Taming Fire: The First Scientist

Author: Mary Beth Coax

Odyssey: Adventures in Science

          pg.29-30

Coax, Mary Beth. "Taming Fire: The First Scientist?" ODYSSEY: Adventures in Science Oct. 2009: 29-30. Print.

Fire since the beginning of time as been a jeopardy and a great invention towards everybody. But who was the one who discovered it? The first signs of the use of fire are hearths, they were found in some prehistoric camp in Europe, it is about 250,000 years old. Hearths, as the describe by the article are:"are rudimentary fireplaces, often identified by a ring of rocks that outline them." First early humans were scared of them, but them as time passed they started to see its benefits. Fire provided them safety; because predators were afraid of fire. It provided them warmth; during the cold season warmth was important. It provided them  light; in the short days of the year, fire could keep the day go on, the fire was a bit like today is the lounge. It was used for cooking meat; cooked meals were '"cleaned'" so there were not many illnesses. So, fire was important for them to survive. Also we believe that our ancestors managed to start fire. 

Becoming Human: Last Human Standing

 

 

Everything started from small group of early humans, about 600 individuals.  As time passed things evolved, and for a certain period of time four different kinds of human being where living in the same period of time.

Neanderthals lived during cold times and they were the most advanced people on Earth. What made them the most advanced was the capacity of surviving any weather, especially cold ones. Also, apart from that, their brain was bigger than ours. Neanderthals are known to be the closest to us, though we never interbred with them.

We were and are the only ones to survive because we were more dominant. And we had a developed way of thinking. We started to think more when H. sapiens changed their diet (due to other things). Their diet made them healthier and that let them have a more developed mind; with a developed mind we (Homo sapiens and Cro magnos) our knapping (tool making) was more sophisticated.

From Grunts to Grammar: The Evolution of Language

Homo habilis was probably the first hominin who started to speak. Which means approximatly 2.5 million years ago.  The author includes: "Just as important as the brain in language development are changes in the larynx (the voice box). The larynx contains the vocal cords that allow us to produce sounds from our throat." that can tell us that through time, eventually, our voice box has changed. So, as we started to change also our larynx did. Dr. Laitman a professor of anatomy at the Mt. Sinat School of Medicine in NYC says: "The larynx disengaged from the back door of the nasal cavity. The disengagement would have radically changed the way our ancestors breathed, swallowed and made sounds."

Mouth breathing isn't common in mammals but we do. It maybe started when our ancestors started to hunt. Mouth breathing led more oxygen in and out the lungs. Maybe we started using language/speech the way we do now. Dr.Conkey, director of the Archaeological Research Facility declares: "Humans or hominins have been making stone tools for probably 2 million years, so it's unlikely that complex language had to exist for that. We have strong primate heritage of learning by imitation. Chimpanzees and many other nonhuman primates don't need complex language to learn such things as washing food, picking up a hammer stone and cracking nuts, and even --- in the case of chimpanzees ---  stripping leaves off twigs and using them to fish termites out of a termite hill." that means that to have tools we somehow needed to communicate. This conclusion could be the result of the same tool in different areas. Though, we're sure that 35,000 to/or 40,000 years ago language was used.

On Our Own Feet

    

On Our Own Feet (print magazine article)

By Stephen Whitt

Odyssey: Adventures in Science

          October 2011

          pg. 26 – 28

Our origins, how we evolved are all a mystery to us. We have evidence but it is hard to connect everything together and we still need more evidence. Though scientists after questioning themselves have come to a conclusion, not everything happened at the same time. As an example, upright walking developed before our brains (physically) did. Another question after how and when we stood upright is, why did we stand up in an upright position? Stephen Whitt in his writing stated this: “C. Owen Lovejoy, a scientist at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, believes he knows. Lovejoy has developed one of the best known controversial theories of upright walking. We started walking, he says, to free up our hands and arm for carrying food to our mates, by sharing food we made it possible for one parent to focus on raising children. This, in time, led to more complex, learned behavior, and finally to the modern human brain”. However this is only one theory on how we evolved to an upright position and started walking.

This article also talks about our ancestors, and not theories on our ancestors. For example, many people err when they say that monkeys and chimps are our ancestors. Both of us (monkey and us) have a common parent; Australopithecus and apes. Having Australopithecus as a common ancestor doesn’t mean we are connected to monkeys (general, including chimps). Many people get confused when comparing us and chimps; what we have in common with chimps is the skull.

Differences and similarities:

US	CHIMPS
Flat face	The face sticks out
Bigger brain case	Small brain case
Foramen magnum – horizontal, straight	Foramen magnum – angled-up
So as you can see, before interpreting scientists need theories and physical evidence. Whitt, Stephen. "On Our Own Two Feet." Odyssey: Adventures in Science (2009): 26-28. Print.

Who’s Who Among the Early Hominins?

Magazine article:
Title: Who’s Who Among the Early Hominins?
by Randall Susman
pg. 22 - 25
October 2009

Our first ancestors, hominins or hominids shared various physical features and also the DNA shows so. A reason why they were also called ape-men. The members of the group primates are us (moder humans) and generally hominins and African apes. Scientists gave different names to the different types of stages. Very complex names were given, some examples are: Ardipithecus, Parathropus, Homo Rudolfensis, Homo Florensiesis, etc.

They actually follow this order:

• Ardipithecus: which was the earliest hominid, many of its characterists are similar to apes and it is 4.4 million years old.
• Kenyapithecus: found in Kenya, 3.5 m.y.a. when it was found the skull was into millions of pieces
• Austrolopithecus: or ‘southern ape’ it was a broad group of hominid and it is approximately 2 million years old.
• Paranthropus: also called ‘robust’ austrolopithecus. 2.5 m.y.a. and it is the hominin which started to get similar to man with those particular features:
• bipedal
• human hand and foot
• massive chewing muscles
• Early Homo: Hominins are improving their ability with hand, we can say that from the evidence of non-modified stone tools. Apes are starting to gain many characterists that have today such as
• larger brains
• smaller teeth
• Homo Habilis: Also called ‘handy man’. Some scietists argue weather Early Homo hunted and killed animals. Susman when talking about Homo Habilis also says: “H. habilis is best known from the fossils found at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. Fossils also have been recovered in Kenya ans Ethiopia. H. habilis has a larger brain, and smaller, narrower premolar teeth than Austrolopithecus and Paranthropus.” this means that Homo habilis is part of the Early Homo.
• Homo Rudolfensis: it was found in Northern Kenya, and it dates the same as Homo habilis but has different features/characteristics. The face is flatter and it has a larger brain.
• Homo erectus: renamed ‘upright man’ was found all over the world, this shows hunting. The author describes Homo eructus as: “H. erectus also has a larger brain with thick skull bonesand prominent brow ridges. The crests on the skulls for the attachment of chewing muscles are smaller in comparison with those of other early hominins.
• Homo neanderthalensis: 250,000 to 300,000 years old, it lived in Europe and Asia. Thebpdy size and structure is very similar to humans’ ones.
• Homo florensiensis: 94,000 years old. The author explains that: “ H. florensiensis retained primitive skeleton features more characteristic of early hominins of the Plicene - Pleistocene. this evidence does not support the suggestions of some scientists that the Flores Hominins represent a population of moder humans with genetic abnormalities.”.

Why We Study Human Origins

Why We Study Human Origins

by Randall Susman

Calliope: Exploring World History Article Summary:

People have been trying for a long time to understand our origins. The main questions are why we evolved, when we evolved and where we evolved. Since the beginnning of time, theories on our origins were based on religion and myths. Now we can make more accurate theories thanks to science and because we discovered/have concrete evidence. During the mid 1800’s Charles Darwin showed the Theory of Evolution; this theory shows how plants and animals changed over time. Darwin’s theory was widely known and used among scientists, Thomas Henry Huxley was starting to compare apes to humans. He believed that apes resemble humans more than apes resembled monkeys.

According to the author, “Huxley believed that anatomically, African apes and humans were similar, more similar in fact than apes were to monkeys.” This is interesting because apes look like monkeys on the outside but on the inside they’re actually more like humans. When he presented this fact people were amazed and shocked; they didn’t believe their relationship with apes. Since this point of time hominid fossils had not been found yet.

Finally, in 1925 the first hominid fossils were found by Raymond Dart. This started to make scientists explanations clearer and it started to prove Darwin’s and Huxley’s theories. More fossils and stone tools were found, that shows that our ancestors were hunters, also it means that more evidence could prove Darwin’s and Huxley’s theories. From all of these fossil finds, Susman explains that some believed “our earliest ancestors were tree-dwelling apes, or four-legged knuckle-walkers, or even bipeds that lived in water.” In conclusion we can say that people had different opinions on our earliest ancestors because they didn't have an accurate fossil record.

Susman, Randall. "Why We Study Human Origins." Calliope: Exploring World History Sept. 1999: 4-5. Print.

Stonehenge Mistery in History

Hey everyone, in this post I will tell you what are three different theories about Stonehenge:

1. The first theory was that it was a burial place of wealthy people/families and that it was built before the egyptian pyramids were, or prehistoric people did. Contrary to that, woodhenge (very similar idea; though made of wood pillars) was the place where people lived.
2.  Stonehenge is also seen as a holy site. Archeologists thought of this reason because of the different alignments with sun and moon, these could be evidence of rituals depending on seasons.
3. The most popular theory is that is was an ancient observatory, used to know the season, to mark the winter and summer solstice, and to predict future solar or lunar eclipses. 

My personally believe that is was an ancient observatory, but still much more research needs to be done!

Hope you learned something new!

Ancient Dog Skull Shows Early Pet Domestication

Dogs are known to be the oldest domesticated animals. Common canine fossils show that they are 14,000 years old, finding one 26,500 years ago are very rare, but imagine finding one 33,000 years old is the rarest thing ever. In fact it has been discovered one 33,000 years old and new research shows that it is earliest well-preserved pet dog. It has been found in Siberia’s Altay Mountains. It has been discovered in the 1970’s but know new researched has searched morein depth.
In a much expanded historical record, scientists are trying to understand how and when wolves evolved into dogs, an evolution which could last from 50 to 100 years. Kuzmin and colleagues recently used radiocarbon dating to state how much the skull and the jaw was old. It was tested in three laboratories. Each lab confirmed that the age was around 33,000 years old.

Other artifacts found at the site suggest that hunters used space for something, and it's likely the dogs were their pets before death. Cold temperatures and non - acidic soil found in the cave is though that there were kept kept the dog's remains after decaying.

The team compared the Russian skull with modern domesticated dog, wolves and early doglike canine animals that lived before 26,500 years ago.

Since it isn’t a fully domesticated dog, it has some similarities with wolves and foxes. Kuzmin and his colleagues also did not found any likenesses to ancient or modern wolves or to dog breeds found somewhere in Russia. The discovery has discovered that this dog has began its association with humans independently, unlike the DNA proves.

In general, dogs likely became domesticated when during theStone Age wolves began to hang around Stone Age people. Animals who were more comfortable with humans, changed over time. It eventually changed their body: size, reproductive patterns and shapes, turning them into dogs. "The somewhat curious and less fearful 'first founders' became even more so as they interbred amongst themselves," Crockford said.