Rules: Your answers must be typewritten with at least 12 point font. There is no exact number of pages, but I anticipate that it should be about at least 4 and closer to 8 pages long to make your answers complete.

To answer these questions you may use your books and /or lecture notes. Please cite any reference material you use, including internet sites.

IMPORTANT – Answer the following questions as an individual, not as a group. You cannot turn in the same answers as another student in class, even students you may study with. If you copy, both you and the person you copied will receive a 0, and face the possibility of academic probation for cheating. The TA always catch copied or slightly changed copied essays. If anyone asks to copy or look at your answers, say NO.

Questions

1) A) What morphological traits tell you that a primate was bipedal? What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of bipedalism? Why do you think bipedalism evolved? (3 pts)

B) What fossil evidence (you can include “trace fossils”) and morphological features tell us that Australopithecus anamensis and Australopithecus afarensis were bipedal? (3 points)

2) Louis Leakey consistently argued that Australopithecus was an evolutionary side branch and not directly related to Homo. During 2001, Pickford and Senut made the same claim based on their discovery of Orrorin tugenensis. Meave Leakey’s discovery of Kenyanthropus platyops has also given greater feasability to L.S. B. Leakey’s argument.

A) What is Orrorin tugenensis? How old is it? Where is it from? What evidence exists that it was bipedal? What evidence suggests it may have been more closely related to Homo than was Australopithecus? (3 pts)

B) What is Sahelanthropus? How old is it? Where is if from? What evidence exists they may have been bipedal? (3 pts)

C) What is Ardipithecus ramidus? How old is it? Where is it from? What was its skeleton like and what does it tell us about how it moved around? (3 pts)

D) What is Kenyanthropus platyops? How old it it? Where is it known from? What morphological feature indicates that it was on the line to Homo rather than Australopithecus? (3 pts)

3) Discuss the evolutionary history of the australopithecines in each of the following time periods, including what species were found where, general aspects of their morphology such as whether they were robust or gracile, had large teeth or not, and what they might have been like in terms of what they ate:

A) Early Pliocene (8 points)

B) Middle Pliocene (8 points)

C) Late Pliocene (8 points)

4) What is Homo erectus anyway?

a) What morphological features distinguish Homo erectus from Homo habilis on the one hand and Homo sapiens on the other? (4 points)

b) How are the populations from Africa, Asia, and Dmanisi similar to each other and how are they different? (4 points)
c) What new adaptations – cultural/behavioral adaptations characterize Homo erectus and make it more like Homo sapiens than Homo habilis? (4 points)

5) The anthropological community is very excited about fossil discoveries in the Atapuerca region of Spain.

What are the wonderful new fossils found at Gran Dolina and Sima del Elefante? How old are these sites? What kind of remains were found there and what do they tell us about human evolution? (6 points)

B) What wonderful fossils were found at Sima de los Huesos? How did they get there? How old are they? What do they tell us about the relationship between Homo heidelbergensis and Neanderthals? What do they tell us about the thinking and spiritual abilities of these hominids? (6 points)

6) Who were the Neanderthals, where did they live and when? (3 points) What do skeletal morphology and mitochondrial DNA tell us about the relationship between Neanderthals and Modern humans and the when they may last have shared a common ancestor? (5 points)

7) What is the significance of Homo sapiens idaltu? How old is it, where was it found, what does its morphology tell us about its phylogenetic position, and is there anything interesting about its behavior? (6 points)

8) a) When and where are modern Homo sapiens sapiens fossils first found? b) What morphological and behavioral features distinguish Homo spapiens sapiens from other members of the genus Homo? c) What is so is so special about Homo the Upper Paleolithic? When does it first appear? What characterizes it? What does it tell us about early human cognitive abilities? (6 points)