December 1st, 2022

Big Bang to Humankind

  • Neanderthals
    • Evidence of some helping others
    • Feathers were worn - it could have signified status or origin?
    • Evidence of musical instruments
    • Invented a type of glue
  • Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals interbred with each other
    • Theories:
      • Population replacement
        • Proposes that anatomically modern human beings evolved from a premodern humans in one geographical area
      • Multiregional
        • Suggests there were a number of different populations within this species that formed different branches and some populations even became extinct along the way
        • Most supported by the data
      • Middle Ground
        • Africa was the source of modern humans, but no complete population replacement
  • Earliest modern Homo sapiens and transitional fossils found in Africa
  • Most people today have 1-4% Neanderthal DNA
    • Most prevalent in Europe, specifically Italy
    • Not much in Africa since Neanderthals weren’t there
  • Upper Paleolithic
    • 50,000 years ago
    • Broadening of the subsistence base (better use of environment) - small mammal trapping, fishing, different plant species
    • New uses for plant materials
    • New tool technologies, elaborate cave paintings
  • Early Americans
  • How did humans get to the Americas?
    • People came across “ice-free corridor” through Alaska
    • Also it could be that people to maritime routes, but that’s hard to investigate because those sites are underwater
      • People like to hug the coast as they move because there’s resources
  • Clovis points = a technology for sharp tools
  • Majority of modern Native Americans derive their ancestry from a population that arrived more than 15,000 years ago
    • Supported by linguistic data
  • NAGPRA: Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act
    • Dictates how Native American remains and significant objects are to be dealt with, permissions around that, and how they should be returned to Indian tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations