Aaron Rodriguez - 304949598

John Pohl

May 5, 2017

The Journey of the Homosapien

Homo sapiens originated in Africa between 200,000 to 100,000 years ago. Homosapiens started in Africa about 180,000 years ago. According to the “Out of Africa” model it is said that Africa may be the origination of anatomical features as well as the origination of fully modern behavior. The best kept record of the African region is the Middle and Upper Pleistocene. This region has the most understood archeological record as well as the most the most complete paleoanthropological record. Africa has become the obvious center and origin of modern humans with Europe as more peripheral in early human evolution. The later MIddle Pleistocene, the Middle Stone Age was a period of change in the lithic traditions of this area. These homosapiens had large bifacial cutting and chopping tools. These tools became useless later and were replaced by more Mousterian-like small flake components. This happened because of the development of hafting, which allowed a wider range of tools and multiple component tools to be developed. Some of the Middle Stone Age traits were that they had grindstones for the preparation of plant foods which is shown in illustration A-1. This shows that plants were a large part of their diet and that the plants they they scavenged were relatively large plants. This shows because if the homosapiens of this time took time in order to make tools to make it easier grind down the plants to eat them they must have eaten them often. In order to break down the plants that they ate before eating them they would have tools in order to cut and break down plants before eating them, This also shows the types of plants that were around in their environment. These plants must have been large and un-eatable that's why they needed to break down and grind the plants to be able to eat them. People of the early African also used tools to transport marine life over 100 kilometers.  This showed marine animals were a large part of their diet as well but their settlements were not close to any coast or places with any marine life. Other tools that they used were spears and other projectile weapons. This shows the other types of animals that early humans hunted. The animals that they hunted must have been very agile and mobile because if they needed weapons that needed to move through the air quickly to strike animals those animals must have been able to move quickly. All these technologies allowed homosapiens to settle in Africa for a long time because they had a sustainable food source.This advantage in agriculture and hunting allowed homosapiens to further their civilation and focus on other things such as art which is found in the figurines in Africa. Other findings by archaeologists also show the scientific community about how homosapiens may have looked in early Africa. Skeletal findings show that African homosapiens had a broad, low frontal that is evenly curved, a presence of a wide sagittal keel, supra orbitals that are thickening at the forward edge of the sloping frontal, a shallow sulcus above the supra orbitals, a short face that is very broad, expanded maxillary sinuses and consequently puffy zygomatics, the orbits are spaced far apart, the nasal bones are broad and have little angulation and the dentition was moderate in size. All of these things that archeologists have found from fossil records gives the public a good idea of how early homosapiens may have looked as seen in image A-2. Other features archeologists have found is the way that their skulls were made which gives us an idea of how large their brains were as well as what food they ate which was based off their mouth and teeth structure. African homosapiens had a long curvier parietals of an expanded brain case, a short broad face and high forehead, prominent brow ridges that taper to the sides rather than forming a continuous thick bar and the most important characteristic which is they had a cranial capacity of over 1400 cc ( this is an approximation because exact measures are difficult).

The “Out of Africa model next moves to Europe. The European finding were troubled by misdated specimens and faulty reconstructions, while early attempts to demonstrate replacements were based on the Piltdown hoax and the misdated Galley Hill material. Further complications also came from the La Chapelle which typically said that Neanderthal specimen and Cro-Magnon which was seen as a typically early modern human. However these two specimens are significantly atypical as the lines between earlier and later populations blurs in some respects and becomes more demarked in others. The two major lines of thinking that exist regarding the origins of modern humans in Europe is that Neanderthals contributed some amount of significant genetic material to later modern human populations, or they did not. There are three major lines of evidence for this thought. First is that the evolution of the pre-Neanderthal and Neanderthal populations over time is in the direction of modern European populations. The trends are anterior dental reduction, reduced nasal size, increase central and decreased lateral brow ridge height and more developed mental eminence.  European Neanderthals also show a number of unique or especially common features with later Europeans, with lower frequency of expression in modern European populations. The other theory for the lack of continuity is illustrated by the findings that early modern Europeans show limb proportions that are closely linked to warm-adapted African populations, and not with European Neanderthals. Genetic evidence in the form of mtDNA studies show evidence of Neanderthal and modern human divergence at approximately 700,000 years ago and studies showing greater mtDNA variation in African populations, which is hypothesized to show how modern Africans originated the genes that they have now. There are also behavioral difference between the Neanderthals and early modern humans in both absolute traits and complexity. European homosapiens are described as having low braincases, thick cranial bones, posterior cranial flattening forming a Neanderthal- like occipital bun, marked spongy bone development, thick projecting supra orbitals which is shaped differently than in Neanderthals and larger cranial capacities at 1650 cc. Also found by archeologists are that female specimens are more gracile than the males and are more modern in appearance but are very robust and almost as robust as later Upper Paleolithic males. The males  show cranial capacities of 1540 cc. While females have a cranial capacity of 1390 cc. This is a 14% increase over Neanderthals while males increase only 5% above Neanderthals. This has been taken as evidence of lack of Neanderthal ancestry as well as evidence that the Neanderthal populations were evolving the form. Mladec females show differences between Neanderthal females by having larger cranial vault size, more midfacial prognathism, more anterior zygomatics, lack of maxillary notch, a considerably narrower nose, and a presence of distinct canine fossa. Differences between Mladec males and females are that males have larger cranial vaults, larger and more projecting superciliary arches, a shallow sulcus at the base of the forehead, lower and less versatile foreheads, more angled occipital areas with lambdoidal flattening and have thick and broad superior nuchal lines extending onto the mastoids. Females have smaller nuchal plans as well as lower and less prominent inion. The main difference between males and females is that males exhibit more Neanderthal-like general features, while females exhibit more modern general features. Another archeological finding in Europe is the Cro-Magnon material. The material consists of five skeletons. Three are adult male, one is an adult female infant and the other is an infant. The most cited specimen is the Cro-Magnon 1 which is an adult male specimen also known as the “Old Man”. Cro-Magnon 1 has a face pitted with a fungal infection and died in middle age. The cranium is complete except for the teeth and the mandibular condyles. Cro-Magnon 1 is definitely a modern human, as seen from such feature as a high, rounded cranium, a steep forehead, large capacity (1600 cc.), a short face with rectangular orbitals, a tall and narrow nasal opening, a parabolic palate, and a prominent mental eminence. The “Out of Africa” model also covers homosapiens in East Asia. The East Asia material most often ignored by proponents of the “Out of Africa” model. They moved out of Africa by going through the coastline of Africa into Asia and were able to move to Asia because of the drop in sea level.The Chinese material provides the best argument for continuity outside of Africa. The indonesian sequence is filled with problems associated with dating a provenience, that make any argument connecting the various material specious. The Indonesian material has been the object of much debate due to problems of provenience and dating. The Ngandong material is a clear example of this. Though the material is conveniently listed as H.erectus by most researchers around 53000 years ago and 27000 years ago and may be a link to modern East Asians. The determination of sex within this species is based on cranial size, projection and size of the nuchal torus, and the development of an external occipital protuberance. These specimens are purported to share the number of similarities with earlier Indonesian specimens like the Sangirian material and the Sambyngmachan material. Similarities that are reported between these samples include the frontal bone is flat, the suborbital torus is close to horizontal orientation, there is a distinct frontal keel extending over virtually the entire squama and the top of the vault is evenly curved along the sagittal suture. In conclusion homosapiens were able to adapt to all types of environments through the millenniums from the frozen tundra of Asia to the deserts of the Middle East and Africa and the grasslands of Europe all these types of environments greatly tested homo sapiens to adapt to survive and thrive which lead to the versatile human genetics of today which allowed homo sapiens to overcome any obstacles in any environment and be the most dominant species that the planet has ever had in archeological history.

Appendix

A-1

A-2

Bibliography

"Homo sapiens." RSS2. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 May 2017. <http://archaeologyinfo.com/homo-sapiens/>.