Instructor: Dr. Joyce Parga; Email: j.parga@utoronto.ca Office hours: Tuesdays & Thursdays 3-4 pm (or by appointment); Office: MW 382 Lecture meeting times and location: Tuesdays 1-3 pm in SW 319 Tutorials (labs): 5 Tuesdays across the semester during your 1-hr tutorial section in MW 329 Tutorial TA: Dejana Nikitovic; Email: dejana.nikitovic@mail.utoronto.ca; Office: MW 343 (Note: Tutorials begin in Week 3 on Tuesday May 21. See Tutorial Schedule at end of syllabus.) Course Description: This course will provide a basic introduction to Evolutionary Anthropology and Archaeology, aimed at students with no background in either field. Prerequisites: None Exclusions: ANT100Y, ANT101H Required Readings: All chapters listed below in the lecture schedule refer to the following course textbook, which is available for purchase from the UTSC bookstore: Lewis, B., Jurmain, R., and Kilgore, L., 2012. Understanding Humans: Introduction to Physical Anthropology and Archaeology, 11th edition. Belmont CA: Wadsworth. You can also purchase the text from the publisher as an e-book. Go to: http://www.nelsonbrain.com/shop/isbn/9781111831776 (On Blackboard, there is a PowerPoint file provided by the publisher about buying the e-book – look under “Course Materials”.) Lecture schedule: Following is a planned list of topics to be covered in lecture; note that topics are subject to change and all topics listed may not be covered, but you are responsible for doing all of the readings. Date 7 May 14 May 21 May Lecture Topic Course Intro /What is Anthropology/Evolution Genetics/Processes of Evolution Non-Human Primates/Primate Behaviour…
H. neandertal speech capabilities have proven in recent years to be a task capturing much of the time and research of anthropologist. In the 20th century it was commonly thought that H. neandertal was too brutish and simple to have evolved into modern humans, and had very little modern behavior or capabilities. As the fossil record grew and the technology progressed the scientific community found evidence of modern behavior and possibly speech capabilities, that would portray H. neandertal as the advance subspecies he was instead of the brutish, unintelligent being that had been reinforced through the 20th century.…
The issue of the status of Neanderthal man has been hotly contested in the anthropology world. It is the matter of whether Homo Sapiens are the decedents of Neanderthals or whether they are cousins with a common ancestor. If Neanderthals are considered to be a proper descendent to Homo Sapiens, then they can be rightfully classified as Homo Sapiens Neanderthal. If they are truly a separate species, then they should be classified as Homo Neanderthal.…
Brain Size: Neanderthal people had a brain volume of about 1200 to 1800 cubic centimeters, equal to and even larger than modern human brains. Neanderthal skull reconstructions provide further evidence that they were a separate species to modern humans. Distinctive Neanderthal skull features were established in early infancy. Physical features in skull development, such as the Neanderthal’s receding chin and low, sloping forehead were fixed by the age of two years. Their hyoid bones, involved in speech, were basically identical to humans.…
“In Chapter 1, multiple extinctions happened around the same time. Humans made a huge advancement as they started doing cave paintings, tools, etc. It made them extend to other countries and develop other ideas. As countries started to grow, it led to other countries developing also.”…
How to Think Like a Neandertal is written by Archaeologist Thomas Wynn and Psychologist Frederick L. Coolidge. Throughout the book they dissect the Neandertal way of life, using archaeological evidence and modern comparative studies they try and get into the heads of Neandertals and decipher what they may have been thinking and how they went about their day to day life. Neandertals have been studied extensively, but this book allows the reader to gain a new perspective about who Neandertals might have actually been. Wynn and Coolidge provide a wide array of theories about the inner working of the Neandertal mind. Quite probably, Neandertals were similar to us (modern humans) in many ways; There are undoubtedly many key differences, differences that make us human, but also differences that make Neandertals who they were.…
Major Trends in Hominin Evolution are diet, cultural evolution, encephalization, language and speech Diet; In addition to forcing changes in locomotion that led to walking upright, the increasingly dry climate of east Africa over the last six million years forced changes in the diet of early hominins from the soft fruits of the tropical rain forest to the increasingly fibrous and tough foods available in open habitats.Early hominin diets are reconstructed partly based on the surface areas of the molars and the cross-sectional area of the body of the lower jaw (Collard…
less distinct than our own. This would have presented a language barrier far more vast than any in existence today between two dialects.…
The Pleistocene faced massive evolutions and changes. The Bering land bridge helped large species such as the mammoth, bison, deer and all their relatives to cross over to the Americas. The ancestors of the human species made its big appearance, but most importantly there was the catastrophic extinction event of many species near the end of the Quaternary period. The event had a great effect on the species roaming on Earth. The Quaternary extinction event was caused by factors such as global climate fluctuations which pushed many to adaptation and others to extinction. It’s also plausible that hunters contributed to the Quaternary extinction by causing local extinctions. After the last ice age, the ecosystem was greatly impacted and a new diversity…
We know what we know about history from the examining of fossils, DNA records, , and technological advances overtime.…
Archaeologists are in two camps over what exactly happened. Some believe the Neanderthals died off because of climate change or epidemics. Others think modern humans wiped them out with better tools, clothing or social organization.…
The exact reason for the Pleistocene extinction is still not known, this data implies that top-down forces and humans are the reason the extinction happened. This data is important because during the Anthropocene humans continue to put animals at risk for another extinction. The authors used data from the Pleistocene and recent data to show that high rates of predation and humans could have lead to the extinction. Both carnivores and humans caused the extinction, because both were competing for prey which lead to a lower percentage of megafauna.…
The Paleolithic Era, also known as the “old stone age” was a time where humans foraged hunted wild animals or gathered edible portions of wild plants. Nothing was stored because people were always on the move. they couldn’t take the extra weight. The Neolithic Era or the “new stone age” refers to a period of time where humans began refining their tools for use on domesticated plants and animals. It was during this time that people began to store dry or wet things in pottery due to the surplus of food that had to be stored. The beginning of the Neolithic Era was the Transition to Agriculture. Neolithic peoples wanted to secure themselves a more stable lifestyle with a sure income of food. Women of this time began to nurture plants and men began…
My heart darkened, my bitter rage kindled against an entity I could not comprehend. Every iota and facet of my existence was allocated to survival, every last myofibril of every muscle to push against adversity. I was an unctuous servant of my flesh, a man who rode on the high tide of barbarism to fulfill the basic principles of survival of the fittest. But even Darwin was a man, a faithful citizen of his own laws. Men of science, who boast their Hardy-Weinberg logic like zealous preachers of clandestine religion eager to gain political fervor, claimed that Natural Selection was a mechanism that perpetuated traits most conducive to environmental pressures, but I beg to differ. It is serendipity, it is fate, and it is happenstance. And oft I wonder, why should I be the one to abide, what have I done to endure the destruction of the world and be impervious to age by the infinite passage of time? If only longevity was as humanity hoped it to be. My words are lost in the wind, my works wrought by mine own hands calloused with grief inaudible over the devil’s laugh. I was incompetent, my mind dissolved by apprehension and anxiety into an acidic broth of pain and confusion. The more I learned, the less I knew, the more arrogant and…
For my ancient animal, I chose the cave lion. Since this is for informational things, I will talk about its habitat, what it ate, where its fossils were found, when it was alive,and if it is extinct today.…