Exam 10: The Origin and Spread of Modern Humans

Discuss the Neandertals' dating and geographic distributions.Review and evaluate the various positions that have been taken in interpreting the relationship between Neandertals and anatomically modern humans.

Although scientists agree on the nature of behavioral modernity,they disagree on how and where it originated.

Climate changes had a profound impact on the hominin way of life.In southwestern Europe,for example,

In 1997,ancient DNA was extracted from one of the Neandertal bones originally found in Germany's Neandertal Valley in 1856.This was the first time the DNA of a premodern human had been recovered.When comparing this DNA with that of modern humans,the researchers found

The Clovis tradition-a sophisticated stone technology based on a sharp point that was fastened to the end of a hunting spear-flourished

The stone-tool traditions of the Upper Paleolithic were based primarily on blade tools which,compared to those of the Mousterian,are made more quickly and are better at maximizing the amount of cutting edge from the same amount of stone.

Which of the following aided the expansion of human populations throughout North America?

With an estimated date of 195,000 B.P., the Omo Kibish remains appear to be the earliest anatomically modern human fossils yet found in Asia.

According to mtDNA analyses,when did the first modern humans leave Africa?

In South Africa's Blombos Cave,a 100,000-year-old paint factory was recently discovered.This find indicates that

Climate change and human evolution and expansion are intimately related.Give specific examples of this relationship.Consider the current concern with climate change.How might humans adapt to the impending environmental changes that such climate change is already making felt around the world?

Compared to Neandertal skulls,anatomically modern specimens found at the Skhūl and Qafzeh sites in Israel have a modern shape.Their brain cases are

Although the debate on the origin of behavioral modernity continues,archaeological work in many world areas

Some authors attribute the rise of modern human behavior more to increasing social competition than to population increase or a mutation that led to reconfigurations of the brain.

The Monte Verde archaeological site in south-central Chile dates to at least 1,500 years before the Clovis people (which date to 13,250 B.P.).This evidence for the early occupation of southern South America,along with other lines of evidence,suggests that

In 1987,a group of molecular geneticists at the University of California at Berkeley offered support for the idea that anatomically modern humans arose fairly recently in Africa,then spread out and colonized the world.The geneticists analyzed genetic markers in placentas donated by 147 women whose ancestors came from Africa,Europe,the Middle East,Asia,New Guinea,and Australia.By estimating the number of mutations that had taken place in the mithochondrial DNA (mtDNA)of each of these samples,the researchers concluded that

Recent fossil finds from Ethiopia such as the Herto skulls (160,000-154,000 B.P.)and the Omo remains (estimated date 195,000 B.P.)provide accumulated evidence to support the

How has molecular genetics affected our recent understanding of human evolution?

In this chapter's "Focus on Globalization" section,scientists trace the global spread of anatomically modern humans by constructing a global phylogenetic tree based on mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA).What have we learned from this tree?

What is the name of the land bridge that linked the eastern tip of Siberia to Alaska?