Deck 9: Archaic Homo

Question 1

What is the most likely explanation of why early Homo left Africa and spread into Eurasia?

A) a hyperspecialization on vegetarian diets
B) the pursuit of meat
C) because Homo's smaller bodies made them more fit for long-distance travel
D) overpopulation in Africa
E) a maladaptation to a more energy-inefficient system of locomotion

Answer 1

the pursuit of meat

Question 2

One fairly complete skull, one large mandible, and two partial skulls were found in the 1990s at the Dmanisi site in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. Dated to 1.7 to 1.77 m.y.a., these fossils

A) suggest a slow spread of early Homo out of Africa and into Eurasia.
B) exhibit no anatomical diversity, unlike the variable anatomically modern humans.
C) establish an undisputed new species, H. rudolfensis.
D) are older than the fossils of the Nariokotome boy found in Kenya.
E) suggest a rapid spread, by 1.77 m.y.a, of early Homo out of Africa and into Eurasia.

Answer 2

suggest a rapid spread, by 1.77 m.y.a, of early Homo out of Africa and into Eurasia.

Question 3

What have researchers learned by looking at the molars and other cranial features of H. erectus, such as a supraorbital torus and an occipital bun?

A) H. erectus was more dependent on tubers than earlier hominins.
B) H. erectus was more dependent on hunting-and the lifestyle it demanded-than were earlier hominins.
C) The chewing apparatus of H. erectus was essentially the same as that of H. habilis.
D) The paucity of dental remains of H. erectus has made it difficult for researchers to say anything significant.
E) H. erectus had yet to make the shift to hunting seen later on with Neandertals.

Answer 3

H. erectus was more dependent on hunting-and the lifestyle it demanded-than were earlier hominins.

Question 4

The fossil finds near Beijing, China (including Zhoukoudian) yielded the remains of more than 40 specimens of

A) H. habilis.
B) H. erectus.
C) archaic Homo sapiens.
D) Neandertals.
E) anatomically modern humans.

Question 5

Which of the following statements about the appearance of Homo habilis is true?

A) H. habilis evolved from A. boisei, the hyperrobust australopithecines.
B) H. habilis demonstrates the adaptive advantage of sedentism.
C) H. habilis exhibits a relatively rapid expansion of cranial capacity.
D) H. habilis shows evidence of a shift from an arboreal to an open-grassland environment.
E) H. habilis represents a gradual shift away from predation to vegetarianism.

Question 6

Which of the following statements describes a key difference between Oldowan and Acheulean tools?

A) Oldowan tools show an increase in size and a focus in being used for hunting.
B) Acheulean tools, such as the hand ax, represent a predetermined shape based on a template in the mind of the toolmaker, suggesting a cognitive leap between earlier hominins and H. erectus.
C) Oldowan tools are based on the production of blades, associated with an increasing range of ways hominins exploited their biological and cultural environments.
D) Acheulean tools show representations of the human form on nonfunctional surfaces.
E) Acheulean tools constitute a move away from wood toward more plastic media like clay.

Question 7

Which of the following statements about Homo erectus fossils is NOT true? H. erectus fossils

A) show a thickening of the skull wall, probably as an adaptation to game hunting and interpersonal violence.
B) indicate increasing hunting proficiency.
C) are often found associated with Acheulean stone tools.
D) have hyperrobust chewing muscles and broad, flat molars.
E) show an increasing reliance on cultural adaptation.

Question 8

Scientists continue to debate the relationship between two Homo fossil finds: KNM-ER 1470, named H. rudolfensis by some, and KNM-ER 1813, generally considered to be an exemplar of H. habilis. Is the smaller KNM-ER 1813 a distinct species? Could it be a female version of KNM-ER 1470, both being simply a female and male pair of the highly variable H. habilis? The only sure conclusion is that

A) females are poorly represented in the hominin fossil record.
B) there is a trend in hominin evolution toward large molars.
C) no hominin fossil younger than 2.5 m.y.a. has exhibited chimplike features.
D) KNM-ER 1470 is more like an australopithecine than a Homo.
E) several different kinds of hominin lived in Africa before and after the advent of Homo.

Question 9

The geological epoch known as the ________ has been considered the epoch of early human life.

A) Pleistocene
B) Cenozoic
C) Mousterian
D) Miocene
E) Würm

Question 10

European fossils and tools have contributed disproportionately to our knowledge and interpretation of early (archaic) H. sapiens. What explains this?

A) that anatomically modern humans evolved in France
B) the richness of data from the Zhoukoudian site
C) the long history of Paleolithic archaeology in Europe relative to other regions in the world
D) that archaic H. sapiens were driven to Europe by the more aggressive Cro-Magnons
E) stratigraphic disturbances caused by glaciers

Question 11

Which of the following is NOT associated with H. erectus?

A) cave painting
B) a massive ridge over the eyebrows
C) more sophisticated toolmaking
D) the use of fire
E) the development of Acheulean tools

Question 12

What is so significant about the recent fossil finds of an H. erectus and an H. habilis from Ileret, Kenya, east of Lake Turkana?

A) They prove that H. erectus and H. habilis coexisted in the same ecological niche and eventually interbred to result in a single species.
B) They confirm that H. habilis evolved from H. erectus.
C) They prove that sexual dimorphism was finally absent as a trend in human evolution by 2 m.y.a.
D) They negate the conventional view held since 1960 that habilis and erectus evolved one after the other. Instead, they lived side by side in eastern Africa for perhaps half a million years.
E) They prove that functional differentiation in toolmaking preceded the advent of Homo.

Question 13

H. erectus is generally associated with which of the following technologies?

A) Neolithic
B) Oldowan
C) Mousterian
D) Acheulean
E) Upper Paleolithic

Question 14

What is the name of the time period that evolved out of the Oldowan, or pebble tool, tradition and lasted until about 15,000 years ago?

A) Oldowan
B) Acheulean
C) Chalcolithic
D) Paleolithic
E) Neolithic

Question 15

Biological and cultural changes enabled H. erectus to exploit a new adaptive strategy-gathering and hunting. This in turn was crucial for H. erectus to

A) diminish the mortality rate due to violent encounters with large animals and other hominins.
B) overcome its greatest challenge: an imperfect bipedal gait.
C) beat out H. habilis in competition for key ecological niches.
D) push the hominin range beyond Africa, into Asia and Europe.
E) bring about the onset of complex language.

Question 16

Archaic H. sapiens (300,000? to 28,000 B.P.) encompass the earliest members of our species, along with

A) H. floresiensis of the Indonesian island of Flores.
B) the Neandertals of Europe and the Middle East and their Neandertal-like contemporaries in Africa and Asia.
C) the Neandertals of China.
D) gorillas and chimps.
E) the late australopithecines of Africa.

Question 17

Which of the following is a difference between Homo erectus and the australopithecines?

A) Homo erectus exhibited full bipedalism.
B) The australopithecines' teeth suggest that they ate a lot more meat.
C) Homo erectus's cranial capacity was much larger.
D) Homo erectus had the largest sagittal crest of any hominin.
E) Homo erectus's mortuary practices are less elaborate.

Question 18

The spread of H. erectus from tropical and subtropical climates into temperate zones was facilitated by all of the following EXCEPT

A) the harnessing of fire.
B) living in rock shelters and caves.
C) blade-toolmaking traditions.
D) increasingly efficient hunting methods.
E) the use of animal skins as clothing.

Question 19

Excavations between Bed I and Bed II at Olduvai suggest that significant changes in technology occurred during a comparatively short 200,000-year period. The tools found illustrate a shift toward functional differentiation, which means that

A) the tools were being made and used for different jobs, such as smashing bones or digging for tubers.
B) the same tools were being used more creatively for a variety of uses.
C) there was a broadening of the range of staples in diet, despite the fact that the tools remained unchanged.
D) males used heavier tools, females lighter ones.
E) some tools were used for utilitarian purposes, whereas others served for ritualistic purposes.

Question 20

Which of the following sites is NOT included in the probable range of H. erectus?

A) Java
B) China
C) South Africa
D) Alaska
E) Europe

Question 21

Which of the following cold-weather adaptations predates the appearance of Neandertals?

A) a stocky anatomy
B) the use of fire
C) wearing clothes probably made from animal skins
D) massive nasal cavities and brow ridges
E) a facial projection

Question 22

Until the recent-and surprising-discovery of H. floresiensis, few scientists

A) could understand how H. erectus, with its chimplike brain size, could develop tool technologies.
B) imagined that a different human species had survived through 12,000 B.P., and possibly even later.
C) believed the theory of multiregional evolution.
D) were convinced to give up the use of the term hominid for the more accurate hominin.
E) traveled to Indonesia.

Question 23

Generations of scientists have debated whether the Neandertals were ancestral to modern Europeans. The current prevailing view, which denies the ancestry, proposes that

A) Neandertals died out because they retained too many australopithecine characteristics that were poorly adapted to the northern latitudes.
B) Neandertals migrated eastward through Siberia and into the Americas until they died out.
C) H. erectus killed off the Neandertals even prior to the emergence of anatomically moderns humans (AMHs).
D) H. erectus split into separate groups, one ancestral to the Neandertals, the other ancestral to AMHs, who first reached Europe around 100,000 B.P., long before Neandertals.
E) modern humans evolved in Africa and eventually colonized Europe, displacing the Neandertals there.

Question 24

H. antecessor, a 780,000-year-old hominin found in Spain's Atapuerca mountains,

A) is the possible common ancestor of the Neandertals and anatomically modern humans.
B) has shocked the scientific community, because these fossils show a very small brain despite evidence of these people's having sophisticated stone technologies.
C) provides conclusive evidence for the usefulness of population genetics.
D) had a brain capacity greater than H. habilis but smaller than A. robustus.
E) was misrepresented in the scientific literature, because its discovery occurred during a time when there was no framework for understanding evolution.

Question 25

The Acheulean tradition is characterized by cobble choppers that were made by removing flakes from one end of a cobble.

Question 26

Which of the following traits does NOT characterize a Neandertal skull?

A) a broad face
B) a large brow ridge
C) huge front teeth
D) huge molars
E) an average cranial capacity larger than that of modern humans

Question 27

Spain's Atapuerca mountains hold one of the richest hominin fossil sites in the world. All of the following have been found in Atapuerca EXCEPT

A) a 1.2 million-year-old jawbone fragment from a species known as Homo antecessor, the oldest hominid fossil ever found in western Europe.
B) a mass grave.
C) the 780,000-year-old remains of H. antecessor, the possible common ancestor of the Neandertals and anatomically modern humans.
D) a rich system of caves that may explain why the area was so inviting for continuous human occupation.
E) the first definitive evidence of human control of fire by 500,000 B.P.

Question 28

What archaic H. sapiens group has a pronounced brow ridge, stocky build, and massive nasal cavities, characteristics that were adaptations to cold weather?

A) H. habilis
B) H. rudolfensis
C) H. erectus
D) Neandertals
E) anatomically modern humans

Question 29

Several different kinds of hominin lived in Africa before and after the advent of Homo.

Question 30

Although the Neandertals are remembered more for their physiques than for their manufacturing abilities, their tool kits were sophisticated. In fact, the Mousterian technology, which Neandertals are associated with,

A) included at least 14 categories of tools designed for different jobs.
B) was characterized by a revolutionary use of metals in combination with wood and stone.
C) provides the first definitive evidence of tool construction based on a template in the mind of the toolmaker.
D) illustrates how blades became progressively more important in human evolution, particularly in Middle and Upper Paleolithic toolmaking.
E) included a very complex technique involving chipping the core bilaterally and symmetrically, something never before seen in hominin toolmaking.

Question 31

The recent hominin fossil finds from Ileret, Kenya, negate the conventional view held since 1960 that H. habilis and H. erectus evolved one after the other. Instead, they lived side by side in eastern Africa for perhaps half a million years.

Question 32

Worldwide, what were the Middle and Upper Pleistocene characterized by?

A) expansion in the number of hominin species
B) massive extinctions of hominin populations
C) widespread tropical rain forests
D) successive glacial advances and retreats
E) a climate much warmer than at present

Question 33

The earliest Acheulean tools associated with H. erectus come from the Kokiselei site near Lake Turkana in Kenya. What are the characteristics of these tools?

A) symmetry, uniformity, and planning
B) less sophistication than Oldowan tools
C) a low degree of functional differentiation
D) symbolic etchings that indicate ritual behavior
E) a high degree of variance in shape, indicating styles were not uniform

Question 34

Biological and cultural changes enabled H. erectus to exploit a new adaptive strategy-gathering and hunting.

Question 35

The Paleolithic tool tradition associated with H. erectus is the Acheulean.

Question 36

The Acheulean hand ax, shaped like a teardrop, represents a predetermined shape based on a template in the mind of the toolmaker. Evidence for such a mental template in the archaeological record suggests a cognitive lead between earlier hominins and H. erectus.

Question 37

What is the name of the stone-tool tradition associated with Neandertals?

A) Oldowan
B) Acheulean
C) Mousterian
D) blades
E) microliths

Question 38

At the site of Terra Amata, in southern France, archaeologists have documented human activity dating back some 300,000 years. What do findings there indicate?

A) Neandertals were not fully human.
B) Homo habilis had language.
C) Early hominids cultivated plants.
D) The site's inhabitants led an essentially human lifestyle.
E) Cro-Magnons and Homo erectus engaged in warfare.

Question 39

One of the most surprising aspects of the recent discovery of H. floresiensis is

A) the suggestion that this species had developed capacities for language despite their small brains, as is evidenced in their cave art.
B) the evidence that this new species may have replaced Neandertals in the Middle East later than expected.
C) the archaeological evidence of sophisticated astronomical knowledge.
D) the suggestion that anatomically modern humans may have reached the Americas much earlier than expected.
E) the evidence of sophisticated cultural abilities typically associated with anatomically modern humans, not with a hominin with a chimplike brain and extremities.

Question 40

With the movement of H. erectus out of Africa, H. erectus eventually colonized Europe and Asia.

Question 41

Drawing on biological and cultural evidence, discuss the major similarities and differences in the cultural adaptive strategies employed by Australopithecus and H. erectus.

Question 42

Recently, a team uncovered a 1.2-million-year-old jawbone fragment from a species known as Homo antecessor in the Atapuerca mountains of Spain. The oldest hominid fossil ever found in western Europe, it provides conclusive evidence that Neandertals interbred with archaic modern humans.

Question 43

The recent Dmanisi fossil finds suggest a rapid spread, by 1.77 m.y.a., of early Homo out of Africa into Eurasia.

Question 44

The stone-tool tradition associated with Neandertals is called the Mousterian.

Question 45

How do biological changes in H. erectus reflect new cultural adaptive strategies? How do these relate to H. erectus's capacity to extend the hominin range beyond Africa to Asia and Europe?

Question 46

What are the main morphological differences between Neandertals and anatomically modern humans? How have these differences been interpreted?

Question 47

In addition to their stocky bodies, which were adapted to conserve heat, Neandertals made clothes, developed elaborate tools, and hunted reindeer, mammoths, and woolly rhinos in order to adapt to the cold climate in Europe during the Würm glaciation.

Question 48

In this chapter we learn how the Acheulean hand ax represents a predetermined shape based on a template in the mind of the toolmaker. How might have scientists analyzing these tools made that assessment? What are the implications of such a finding?

Question 49

Compared to anatomically modern humans, Neandertals exhibit a greater degree of sexual dimorphism.

Question 50

Given the potential for language-based communications in activities such as cooperative hunting and the manufacture of complicated tools, and given brain size within the low H. sapiens range, it seems plausible to assume that
A. boisei had rudimentary speech.

Question 51

Summarize the fossil evidence for the evolution of H. erectus out of australopithecine ancestors. Make sure to identify major trends and how they correlate with different uses of the environment.

Question 52

The recent discovery of H. floresiensis has captivated scientists and the general public alike. Why? What is so surprising about this find? Based on what you have learned so far about human evolution, what seems to you the more plausible explanation for H. floresiensis?

Question 53

Discuss the major anatomical differences between the australopithecines and H. erectus. What are the major anatomical differences between H. erectus and modern human anatomy?

Question 54

One of the most surprising aspects of the recent discovery of H. floresiensis, a species of tiny people who lived, gathered, and hunted on the Indonesian island of Flores from about 95,000
B.P. until at least 13,000
B.P., is the specimens' very large skulls, yet they lack behaviors associated with anatomically modern humans.