9878175
Description
Flashcards by Lewis Johnson, updated more than 1 year ago
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Created by Lewis Johnson
over 7 years ago
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| Question | Answer |
| Environment | • As the environment gradually changes over thousands and millions of years, natural selection means that characteristics of organisms gradually change to suit the environment (survival of the fittest). • Hominins are different organisms as they have developed a complex culture. This culture includes tool making, hunting techniques, food preparation, art, using language, diet and interaction with other cultures. • Just like how characteristics have changed within the Hominins species, so have the cultures of tool making, obtaining food, and increase of language. • Scientists suggest early hominins lived in an environment where it was considered woodlands or a forest environment. (early hominins were ape like so they used their arms and feet to move about in the forest) |
| Effects of environment on early Hominin evolution | • Temperatures began to fall and forest areas diminished in size, leaving patches of forest separated by increasingly open grasslands. • Many arboreal animals would not be able to survive. • However, some of the features that help apes live in trees also allow for limited bipedalism on the ground. • As the forests thinned and trees got farther apart, there were more open spaces. • In this situation, natural selection may have favoured apes that were better at bipedal walking due to the limited trees. Those apes then evolved into the early hominins. • As African forests were replaced by grasslands, food supplies became more limited. • At this time about 2.5 million years ago, the Australopithecines were evolving from the earliest of the Hominins. |
| Effects of environment on early Hominin evolution Advantages of Erect Posture | • Natural selection favoured individuals with a more erect stance who were able to move bipedally across the expanding grasslands. • The advantages of erect stance and the bipedal locomotion that evolved later are: → An increased range of vision for detecting prey and predators at a greater distance. → Increased size in stature for deterring of predators (If you are closer to the ground you are less threatening then someone who may be 6 foot tall etc) → Hands are free for carrying food and perhaps for tool use. → Hominins have a higher reach when picking fruit from trees. → When humans stand vertically, the sun would strike a smaller fraction of the body, helping to avoid overheating. and since the upper body is above the ground there is move air to circulate to help cool the body/skin. |
| Anatomical Features Australopithecus Afarensis | |
| Anatomical Features Australopithecus Africanus | |
| Anatomical Features Homo Habilis | |
| Anatomical Features Paranthropus Robustus | |
| Anatomical Features Homo Erectus | |
| Anatomical Features Homo Neanderthalensis | |
| Anatomical Features Homo Sapiens | |
| Comparision table of primitive and modern anatomical features | |
| Comparison table of Anatomical trends in Hominin evolution |
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