Ch4 Test Bank + Answers What Can The Fossil Record Tell Us

Chapter 4: What Can the Fossil Record Tell Us about Human Origins?

Test Bank

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Knowledge of Key Terms and Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 01]

1) The subfield of evolutionary studies that devotes attention to short-term evolutionary changes is

Feedback: Microevolution is a subfield of evolutionary studies that devotes attention to short-term evolutionary changes that occur within a given species over relatively few generations of ecological time.

Page reference: What Is Macroevolution?

a. macroevolution.

b. microevolution.

c. modern synthesis.

d. natural selection.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Knowledge of Key Terms and Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 02]

2) The slow, gradual transformation of a single species over time is called

Feedback: Anagenesis is the slow, gradual transformation of a single species over time.

Page reference: What Is Macroevolution?

a. cladogenesis.

b. evolution.

c. anagenesis.

d. arrhythmia.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Knowledge of Key Terms and Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 03]

3) The process by which a single species gives rise to a variety of descendent species over time is called

Feedback: Cladogenesis is the birth of a variety of descendant species from a single ancestral species.

Page reference: What Is Macroevolution?

a. anagenesis.

b. cladogenesis.

c. phyletic gradualism.

d. punctuated equilibrium.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Knowledge of Key Terms and Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 04]

4) A process in which natural selection is seen to operate among variant, related species within a single genus, family or order, is called

Feedback: Species selection is a process in which natural selection is seen to operate among variant, related species within a single genus, family, or order.

Page reference: What Is Macroevolution?

a. species selection.

b. gradualist transformation.

c. reverse speciation.

d. bipedalism.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Knowledge of Key Terms and Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 05]

5) Walking on two feet rather than four is called

Feedback: Bipedalism is walking on two feet rather than four.
Page reference: What Is Hominin Evolution?

a. bipedalism.

b. quadrupedalism.

c. bipolarism.

d. taphonomy.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Knowledge of Key Terms and Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 06]

6) The phenotypic pattern that shows how different traits of an organism, responding to different selection pressures, may evolve at different rates is called

Feedback: Mosaic evolution is a phenotypic pattern that shows how different traits of an organism, responding to different selection pressures, may evolve at different rates.
Page reference: What Is Hominin Evolution?

a. phenotypic variability.

b. mosaic evolution.

c. taxonomic evolution.

d. hominin evolution.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Knowledge of Key Terms and Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 07]

7) Primates that walk on two feet are called

Feedback: Hominins are humans and their immediate ancestors.
Page reference: Who Were the First Hominins (6–3 mya)?

a. anthropoids.

b. apes.

c. hominoids.

d. hominins.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Knowledge of Key Terms and Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 08]

8) Organisms that eat a wide range of plant and animal foods are called

Feedback: Omnivorous refers to eating a wide range of plant and animal foods.

Page reference: Who Were the First Hominins (6–3 mya)?

a. omnivorous.

b. multimodal feeders.

c. generalized foraging.

d. broadly based.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Knowledge of Key Terms and Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 09]

9) The foramen magnum is the

Feedback: The position of a large hole, the foramen magnum, through which the spinal cord passes on its way to the brain.

Page reference: Who Were the First Hominins (6–3 mya)?

a. hole formed by the pelvic bones that determines the size of the birth canal.

b. hole at the base of the skull through which the spinal cord passes on its way to the brain.

c. space between the zygomatic arch and the skull through which the temporal muscle passes.

d. angle of the spinal cord as it passes into the brain.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Knowledge of Key Terms and Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 10]

10) It is now generally accepted that the earliest evidence for anatomically modern humans comes from

Feedback: It is now accepted that the earliest documented evidence for the appearance of anatomically modern humans is around 300,000 years old, comes from the site of Jebel Irhoud, in Morocco (Richter, D. et al. 2017; see Figure 4.25). Newly discovered hominin skeletal material (Hublin et al. 2017) included a tooth that was dated using both uranium series and electron spin resonance techniques, and fire-heated flint artifacts associated with the hominin fossils were dated using thermoluminesce.

Page reference: Type relevant section heading here

a. Europe

b. China

c. Australia

d. Morocco

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Knowledge of Key Terms and Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 11]

11) Some anthropologists have claimed that meat eating was the crucial behavioral change leading to the appearance of early Homo. This story of human origins is called the

Feedback: Some observers have concluded that meat eating led to a need for stone tools to kill and butcher animals and that stone-tool manufacture led natural selection to favor hominins with expanded brains. This is the “man the hunter” story about human origins and purports to explain nearly every physical and behavioral trait that makes humans human as the outcome of our ancestors’ devotion to hunting.
Page reference: How Can Anthropologists Explain the Human Transition?

a. missing link scenario.

b. man the hunter scenario.

c. woman the gatherer scenario.

d. foraging scenario.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Knowledge of Key Terms and Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 12]

12) The key criterion used by paleoanthropologists in deciding whether a gracile fossil younger than 2 million years of age should be placed in the genus Homo is

Feedback: How do paleoanthropologists decide if a gracile fossil younger than 2 million years should be placed in the genus Homo? The key criterion is still cranial capacity. In general, the cranial capacities of these early Homo fossils range from 510 to 750 cm3. Larger brains resided in larger, differently shaped skulls. Compared to the more elongated australopith cranium, the cranium of early Homo has thinner bone and is more rounded; the face is flatter and smaller in relation to the size of the cranium; and the teeth and jaws are less rugged, with a more parabolic arch. Most significantly, early Homo’s expansion in brain size was not accompanied by a marked increase in body size, meaning that the enlarged brain was a product of natural selection (Figure 4.12). We know little about the postcranial morphology of any early Homo species.

Page reference: What Do We Know about Early Homo (2.4–1.5 mya)?

a. size of molars.

b. cranial capacity.

c. presence of a U-shaped dental arcade.

d. two premolars instead of three.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Knowledge of Key Terms and Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 13]

13) The style of stone-tool making that involves knocking a few flakes off tennis-ball-sized rocks to produce cutting edges is called the

Feedback: Oldowan tradition is a stone-tool tradition named after the Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania), where the first examples of these tools tools were found. The earliest Oldowan tools are 2.6 million years old and were found in Gona, Ethiopia. Until recently, Oldowan tools were considered the oldest stone tools made by hominins, although this status is now claimed by Lomekwian tools, found in West Turkana, Kenya. (Lomekwian tools are stylistically different, and they are 3.3 million years old.)
Page reference: What Do We Know about Early Homo (2.4–1.5 mya)?

a. core tradition.

b. Oldowan tradition.

c. Acheulean tradition.

d. chopping tool tradition.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Knowledge of Key Terms and Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 14]

14) The study of the various processes that bones and stones undergo in the course of becoming part of the fossil and archaeological records is called

Feedback: Taphonomy is the study of the various processes that objects undergo in the course of becoming part of the fossil and archaeological records.

Page reference: What Do We Know about Early Homo (2.4–1.5 mya)?

a. archaeology.

b. paleontology.

c. taphonomy.

d. topography.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Knowledge of Key Terms and Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 15]

15) The stone-tool tradition associated with Homo erectus characterized by stone bifaces is the

Feedback: Oldowan tradition is a stone-tool tradition named after the Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania), where the first examples of these tools tools were found. The earliest Oldowan tools are 2.6 million years old and were found in Gona, Ethiopia. Until recently, Oldowan tools were considered the oldest stone tools made by hominins, although this status is now claimed by Lomekwian tools, found in West Turkana, Kenya. (Lomekwian tools are stylistically different, and they are 3.3 million years old.)
Page reference: Who Was Homo erectus (1.8–1.7 mya to 0.5–0.4 mya)?

a. Core Tradition.

b. Oldowan Tradition.

c. Acheulean Tradition.

d. Flake Tradition.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Knowledge of Key Terms and Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 16]

16) The first hominin species to leave Africa was

Feedback: H. erectus seems to have coexisted in eastern Africa with the robust australopithecines until between 1.2 and 0.7 mya, when the australopiths became extinct, and was the first hominin species to migrate out of Africa, apparently shortly after it first appeared.
Page reference: What Happened to H. erectus?

a. Australopithecus afarensis.

b. Australopithecus africanus.

c. Homo erectus.

d. Homo sapiens.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Knowledge of Key Terms and Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 17]

17) Hominins dating from 500,000 to 200,000 years ago possessing morphological features found in both Homo erectus and Homo sapiens are considered which kind of Homo sapiens?

Feedback: Archaic Homo sapiens are hominins dating from 500,000 to 200,000 years ago that possessed morphological features found in both Homo erectus and Homo sapiens.

Page reference: How Did Homo sapiens Evolve?

a. Archaic

b. Ancient

c. Early

d. Transitional

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Knowledge of Key Terms and Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 18]

18) The hypothesis that only one subpopulation of Homo erectus underwent a rapid spurt of evolution to produce Homo sapiens 200,000-100,000 years ago is called the

Feedback: Replacement model is the hypothesis that only one subpopulation of Homo erectus, probably located in Africa, underwent a rapid spurt of evolution to produce Homo sapiens 200,000 to 100,000 years ago. After that time, H. sapiens would itself have multiplied and moved out of Africa, gradually populating the globe and eventually replacing any remaining populations of H. erectus or their descendants.
Page reference: How Did Homo sapiens Evolve?

a. regional continuity model.

b. replacement model.

c. Asian origin model.

d. mostly out-of-Africa model.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Knowledge of Key Terms and Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 19]

19) The hypothesis that evolution from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens occurred gradually throughout the traditional range of H. erectus is the

Feedback: Regional continuity model is the hypothesis that evolution from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens occurred gradually throughout the entire traditional range of H. erectus.
Page reference: How Did Homo sapiens Evolve?

a. regional continuity model.

b. replacement model.

c. Asian origin model.

d. mostly out-of-Africa model.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Knowledge of Key Terms and Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 20]

20) The hypothesis that anatomically modern hominins might have exchanged genes with more archaic populations they encountered after they left Africa is called the

Feedback: In 2001, biological anthropologist John Relethford proposed a compromise: the mostly out of Africa model. Relethford agreed that the fossil evidence suggested an African origin for modern human anatomy, but he argued that this did not mean that the entire contents of the modern human gene pool were exclusively from Africa as well.

Page reference: How Did Homo sapiens Evolve?

a. regional continuity model.

b. replacement model.

c. Asian origin model.

d. mostly out-of-Africa model.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Knowledge of Key Terms and Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 21]

21) The “Neandertals” are

Feedback: Neandertals are an archaic species of Homo that lived in Europe and western Asia 130,000–35,000 years ago.

Page reference: Who Were the Neandertals (130,000–35,000 Years Ago)?

a. hominin fossils that apparently evolved from an earlier population of Homo erectus in Africa about 500,000 years ago.

b. hominin fossils from Europe and western Asia that apparently evolved from an earlier population of archaic Homo sapiens about 130,000 years ago.

c. hominin fossils from China that apparently evolved from an earlier population of Homo erectus about 1 million years ago.

d. hominin fossils from Asia that apparently evolved from an earlier population of archaic Homo sapiens about 200,000 years ago.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Knowledge of Key Terms and Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 22]

22) Associated with Neandertal finds in Europe and southwestern Asia is a new stone-tool tradition called the

Feedback: Mousterian tradition is a Middle Paleolithic stone-tool tradition associated with Neandertals in Europe and southwestern Asia and with anatomically modern human beings in Africa.
Page reference: What Do We Know about Middle Paleolithic/Middle Stone Age Culture?

a. Acheulean.

b. Mousterian.

c. Aurignacian.

d. Châtelperronian.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Knowledge of Key Terms and Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 23]

23) Recent advances in the sequencing of ancient DNA seem to indicate that

Feedback: Green and his colleagues in the Leipzig lab extracted nuclear DNA from 21 Neandertal bones from Vindija, Croatia, and found that 1% to 4% of the genomes of modern non-Africans contained Neandertal sequences, but that no sequences from modern humans appeared in the Neandertal genome. They concluded, therefore, that most genetic variation in modern humans outside Africa originated with our anatomically modern ancestors.

Page reference: What Do We Know about Anatomically Modern Humans (200,000 Years Ago to Present)?

a. Neandertals share many DNA sequences with contemporary humans.

b. about 1% to 4% of the genomes of modern, non-Africans contain Neandertal DNA sequences.

c. modern humans are descended from Neandertals.

d. the category “Neandertal” is invalid.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Knowledge of Key Terms and Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 24]

24) Denisovans and Neandertals

Feedback: Denisovans are a population of Pleistocene hominins known only from ancient DNA recovered from two tiny 41,000-year-old fossils deposited in Denisova Cave, Russian Siberia. Denisovans and Neandertals are thought to share a common ancestor that left Africa 500,000 years ago. Parts of the Denisovan genome resemble the genomes of modern humans from New Guinea.
Page reference: What Do We Know about Anatomically Modern Humans (200,000 Years Ago to Present)?

a. are very closely related.

b. have a common ancestor.

c. evolved into modern humans in different places.

d. came from Africa.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Knowledge of Key Terms and Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 25]

25) The Denisovans are a population of

Feedback: Denisovans are a population of Pleistocene hominins known only from ancient DNA recovered from two tiny 41,000-year-old fossils deposited in Denisova Cave, Russian Siberia. Denisovans and Neandertals are thought to share a common ancestor that left Africa 500,000 years ago. Parts of the Denisovan genome resemble the genomes of modern humans from New Guinea.
Page reference: What Do We Know about Anatomically Modern Humans (200,000 Years Ago to Present)?

a. early Homo erectus found in the Republic of Georgia.

b. Pleistocene hominins whose bones have been found in Africa and in Southeast Asia.

c. Pleistocene hominins known only from ancient DNA recovered from three tiny fossils found in a cave in Russian Siberia.

d. hominins ancestral to the early robust australopiths found in eastern Africa.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Knowledge of Key Terms and Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 26]

26) What is the name given to the period of highly elaborate stone-tool traditions in Europe in which blades were important, 40,000–10,300 years ago?

Feedback: Upper Paleolithic/Late Stone Age (LSA) is the name given to the period of highly elaborate stone-tool traditions in Europe in which blades were important, 40,000–10,300 years ago.
Page reference: What Do We Know about the Upper Paleolithic/Late Stone Age (40,000?–12,000 Years Ago)?

a. Denosivans

b. Early Paleolithic

c. Upper Paleolithic/Late Stone Age

d. Copper Age

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Knowledge of Key Terms and Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 27]

27) Stone tools that are at least twice as long as they are wide are

Feedback: A blade is defined as any flake that is at least twice as long as it is wide. Blades have traditionally been associated with anatomically modern humans, who have been given credit for the development of the various cultures of the Upper Paleolithic.
Page reference: What Do We Know about the Upper Paleolithic/Late Stone Age (40,000?–12,000 Years Ago)?

a. composite.

b. flakes.

c. blades.

d. Levallois.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Knowledge of Key Terms and Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 28]

28) Tools in which several different materials are combined to produce the final working implement are considered

Feedback: Composite tools are tools such as bows and arrows in which several different materials are combined (e.g., stone, wood, bone, ivory, antler) to produce the final working implement.
Page reference: What Do We Know about the Upper Paleolithic/Late Stone Age (40,000?–12,000 Years Ago)?

a. composite.

b. flakes.

c. blades.

d. Levallois.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Comprehension of Fundamental Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 29]

29) The theory of punctuated equilibrium is based on the observation that

Feedback: Punctuated equilibrium is a theory claiming that most of evolutionary history has been characterized by relatively stable species coexisting in an equilibrium that is occasionally punctuated by sudden bursts of speciation, when extinctions are widespread and many new species appear.

Page reference: What Is Macroevolution?

a. long periods of intense speciation alternate with long brief periods of stasis.

b. new species appear in the fossil record alongside their unchanged ancestors.

c. evolutionary change occurs at a constant pace.

d. change does not occur over time.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Comprehension of Fundamental Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 30]

30) Most hominin fossils older than 3 million years of age are called

Feedback: Contemporary taxonomists classify the African great apes and humans together as hominids; within the hominid category, they separate out humans and their bipedal ancestors, who are classified together as hominins. Within the hominin category, a further distinction is also commonly made between recent hominin species assigned to the genus Homo and earlier hominin species assigned to such genera as Ardipithecus, Australopithecus, or Paranthropus. Several authorities informally refer to all the earlier hominins as “australopiths” (Tattersall 2012; Klein 2009, 131), and that is what we will do here.

Page reference: Who Were the First Hominins (6–3 mya)?

a. anthropoids.

b. australopiths.

c. protohominids.

d. australoids.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Comprehension of Fundamental Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 31]

31) The bones of the fingers and toes of Au. afarensis are slightly curved, and the toes are much longer than the toes of modern human beings. This suggests to paleoanthropologists that

Feedback: Elements of the postcranial skeleton of Au. afarensis clearly recall its recent ape ancestry. It has longer arms, in proportion to its legs, than any other hominin. Also, the bones of its fingers and toes are slightly curved, and the toes are much longer, resembling the finger and toe bones of apes. Because these features are related to the typical tree-climbing adaptation of most hominoids, some paleoanthropologists have concluded that Au. afarensis must have had significant tree-climbing ability along with bipedalism.

Page reference: Who Were the First Hominins (6–3 mya)?

a. the bipedalism of Au. afarensis was even more efficient than that of modern human beings.

b. Au. afarensis did not move with a full striding gait, as later hominins did.

c. Au. afarensis lost tree-climbing ability.

d. the bipedalism of Au. afarensis was remarkably inefficient.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Comprehension of Fundamental Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 32]

32) The Laetoli footprints

Feedback: The earliest direct evidence of hominin bipedalism is 3.6 million years old. It comes from a trail of footprints that extends over 70 feet, preserved in a layer of hardened volcanic ash laid down during the middle Pliocene at the site of Laetoli, Tanzania. When compared to footprints made by modern apes and human beings, experts agree that the Laetoli prints were definitely produced by hominin bipedal locomotion.

Page reference: Who Were the First Hominins (6–3 mya)?

a. appear to have been made by a hominin with a striding gait and short, straight toes.

b. fit perfectly with the reconstructed foot anatomy of Au. Afarensis.

c. were probably made by Homo habilis.

d. were probably made by Homo erectus.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Comprehension of Fundamental Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 33]

33) Australopiths with small and lightly built faces are known as

Feedback: Fossils of 3 million-year-old australopiths with small front teeth and large cheek teeth were found first in southern Africa and later in eastern Africa, beginning in the 1920s and 1930s. Some of them possessed the typical late-australopith enlargement of the cheek teeth, but their faces were small and lightly built; they were classified together as Australopithecus africanus and came to be known as the “gracile australopiths”. Au. africanus lived between 3 and 2 mya. Other australopith fossils with more rugged jaws, flatter faces, and enormous molars have been assigned to the species Paranthropus robustus, and they are called the “robust australopiths”. P. robustus lived between 2 and 1.5 mya.
Page reference: Who Were the Later Australopiths (3–1.5 mya)?

a. ramidine australopithecines.

b. gracile australopithecines.

c. robust australopithecines.

d. pygmy australopithecines.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Comprehension of Fundamental Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 34]

34) Australopiths with rugged jaws, flat faces, and enormous molars are known as

Feedback: Fossils of 3 million-year-old australopiths with small front teeth and large cheek teeth were found first in southern Africa and later in eastern Africa, beginning in the 1920s and 1930s. Some of them possessed the typical late-australopith enlargement of the cheek teeth, but their faces were small and lightly built; they were classified together as Australopithecus africanus and came to be known as the “gracile australopiths”. Au. africanus lived between 3 and 2 mya. Other australopith fossils with more rugged jaws, flatter faces, and enormous molars have been assigned to the species Paranthropus robustus, and they are called the “robust australopiths”. P. robustus lived between 2 and 1.5 mya.
Page reference: Who Were the Later Australopiths (3–1.5 mya)?

a. ramidine australopithecines.

b. gracile australopithecines.

c. robust australopithecines.

d. pygmy australopithecines.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Comprehension of Fundamental Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 35]

35) The fossils of Australopithecus sediba, from the site of Malapa in South Africa,

Feedback: Perhaps most intriguing are the fossils of Australopithecus sediba, found at the site of Malapa in South Africa, and dated to between 1.95 and 1.78 mya (Berger et al. 2010). These fossils show a mix of features: their cranial capacity resembles that of Au. africanus, whereas their teeth and long thumb bones resemble those of early Homo. Fleagle (2013) concludes that “Overall, Au. sediba seems to be intermediate between fossils currently classified as Australopithecus and those attributed to early Homo, and researchers differ on which genus is more appropriate” (368–69).

Page reference: Who Were the Later Australopiths (3–1.5 mya)?

a. have been dated to between 8-10 million years ago.

b. show a cranial capacity dissimilar to Au. africanus.

c. have teeth and long thumb bones that resemble early Homo.

d. have resulted in little evidence contributing to the story of human evolution.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Comprehension of Fundamental Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 36]

36) Paleoanthropologists suspect that perhaps more than one species belonging to the genus Homo may have coexisted in eastern Africa in the early Pleistocene because

Feedback: Whereas the brains of all australopith species varied within the range of 400–550 cm3, the new hominins had brains over 600 cm3. Were these merely advanced gracile australopiths, or did they belong to a new species or even a new genus? For Louis Leakey, who discovered at Olduvai in 1963 a skull with a cranial capacity of 680 cm3, the answer was clear. He asserted that the skull belonged to the genus Homo and named it Homo habilis—“handy man.” Eventually, Leakey and his allies discovered more fossils that were assigned to H. habilis. But some paleoanthropologists believed that these fossils showed too much internal variation for a single species, and they proceeded to sort the fossils into new categories.

Page reference: What Do We Know about Early Homo (2.4–1.5 mya)?

a. the fossils assigned to Homo habilis show too much internal variation to all belong to the same species.

b. more than one species of robust australopithecine coexisted in the late Pliocene.

c. more than one species of gracile australopithecine has been found in southern Africa.

d. both robust and gracile australopithecines coexisted in earlier periods.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Comprehension of Fundamental Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 37]

37) The paleoanthropologists who discovered the fossils they called Homo naledi justified classifying the fossils as a variety of early Homo for which reason?

Feedback: Today, it is widely believed that several species belonging to the genus Homo coexisted in eastern Africa in the early Pleistocene (Tattersall 2012, 88–89; Fleagle 2013, 376). The remains of Homo naledi and the LediGeraru find further complicate our understanding of the origin of our own genus. While the species of early Homo have all gained some measure of acceptance, some paleoanthropologists are convinced that the category “early Homo” is far too inclusive, and that a more precise list of derived morphological traits unique to the genus Homo needs to be formulated, even though experts disagree about just which traits ought to be included on that list (Schwartz and Tattersall 2015). This debate is likely to continue for some time.
Page reference: What Do We Know about Early Homo (2.4–1.5 mya)?

a. Their large cranial capacity

b. Stone tools found in association with the fossils

c. Close morphological relations between H. naledi fossils and other early Homo fossils

d. Their firm dating at 1 million years of age

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Comprehension of Fundamental Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 38]

38) The oldest human tools were part of which tradition?

Feedback: In 2015, paleoanthropologists working in West Turkana, Kenya, reported the discovery stone tools 3.3 million years old that are different enough from Oldowan tools to have been given their own name: Lomekwian (Harmand et al. 2015). Prior to these finds, members of early Homo had been considered the makers of the first stone tools, which were understood to be Oldowan tools.

Page reference: What Do We Know about Early Homo (2.4–1.5 mya)?

a. Core tradition

b. Lomekwian tradition

c. Acheulean tradition

d. Chopping tool tradition

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Comprehension of Fundamental Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 39]

39) Richard Potts has argued that the most efficient way for early hominins to get stones for stone tools together with the animal carcasses to be processed with those tools would be for early hominins

Feedback: Potts has offered his “stone cache hypothesis” to explain how stones and bones might have accumulated at Olduvai 2 mya. Using a computer simulation, he found that the most efficient way for early hominins to get stones and animal carcasses together would be to cache (or hide) stones at various spots in areas where they hunted and bring carcasses to the nearest cache for processing. Early hominins might have created the first stone caches accidentally but would have returned to them regularly whenever stone tools were needed, thus reconstructing their niche by creating a collection of stones and animal parts.

Page reference: What Do We Know about Early Homo (2.4–1.5 mya)?

a. to carry the stones with them in shoulder slings made of animal hides.

b. to use the stones found in the area of the carcass and discard them after use.

c. to store stones at various spots and bring the carcasses to the nearest supply of stones.

d. to establish a strong home base with a large supply of stones collected from around the region and bring the carcasses back to the home base.

Type: true-false

Title: [Comprehension of Fundamental Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 40]

40) Homo erectus finds from Dmanisi, in the Republic of Georgia,

appear to show the first hominin species to migrate out of Africa at a

date to 1.8 mya.

Feedback: Chris Stringer, who was not part of this team, concluded that H. naledi appeared to most closely resemble early Homo erectus fossils from Dmanesi, Georgia, which is also thought to be about 1.8–2 mya (Stringer 2015).

Page reference: What Do We Know about Early Homo (2.4–1.5 mya)?

a. True

b. False

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Comprehension of Fundamental Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 41]

41) Fossils of early Homo disappear around

Feedback: Fossils of early Homo disappear around the beginning of the Pleistocene, about 1.8 mya, by either evolving into or being replaced by large-brained, robust hominins called Homo erectus. H. erectus seems to have coexisted in eastern Africa with the robust australopithecines until between 1.2 and 0.7 mya, when the australopiths became extinct, and was the first hominin species to migrate out of Africa, apparently shortly after it first appeared. A collection of cranial and postcranial hominin fossils found in the Republic of Georgia (part of the former Soviet Union) date to 1.8 mya and appear to represent an early Homo erectus population of this kind.
Page reference: Who Was Homo erectus (1.8–1.7 mya to 0.5–0.4 mya)?

a. 10.8 million years ago.

b. 5.8 million years ago.

c. 1.8 million years ago.

d. 85,000 years ago.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Comprehension of Fundamental Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 42]

42) The species of large-brained, robust hominins that lived between 1.8 and 0.4 mya is

Feedback: Fossils of early Homo disappear around the beginning of the Pleistocene, about 1.8 mya, by either evolving into or being replaced by large-brained, robust hominins called Homo erectus (Figure 4.15). H. erectus seems to have coexisted in eastern Africa with the robust australopithecines until between 1.2 and 0.7 mya, when the australopiths became extinct, and was the first hominin species to migrate out of Africa, apparently shortly after it first appeared.

Page reference: Who Was Homo erectus (1.8–1.7 mya to 0.5–0.4 mya)?

a. Homo habilis

b. Homo erectus

c. Homo ergaster

d. Homo sapiens

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Comprehension of Fundamental Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 43]

43) Biological anthropologist Richard Wrangham suggests that cooking food affected human evolution in which of the following ways?

Feedback: Biological anthropologist Richard Wrangham has suggested that the transition to H. erectus was pushed by the control of fire, which led to an increasing reliance on cooked food. In his view, cooking was of major importance in human evolution: “The newly delicious cooked diet led to their evolving smaller guts, bigger brains, bigger bodies, and reduced body hair” (2009, 194), as well as smaller teeth, since cooked foods are softer than raw foods. For Wrangham, the things that separate humanity from the other primates are the consequences of cooking.

Page reference: Who Was Homo erectus (1.8–1.7 mya to 0.5–0.4 mya)?

a. Smaller teeth evolved.

b. Hunting became possible.

c. Plant food became more digestible.

d. Refined palettes evolved.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Comprehension of Fundamental Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 44]

44) The scope of evolutionary adaptation attained by H. erectus

Feedback: The scope of evolutionary adaptation attained by H. erectus surpassed that of earlier Homo species such as H. habilis. The postcranial skeleton of H. erectus was essentially modern in form, and its brain was considerably larger than that of its precursors. These features apparently allowed populations of H. erectus to make more elaborate tools and to move successfully into arid, seasonal environments in Africa and cooler climates in Eurasia. As best we can tell now, it was from among these populations that the first members of our own species, H. sapiens, issued forth.
Page reference: What Happened to H. erectus?

a. shows that the brain was considerably smaller than its precursors.

b. allowed for simpler stone tool production.

c. surpassed that of earlier Homo species such as H. habilis.

d. resulted in a lack of migratory patterns.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Comprehension of Fundamental Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 45]

45) The average Neandertal cranial capacity

Feedback: Genetic information from ancient DNA indicates not only that Neandertals apparently exchanged genes with a previously unknown “Denisovan” population in Russian Siberia, but also that ancient mitochondrial DNA from the Denisovans appears closely related to ancient mitochondrial DNA from a fossil from Sima de los Huesos in Spain (Meyer et al. 2014). It seems clear that mobility and interbreeding among ancient hominin populations were much greater than suspected, and they are reconsidering how boundaries between fossil species ought to be understood.
Page reference: Who Were the Neandertals (130,000–35,000 Years Ago)?

a. is larger than that of modern human populations.

b. is smaller than that of modern human populations.

c. averages about 1,400 cubic centimeters.

d. suggests that the Neandertal brain was symmetrical.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Comprehension of Fundamental Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 46]

46) Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) recovered from a fossil hominin from Sima de los Huesos in northern Spain shows connections to the mtDNA of

Feedback: Genetic information from ancient DNA indicates not only that Neandertals apparently exchanged genes with a previously unknown “Denisovan” population in Russian Siberia, but also that ancient mitochondrial DNA from the Denisovans appears closely related to ancient mitochondrial DNA from a fossil from Sima de los Huesos in Spain (Meyer et al. 2014). It seems clear that mobility and interbreeding among ancient hominin populations were much greater than suspected, and they are reconsidering how boundaries between fossil species ought to be understood.
Page reference: Who Were the Neandertals (130,000–35,000 Years Ago)?

a. Ardipithecus ramidus.

b. the robust australopiths.

c. the gracile australopiths.

d. the Denisovans.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Comprehension of Fundamental Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 47]

47) Which of the following statements describes Neandertal culture?

Feedback: A very different kind of evidence may illustrate the humanity of the Neandertals. All the data indicate that Neandertals lived hard lives in a difficult habitat, and many Neandertal bones show evidence of injuries, disease, and premature aging. To survive as long as they did, the individuals to whom these bones belonged would have needed to rely on others to care for them (Chase 1989, 330). As Klein (2009) observes, “group concern for the old and sick may have permitted Neandertals to live longer than any of their predecessors, and it is the most recognizably human, nonmaterial aspect of their behavior that can be directly inferred from the archaeological record” (585).
Page reference: What Do We Know about Middle Paleolithic/Middle Stone Age Culture?

a. They buried their dead.

b. They left a profusion of objects made of bone, ivory, antler, and shell.

c. Many of their dwellings have been excavated.

d. They abandoned their dead.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Comprehension of Fundamental Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 48]

48) Compared with Neandertals, anatomically modern human beings

Feedback: During the period when classic Neandertal populations appeared in Europe and western Asia, a different kind of hominin appeared to the south that possessed an anatomy like that of modern human beings. They had an average cranial capacity of more than 1,350 cm3, domed foreheads, and round braincases. These early modern people also had flatter faces than Neandertals, usually with distinct chins. Their teeth were not crowded into the front of their jaws, and they lacked retromolar spaces. The postcranial skeleton of these anatomically modern human beings was much more lightly built than that of the Neandertals. In Europe, where the fossil record is fullest, their skeletons gradually became smaller and less robust for about 20,000 years after they first appeared.

Page reference: What Do We Know about Anatomically Modern Humans (200,000 Years Ago to Present)?

a. are less robust.

b. have larger molars.

c. have retromolar spaces.

d. lack chins.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Comprehension of Fundamental Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 49]

49) Anatomically modern human beings are about how many years old?

Feedback: Experts long thought that anatomically modern humans first appeared about 40,000 years ago in Europe. However, discoveries in recent years have profoundly altered our understanding of modern human origins. It is now accepted that the earliest documented evidence for the appearance of anatomically modern humans is around 300,000 years old, comes from the site of Jebel Irhoud, in Morocco (Richter, D. et al. 2017). Newly discovered hominin skeletal material (Hublin et al. 2017) included a tooth that was dated using both uranium series and electron spin resonance techniques, and fire-heated flint artifacts associated with the hominin fossils were dated using thermoluminesce. Together, these materials suggest a date of 315,000 ( ± 34,000) years ago, a date that is also consistent with biostratigraphic dates obtained from rodent fossils at the site (Geraads, D. et al. 2013).

Page reference: What Do We Know about Anatomically Modern Humans (200,000 Years Ago to Present)?

a. 300,000 years old

b. 100,000 years old

c. 25,000 years old

d. 10,000 years old

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Comprehension of Fundamental Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 50]

50) The oldest fossils of anatomically modern humans at Herto date from

Feedback: Other fossils assigned to early Homo anatomically modern Homo sapiens have been found elsewhere in Africa. Two sites in Ethiopia produced important finds: fossils from Omo Kibish have been dated to 195,000 years ago and fossils from Herto to between 154,000 and 160,000 years ago.
Page reference: What Do We Know about Anatomically Modern Humans (200,000 Years Ago to Present)?

a. between 154,000 and 160,000 years ago.

b. between 300,000 and 350,000 years ago.

c. between 500,000 and 550,000 years ago.

d. between 2 and 2.5 million years ago.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Comprehension of Fundamental Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 51]

51) Genetic evidence indicates Neandertals were

Feedback: Evidence from ancient DNA also shows that Neandertals did interbreed with other non-Neandertal populations during the Pleistocene, and Neandertal genes make up 1% to 4% of our modern nuclear genome. However, Y-chromosome DNA recently extracted from a Neandertal skeleton is distinct from all known modern human Y-chromosome lineages, which suggests that this lineage has gone extinct. If so, its disappearance could be due to genetic drift, but the researchers also suggest another possibility: that genetic incompatibilities in the genomes of male fetuses with Neandertal fathers and anatomically modern human mothers rendered these fetuses unviable or infertile. If this second possibility were the case, it might have contributed to reproductive isolation between Neandertals and anatomically modern humans.
Page reference: What Happened to the Neandertals?

a. a separate species (Homo neandertalensis) from Homo sapiens.

b. the same as Denisovans.

c. avoiding interbreeding with modern humans.

d. adapting to be competitive with modern humans.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Comprehension of Fundamental Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 52]

52) The most striking evidence for a modern human capacity for culture in the Upper Paleolithic/Late Stone Age comes from

Feedback: The most striking evidence for a modern human capacity for culture comes from Upper Paleolithic/LSA art. In Africa, ostrich-eggshell beads date to 38,000 years ago, while animal paintings on rocks date to at least 19,000 and possibly 27,500 years ago. Fire-hardened clay objects shaped like animals or human beings, dating to about 28,000–27,000 years ago, were recovered at a Gravettian site in the former Czechoslovakia. This and other Gravettian sites in western and central Europe have yielded human figurines, some of which depict females with exaggerated breasts and bellies, thought to have been made between 27,000 and 20,000 years ago.
Page reference: How Many Kinds of Upper Paleolithic/Late Stone Age Cultures Were There?

a. deliberate burials.

b. regular hunting of large game.

c. art.

d. domesticated plants.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Comprehension of Fundamental Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 53]

53) Modern human beings in the Upper Paleolithic/Late Stone Age

Feedback: Upper Paleolithic peoples were more numerous and more widespread than previous hominins. In Europe, according to Richard Klein, Upper Paleolithic sites are more numerous and have richer material remains than do Mousterian sites.
Page reference: How Many Kinds of Upper Paleolithic/Late Stone Age Cultures Were There?

a. were more numerous and more widespread than were previous hominins.

b. suffered many, many injuries.

c. were the first hominins to move out of the coldest, harshest climates in Asia.

d. relatively unhealthy.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Comprehension of Fundamental Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 54]

54) The oldest formally accepted evidence for human occupation in the Americas in found at

Feedback: In 1997, the “Clovis barrier” of 11,200 years was finally broken when a group of archaeologists and other scientists formally announced that the South American site of Monte Verde, in Chile, was 12,500 years old (Suplee 1997; Dillehay 2000). Because it was covered by a peat bog shortly after it was inhabited, Monte Verde contained many well-preserved organic remains, including stakes lashed with knotted twine, dwellings with wooden frames, and hundreds of tools made of wood and bone. Thomas Dillehay (2000) argues that evidence from Monte Verde shows that the people who lived there were not big game hunters but, rather, generalized gatherers and hunters.
Page reference: Where Did Modern H. sapiens Migrate in Late Pleistocene Times?

a. Clovis, New Mexico.

b. Folsom, Arizona.

c. Monte Verde, Chile.

d. Meadowcroft, Pennsylvania.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Comprehension of Fundamental Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 55]

55) By ______ years ago, modern human beings had spread to every continent except Antarctica.

Feedback: By 12,000 years ago, modern human beings had spread to every continent except Antarctica, a fact that we take for granted today but that could not have been predicted 2 mya in Africa, when the first members of the genus Homo walked the earth. In fact, the more we learn about hominins and their primate ancestors, the more zigs and zags we perceive in our own past.
Page reference: Two Million Years of Human Evolution

a. 2,000

b. 12,000

c. 2 million

d. 5 million

Type: true-false

Title: [Comprehension of Fundamental Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 56]

56) The concept of mosaic evolution suggests that all of the primary evolutionary characteristics of humanity (having a larger brain, tool usage, bipedality, and language, for example) evolved at different rates.

Feedback: Mosaic evolution is a phenotypic pattern that shows how different traits of an organism, responding to different selection pressures, may evolve at different rates.
Page reference: What Is Hominin Evolution?

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: [Comprehension of Fundamental Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 57]

57) H. erectus has long been seen as a logical link between more primitive hominins and our own species, H. sapiens.

Feedback: H. erectus has long been seen as a logical link between more primitive hominins and our own species, H. sapiens. When paleoanthropologists assumed that evolution proceeded in a gradualistic manner, getting from H. erectus to H. sapiens seemed unproblematic.
Page reference: What Happened to H. erectus?

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: [Comprehension of Fundamental Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 58]

58) The evidence for Neandertal cannibalism includes the deliberate cutting apart of bodies and the cutting away of muscle from bone.

Feedback: Persuasive evidence of cannibalism in association with Neandertals has been reported from the 100,000-year-old site of Moula Guercy, in France (Defleur et al. 1993, 1999) and from the 49,000-year-old site of El Sidron, in Spain (LaluezaFox et al. 2005, 2010; Rosas et al. 2006). In both sites, the bones of a number of individuals show unmistakable signs of cut marks that indicated some or all of the following: the deliberate cutting apart of bodies, the cutting away of muscles, or the splitting of bones to extract marrow.
Page reference: What Do We Know about Middle Paleolithic/Middle Stone Age Culture?

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: [Comprehension of Fundamental Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 59]

59) The first anatomically modern humans (H. sapiens), to reach the Americas are called Denisovans.

Feedback: The first anatomically modern human beings in North America, called “Paleoindians,” apparently were successful hunting peoples. The oldest reliable evidence of their presence comes from sites dated between 11,500 and 11,000 years ago, which contain stone tools called Clovis points.
Page reference: Where Did Modern H. sapiens Migrate in Late Pleistocene Times?

a. True

b. False

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Application of Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 60]

60) There is increasing evidence that the genetic changes that underlie speciation may be based on

Feedback: Geneticists have not yet been able to pinpoint the genetic changes involved in speciation, but one hypothesis links speciation to mutations in genes involved in the timing of interrelated biological processes, which have major pleiotropic effects. Ernst Mayr (1982, 605–6) argued, however, that only a few such mutations might be sufficient if the population undergoing speciation was small and isolated, involving few reproducing individuals and thus subject to the force of genetic drift.

Page reference: What Is Macroevolution?

a. accumulated small changes in gene frequencies.

b. mutations in regulatory genes that govern the timing of interrelated biological processes.

c. radical transformations of the genetic code.

d. the need to adapt to dramatically changing environments.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Application of Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 61]

61) Which of the following abilities is NOT considered an advantage of bipedalism over quadrupedalism?

Feedback: The skeletons of all primates allow upright posture when sitting or swinging from the branches of trees. Many primates often stand upright and occasionally walk on their hind limbs for short distances. Because bipedalism requires upright posture, primates have already, so to speak, taken a step in the right direction. Put another way, we could say that hominoid morphology for upright posture that evolved in an arboreal context was exapted for hominin bipedalism in a terrestrial context.

Page reference: Who Were the First Hominins (6–3 mya)?

a. Climbing trees

b. Spotting predators easily in open country

c. Escaping more easily from predators in open country

d. Covering greater distances with greater energy efficiency, although at lower speeds

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Application of Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 62]

62) The “Lucy” fossil is famous because

Feedback: The remaining early hominin fossils have been assigned to the species Australopithecus afarensis. Fossils assigned to this taxon have also been found at Laetoli and in a region of Ethiopia known as the Afar Depression—hence the species name “afarensis”. These fossils, which are quite numerous, range between 3.9 and 3.0 million years of age (Johanson and Edey 1981, Kimbel et al. 1994, White et al. 1993). The famous Au. afarensis fossil Lucy (named after the Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”) was found 40% intact and undisturbed where she had died, which allowed Donald Johanson and his colleagues to reconstruct her post-cranial skeleton in great detail.
Page reference: Who Were the First Hominins (6–3 mya)?

a. she was the first australopith ever found.

b. she left footprints that were discovered at the same time.

c. her skeleton was 40% intact and undisturbed.

d. the Beatles wrote a song about her.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Application of Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 63]

63) The role women play in food procurement in contemporary foraging societies suggests that a unique skill in the earliest human societies was the

Feedback: Richard Lee, an ethnographer who has worked among the Ju/’hoansi since the 1960s, suggested that several “core features” of Ju/’hoansi society may have characterized the first hominin societies: a flexible form of kinship organization that recognized both the male and the female lines, group mobility and a lack of permanent attachment to territory, small group size (25–50 members) with fluctuating group membership, equitable food distribution that leads to highly egalitarian social relations, and a division of labor that leads to sharing (Lee 1974; Lee and DeVore 1968). In addition, women in foraging societies appear to arrange their reproductive lives around their productive activities, giving birth on average to one child every 3–4 years (Fedigan 1986, 49).
Page reference: How Can Anthropologists Explain the Human Transition?

a. invention of endurance hunting techniques that enabled both men and women to travel long distances together.

b. ability of women to arrange their reproductive lives around the demands of their food-gathering activities.

c. ability of men and women to live apart from one another for long periods.

d. ability of active, productive males to provision passive, unproductive females who stayed in base camps to tend offspring.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Application of Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 64]

64) As it has become increasingly clear to paleoanthropologists that human beings are the product of mosaic evolution,

Feedback: Hominin evolution has also been marked by additional evolutionary changes in dentition. Finally, some developed an expanded brain and ultimately came to depend on tools and language—that is, on culture—for their survival. These developments did not occur all at once but were the result of mosaic evolution (different traits evolving at different rates). This is the reason anthropologists speak of human origins when describing the evolution of our species.
Page reference: How Can Anthropologists Explain the Human Transition?

a. they have begun to pay attention to the earliest common features that define “human nature” in distant human ancestors.

b. they are less willing to claim that a bundle of traits signifying “human nature” originated at one time among our distant ancestors.

c. they are increasingly supportive of the “man the hunter” scenario.

d. they are less willing to claim that either hunting or gathering was the force that drove the development of “human nature” in our distant ancestors.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Application of Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 65]

65) Taphonomists would probably conclude that hominins had scavenged meat from an animal carcass they did not kill if fossil animal bones

Feedback: Answers to such questions come from paleoanthropologists who specialize in taphonomy, the study of the various processes that bones and stones undergo in the course of becoming part of the fossil and archaeological records (Brain 1985). Taphonomists using a scanning electron microscope (SEM) can examine stones and bones for evidence of human activity. Stones used as tools, for example, have characteristic wear patterns along their flaked edges. Flaked rocks that lack wear patterns are not usually considered tools unless they are unmistakably associated with other evidence of human activity.

Page reference: What Do We Know about Early Homo (2.4–1.5 mya)?

a. showed animal tooth marks on top of stone-tool cutmarks.

b. showed stone-tool cutmarks on top of animal tooth marks.

c. and stone tools were found together in the same site.

d. showed no sign of weathering.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Application of Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 66]

66) The “Nariokotome boy” fossil from East Africa looks very different from Homo erectus species found on Java, in Indonesia. This leads some scholars to suggest that

Feedback: The earliest known African H. erectus fossil (sometimes called H. ergaster) is of a boy found at the Nariokotome III site, on the west side of Lake Turkana in 1984. Dated to 1.7 mya, the Turkana boy is the most complete early hominin skeleton ever found and different from other H. erectus specimens in several ways.
Page reference: Who Was Homo erectus (1.8–1.7 mya to 0.5–0.4 mya)?

a. the Nariokotome fossil is more recent than the Javanese fossils.

b. the Javanese fossils are not really hominins at all.

c. they must have belonged to separate species.

d. it is the skulls that matter most, and the skulls are from the same species.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Application of Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 67]

67) Which of the following is NOT a typical feature of the skull of Homo erectus?

Feedback: A collection of cranial and postcranial hominin fossils found in the Republic of Georgia (part of the former Soviet Union) date to 1.8 mya and appear to represent an early Homo erectus population of this kind. Five adult crania from this population showed a range of phenotypic variation that may have characterized early populations of H. erectus in general (Lordkipanidze et al. 2013). One of these crania belonged to an individual who had lost all his teeth long before he died. Tattersall (2012, 123) interprets this individual’s survival as evidence of support from other members of his social group.

Page reference: Who Was Homo erectus (1.8–1.7 mya to 0.5–0.4 mya)?

a. Heavy brow ridges

b. A cranial capacity of around 1,000 cubic centimeters

c. An occipital bun

d. A sagittal crest

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Application of Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 68]

68) Which of the following is NOT suggested as an adaptation for human endurance running?

Feedback: Three sets of adaptations make human endurance running possible: energetics (the flow and transformation of energy), stabilization (how the body keeps from falling), and temperature regulation (maintaining body temperature within limits).

Page reference: Who Was Homo erectus (1.8–1.7 mya to 0.5–0.4 mya)?

a. Energetics

b. Height expansion

c. Stabilization

d. Temperature regulation

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Application of Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 69]

69) What characterizes the burial practices during the Upper Paleolithic period?

Feedback: The richness and sophistication of Upper Paleolithic culture is documented in many other ways. Upper Paleolithic burials are more elaborate than Mousterian/MSA burials, and some of them contain several bodies (Klein 2009, 690–91). Some Upper Paleolithic sites have yielded human bones that have been shaped, perforated, or burned or that show cut marks suggesting defleshing. Again, some paleoanthropologists conclude that Upper Paleolithic peoples may have been cannibals.
Page reference: How Many Kinds of Upper Paleolithic/Late Stone Age Cultures Were There?

a. They became less detailed.

b. They were always limited to single bodies in a burial space.

c. They became more elaborate.

d. They refused to bury the dead.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Application of Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 70]

70) Ancient mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) was extracted from the skeleton of a male infant found in association with Clovis artifacts and buried around 12,600 years ago. Analysis showed that the population to which this individual belonged is more closely related to populations from

Feedback: Perhaps ancient DNA analysis may help resolve some of these questions, even as it opens up entirely new sets of questions. Ancient mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome DNA were extracted from the skeleton of a male infant found in association with Clovis artifacts and buried around 12,600 years ago. The DNA evidence showed that this skeleton, known as Anzick-1, belonged to a population more closely related to populations from Central and South America than anywhere else (Rasmussen et al. 2014, 227–28).
Page reference: Where Did Modern H. sapiens Migrate in Late Pleistocene Times?

a. Alaska than anywhere else.

b. Central and South Africa than anywhere else.

c. Northern and Central Europe than anywhere else.

d. Central and South America than anywhere else.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: [Application of Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 71]

71) Richard Potts describes the evolutionary history of the human species as “survival of the generalist” because

Feedback: Potts (1996) argues that, rather than “survival of the fittest” (i.e., of a species narrowly adapted to a specific environment), modern H. sapiens better illustrates “survival of the generalist” (i.e., of a species that had the plasticity, the “weedlike resilience,” to survive the extremes of the rapidly fluctuating climate of the Ice Ages). In other words, our ancestors’ biological capacity to cope with small environmental fluctuations was exapted to cope with larger and larger fluctuations. In Potts’s view, selection for genes favoring open programs of behavior “improve an organism’s versatility and response to novel conditions” (Potts 1996, 239).
Page reference: Two Million Years of Human Evolution

a. our species is narrowly adapted to a specific environment.

b. our species had the plasticity to survive the extremes of rapidly fluctuating climates of the Ice Ages.

c. our ancestors’ gene-based ability to cope with small environmental fluctuations was exapted to cope with larger and larger fluctuations.

d. b and c

Type: true-false

Title: [Application of Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 72]

72) According to Dunsworth and Eccleston, the hominin fossil record provided limited and tenuous information about human childbirth because primate birth is a secluded event.

Feedback: More recently, Holly Dunsworth and Leah Eccleston have argued that “childbirth is a much more dynamic process than can be reconstructed from bones alone, so the hominin fossil record provides limited and tenuous information” (2015, 60). First, humans give birth to large fat babies, which increases difficulties in childbirth, and this trend may have began before the appearance of the genus Homo. Second, “primate birth is a social event” (2015, 59), even for nonhuman primates like bonobos, which do not possess the features of pelvic anatomy and infant size that make human birthing difficult.
Page reference: Who Were the Neandertals (130,000–35,000 Years Ago)?

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: [Application of Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 73]

73) Anatomically modern humans are Hominin fossils assigned to the species Homo sapiens with anatomical features similar to those of living human populations: short and round skulls, small brow ridges and faces, prominent chins, and light skeletal build.

Feedback: Anatomically modern human beings are hominin fossils assigned to the species H. sapiens with anatomical features similar to those of living human populations: short and round skulls, small brow ridges and faces, prominent chins, and light skeletal build.
Page reference: What Do We Know about Anatomically Modern Humans (200,000 Years Ago to Present)?

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: [Application of Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 74]

74) In light of recent evidence of mobility and mixing among various populations of Neandertals, Denisovans, and anatomically modern humans during the Pleistocene, scientists hypothesize that European Neandertals disappeared because they evolved into anatomically modern people, developing Aurignacian culture as they did so, in line with the regional continuity model.

Feedback: Evidence from ancient DNA also shows that Neandertals did interbreed with other non-Neandertal populations during the Pleistocene, and Neandertal genes make up 1% to 4% of our modern nuclear genome. However, Y-chromosome DNA recently extracted from a Neandertal skeleton is distinct from all known modern human Y-chromosome lineages, which suggests that this lineage has gone extinct. If so, its disappearance could be due to genetic drift, but the researchers also suggest another possibility: that genetic incompatibilities in the genomes of male fetuses with Neandertal fathers and anatomically modern human mothers rendered these fetuses unviable or infertile. If this second possibility were the case, it might have contributed to reproductive isolation between Neandertals and anatomically modern humans.
Page reference: What Happened to the Neandertals?

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: [Application of Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 75]

75) The human social and cognitive skills that allowed our ancestors to survive in novel habitats were exapted by H. sapiens to colonize the world.

Feedback: Archaeologist Clive Gamble (1994) believes that the human social and cognitive skills that allowed our ancestors to survive in novel habitats were exapted by H. sapiens to colonize the world: “We were not adapted for filling up the world. It was instead a consequence of changes in behavior, and exaptive radiation produced by the cooption of existing elements in a new framework of action” (182). Gamble is sensitive to the way humanly constructed niches modified the selection pressures our ancestors faced: he argues that all the environments of Australia could never have been colonized so rapidly without far-flung social networks that enabled colonizers to depend on one another in time of need.
Page reference: Two Million Years of Human Evolution

a. True

b. False

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: [Application of Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 76]

76) Describe three major differences between the phyletic gradualism and punctuated equilibria approaches to interpreting evolution?

Feedback: Phyletic gradualism is a theory arguing that one species gradually transforms itself into a new species over time, yet the actual boundary between species can never be detected and can only be drawn arbitrarily. Punctuated equilibrium is atheory claiming that most of evolutionary history has been characterized by relatively stable species coexisting in an equilibrium that is occasionally punctuated by sudden bursts of speciation, when extinctions are widespread and many new species appear.

Page reference: What Is Macroevolution?

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: [Application of Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 77]

77) Identify and describe the four key evolutionary changes that occurred during hominin evolution and why is each important?

Feedback: Fossil hominins are grouped together with living human beings because of a set of skeletal features that indicate habitual bipedalism, a feature that seems to be the first of our distinctive anatomical traits to have appeared (Figure 4.2). Hominin evolution has also been marked by additional evolutionary changes in dentition. Finally, some developed an expanded brain and ultimately came to depend on tools and language—that is, on culture—for their survival (Table 4.2). These developments did not occur all at once but were the result of mosaic evolution (different traits evolving at different rates). This is the reason anthropologists speak of human origins when describing the evolution of our species.

Page reference: What Is Hominin Evolution?

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: [Application of Concepts: Chapter 04 Question 78]

78) Explain what separates Neandertals from anatomically modern human beings using the following concepts: morphology, language, and culture.

Feedback: The morphological differences that distinguish modern humans from Neandertals are not considered to be greater than the differences that distinguish two subspecies within some species of mammals. Moreover, as we shall see, genetic information from ancient DNA indicates not only that Neandertals apparently exchanged genes with a previously unknown “Denisovan” population in Russian Siberia, but also that ancient mitochondrial DNA from the Denisovans appears closely related to ancient mitochondrial DNA from a fossil from Sima de los Huesos in Spain (Meyer et al. 2014). It seems clear that mobility and interbreeding among ancient hominin populations were much greater than suspected, and they are reconsidering how boundaries between fossil species ought to be understood.

Page reference: Who Were the Neandertals (130,000-35,000 Years Ago)?

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: [Analysis and Synthesis: Chapter 04 Question 79]

79) Explain bipedal locomotion in hominoids. What are the kinds of selective pressures that could have been responsible for its development? What are the major morphological differences between habitual bipedal hominins and occasionally bipedal apes, and what makes them major difference?

Feedback: What sort of selective pressures might have favored bipedal locomotion in hominoids? To answer this question, paleoanthropologists examine the advantages bipedalism would have conferred. Moving easily on the ground might have improved hominoids’ ability to exploit food resources outside the protective cover of the shrinking Miocene forests. Upright posture would have made it easier for them to spot potential predators in open country, and skillful bipedal locomotion would have made it easier for them to escape. Finally, walking upright simultaneously reduces the amount of skin surface exposed to the sun, allows greater distances to be covered (albeit at slow speeds), and is more energy-efficient (Day 1986, 189; Foley 1995, 143).

Page reference: Who Were the First Hominins (6–3 mya)?

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: [Analysis and Synthesis: Chapter 04 Question 80]

80) Describe three different kinds of evidence that paleoanthropologists use for assigning fossils to different hominin genera. Use specific examples. How do these forms of evidence complement each other to provide a fuller picture of the evolutionary story?

Feedback: The relatively rich and reasonably uniform fossil record associated with H. erectus disappears after about 500,000 years ago, to be replaced by a far patchier and more varied fossil record. Many paleontologists and archaeologists are likely to be cautious about endorsing the DNA evidence until it is backed up by additional fossil evidence. Change must be inferred from the cultural evidence produced by anatomically modern humans after about 40,000 years ago.

Page reference: How Did Homo sapiens Evolve?

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: [Analysis and Synthesis: Chapter 04 Question 81]

81) Compare and contrast the replacement, regional continuity, and “mostly-out-of-Africa” models for the evolution from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens. What kinds of evidence are used for each model? What kinds of contrasting interpretations are given for the same evidence?

Feedback: Replacement model is the hypothesis that only one subpopulation of Homo erectus, probably located in Africa, underwent a rapid spurt of evolution to produce Homo sapiens 200,000 to 100,000 years ago. After that time, H. sapiens would itself have multiplied and moved out of Africa, gradually populating the globe and eventually replacing any remaining populations of H. erectus or their descendants. Regional continuity model is the hypothesis that evolution from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens occurred gradually throughout the entire traditional range of H. erectus. In 2001, biological anthropologist John Relethford proposed a compromise: the mostly out of Africa model. Relethford agreed that the fossil evidence suggested an African origin for modern human anatomy, but he argued that this did not mean that the entire contents of the modern human gene pool were exclusively from Africa as well.
Page reference: How Did Homo sapiens Evolve?