Deck 6: Early Hominins 

Question 1

What major hominin group, for which we have an extensive fossil record, lived from approximately 4 to 1 m.y.a.?

A) Homo sapiens
B) Ramapithecus
C) Homo erectus
D) Australopithecus
E) Dryopithecus

Answer 1

Australopithecus

Question 2

Which of the following is NOT a location where australopith fossils have been found?

A) Kenya
B) Tanzania
C) Gibraltar
D) South Africa
E) Ethiopia

Answer 2

Gibraltar

Question 3

The hominins known collectively as the australopiths had at least eight species,

A) but only five of them have been confirmed to be bipedal, thus putting into question that all australopiths were hominins.
B) Au. sediba, Au. garhi, Au. africanus, Au. afarensis, Au. anamensis, Paranthropus robustus, Paranthropus boisei, and Paranthropus aethiopicus.
C) Au. anamensis, Au. afarensis, Au. kenyanthropus, Au. kadabba, Au. garhi, Au. robustus, Au. paranthropus, and Au. sediba.
D) all discovered in Africa except Au. boisei.
E) all discovered and named by the Leakey family.

Answer 3

Au. sediba, Au. garhi, Au. africanus, Au. afarensis, Au. anamensis, Paranthropus robustus, Paranthropus boisei, and Paranthropus aethiopicus.

Question 4

Although the first hominins appeared late in the Miocene, most hominin fossils have been dated to

A) the Holocene.
B) 400,000 to 300,000 years ago.
C) the Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs.
D) the early Miocene.
E) 20 to 15 m.y.a.

Question 5

Fossils of Au. afarensis are particularly significant because

A) Au. afarensis remains are the oldest to be found in association with evidence of both stone tools and fire use.
B) they show that the gracile australopiths were not hominins after all.
C) they are the oldest hominin fossils yet found in the New World.
D) they comprise the first fossil evidence to confirm that bipedalism preceded the evolution of a humanlike brain.
E) they show that humans evolved in Asia rather than Africa.

Question 6

Interestingly, some of the physical markers that have led scientists to identify certain fossils as early hominins rather than apes are features that have been lost during subsequent human evolution. Which of the following is an example of this?

A) stereoscopic vision
B) thin enamel on teeth
C) big back teeth
D) chimplike tool use, such as termite capture
E) climbing ability

Question 7

"Lucy's Baby," an important Au. afarensis fossil from northern Ethiopia, includes a complete skull, mandible, and face. What is an important outcome of this find?

A) It has a human-like skull and upper body, unlike Lucy.
B) It indicates that Au. afarensis had a prolonged childhood period of slow brain growth.
C) It was found to have a large cranial capacity but was not bipedal, drawing into question how these traits develop in childhood.
D) It sheds light on growth processes in human ancestors, including brain and dental development.
E) It is the first fossil hominid child found alongside its mother.

Question 8

Bipedalism, considered a key defining characteristic that differentiated early hominins from other apes,

A) evolved as a result of anatomical changes caused by an increase in brain size.
B) may have evolved as a result of anatomical changes caused by stone tool manufacturing.
C) was accompanied by a sharp increase in hominins' climbing abilities.
D) resulted in greater exposure to heat stress because on two feet, hominins spent increasingly more time in the open grasslands.
E) perhaps developed in the woodlands but became even more adaptive in a savanna habitat.

Question 9

Sahelanthropus tchadensis, or Toumai,

A) may be the oldest possible human ancestor yet found.
B) moves scientists close to the time when humans and apes in the Americas diverged from a common ancestor.
C) may be the oldest possible "missing link" between gorillas and Orrorin tugenensis.
D) looks more like a chimp than a human, specifically because of the placement of its foramen magnum at the base of its skull, which is farther back than in later hominins.
E) apparently lived in a habitat with scarce animal life and mountain terrain.

Question 10

Which of the following statements about the South African australopiths and Homo sapiens is true?

A) Australopiths probably relied more on the use of tools than did the early Homo.
B) Australopith Au. sediba is a Homo sapiens ancestor.
C) Australopith sexual dimorphism was less pronounced than it is in Homo sapiens.
D) As compared to Homo sapiens, australopiths had large chewing muscles that ran up the jaw.
E) Australopith brain size was approximately the same as Homo sapiens.

Question 11

Which of the following statements about Orrorin tugenensis is accurate?

A) Orrorin's dentition was more human than apelike.
B) Orrorin appears to have lived on the grassy savanna.
C) Orrorin walked on two legs on the ground but climbed easily.
D) Orrorin's brain is approximately the same size of a human brain.
E) Orrorin is a generally accepted member of the hominin group.

Question 12

Which of the following statements about Ardipithecus kadabba is FALSE?

A) The kadabba find consists of eleven specimens, including a jaw bone with teeth, hand and foot bones, fragments of arm bones, and a piece of collarbone.
B) It lived during the late Miocene, between 5.8 and 5.5 million years ago.
C) It is recognized as the earliest known hominin, with the Toumai find from Chad, dated to 7-6 m.y.a., and Orrorin tugenensis from Kenya, dated to 6 m.y.a., as possibly even older hominins.
D) Its fossils belong to individuals that were apelike in size, anatomy, and habitat.
E) Its bipedalism is still questioned because none of the fossil bones found was a pelvis or a femur.

Question 13

A 2001 fossil find called Orrorin tugenensis, dated 6 million years of age,

A) lacks any possible evidence that it was bipedal.
B) is older than the famous Toumai find.
C) is the undisputed "missing link."
D) was found in South America, suggesting that the transition into bipedalism may have happened there.
E) appears to have been a chimp-sized creature that climbed easily and walked on two legs when on the ground.

Question 14

Of the following features belonging to Au. afarensis, which is evidence of its adaptation to bipedal locomotion?

A) the development of an opposable thumb
B) its relatively large grinding surfaces on the back teeth, compared to earlier primate fossils
C) its cranial capacity
D) the presence of crude stone tools
E) the position of its foramen magnum underneath the skull

Question 15

Which of the following statements about australopiths is true?

A) They have been found predominantly in West Africa.
B) They were fully bipedal.
C) They lived in the tropical forest.
D) They had a greater cranial capacity than Homo erectus.
E) They were primarily carnivores.

Question 16

Northern Tanzania and the Afar region of Ethiopia have yielded some of the most famous and informative glimpses into hominin evolution. Which of the following statements about fossil finds in these areas is FALSE?

A) The fossils from both Laetoli and Hadar are representative of Au. afarensis.
B) Although the fossils from these two regions were deposited half a million years apart, their many resemblances justify including them all as part of the same species, Homo habilis.
C) The fossils from both Laetoli and Hadar, although clearly hominin, were similar in many ways to chimps and gorillas.
D) The Laetoli site in northern Tanzania yielded a series of fossilized footprints.
E) Lucy, a tiny hominin female who lived around 3 m.y.a., was found in the Hadar site in the Afar region of Ethiopia.

Question 17

What is the most important difference between Australopithecus afarensis and the modern apes?

A) Au. afarensis had a narrow chest, whereas living apes have a barrel chest.
B) Au. afarensis had better color vision than apes.
C) Au. afarensis had lost its prehensile tail.
D) Au. afarensis had increased cranial capacity.
E) Au. afarensis was bipedal.

Question 18

Which of the following statements about the recent discovery of the world's oldest child, dubbed "Lucy's Baby," is FALSE?

A) The 3.3-million-year-old fossilized toddler was uncovered in northern Ethiopia.
B) The fossil supports the theory that Au. afarensis walked upright on two legs but still retained an apelike upper body, including two complete shoulder blades similar to a gorilla's, so it could have been better at climbing than are humans.
C) The fossil suggests that the child died because her brain, which appears to have been larger than an average chimp brain at that age, was too large for her slowly developing skull.
D) She is a member of Au. afarensis.
E) Her remains, which are amazingly complete, include a remarkably well-preserved skull, baby teeth, tiny fingers, a torso, a foot, and a kneecap.

Question 19

Which of the following was a key obstacle that hominins' increase in brain size had to overcome?

A) overcoming the trend of ever more self-sufficient children eager to separate themselves from their mothers
B) overcoming the trend of clumsy locomotion that makes hominins vulnerable to predators
C) the challenges of walking with a head that is too heavy
D) larger skulls demanding more elastic birth canals, even though the requirements of skeletal development during a woman's lifetime limit the elasticity of birth canals
E) larger skulls demanding larger birth canals, even though the requirements of upright bipedalism impose limits on the expansion of the human pelvic opening

Question 20

The earliest widely accepted hominin genus is

A) Kenyanthropus platyops.
B) Ardipithecus.
C) Paranthropus.
D) Australopithecus.
E) H. erectus.

Question 21

Which of the following characterized Paranthropus robustus?

A) human-sized skull
B) large back teeth
C) oversized canines
D) weak chewing muscles
E) thin face

Question 22

Which of the following is NOT discussed in this chapter as a probable cause of the anatomical variety found in australopith fossils?

A) sex differences
B) differences in natural selective forces operating in specific environments
C) age differences
D) the long time span within which they existed
E) the poor condition of the fossils

Question 23

In trying to determine whether a fossil is a human ancestor, we should always look for traits that make us human today.

Question 24

As compared to the robust australopiths, the gracile australopiths

A) had smaller teeth and faces.
B) were not sexually dimorphic.
C) had bony crests on their skulls.
D) were carnivorous.
E) had larger skulls.

Question 25

Which of the following is/are evidence of robust australopiths' adaptation to eating hard-shelled seeds and grasses?

A) the presence of very large molars and a sagittal crest on the top of the skull
B) massive fossilized temporalis muscles
C) fine finger bones and a large mandible
D) a small but flexible masseter muscle and an enlarged occipital bun
E) bipedalism, providing the mobility necessary to gather food in open grasslands

Question 26

Orrorin tugenensis and the Toumai specimen are unquestionably hominins.

Question 27

A characteristic trend in hominin evolution has been an increase in brain size, especially with the advent of the genus Homo.

Question 28

Which of the following statements about the relationship between Australopithecus sediba and the human line (Homo) is accurate?

A) Au. sediba is the direct evolutionary link to between modern humans and australopiths.
B) Au. sediba allowed scientists to confirm that australopiths had a different anatomical makeup than humans.
C) Au. sediba dates to well after the human line diverged from the australopith line.
D) Au. sediba is the earliest known fossil member of the genus Homo.
E) Au. sediba did not have many human-like features but walked bipedally.

Question 29

Which of the following hominin traits is key to differentiating early hominins from the apes?

A) tool use
B) brain size
C) bipedalism
D) opposable thumbs
E) sharp teeth

Question 30

The teeth and skulls of the South African australopiths suggest that they had a vegetarian diet.

Question 31

Bipedalism has traditionally been viewed as an adaptation to open grassland or savanna country, although Ardipithecus lived in a humid woodland habitat. Perhaps bipedalism developed in the woodlands but became even more adaptive in a savanna habitat.

Question 32

Oldowan pebble tools

A) are obviously manufactured stone tools that consist of flakes and cores.
B) were also used to decorate burial sites, suggesting very early symbolic thought.
C) were found at the same site and stratigraphic layer as the Ardipithecus kadabba fossils, dramatically pushing back in time the onset of stone tool use to the late Miocene.
D) show evidence that they were used on fellow hominins, providing the earliest evidence of human warfare and cannibalism.
E) include elaborate axes and spears.

Question 33

Which of the following statements about the so-called "black skull" is FALSE?

A) The skull shows anatomical features similar to those of genus Paranthropus.
B) Some scientists assign the black skull its own species, Paranthropus aethiopicus.
C) The skull has a sagittal crest.
D) Some scientists categorize the skull as belonging to a very early hyperrobust Paranthropus boisei.
E) The skull shows evidence of cold-weather adaptations.

Question 34

The discovery of Sahelanthropus tchadensis (Toumai) indicates that early hominin evolution was not confined to East Africa's Rift Valley.

Question 35

Which of the following statements about Au. garhi is FALSE?

A) It was found along with the earliest evidence yet discovered of animal butchery.
B) It was not likely to have had the capacity to use stone tools.
C) It was discovered in 1999 in Ethiopia.
D) It was found with the remains of antelopes and horses.
E) It was a previously undiscovered hominin that dated to 2.6-2.5 m.y.a.

Question 36

What is the term for the bony protuberance found on top of the skulls of robust australopiths?

A) foramen magnum
B) masseter
C) ischium
D) sagittal crest
E) temporalis

Question 37

Radiometric dating of the earliest South African australopith fossils was not possible because the area was nonvolcanic.

Question 38

What do the skull, jaws, and teeth of australopiths indicate?

A) Their diet was largely vegetarian.
B) Warfare was commonplace, because we see much evidence of head trauma.
C) They used a fairly complex spoken language.
D) They were carnivores.
E) They were cannibals.

Question 39

The footprints at the site of Laetoli in northern Tanzania were made by Au. afarensis.

Question 40

Postcranial material from Ardipithecus, the earliest widely accepted hominin genus (5.8-4.4 m.y.a.), indicates a capacity-albeit an imperfect one-for upright bipedal locomotion.

Question 41

Compared to the australopiths, early Homo had larger cheek teeth and a larger cranial capacity.

Question 42

One of the reasons the discovery of the specimen Au. garhi and other materials in its site is important is that it provided evidence that large mammals were being butchered, which suggests that australopiths were stone toolmakers with some capacity for culture.

Question 43

In 2015 it was announced that stone tools 700,000 years older than the previously recognized oldest stone tools were found in Kenya.

Question 44

Robust australopiths have been found only in East Africa.

Question 45

The cranial features of Au. afarensis were poorly adapted to chewing, grinding, and crushing.

Question 46

The dentition of Au. afarensis exhibits some similarities to the dentition of modern chimpanzees.

Question 47

In apes, the thighbone angles into the hip, permitting the space between the knees to be narrower than the pelvis during walking.

Question 48

Oldowan tools were made by striking flakes off the sides of cores.

Question 49

Sexual dimorphism is less pronounced in modern Homo sapiens than in the australopiths.

Question 50

The genus Homo did not appear until after all the australopiths had died off.