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Paleoanthropology
Paleoanthropology or paleo-anthropology is a branch of paleontology and anthropology which seeks to understand the early development of anatomically modern humans, a process known as hominization, through the reconstruction of evolutionary kinship lines within the family Hominidae, working from biological evidence (such as petrified skeletal remains, bone fragments, footprints) and cultural evidence (such as stone tools, artifacts, and settlement localities). The field draws from and combines primatology, paleontology, biological anthropology, and cultural anthropology. As technologies and methods advance, genetics plays an ever-increasing role, in particular to examine and compare DNA structure as a vital tool of research of the evolutionary kinship lines of related species and genera. Etymology The term paleoanthropology derives from Greek palaiós (παλαιός) "old, ancient", ánthrōpos (ἄνθρωπος) "man, human" and the suffix -logía (-λογία) "study of". ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Homo
''Homo'' () is a genus of great ape (family Hominidae) that emerged from the genus ''Australopithecus'' and encompasses only a single extant species, ''Homo sapiens'' (modern humans), along with a number of extinct species (collectively called archaic humans) classified as either ancestral or closely related to modern humans; these include ''Homo erectus'' and ''Homo neanderthalensis''. The oldest member of the genus is ''Homo habilis'', with records of just over 2 million years ago. ''Homo'', together with the genus ''Paranthropus'', is probably most closely related to the species ''Australopithecus africanus'' within ''Australopithecus''.'''' The closest living relatives of ''Homo'' are of the genus ''Pan (genus), Pan'' (chimpanzees and bonobos), with the ancestors of ''Pan'' and ''Homo'' estimated to have diverged around 5.7–11 million years ago during the Late Miocene. ''H. erectus'' appeared about 2 million years ago and spread throughout Africa (deba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paleontology
Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geologic time, and assess the interactions between prehistoric organisms and their natural environment. While paleontological observations are known from at least the 6th century BC, the foundation of paleontology as a science dates back to the work of Georges Cuvier in 1796. Cuvier demonstrated evidence for the concept of extinction and how life of the past was not necessarily the same as that of the present. The field developed rapidly over the course of the following decades, and the French word ''paléontologie'' was introduced for the study in 1822, which was derived from the Ancient Greek word for "ancient" and words describing relatedness and a field of study. Further advances in the field accompanied the work of Charles Darwin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Australopithecus
''Australopithecus'' (, ; or (, ) is a genus of early hominins that existed in Africa during the Pliocene and Early Pleistocene. The genera ''Homo'' (which includes modern humans), ''Paranthropus'', and ''Kenyanthropus'' evolved from some ''Australopithecus'' species. ''Australopithecus'' is a member of the subtribe Australopithecina, which sometimes also includes ''Ardipithecus'', though the term "australopithecine" is sometimes used to refer only to members of ''Australopithecus''. Species include ''Australopithecus garhi, A. garhi'', ''Australopithecus africanus, A. africanus'', ''Australopithecus sediba, A. sediba'', ''Australopithecus afarensis, A. afarensis'', ''Australopithecus anamensis, A. anamensis'', ''Australopithecus bahrelghazali, A. bahrelghazali'', and ''Australopithecus deyiremeda, A. deyiremeda''. Debate exists as to whether some ''Australopithecus'' species should be reclassified into new genera, or if ''Paranthropus'' and ''Kenyanthropus'' are synonymous with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paranthropus
''Paranthropus'' is a genus of extinct hominin which contains two widely accepted species: ''Paranthropus robustus, P. robustus'' and ''P. boisei''. However, the validity of ''Paranthropus'' is contested, and it is sometimes considered to be synonym (taxonomy), synonymous with ''Australopithecus''. They are also referred to as the robust australopithecines. They lived between approximately 2.9 and 1.2 million years ago (mya) from the end of the Pliocene to the Middle Pleistocene. ''Paranthropus'' is characterised by robust skulls, with a prominent gorilla-like sagittal crest along the midline—which suggest strong chewing muscles—and broad, herbivorous teeth used for grinding. However, they likely preferred soft food over tough and hard food. Typically, ''Paranthropus'' species were generalist feeders, but while ''P. robustus'' was likely an omnivore, ''P. boisei'' seems to have been herbivorous, possibly preferring abundant bulbotubers. Paranthropoids were bipeds. Despite th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Homo Sapiens
Humans (''Homo sapiens'') or modern humans are the most common and widespread species of primate, and the last surviving species of the genus ''Homo''. They are Hominidae, great apes characterized by their Prehistory of nakedness and clothing#Evolution of hairlessness, hairlessness, bipedality, bipedalism, and high Human intelligence, intelligence. Humans have large Human brain, brains, enabling more advanced cognitive skills that facilitate successful adaptation to varied environments, development of sophisticated tools, and formation of complex social structures and civilizations. Humans are Sociality, highly social, with individual humans tending to belong to a Level of analysis, multi-layered network of distinct social groups — from families and peer groups to corporations and State (polity), political states. As such, social interactions between humans have established a wide variety of Value theory, values, norm (sociology), social norms, languages, and traditions (co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biological Anthropology
Biological anthropology, also known as physical anthropology, is a natural science discipline concerned with the biological and behavioral aspects of human beings, their extinct hominin ancestors, and related non-human primates, particularly from an evolutionary perspective. This subfield of anthropology systematically studies human beings from a biological perspective. Branches As a subfield of anthropology, biological anthropology itself is further divided into several branches. All branches are united in their common orientation and/or application of evolutionary theory to understanding human biology and behavior. * Bioarchaeology is the study of past human cultures through examination of human remains recovered in an archaeological context. The examined human remains usually are limited to bones but may include preserved soft tissue. Researchers in bioarchaeology combine the skill sets of human osteology, paleopathology, and archaeology, and often consider the cultural ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hominization
Hominization, also called anthropogenesis, refers to the process of becoming human, and is used in somewhat different contexts in the fields of paleontology and paleoanthropology, archaeology, philosophy, theology, and mythography. In the latter three fields, the alternative term anthropogony has also been used. Both ''anthropogenesis'' and ''anthropogony'' sometimes instead refer to the related subject of human evolution. Paleontology , paleoanthropologists tend to regard the search for a precise point of hominization as somewhat irrelevant, seeing the process as gradual. Anatomically modern humans (AMH, or AMHS) developed within the species ''Homo sapiens'' about 200,000 years ago. Many thinkers have attempted to explain hominization – from Classical times through Hobbes, Rousseau, Hegel, and Engels, who wrote an essay on ''The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man''. The contemporary study of hominization in archeology often looks for signs that mar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kenyanthropus
''Kenyanthropus'' is a genus of extinct hominin identified from the Lomekwi site by Lake Turkana, Kenya, dated to 3.3 to 3.2 million years ago during the Middle Pliocene. It contains one species, ''K. platyops'', but may also include the 2 million year old '' Homo rudolfensis'', or ''K. rudolfensis''. Before its naming in 2001, ''Australopithecus afarensis'' was widely regarded as the only australopithecine to exist during the Middle Pliocene, but ''Kenyanthropus'' evinces a greater diversity than once acknowledged. ''Kenyanthropus'' is most recognisable by an unusually flat face and small teeth for such an early hominin, with values on the extremes or beyond the range of variation for australopithecines in regard to these features. Multiple australopithecine species may have coexisted by foraging for different food items ( niche partitioning), which may be reason why these apes anatomically differ in features related to chewing. The Lomekwi site also yielded the earliest sto ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carl Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming organisms. He is known as the "father of modern Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy". Many of his writings were in Latin; his name is rendered in Latin as and, after his 1761 ennoblement, as . Linnaeus was the son of a curate and was born in Råshult, in the countryside of Småland, southern Sweden. He received most of his higher education at Uppsala University and began giving lectures in botany there in 1730. He lived abroad between 1735 and 1738, where he studied and also published the first edition of his ' in the Netherlands. He then returned to Sweden where he became professor of medicine and botany at Uppsala. In the 1740s, he was sent on several journeys through Sweden to find and classify plants and animals. In the 1750s and 1760s, he co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genus
Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial species name for each species within the genus. :E.g. ''Panthera leo'' (lion) and ''Panthera onca'' (jaguar) are two species within the genus ''Panthera''. ''Panthera'' is a genus within the family Felidae. The composition of a genus is determined by taxonomy (biology), taxonomists. The standards for genus classification are not strictly codified, so different authorities often produce different classifications for genera. There are some general practices used, however, including the idea that a newly defined genus should fulfill these three criteria to be descriptively useful: # monophyly – all descendants of an ancestral taxon are grouped together (i.e. Phylogeneti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hominini
The Hominini (hominins) form a Tribe (biology), taxonomic tribe of the subfamily Homininae (hominines). They comprise two extant genera: ''Homo'' (humans) and ''Pan (genus), Pan'' (chimpanzees and bonobos), and in standard usage exclude the genus ''Gorilla (genus), Gorilla'' (gorillas), which is grouped separately within the subfamily Homininae. The term Hominini was originally introduced by Camille Arambourg (1948), who combined the categories of ''Hominina'' and ''Simiina'' pursuant to John Edward Gray, Gray's classifications (1825). Traditionally, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans were grouped together, excluding humans, as pongidae, pongids. Since Gray's classifications, evidence accumulating from genetic phylogeny confirmed that humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas are more closely related to each other than to the orangutan. The orangutans were reassigned to the family Hominidae (great apes), which already included humans; and the gorillas were grouped as a separate tr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gorillini
Gorillini is a taxonomic tribe containing three genera Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family as used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial s ...: '' Gorilla'' and the extinct '' Chororapithecus'' and (possibly) '' Nakalipithecus''. References Extant Miocene first appearances Mammal tribes Homininae Taxa described in 1968 {{Primate-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
