis, Robinson had discovered a jaw fragment in 1949 in Swartkrans, South Africa. Later, Simonetta proposed to re-designate it to Homo erectus, in 1961, Yves Coppens discovered a skull of Tchadanthropus uxoris, then the earliest fossil human discovered in north Africa. It was reported that the fossil had been so eroded by sand that it mimicked the appearance of an australopith. Although at first considered to be a specimen of H. habilis, T. uxoris is no longer considered a valid taxon, and has been subsumed into H. erectus
Homo erectus
Homo erectus
–
Homo erectus,
University of Michigan Museum of Natural History, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Homo erectus
–
Skull of Homo erectus,
Indian Museum
Homo erectus
–
Dmanisi skull 3, Fossils skull
D2700 and D2735 jaw, two of several found in
Dmanisi in the
Georgian Caucasus.
44.
Homo ergaster
–
It is one of the earliest hominins, which are those hominids that comprise the original members and species of the human clade after splitting from the line of the chimpanzees. Homo ergaster is thought to be ancestral to, or as sharing a common ancestor with, or as being the same species as. Some palaeoanthropologists consider H. ergaster to be a variety of H. erectus, that is, others call H. ergaster the direct ancestor of H. erectus, which then emigrated out of Africa into Eurasia and branched into a distinct species. Still others dispense with the specific epithet ergaster and make no distinctions among fossils assigned to erectus. The latest discoveries at Dmanisi, Georgia, suggest that all the groups of early Homo in Africa, including Homo ergaster, are of the same species. The binomial name was published in 1975 by Groves and Mazák, South African palaeontologist John T. Robinson discovered in 1949 a mandible of a new hominin in southern Africa, which he named Telanthropus capensis and which today is classified as Homo ergaster. That taxon was first applied to a mandible found near Lake Rudolf, Kenya, by Colin Groves and Vratislav Mazák in 1975, dubbed KNM-ER992, it became the type-specimen of the species. A near-complete skeleton of H. ergaster, KNM-WT15000, or Turkana Boy, was discovered in 1984 at Lake Turkana by Kamoya Kimeu and it is dated to 1.6 million years ago and is one of the most complete early hominin fossils found to date. Paleoanthropologists debate the defining of H. ergaster and H. erectus as separate species, thus, although Homo ergaster has gained some acceptance as a valid taxon, ergaster and erectus are often identified as separate populations of the larger species H. erectus. Sura et al declared that Homo erectus was a source of multiple events of gene flow to the Eurasian continent. The major implication of the analyses of the Dmanisi skull and the finds at Dmanisi is that all the earliest varieties of Homo are of one species. This implies that H. ergaster is subsumed under the taxon H. erectus, derived features separating it from earlier non-Homo species include reduced sexual dimorphism, a smaller, more orthognathous face, a smaller dental arcade, and a larger cranial capacity. Remains have been found in Tanzania, Ethiopia, Kenya, there are broad divisions in the scientific community re interpreting the development of the earliest species of genus Homo. H. habilis is generally accepted as the ancestor of Homo. However, habiliss status as a species within Homo is particularly contentious. It is unclear what genetic influence H. ergaster had on later hominins, recent genetic analysis has generally supported the recent-Out-of-Africa hypothesis, and that same kind of analysis may in time designate H. ergaster as the ancestor to all later hominins. H. ergaster is believed to have diverged from the lineage of H. habilis by 1.8 million years ago and these early descendants of H. habilis may have been discovered at Dmanisi, Georgia as Homo erectus georgicus. In 2013, a fragment of fossilized jawbone was discovered in the Ledi-Geraru research area in the Afar depression, Ethiopia
Homo ergaster
45.
Hunting
–
Hunting is the practice of killing or trapping animals, or pursuing or tracking them with the intent of doing so. Hunting wildlife or feral animals is most commonly done by humans for food, recreation, to predators that are dangerous to humans or domestic animals. Lawful hunting is distinguished from poaching, which is the killing, trapping or capture of the hunted species. The species that are hunted are referred to as game or prey and are usually mammals, Hunting can also be a means of pest control. However, hunting has also contributed to the endangerment, extirpation and extinction of many animals. The pursuit, capture and release, or capture for food of fish is called fishing, the practice of foraging or gathering materials from plants and mushrooms is also considered separate from hunting. The word hunt serves as both a noun and a verb, the noun has been dated to the early 12th century, act of chasing game, from the verb hunt. The meaning of a body of persons associated for the purpose of hunting with a pack of hounds is first recorded in the 1570s, meaning the act of searching for someone or something is from about 1600. The verb, Old English huntian to chase game, perhaps developed from hunta hunter, is related to hentan to seize, from Proto-Germanic huntojan, the general sense of search diligently is first recorded c. Hunting has a history and may well pre-date the rise of the species Homo sapiens. Evidence from western Kenya suggests that hunting has been occurring for more two million years. Furthermore, evidence exists that hunting may have one of the multiple environmental factors leading to the Holocene extinction of megafauna. North American megafauna extinction was coincidental with the Younger Dryas impact event, however, in other locations such as Australia, humans are thought to have played a very significant role in the extinction of the Australian megafauna that was widespread prior to human occupation. The closest surviving relatives of the species are the two species of Pan, the common chimpanzee and bonobos. Common chimpanzees have a diet that includes troop hunting behaviour based on beta males being led by an alpha male. Bonobos have also observed to occasionally engage in group hunting. With the establishment of language, culture, and religion, hunting became a theme of stories and myths, as well as such as dance. Hunting was a component of hunter-gatherer societies before the domestication of livestock
Hunting
–
Boar hunting,
Tacuinum Sanitatis (a medieval handbook on health and wellbeing) (14th century)
Hunting
–
Mughal aristocrats hunting a
blackbuck alongside an
Asiatic cheetah.
Hunting
–
Saharan rock art
Hunting
–
Inuit walrus hunters
46.
Hunting-gathering
–
A hunter-gatherer is a human living in a society in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, in contrast to agricultural societies, which rely mainly on domesticated species. Hunting and gathering was humanitys first and most successful adaptation, occupying at least 90 percent of human history, following the invention of agriculture, hunter-gatherers who did not change have been displaced or conquered by farming or pastoralist groups in most parts of the world. Only a few contemporary societies are classified as hunter-gatherers, and many supplement their activity with horticulture and/or keeping animals. In the 1970s, Lewis Binford suggested that humans were obtaining food via scavenging. Early humans in the Lower Paleolithic lived in forests and woodlands, which allowed them to collect seafood, eggs, nuts, and fruits besides scavenging. Rather than killing large animals for meat, according to this view and this hypothesis does not necessarily contradict the scavenging hypothesis, both subsistence strategies could have been in use – sequentially, alternating or even simultaneously. It remained the only mode of subsistence until the end of the Mesolithic period some 10,000 years ago and this specialization of work also involved creating specialized tools such as, fishing nets, hooks, and bone harpoons. The transition into the subsequent Neolithic period is defined by the unprecedented development of nascent agricultural practices. Agriculture originated and spread in different areas including the Middle East, Asia, Mesoamerica. Forest gardening was also being used as a production system in various parts of the world over this period. Forest gardens originated in prehistoric times along jungle-clad river banks and in the wet foothills of monsoon regions, in the gradual process of families improving their immediate environment, useful tree and vine species were identified, protected and improved, whilst undesirable species were eliminated. Eventually superior introduced species were selected and incorporated into the gardens, many groups continued their hunter-gatherer ways of life, although their numbers have continually declined, partly as a result of pressure from growing agricultural and pastoral communities. Many of them reside in the world, either in arid regions or tropical forests. Areas that were available to hunter-gatherers were—and continue to be—encroached upon by the settlements of agriculturalists. In the resulting competition for use, hunter-gatherer societies either adopted these practices or moved to other areas. In addition, Jared Diamond has blamed a decline in the availability of wild foods, as the number and size of agricultural societies increased, they expanded into lands traditionally used by hunter-gatherers. As a result of the now near-universal human reliance upon agriculture, archaeologists can use evidence such as stone tool use to track hunter-gatherer activities, including mobility. Most hunter-gatherers are nomadic or semi-nomadic and live in temporary settlements, mobile communities typically construct shelters using impermanent building materials, or they may use natural rock shelters, where they are available
Hunting-gathering
–
A
San man from
Namibia. The San still live full-time the traditional way, as hunter-gatherers.
Hunting-gathering
–
A 19th century
engraving of an
Indigenous Australian encampment.
Hunting-gathering
–
A
Shoshone encampment in the
Wind River Mountains of Wyoming, photographed by Percy Jackson, 1870
Hunting-gathering
–
Three
Indigenous Australians on
Bathurst Island in 1939. According to Peterson (1998), the island was a population isolated for 6,000 years until the eighteenth century. In 1929, three-quarters of the population supported themselves
off the bush.
47.
Niche construction
–
Niche construction is the process in which an organism alters its own environment, often but not always in a manner that increases its chances of survival. Changes that organisms bring about in their worlds that are of no evolutionary or ecological consequence are not examples of niche construction, several biologists have argued that niche construction is as important to evolution as natural selection. The effect of construction is especially pronounced in situations where environmental alterations persist for several generations. Less drastic niche-constructing behaviors are also possible for an organism. This theory, in conjunction with natural selection, shows that organisms inherit two legacies from their ancestors, genes and a modified environment, together, these two evolutionary mechanisms determine a populations fitness and what adaptations those organisms develop in the continuation for their survival. The concept of niche construction has been developed in evolutionary biology since the 1980s and it roots, directly or indirectly, in domains interested in organism-environment interactions as diverse as the Gaia hypothesis, developmental psychology, and cultural evolution. One should not conflate the concept of niche in niche construction with other niche concepts found in the ecological literature, for instance if the Hutchinsonian fundamental niche is conceived as a hypervolume of requirements, then modifying the environment does not in general qualify as a modification of this hypervolume. Organisms can achieve environmental modification in a number of ways, generally, there are considered to be two main categories of niche construction, inceptive and counteractive construction. When an organism is believed to be directly altering its environment then that organism is considered to modifying its environment via inceptive niche construction. When an organism is observed instead attempting to disrupt an already fluctuating variable in the environment then that organism is considered to be using counteractive niche construction, an example of inceptive niche construction is when termites create their nest mounds and permanently alter the environment for successive generations. An example of niche construction is when bees regulate the temperature of their nests. They can alter this temperature by using muscular activity to heat the nests when their cold, in some cases, organisms can actually engage in both types of niche construction at different points in their development or over successive generations. Some other examples of construction are as follows, Earthworms, Through a process of modification. This change in soil chemistry stimulates an increased fitness in earthworm populations, the subsequent chemical composition of soil produced by earthworm activity also benefits the growth of proximal species of plants and other biota present in the soil. Lemon Ants, This species of ants employs a method of suppression that regulates the growth of certain trees. Lemon ants make their homes in the bodies of Duroia hirsuta, to ensure the prevalence of Duroia trees, Lemon ants employ self-derived quantities of formic acid as a tenacious herbicide. The end result alters the composition of their forest habitat drastically by wiping out arboreal species ill-suited for colony habitation, when observed by humans, the subsequent altered ecologies perpetuated by these ants have been termed the Devils Gardens. Beavers, In the construction of their dams, beavers drastically shape, beavers express a clear example of the diverse effects perpetuated by the construction of a niche
Niche construction
–
Beavers hold a very specific biological niche in the ecosystem: constructing dams across river systems.)
Niche construction
–
Leafcutter Ants fill a vital niche in the rainforest ecosystem
Niche construction
–
Niche Construction in Evolutionary Time.
Niche construction
–
The development of sickle cells is believed to have been partially the result of the increased mosquito/malaria rates brought about by standing water from yam cultivation in Africa.
48.
Homo heidelbergensis
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Homo heidelbergensis – also Homo rhodesiensis – is an extinct species of the genus Homo that lived in Africa, Europe and western Asia between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago. The skulls of this species share features with both Homo erectus and anatomically modern Homo sapiens, its brain was nearly as large as that of Homo sapiens. The Sima de los Huesos cave at Atapuerca in northern Spain holds particularly rich layers of deposits that represent an exceptional reserve of data where excavations are still in progress. Neanderthals, Denisovans, and modern humans are all considered to have descended from Homo heidelbergensis that appeared around 700,000 years ago in Africa, fossils have been recovered in Ethiopia, Namibia and South Africa. Between 300,000 and 400,000 years ago a group of Homo heidelbergensis migrated into Europe and West Asia via yet unknown routes, archaeological sites exist in Spain, Italy, France, England, Germany, Hungary and Greece. Another Homo heidelbergensis group ventured eastwards into continental Asia, eventually developing into Denisovans, some researchers suggest that the finds associated to Homo heidelbergensis are mere variants of Homo erectus. Both Homo antecessor and Homo heidelbergensis are likely to have descended from the very similar Homo ergaster from Africa. The anatomy is more primitive than that of Neanderthal, but the harmoniously rounded dental arch. Heidelbergensis from other known human species, the species name heidelbergensis only experienced a renaissance with the many discoveries of the past 30 years and appears now to be recognized by an increasing number of researchers. Any form of segregation is considered arbitrary, which is why these researchers forgo the name H. heidelbergensis altogether. Paleoanthropologists often refer to the surrounding the specimens, their dating and morphology, as “the muddle in the middle. ”The fact that there seem to be no clear transitions makes it difficult to draw up a list of unique characteristics of H. heidelbergensis that distinguishes it from H. erectus. In general, the show a continuation of evolutionary trends that are emerging from around the Lower into Middle Pleistocene. Along with changes in the robustness of cranial and dental features, male H. heidelbergensis averaged about 1.75 m tall and 62 kg. Females averaged 1.57 m and 51 kg, the available space would allow for a far greater flexibility of development and It shows a combination of features, which has been previously found neither on a recent nor a fossil human mandible. The actual proof that we are dealing with human parts here only lies within the nature of the dentition, the completely preserved teeth bear the stamp human as evidence, The canines show no trace of a stronger expression in relation to the other groups of teeth. They suggest a moderate and harmonious co-evolution, as it is the case in recent humans, recent findings in a pit in Atapuerca of 28 human skeletons suggest that H. heidelbergensis might have been the first species of the Homo genus to bury its dead. Steven Mithen believes that H. heidelbergensis, like its descendant H. neanderthalensis, acquired a pre-linguistic system of communication. No forms of art have been uncovered, although red ochre, the morphology of the outer and middle ear suggests they had an auditory sensitivity similar to modern humans and very different from chimpanzees
Homo heidelbergensis
Homo heidelbergensis
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A reconstruction of Homo heidelbergensis.
Homo heidelbergensis
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Homo heidelbergensis:
Steinheim skull replica
Homo heidelbergensis
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Replica of the
type specimen from
Mauer
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Malaysia
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Malaysia is a federal constitutional monarchy located in Southeast Asia. Peninsular Malaysia shares a land and maritime border with Thailand and maritime borders with Singapore, Vietnam, East Malaysia shares land and maritime borders with Brunei and Indonesia and a maritime border with the Philippines and Vietnam. The capital city is Kuala Lumpur, while Putrajaya is the seat of the federal government, with a population of over 30 million, Malaysia is the 44th most populous country. The southernmost point of continental Eurasia, Tanjung Piai, is in Malaysia, located in the tropics, Malaysia is one of 17 megadiverse countries on earth, with large numbers of endemic species. Malaysia has its origins in the Malay kingdoms present in the area which, from the 18th century, the first British territories were known as the Straits Settlements, whose establishment was followed by the Malay kingdoms becoming British protectorates. The territories on Peninsular Malaysia were first unified as the Malayan Union in 1946, Malaya was restructured as the Federation of Malaya in 1948, and achieved independence on 31 August 1957. Malaya united with North Borneo, Sarawak, and Singapore on 16 September 1963 to become Malaysia, less than two years later in 1965, Singapore was expelled from the federation. The country is multi-ethnic and multi-cultural, which plays a role in politics. About half the population is ethnically Malay, with minorities of Malaysian Chinese, Malaysian Indians. The constitution declares Islam the state religion while allowing freedom of religion for non-Muslims, the government system is closely modelled on the Westminster parliamentary system and the legal system is based on common law. The head of state is the king, known as the Yang di-Pertuan Agong and he is an elected monarch chosen from the hereditary rulers of the nine Malay states every five years. The head of government is the prime minister, since its independence, Malaysia has had one of the best economic records in Asia, with its GDP growing at an average of 6. 5% per annum for almost 50 years. The economy has traditionally been fuelled by its resources, but is expanding in the sectors of science, tourism, commerce. Today, Malaysia has a newly industrialised market economy, ranked third largest in Southeast Asia, the name Malaysia is a combination of the word Malay and the Latin-Greek suffix -sia/-σία. The word melayu in Malay may derive from the Tamil words malai and ur meaning mountain and city, land, malayadvipa was the word used by ancient Indian traders when referring to the Malay Peninsula. Whether or not it originated from these roots, the word melayu or mlayu may have used in early Malay/Javanese to mean to steadily accelerate or run. This term was applied to describe the current of the river Melayu in Sumatra. The name was adopted by the Melayu Kingdom that existed in the seventh century on Sumatra
Malaysia
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"Malaysia" used as a label for the
Malay Archipelago on a 1914 map from a United States atlas
Malaysia
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Flag
Malaysia
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The Dutch fleet battling with the Portuguese armada as part of the
Dutch–Portuguese War in 1606 to gain control of
Malacca.
Malaysia
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Statue of
Francis Light in the
Fort Cornwallis of Penang, marking the first step of
British expansion in the 18th century over the Malay Archipelago.
50.
Peking Man
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Peking Man, Homo erectus pekinensis, is an example of Homo erectus. Their age is estimated to be between 500,000 and 300,000 years old and they are thought to belong to an adult man, an adult woman and a young adult, with brain sizes of 1225 cc,1015 cc and 1030 cc respectively. These pieces were found at a level, and appear to be more modern than the other skullcaps. Most of the study on these fossils was done by Davidson Black until his death in 1934, pierre Teilhard de Chardin took over until Franz Weidenreich replaced him and studied the fossils until he left China in 1941. The original fossils disappeared in 1941, but excellent casts and descriptions remain, swedish geologist Johan Gunnar Andersson and American palaeontologist Walter W. Granger came to Zhoukoudian, China in search of prehistoric fossils in 1921. They were directed to the site at Dragon Bone Hill by local quarrymen, immediately realising the importance of this find he turned to his colleague and announced, Here is primitive man, now all we have to do is find him. Excavation work was begun immediately by Anderssons assistant Austrian palaeontologist Otto Zdansky and he returned to the site in 1923, and materials excavated in the two subsequent digs were sent to Uppsala University in Sweden for analysis. In 1926 Andersson announced the discovery of two human molars in this material, and Zdansky published his findings, swedish palaeontologist Anders Birger Bohlin unearthed a tooth that fall, and Black placed it in a gold locket on his watch chain. A lower jaw, several teeth, and skull fragments were unearthed in 1928, Black presented these finds to the foundation and was rewarded with an $80,000 grant that he used to establish the Cenozoic Research Laboratory. Excavations at the site under the supervision of Chinese archaeologists Yang Zhongjian, Pei Wenzhong and these excavations came to an end in 1937 with the Japanese invasion. Excavations at Zhoukoudian resumed after the war, the Peking Man Site at Zhoukoudian was listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1987. New excavations were started at the site in June 2009, the first specimens of Homo erectus had been found in Java in 1891 by Eugene Dubois, but were dismissed by many as the remains of a deformed ape. Contiguous findings of remains and evidence of fire and tool usage. The analysis of the remains of Peking Man led to the claim that the Zhoukoudian and this interpretation was challenged in 1985 by Lewis Binford, who claimed that Peking Man was a scavenger, not a hunter. Following the discovery of specimens of Lantian Man starting in 1963, the next year Lantian man was reclassified as a subspecies of Homo erectus. Franz Weidenreich considered Peking Man as an ancestor and specifically an ancestor of the Chinese people. Chinese writings on evolution in 1950 generally considered evidence insufficient to determine whether Peking Man was ancestral to modern humans. By 1952 Peking Man was considered by some to be an ancestor of modern humans
Peking Man
Peking Man
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Bust of Peking Man on permanent display at
Zhoukoudian
