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Homo erectus by W. Henry Gilbert,Berhane Asfaw Pdf
This volume, the first in a series devoted to the paleoanthropological resources of the Middle Awash Valley of Ethiopia, studies Homo erectus, a close relative of Homo sapiens. Written by a team of highly regarded scholars, this book provides the first detailed descriptions, photographs, and analysis of the fossil vertebrates—from elephants and hyenas to humans—from the Daka Member of the Bouri Formation of the Afar, a place renowned for an abundant and lengthy record of human ancestors. These fossils contribute to our understanding human evolution, and the associated fauna provide new information about the distribution and variability of Pleistocene mammals in eastern Africa. The contributors are all active researchers who worked on the paleontology and geology of these unique deposits. Here they have combined their disparate efforts into a single volume, making the original research results accessible to both the specialist and the general reader. The volume synthesizes environmental backdrop and anatomical detail to open an unparalleled window on the African Pleistocene and its inhabitants.
The Nariokotome Homo Erectus Skeleton by Alan Walker,Richard E. Leakey Pdf
The discovery of the Nariokotome Homo erectus skeleton, a milestone in the history of paleoanthropology, is fully documented in this book. Beautifully illustrated, it takes us into the field and the laboratory, and into the far reaches of prehistory, to show us what the fossilized remains of a young boy can tell us about our beginnings.
How Language Began: The Story of Humanity's Greatest Invention by Daniel L. Everett Pdf
How Language Began revolutionizes our understanding of the one tool that has allowed us to become the "lords of the planet." Mankind has a distinct advantage over other terrestrial species: we talk to one another. But how did we acquire the most advanced form of communication on Earth? Daniel L. Everett, a “bombshell” linguist and “instant folk hero” (Tom Wolfe, Harper’s), provides in this sweeping history a comprehensive examination of the evolutionary story of language, from the earliest speaking attempts by hominids to the more than seven thousand languages that exist today. Although fossil hunters and linguists have brought us closer to unearthing the true origins of language, Daniel Everett’s discoveries have upended the contemporary linguistic world, reverberating far beyond academic circles. While conducting field research in the Amazonian rainforest, Everett came across an age-old language nestled amongst a tribe of hunter-gatherers. Challenging long-standing principles in the field, Everett now builds on the theory that language was not intrinsic to our species. In order to truly understand its origins, a more interdisciplinary approach is needed—one that accounts as much for our propensity for culture as it does our biological makeup. Language began, Everett theorizes, with Homo Erectus, who catalyzed words through culturally invented symbols. Early humans, as their brains grew larger, incorporated gestures and voice intonations to communicate, all of which built on each other for 60,000 generations. Tracing crucial shifts and developments across the ages, Everett breaks down every component of speech, from harnessing control of more than a hundred respiratory muscles in the larynx and diaphragm, to mastering the use of the tongue. Moving on from biology to execution, Everett explores why elements such as grammar and storytelling are not nearly as critical to language as one might suspect. In the book’s final section, Cultural Evolution of Language, Everett takes the ever-debated “language gap” to task, delving into the chasm that separates “us” from “the animals.” He approaches the subject from various disciplines, including anthropology, neuroscience, and archaeology, to reveal that it was social complexity, as well as cultural, physiological, and neurological superiority, that allowed humans—with our clawless hands, breakable bones, and soft skin—to become the apex predator. How Language Began ultimately explains what we know, what we’d like to know, and what we likely never will know about how humans went from mere communication to language. Based on nearly forty years of fieldwork, Everett debunks long-held theories by some of history’s greatest thinkers, from Plato to Chomsky. The result is an invaluable study of what makes us human.
Homo Erectus by Charles River Charles River Editors Pdf
*Includes pictures *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading Most scientists believe the evolution of humans has a history as long as life itself. Anatomically modern humans and all other life that has existed on the planet first came about from the single-celled microorganisms that emerged approximately 4 billion years ago. Through the processes of mutation and natural selection, all forms of life developed, and this continuous lineage of life makes it difficult to say precisely when one species completely separates from another. In other words, scientists still debate when a human became a human rather than the ancestor species that came before. Around 1.8 million years ago, a third species of Homo appeared in the fossil record. H. erectus would have shared the landscape for a time with H. habilis and H. rudolfensis, but the fossils of H. erectus are not limited to eastern and southern Africa. Instead, they are found across Africa and parts of mainland and insular Asia. This is the first species of Homo to be found outside Africa (Rightmire 1993). Features of H. erectus suggest an evolution toward modern humans, and the features which separate H. erectus from the other Homo species are found in the skull. The size of the brain was approximately 900 cc, making it larger than the brain size of H. habilis. H. erectus would not have the largest brain capacity of the Homo genus during its existence, with the emergence of H. heidelbergensis approximately 800,000 years ago. The larger brain size may not matter much when the size of the brain is considered with the size of the body, which also increased. While the facial features of H. erectus would have made them noticeably different if they were alive today, their postcranial morphology may have been similar to modern humans. A key difference is the density or thickness of the bones; in H. erectus the limb bones are more robust, but otherwise they appear very similar to modern humans. The length of the hindlimbs in relation to the arms is similar to modern humans, which means that H. erectus may have been able to walk in a similar way. (Richtmire 1993: 57-84). This may or may not be linked with the widespread distribution of H. erectus. Perhaps more important for H. erectus than simply being able to walk out of Africa would have been the ability to adapt to changing climates and essentially modify the environment around them. Most notably, the major advantage that H. erectus would have had is the ability to control fire. This skill, which no other animal has mastered, helped H. erectus travel across the world, and it may date as far back as 1.7 million years ago to as recently as 200,000 years ago. Most scientists agree that H. erectus was able to control fire by at least 600,000 years ago, and anatomically modern humans were able to create and use fire 150,000 years ago. The early species of Homo would have been familiar with the effects of fire, from the devastation it could cause to jungle habitats to the rapid spreading wildfires of the savanna. These fires would have killed and burned animals that early Homo would have found while scavenging after a natural fire. Homo erectus: The History of the Archaic Humans Who Left Africa and Formed the First Hunter-Gatherer Societies examines how H. erectus evolved, and what their lives were like. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about H. erectus like never before.
Where did we come from? What were our ancestors like? Why do we differ from other animals? How do scientists trace and construct our evolutionary history? The Evolution of Our Tribe: Hominini provides answers to these questions and more. The book explores the field of paleoanthropology past and present. Beginning over 65 million years ago, Welker traces the evolution of our species, the environments and selective forces that shaped our ancestors, their physical and cultural adaptations, and the people and places involved with their discovery and study. It is designed as a textbook for a course on Human Evolution but can also serve as an introductory text for relevant sections of courses in Biological or General Anthropology or general interest. It is both a comprehensive technical reference for relevant terms, theories, methods, and species and an overview of the people, places, and discoveries that have imbued paleoanthropology with such fascination, romance, and mystery.
This study proposes to examine the case of Homo erectus whose phylogenetic position and taxonomic status remain unclear despite considerable research aimed at identifying this taxon from archaic forms.
In this book we will investigate how "erectus" got here, what he was like, how he fits into the real timeline of human development, the strangeness of Bonobo and Chimpanzee, and how the Erectus fits in with the discovery of giant men walking with dinosaurs and that whole mess. We will travel with them as they are modified and we will review many texts that describe how that came about. You were told about the variants of Neanderthal, but you were not told about the relationship of Erectus to this anomaly of a man and how Homo-Neanderthalis discredits that whole "Out of Africa" theory that tied up human evolution into a neat little bow. If that omission is OK with you, I would suggest you not read this book. If you yearn for truth, I think you will be surprised by what scientists tell us about DNA, evolution, and how we got here. Don't get me wrong, there are many studies out there and it seems like many contradict each other, but more and more they are converging on a more probable history. What you probably learned in school was something called the "Out of Africa" development of mankind so we had better look at this theory that Homo-Erectus popped out a couple million years ago [100-thousand years ago by more accurate timing] and populated the world. Before you think it's going to be an easy road you will find it is not that straight-line evolution you're reading about. Most human types simply vanished. After the Pleistocene Extinction a massive explosion of mutation occurred in man with a second one 5500 years ago, according to Haplotype scientists.. Many times these mutation points are ignored in our classrooms making man's development seem fanciful and suspicious.
Dragon Bone Hill by Noel T. Boaz,Russell L. Ciochon Pdf
"Peking Man," a cave man once thought a great hunter who had first tamed fire, actually was a composite of the gnawed remains of some fifty women, children, and men unfortunate enough to have been the prey of the giant cave hyena. Researching the famous fossil site of Dragon Bone Hill in China, scientists Noel T. Boaz and Russell L. Ciochon retell the story of the cave's unique species of early human, Homo erectus. Boaz and Ciochon take readers on a gripping scientific odyssey. New evidence shows that Homo erectus was an opportunist who rode a tide of environmental change out Africa and into Eurasia, puddle-jumping from one gene pool to the next. Armed with a shaky hold on fire and some sharp rocks, Homo erectus incredibly survived for over 1.5 million years, much longer than our own species Homo sapiens has been on Earth. Tell-tale marks on fossil bones show that the lives of these early humans were brutal, ruled by hunger and who could strike the hardest blow, yet there are fleeting glimpses of human compassion as well. The small brain of Homo erectus and its strangely unchanging culture indicate that the species could not talk. Part of that primitive culture included ritualized aggression, to which the extremely thick skulls of Homo erectus bear mute witness. Both a vivid recreation of the unimagined way of life of a prehistoric species, so similar yet so unlike us, and a fascinating exposition of how modern multidisciplinary research can test hypotheses in human evolution, Dragon Bone Hill is science writing at its best.
From Homo Erectus to Homo Sapiens by Willard W. Olson Pdf
Where did we come from? Every civilization since the dawn of man has asked that question and every one has had its own creation myth to answer it. Every religion, be it ancient or modern, offers a story of the creation of the first man and woman. Science, too, has its own explanation of human origins, an explanation we might presume, based upon objective analysis of all available scientific evidence-but is it? In The Descent of Man, Darwin speculated modern humans arose in Africa to eventually populate the earth. This served as the basis for the now widely accepted contemporary theory of Recent African Origins, also known as (RAO). As a consequence of long term funding of research by the National Geographic Society and others, RAO has received widespread media exposure in both print media and television documentaries. If you've seen one of these documentaries, you will have heard of it. Based upon this, one might naturally assume RAO to be the only theory put forward by reputable anthropological researchers to account for the extinction of Homo erectus and advent of Homo sapiens, but to do so would be wrong. RAO is not the only possible explanation of human origin. There is another theory, the Multi-Regional Hypothesis (MRH), that better accounts for all available evidence. Why then, has it been ignored in favor of the RAO? RAO carefully interprets available evidence to avoid offending any of the groups that must not be offended in today's political climate in order to secure continued funding and thus proves itself politicized science at its most egregious. From Homo Erectus To Homo Sapiens will explain in detail, point by point, why the Multi-Regional Hypothesis (MRH) better interprets all available evidence- including neurological, genetic, biological, fossil, meteorological and anthropological-than does RAO. Each topic will be examined in detail and in terms the layperson can understand, but more than that, it is the author's hope that the reader will find the evidence herein not only accessible, but germane to his own life, for if we, the family of man, are to survive as a species, we must understand not only where we are going, but the truth about our origins.
In this stunningly original book, Richard Wrangham argues that it was cooking that caused the extraordinary transformation of our ancestors from apelike beings to Homo erectus. At the heart of Catching Fire lies an explosive new idea: the habit of eating cooked rather than raw food permitted the digestive tract to shrink and the human brain to grow, helped structure human society, and created the male-female division of labour. As our ancestors adapted to using fire, humans emerged as "the cooking apes". Covering everything from food-labelling and overweight pets to raw-food faddists, Catching Fire offers a startlingly original argument about how we came to be the social, intelligent, and sexual species we are today. "This notion is surprising, fresh and, in the hands of Richard Wrangham, utterly persuasive ... Big, new ideas do not come along often in evolution these days, but this is one." -Matt Ridley, author of Genome
Frederick E. Grine,John G Fleagle,Richard E. Leakey
Author : Frederick E. Grine,John G Fleagle,Richard E. Leakey Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media Page : 220 pages File Size : 49,7 Mb Release : 2009-05-24 Category : Social Science ISBN : 9781402099809
The First Humans by Frederick E. Grine,John G Fleagle,Richard E. Leakey Pdf
There are some issues in human paleontology that seem to be timeless. Most deal with the origin and early evolution of our own genus – something about which we should care. Some of these issues pertain to taxonomy and systematics. How many species of Homo were there in the Pliocene and Pleistocene? How do we identify the earliest members the genus Homo? If there is more than one Plio-Pleistocene species, how do they relate to one another, and where and when did they evolve? Other issues relate to questions about body size, proportions and the functional adaptations of the locomotor skeleton. When did the human postcranial “Bauplan” evolve, and for what reasons? What behaviors (and what behavioral limitations) can be inferred from the postcranial bones that have been attributed to Homo habilis and Homo erectus? Still other issues relate to growth, development and life history strategies, and the biological and archeological evidence for diet and behavior in early Homo. It is often argued that dietary change played an important role in the origin and early evolution of our genus, with stone tools opening up scavenging and hunting opportunities that would have added meat protein to the diet of Homo. Still other issues relate to the environmental and climatic context in which this genus evolved.
Homo Erectus by W. Henry Gilbert,Berhane Asfaw Pdf
"Reports on one of the most exciting finds in recent years and fills a major gap in the fossil record of human evolution. It is a major achievement which will be of interest to paleontologists, geologists, stratigraphers, as well as a broader readership of students, scholars, and lay persons interested in human evolution."--Eric Delson, Professor and Chair of Anthropology, Lehman College, City University of New York; and Research Associate, Department of Vertebrate Paleontology, American Museum of Natural History "Certain to be an important, even a standard, resource for the investigation and interpretation of the evolution of humans."--John M. Harris, Chief Curator, George C. Page Museum
