Tutorial+1+-+The+search+for+human+origins.

Tutorial - presented by Tash, Kelly and Paul


 * PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS**

**//Ardipithecus ramidus//** 4.4 mya, not sure if bipedal **//Australopithecus anamensis//** 4.2-3.9 mya, bipedal
 * //Australopithecus afarensis//** 3.6-2.9 mya, 'Lucy'
 * //Australopithecus africanus//** 3.0-2.3 mya
 * //Austrlopithecus aethiopicus//** 2.8-2.3 mya, may be ancestor to //A.boisei// & //A.robustus,// 'Black Skull'
 * //Australopithecus garhi//** 2.5 mya, first to manufacture tools & eat meat
 * //Australopithecus boisei//** 2.3-1.4 mya, 'Nutcracker Man'
 * //Australopithecus robustus//** 1.9-1.5 mya, Not considered to be a direct human ancestor

//__**Ardipithecus ramidus**__// approx 122 cm tall not sure if bipedal

bipedal
 * //__Australopithecus anamensis__//**

'Lucy' bipedal light build apelike face - low forehead, bony ridge over eyes, flat nose, no chin protruding jaw with large back teeth smaller canine teeth bipedal - pelvis and leg bones resemble modern mans strong bones females smaller than males (sexual dimorphism) relatively long arms, curved toes/ fingers 107 cm - 152 cm tall cranial capacity - 375-550 cc
 * //__Austalopithecus afarensis__//**

bipedal light build back teeth a little bigger than //A.afarensis// size of canine teeth reduced parabolic jaw long arms more 'human' features, less sexual dimorphism evident brow ridges less prominent, higher forehead and shorter face 110-140 cm tall
 * //__Australopithecus africanus__//**

bipedal robust largest sagittal crest in any known hominoid cranial capacity - 410 cc parts of skull are primitive, mainly the hind portions, resemble //A.afarensis//
 * //__Australopithecus aethiopicus__//**

bipedal large teeth primitive skull
 * //__Australopithecus garhi__//**

bipedal robust similar to //A.robustus// cranial capacity - 530 cc
 * //__Australopithecus boisei__//**

bipedal robust similar body to that of //A.africanus// -larger and more robust teeth and skull face is flat, no forehead and large brow ridges relatively small front teeth, but massive grinding teeth in a large lower jaw sagittal crest course, tough diet, as there was lots of chewing average cranial capacity - 530 cc
 * //__Australopithecus robustus__//**

view image : http://members.cox.net/darkened-past/images/skeletons.jpg (difference between gracile and robust) http://www.evolution-textbook.org/content/free/figures/25_EVOW_Art/10_EVOW_CH25.jpg table http://www.tolweb.org/tree/ToLimages/australopithecus_vs_paranthropus.350a.jpg

GENERAL INFORMATION Inventor(s): Arambourg and Coppens?

Discoverer(s):C. Arambourg and Y. Coppens (disovery of Omo 18 in 1967) then Howell (1974)

Location: East Africa, west of Omo river region (Ethiopia)

Date of discovery: 1967 (Arambourg and Coppens) and 1974 (Howell)

Date of Publication: 1968

Other name(s): Paranthropus aethiopicu; Paraustralopithecus aethiopicus (Arambourg and Coppens 1968)

Date(s): 2.7 - 2.3 million years ago

Locomotion: bipedalism likely

Height: Unknown

Weight: Unknown

Brain size: 410cc

Cranial Features:

Saggital Crest Low forehead Very pronounced prognathism Dished face Parietals flaring out in mastoid region Unflexed cranial base Limbs:

Unknown Pelvis:

Unknown Dentition:

Grinding teeth Comparable to Australopithecus boisei Diet:

Unknown COMMENTS

Little is known about this fossil species and it's not until the discovery of the "black skull" (KN-WT 17000) in 1986 that it started playing an important role for our understanding of the variability of the australopithecines. Its location of the evolutionary tree is still unclear. Some would like to see it as a male A. afarensis with a small cranial capacity while others see it as an early A. boisei. It remains that the specimens we currently have show strong robusticity with a prognathism that is often qualified as extreme.

So it should be considered as crucial from a phylogenic point of view; yet too little is known to fully use its explanatory potential.

SPECIMENS

Omo 18 (mandible)

KNM-WT 17000 (the "black skull")

L55s-33 (mandible fragment from Level C6; Omo deposits North of Lake Turkana)

[|australopithicenes] are about half way dwn the page [|australopithecines] -->Australopithecines ("gracile") appeared about 4 mya, -->Paranthropus ("robust") appeared 2.7 mya (wikipedia) [|...] another really good site -->lived in eastern Africa -->'disappeared' about 1 mya --|>Australopithecines stood about 1-1.5 m in height and had relatively small brains typically measuring between 370 and 515 cm3 (cc). The australopithecine mode of locomotion has been a point of controversy, usually centered around the shape of australopithecine pelvis and knee bones. Early studies believed the australopithecine pelvis was a clear-cut precursor to Homo with human-like bipedality, while later studies of australopithecine locomotion found it to be different from modern apes, but also very different from humans--a distinct mode of locomotion. The most common consensus is that forms of australopithecines were adapted for both tree-climbing and at least semi-upright, if not fully upright walking, having a mode of locomotion different from all extant primates, including humans and modern apes. (from http://www.iscid.org/encyclopedia/Australopithecines, above site)] and yet another useful website...[|australopithecines]... its actually not that bad...

Temporal and Geographical Distribution. http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.an.08.100179.001033 .first australopithecine fossil was found in south africa in early 1920's.

fossils found at Swartkrans. Sterkfontein, Makapansgat, (Australopithecus robustus) East Africa in 1959 in Tanzania (Australopithecus boisei) CHESOWANJA IN Kenya, Kanapoi, Lothagam. Omo river, koobi fora, lake turkana (Astrslopithecus Africanus Hadar Region of East Africa found Lucy.

So far, only one gracile australopithecines has been identified whereas, as many as 4 robust species have been named. In South Africa, the gracile species is australopithecus africanus and the robust australopithecus robustus. The robust australopithecine in East Africa is australopithecus boisei. Naming gracile species in East Africa is more contentious; some apply the name australopithecus africanus to some specimens. The term gracile and robust implies substantial anatomical differences between the 2 forms. One small and delicately built. The other bigger and more massive. Scholars realize the difference between the 2 forms is mainly in the dental and facial adaptations to chewing. The robust forms have bigger grinding teeth, more robust jaws and more bulky chewing muscles and muscle attachments.

Gracile australopithecines shared several traits with modern apes and humans, and were widespread throughout Eastern and Northern Africa by a time between 3.0 and 3.9 million years ago. The earliest evidence of fundamentally bipedal hominids can be observed at the site of Laetoli in Tanzania. These hominid footprints are remarkably similar to modern humans and have been dated as 3.7 million years old. Until recently, the footprints have generally been classified as australopithecine because that had been the only form of pre-human known to have existed in that region at that time; however, some scholars have considered reassigning them to a yet unidentified very early species of the genus Homo[

Robutous..

A partial cranium and mandible of Paranthropus robustus was discovered in 1938 by a schoolboy, Gert Terblanche, at Kromdraai B (70 km south west of Pretoria) in South Africa. It was described as a new genus and species by Robert Broom of the Transvaal Museum. The site has been excavated since 1993 by Francis Thackeray of the Transvaal Museum. A date of at least 1.95 million years has been obtained for Kromdraai B. Paranthropus boisei was discovered by Mary Leakey on July 17, 1959, at the FLK Bed I site of Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania (specimen OH5). Mary was working alone, as Louis was ill in camp. She rushed back to camp and at the news Louis made a remarkable recovery. They refrained from excavating until Des Bartlett had photographed the site. In his notes Louis recorded a first name, Titanohomo mirabilis, reflecting an initial impression of close human affinity. Louis and Mary began to call it "Dear Boy". Recovery was halted on August 7. Dear Boy was in context with Olduwan tools and animal bones. The fossil was published in Nature dated August 15, 1959, but due to a strike of the printers the issue was not released until September. In it Louis placed the fossil in Broom's Australopithecinae family, creating a new genus for it, Zinjanthropus, species boisei. "Zinj" is an ancient Arabic word for the coast of East Africa and "boisei" referred to Charles Boise, an anthropological benefactor of the Leakeys. Louis based his classification on twenty differences from Australopithecus. Broom had died in 1951 but Dart was still living. He is said to have wept for joy on Louis' behalf on being personally shown Zinj, which Louis and Mary carried around in a tin (later a box). Louis had considered Broom's Paranthropus genus, but rejected it because he believed Zinj was in the Homo ancestral stock but Paranthropus was not. He relied heavily on the larger size of Zinj's canines. At that time palaeoanthropology was in an overall mood to lump and was preaching against splitting. Consequently, the presentation of Zinj during the Fourth Pan-African Congress of Prehistorians in July in the then Belgian Congo, at which Louis was forced to read the delayed Nature article, nearly came to grief for Louis over the creation of a new genus. Dart rescued him with the now famous joke, "... what would have happened if Mrs. Ples had met Dear Boy one dark night." The battle of the name raged on for many years and drove a wedge between Louis and LeGros Clark, Sir Wilfrid from 1955, who took the Paranthropus view. On the other hand it brought the Leakeys and Dr. Melville Bell Grosvenor of the National Geographic Society together. The Leakeys became international figures and had no trouble finding funds from then on. The Zinj question ultimately became part of the Australopithecus/Paranthropus question (which only applied to the robust Australopithecines).

Some sites about culture/lifestyle of Australopithecines:

http://www.wilton.k12.ct.us/whs/lib/student_work/Final%20Folder/Daily%20Life.htm

http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeology/sites/africa/swartkans.html

http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/troufs/anth1602/images/map_aust_sites.gif Australopithecus aethiopicus [map]

http://www.detectingdesign.com/images/EarlyMan/Australopithecus%20africanus.jpg [2]

http://hominid.renecanales.com/Hominids/Paranthropus%20in%20Forest.JPG [3]

IF YOU CAN READ THIS, THEN I (TASH), DID NOT DELETE THE WHOLE PAGE, YEAHHH!! Australopithecine Life: The South African environment was drier 2-3 million years ago than it is now. There were many more grasslands and the food resources were much more limited; this was the probable habitat of the australopithecines. Sites on old living-floors (land surface once occupied by hominids), reveal the existence of home bases - the places where the hunters and foragers searched for food. It has been suggested that hunting on a regular basis (more like a way of life), required greater intelligence and therefore a larger brain because of the need to make tools and to co-operate in the search for food.

Tools: Up until now, there has been no evidence to support the use of fire, but tool use appears to have been common. The tools that they used were Pebble tools such as choppers, scrapers, flakes and chisels. These tools vary in sizing from about the size of a tennis ball (choppers), to about the size of a marble (scrapers and flakes). With use of some of the tools (eg, scraper) effective use can only be achieved through the employment of the precision grip.

Tool use by the australopithecines enables them to exploit a wider range of areas and habitats, which eventually enabled our ancestors to leave Africa and colonise most of the world. The evidence suggests that they left Africa and began to disperse around 2 million years ago.

Making of the tools and co-operative hunting would be very hard without communication, so the early australopithecines had possibly developed a rudimentary language. (Rudimentary: primitive, beginning stages etc.) The existence of a family unit was probably reinforced by this way of life. Many people and authorities have speculated about the lifestyle of australopithecines. Female: had an increased role in caring for the children as the period that the infants were dependent became longer. Male: increased responsibility for providing enough food for his mate and children.

These speculations are impossible to substantiate as the fossil evidence does not show how big these family units were, or the exact role of each of its members.

Shelter:They usually found shelter under small trees at the edges of forests, and at night they might have rested in forked tree branches.

Predators: Australopithecines had to deal with the trouble of staying out of their predators' way. The most common predators to them were leopards, saber tooth tigers and crocodiles (apparently).