Nova becoming human first steps

ANTH 2301 – Introduction to Physical Anthropology

Becoming Human Part One Video

This is available on the hccs.edu library website – you can search for becoming human and should be able to link to a kaltura streaming version. It was originally a PBS production at https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/becoming-human.html. Please be sure you are watching Part One subtitled “First steps” for this assignment as there are 3 parts. Upload your answers onto Canvas as if you were doing a homework.

1. How did they date the child’s skull (Selam) that they found and what species is Selam?

2. How old was she when she died and how do they know this?

3. What bones confirm that Selam is bipedal and what are some of the theories that this movie mentions that try to explain why we are bipedal?

4. What was the environment like for Selam and her family and how do we know that?

5. What technique did they use to find when chimps and apes (humans) diverged from a common ancestor?

6. How old is the fossil found in Chad and what part of the skeleton did they find?

7. How did they find out of the Chad fossil is bipedal?

8. Darwin thought that coming out of the trees led to bipedalism and bipedalism led to larger brains but the skeletons don’t show that bipedalism necessarily led to larger brains as many species survived and thrived and brain size didn’t change for 4 million years (Lucy, Chad skeleton, etc.), so why do adult humans have larger brains than chimps and is Selam’s brain more like a human or a chimps?

9. Why is the genus Homo habilis from 2 MYA nicknamed handy man and how do we know that stone tools were used?

10. What are some of the changes to the Homo habilis brain?

11. 2 million years ago what jump started human evolution including al Larger brain and tool making? How do scientists prove that this occurred?