anthro research
In a March 26, 1999 issue of Science G. A. Clark contributed an article entitled Highly Visible, Curiously Intangible, subtitled modern human origins research. This article tackles the issues surrounding the two competing models of human evolution: the continuity model and the replacement model. Clark borrowed the title from the geneticist Henry Harpending's phrase-"a highly visible, yet intangible field," which Harpeding used to describe the controversial endeavor to trace the modern human origins. Clark states that until scientists make explicit paradigms for both replacement and continuity models, each model supporter camp will interpret common variables differently, to make them "fit" each respective model. Clark (1999) wrote, "We are, in effect, consumers of one another's research conclusions, but we select among alternative sets of research conclusions in accordance with our biases and preconceptions. These biases and preconceptions must be subjected to critical scrutiny. As long as there is no explicit concern with the logic of inference-how we know what we think we know about the past-there can be no consensus" (Clark, 1999, p. 2029). This p
Most experts in the field of anthropology agree that the first erect bipeds, called the early hominids appeared in East Africa about four million years ago. They were given the name Australopithecus-being very primitive hominids, with small craniums and elongated arms, they were not known to have used fire or made tools. Researchers are aware of a few species of early hominids, which gave rise to the genus Homo. According to Roberts (2000), "There are several species of Australopithecine known, dating from 4.4 mya to 1 mya. They have been divided by some investigators into several genera (Ardipithecus, Australopithecus, and Paranthropus), but most anthropologists see these hominids as belonging to one wide-flung genus"(Roberts, 2000). This group of hominids never ventured out of Africa. However, Roberts (2000) reported that the new material discovered in Kenya," prompted the suggestion by Leakey et al. that another genus of hominids existed about 3.5 mya: Kenyanthropus. These authors also think that this genus, rather than Australopithecus as known by the Lucy material, was the precursor of later hominids. They propose that Kenyanthropus was ancestral to Homo rudolfensis, already known from East Africa"(Roberts, 2000). From these early ancestors our genus Homo evolved, first Homo habilis, then 1.6 million years ago, Homo sapien ancestor Homo erectus evolved and left Africa rather promptly. Until recent times it was thought that the H. erectus spread out Africa 1 mya. That meant that after evolving this species spent about one million years wondering around Africa, before migrating to various parts of Europe and Asia. This theory was disproved when Carl Swisher of the Berkley Geochronology Center dated a skull from Java to be 1.8 million years old (Fischman, 2000, p.65). But was H. erectus the first hominid to leave Africa? B. Bower wrote, "An excavation in central Asia has unearthed a pair of 1.7-million-year-old fossil skulls, providing a glimpse of what may have been the first species of human ancestors to journey out of Africa" (Bower, 2000, p.308). The two skulls described by Bower resemble those of Homo ergaster, they showed fewer links to Homo erectus skulls from Java. Leo Gabunia of the Republic of Georgia National Academy of Sciences in Tbilisi argued that H. ergaster, not H. erectus may represent the species, which initially sca
Some common words found in the essay are:
Henry Harpending's, Europe Africa, Europe Levant, East AfricaRoberts, Neanderthals Consequently, Central Europe-Mladec, Africa Bower, Africans Skhul/Qafzeh, Australian Javan, Middle East, replacement model, multiregional model, roberts 2000, bower 2000, wlh 50, modern humans, continuity model, modern human, multiregional continuity model, closest affinities, 2001 p125, erectus skulls java, replacement continuity models, europe middle east, model hominid evolution,
Approximate Word count = 1589
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
|
