Deck 3: Early Hominins

Question 1

What was the Lower Paleolithic?

Answer 1

This was the period during which early hominins Paranthropus and Homo began making stone tools. In Africa, it is often called the Early Stone Age. It includes two major tool industries: the Oldowan and the Acheulian. It covers the time between two-and-a-half million years ago and roughly 200,000 years ago.

Question 2

What is lithic analysis?

Answer 2

The archaeological study of stone tools is known as lithic analysis. When looking at stone tools, archaeologists see not only formal properties of the artifact (color, shape, size, and weight) but also evidence of how the tool was manufactured and used.

Question 3

The first Homo erectus fossils found on the island of Java were found by__________.

A) Mary Leakey
B) Raymon Dart
C) Donald Johanson
D) Eugene Duboid

Answer 3

D

Question 4

What is the oldest known well-dated archaeological site (1.7-1.8 mya) outside of Africa?

A) Dmanisi
B) Ubeidiya
C) Nihewan Basin
D) Hadar

Question 5

What is the first hominin species to be found outside of Africa?

A) Homo erectus
B) Homo ergaster
C) Homo habilis
D) Homo floresiensis

Question 6

Evidence for controlled use of fire during the Lower Paleolithic ________.

A) has been tentatively identified at Koobi Fora and Chesowanja
B) is a well-established fact
C) is found only outside of Africa
D) consists of piles of fire-cracked rock

Question 7

A ________ is an archaeological site produced by a series of distinct, but brief, occupations.

A) dispersal event
B) palimpsest
C) serial occupancy
D) base camp

Question 8

The stone circle found at the DK site __________.

A) has been dismissed as a hoax
B) was a crude fortification for protection against predators
C) was a raw material stockpile for making tools
D) was an archaic temple

Question 9

Volcanic ash can be dated using what radiometric method?

A) paleomagnetism
B) radiocarbon
C) argon dating
D) luminescence

Question 10

What tool, associated with Homo erectus, is perhaps the most successful tool humans ever invented?

A) Oldowan pebble chopper
B) Acheulian handaxe
C) Mousterian spear point
D) Clovis fluted point

Question 11

How was Raymond Dartʹs ʺkiller apeʺ hypothesis called into question?

Question 12

How can chimpanzees be used as an analogy for hominin hunting activity?

Question 13

Discuss the skeleton found at the site of Nariokotome, Kenya.

Question 14

What are the characteristics that distinguish early hominins from the other hominoids?

Question 15

How can genetics be used to calculate the human phylogeny?

Question 16

Discuss the evidence for early hominins being hunters and/or scavengers. How does their mode of subsistence affect our interpretation of other aspects of their culture?

Question 17

Discuss the evidence for tool-use among non-humans and the implications for the interpretation of early hominin cultural development.

Question 18

How have hoaxes, such as Piltdown and Kama-takamori, affected our interpretation of human biological and cultural evolution?

Question 19

How has culture affected the path of human biological evolution?

Question 20

Discuss the rise and adaptive radiation of the primates during the Miocene.

Question 21

What evidence is there for use of fire among early hominins?

Question 22

What is the home-base/food-sharing model?

Question 23

The earliest major stone tool tradition is known as the __________.

A) Acheulian
B) Oldowan
C) Aurignacian
D) Mousterian

Question 24

Why is Olduvai Gorge a good place to look for fossil hominins?

A) There were more hominins living in that region than in other parts of Africa.
B) There has been little human activity in the area, which preserved the fossils.
C) It has a good depositional environment that preserved fossils.
D) It has always been an arid environment.

Question 25

Only humans have the ability to use tools.

Question 26

The earliest known member of genus Homo is habilis.

Question 27

Australopithecus afarensis footprints at Laetoli indicate that this species walked quadrapedally.

Question 28

Homo habilis is the first primate with a brain size over 500 cc.

Question 29

The earliest clear evidence for walking upright is found in Ardipithecus ramidus.

Question 30

The Miocene era saw a reduction in the number of hominoid species due to predation.

Question 31

Paleoanthropologists study past human societies.

Question 32

According to the molecular clock, chimpanzees and humans diverged before at least four million years ago.

Question 33

Genetic evidence shows that gorillas have the greatest similarity to humans of all the great apes.

Question 34

Mitochondrial DNA is inherited exclusively from the mother.

Question 35

Analysis of tools from the site of Lokalalei indicates that the manufacturing process was relatively simple.

Question 36

Acheulian tools are associated with the australopithecines.

Question 37

Raymond Dart characterized the australopithecines as "brutal hunters."

Question 38

This fossil genus that was ultimately proven to be a fraud.

A) Australopithecus
B) Eoanthropus
C) Ardipithecus
D) Paranthropus

Question 39

This genus represents a robust early hominin with massive molars and chewing muscles that dates to between 2.5-1.4 million years ago.

A) Paranthropus
B) Ardipithecus
C) Australopithecus
D) Sahelanthropous

Question 40

The discovery of footprints at __________ indicated that Australopithecus afarensis was bipedal.

A) Olduvai Gorge
B) Koobi fora
C) Hadar
D) Laetoli

Question 41

Which of the following genera of hominin are found in Asia?

A) Australopithecus
B) Homo
C) Paranthropous
D) Kenyanthropus

Question 42

A(n) ________ is the biological term for a period when there is a rapid increase in the number of species in a single lineage.

A) diaspora
B) exodus
C) dispersal
D) radiation

Question 43

What is the oldest known fossil thought to belong to the hominin lineage?

A) Paranthropus bosei
B) Ardipithecus ramidus
C) Australopithecus afarensis
D) Sahelanthropous tchadensis

Question 44

What taxon includes all members of the human lineage after it split with the chimpanzees?

A) hominin
B) prosimian
C) anthropoid
D) hominoid

Question 45

________ is genetic material inherited exclusively from the mother.

A) Nuclear DNA
B) Nuclear RNA
C) Mitochondrial DNA
D) Mitochondrial RNA

Question 46

Hominins of the genus Paranthropus were the first to disperse out of Africa.

Question 47

Ontogeny is the evolutionary history of a species.