Question

text book: Robert H. Lavenda and Emily A. Schultz. Anthropology: What Does It Mean to Be Human? Oxford

Reflection 15 Instructions This reflection will be based of Chapter 2, 3, 4, and from the textbook. Please use all 600 words to summarize the following topics (be specific and use terminology from the textbook): Chapter 2: Explain Darwin's theory of evolution. What is natural selection! What makes an organism naturally fit? Chapter 3: Why do we study non-human primates? What are some distinctive features of primate evolution! Chapter 4 Define Punctuated equilibrium and Phyletic gradualism. What are advantages of being bipedal? Prompt: Why is Homo Erectus being a big game hunter a debated fact? Why is it important? Format: The document MUST be 600 or more words, and typed in Times New Roman 12-point font, being either single or double-spaced. In the header please include your name, date, and class (ANTH 37). Failure to do this will result in an immediate 5-point deduction. DO NOT USE ONLINE RESOURCES. Use information provided to you through the textbook and powerpoints Submission: This assignment be submitted on Blackboard by 11:59 pm Monday 3:30 (for MW classes) and Friday 43(Friday classes).

Answer 1

Darwin's theory of evolution :- It is a theory of biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin. Says that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual's ability to compete, survive, and reproduce.

Basic tenets of evolution given by Darwin:

1. More individuals are produced each generation than can survive.
2. Phenotypic variation exists among individuals and the variation is heritable.
3. Those individuals with heritable traits better suited to the environment will survive.
4. When reproductive isolation occurs new species will form.

It also includes the broad concepts of transmutation of species  {altering of one species into another for example darwin's finches} or of evolution.

Natural selection :- It is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to the differences in the phenotype and also a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations.

What makes an organisms naturally fit :- The organisms which undergoes adaptive radiations or mutation over a period of time (which causes change in genotype) to compensate the changes occuring in the nature makes an organisms naturally fit it makes it to survive with the changing environment

Reasons why we study non human primates :-

• Human beings belong to primates and non human primates are so similar to humans in various aspects.
• By studying those species of nonhuman primates that are occasionally bipedal, and discovering the circumstances in which they display bipedality, we may gain some knowledge of the factors that promoted the evolution of bipedality in humans.
• Human and nonhuman primates also share physiological characteristics like organization of brain. Neuroanatomical studies of the nonhuman primate brain have been extremely useful in helping us to understand how the human brain functions
• Provides better understanding of diseases such as AIDS and to the development of drugs, treatments, and vaccines for the promotion of better health for human and nonhuman primate alike. for example development of yellow fever vaccine in 1951, culturing of poliovirus that ultimately led to a polio vaccine in 1954 and the significant discoveries in visual processing in the brain
• It would be more beneficial to study fossil records as a way of determining why we deviated from these other primates. If anthropologists were better able to determine what adaptations were lost or gained by different species of primates in terms of the time of geological history that they lost or gained them.

Distinctive features of primate evolution :-

Generalized skeleton
Free mobility of fingers and toes
Replacement of claws with nails
Decreased olfaction up the order
Increased reliance on vision
Reduction in number of teeth
Abbreviation of snout
Trend toward erect posture
Elaboration of brain
Increased body size up the order
Prolongation of lifespan
Adaptation to single births

Punctuated eqilibrium :- One of the theory in evolutionary biology which states that once a species appears in the fossil record the population will become stable, showing little evolutionary change for most of its geological history.This state of little or no morphological change is known as stasis. When significant evolutionary change occurs, it is generally restricted to rare and geologically rapid events of branching speciation called cladogenesis.

Phyletic gradualism :- This theory is contrasted with punctuated equilibrium. It is a model of evolution which theorizes that most speciation is slow, uniform and gradual. When evolution occurs in this mode, it is usually by the steady transformation of a whole species into a new one (through anagenesis). In this view no clear line of demarcation exists between an ancestral species and a descendant species, unless splitting occurs.

Advantages of being bipedal :-

• Bipedalism raises the head higher up which gives the animals a wider field of view to look for prey and keep an eye out for predators.
• It is easier to reach up into trees for food (with the hands or the mouth) and it frees up the hands to hold and carry things.
• Walking on two limbs is also more energy efficient than walking on four it gave early hominids more energy to reproduce and therefore more chance of producing offspring bearing this unique trait.

Reasons why is homo erectus being a big game hunter a debated fact :- Homo erectus is arguably the earliest species in the human lineage to have so many human-like qualities. Earlier hominins had important similarities with living humans, like bipedality, and H. erectus still had a long evolutionary path to become homo sapiens, but the fossils assigned to H. erectus display a number of new and distinctly modern human traits.

The species was not only geographically widespread, it also had a long temporal span in the hominin fossil record.

Homo erectus is often referred to as the first cosmopolitan hominin lineage.

Its importance :- It will give more knowledege about how the evolution occured and how homo erectus were transfromed to homo sapiens, Why Homo erectus was bigger, smarter, and more able to occupy and survive in differing landscapes in a changing world than the others.