Anthropology #3
Terms
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- multiregional models
- suggests that our origins cannot be pinned down to one area or region
- Acheulean
- stone tool industry of the early and middle pleistoscene characterized by the presence of bifacial hand axes & clevers, associated with Homo erectus and early homo sapiens
- Taphonomy
- study of what happens to the remains of an animal form the time of death to the time of discovery
- tuff
- a light, porous rock formed by consolidation of volcanic ash
- cranium
- skull or part enclosing brain
- replacement models
- phylogenetic models that suggest that modern humans evolved in one location and then spread geographically replacing other earlier hominid populations without or with little admixture
- postcranial skeleton
- skeleton below the head
- diastema
- gap between teeth
- Biostratigraphy
- Relative dating technique using comparison of fossils from different stratagraphic sequences to estimate which layers are older and which are younger
- relative dating
- places finds in sequence but doesn't provide an actual estimate in number of years
- absolute dating
- also known as chrometric dating: provides estimates in actual numbers of years through the use of a natural clock, such as radioactive decay or tree rings
- paleontology
- the study of extinct organisms, based on their fossilized remains
- robust
- high fiber diet: roots, nuts, leaves, etc
- isotopes
- variant forms of an element based on their atomic weights and numbers of neutrons in the nucleus
- Gracile
- Omnivorous diet
- foramen magnum
- hole in the occipital bone through which the spinal cord connects to the brain
- maxilla
- upper jaw
- endocast
- replica or cast of the internal surface of the braincase
- mandible
- lower jaw
- osteodontokeratic culture
- a bone, tooth and horn tool kit envisioned by Raymond Dart. Possible culture of all Australopithecines
- radiometric
- chrometric techniques that use radioactive decay of isotopes to estimate are
- Levallois technique
- a middle paleolithic technique that made use of prepared cores to produce uniform flakes
- Oldowan
- the tool industry characterized by simple core and flake tools. Associated with Homo habilis.
- indirect dating
- Gives age of a fossil only in comparison to other materials found around it
- sagittal crest
- ridge of bone running lengthwise down the center of the cranium where muscles used for mastication attach
- How fossils form
- part of the organism is buried which interupts decomposition. Then minerals are absorbed from surrounding soil or gound water and the organisms original inorganic tissue is replaced and turned to stone
- cut marks
- marks on bones that indicate that stone tools were used to skin an animal and slice through its muscles
- simian shelf
- buttress of bone under lower incisors that supports jaw in chewing
- dental arcade
- the parabolic arc that forms the upper or lower row of teeth (shape of jaw)
- half-life
- the time it takes for half of the original amount of an unstable isotope of an element to decay into more stable forms
- direct dating
- Object itself is dated
- fossils
- preserved remnants of once-living things