Chapter 3

The Beginnings of Human Culture

Chapter Outline

To what group of animals do humans belong?

When and how did humans evolve? Is the biological concept of race useful

for studying physical variation in humans?

Anthropology: Four Field Discipline Anthropology includes:

– Research on human cultures and languages worldwide and through time.

– Paleoanthropologists analyze ancient fossil humans and their ancestors.

– Primatologists study the behaviors of our closest animal relatives and other primates.

– Others investigate the genetic basis for variations among human populations.

Human Cultural Adaptation

Cultural adaptations allow people to survive in their environment:– Manufacture and utilize tools.– Organize social units to make

foraging more successful.– Preserve and share traditions and

knowledge.

Human Cultural Adaptation

Computer technology enables us to organize and manipulate information.

Space technology may enable us to propagate our species in extraterrestrial environments.

Biomedical technology may enable us to control genetic inheritance and the future of our biological evolution.

Humans and Other Primates

The human species is one kind of primate, a subgroup of mammals that includes lemurs, lorises, tarsiers, monkeys, and apes.

Humans are most closely related to apes:– chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas,

orangutans, and gibbons

Anatomical Adaptation

Preadaptation – Characteristics adaptive to one way of life

that also are suitable for a different way of life.

Ancestral primates – Preadapted to arboreal life favored by

natural selection. Over time

– Arboreal life involves changes in various anatomical features.

Primate Dentition

Diet available to arboreal primates requires unspecialized teeth.

Over time, there is a trend toward economy, with fewer smaller teeth doing more work:– Number of incisors decrease.– Number of cusps on molars increases.

Dentition

Sense Organs

Decrease dependency upon sense of smell.

Increase dependency upon sight:– Stereoscopic color vision– Corresponding increase in brain size

in the visual area More acute sense of touch.

Binocular Stereoscopic Vision

The Primate Brain

An increase in brain size, particularly in the areas supporting conscious thought occurred in the course of primate evolution.

In monkeys, apes, and humans the cerebral hemispheres cover the cerebellum, the part of the brain that coordinates muscles and maintains balance.

Rather than relying on reflexes controlled by the cerebellum, primates constantly react to a variety of features in the environment.

The Primate Brain

Messages from hands and feet, eyes and ears, and balance, movement, heat, touch, and pain sensors are simultaneously relayed to the cerebral cortex.

The cortex had to develop in order to receive, analyze, and coordinate these impressions and transmit a response back to the motor nerves.

The enlarged, responsive, cerebral cortex provides the biological basis for flexible behavior patterns found in all primates, including humans.

The Primate Skeleton

Opening of the skull for the spinal cord shifts forward toward the skull’s base accommodating upright posture.

Snout or muzzle portion of the skull reduced

Arms at side rather than the front part of the body

Retention of the primate prehensile hand with opposable thumb

Primate Skeleton

Bison skeleton (left) and Gorilla skeleton (right)

Adaptation Through Behavior Arboreal life involved changes in behavior as

well as in anatomical features. Learned social behavior plays an important

role:– Social behavior rarely observable in fossil

record– Examination of contemporary primate

behavior may lead to clues to early primate behavior and the emergence of human cultural behavior

Chimpanzee Behavior

Communities with open subgroups Males generally move Male dominance with mother important in

determining rank Maintain strong mother-child bond Grooming is a common pastime Promiscuous sex when female is fertile Settle disputes by aggressive behavior Dependence upon cultural behavior Make and use tools Males hunt in groups and share kill

Bonobo Behavior

Communities with open subgroups Females generally move Female dominance Strong mother-child bonds Grooming is a common pastime Promiscuous sex in all varieties Settle disputes through sex Dependence upon cultural behavior Make trail markers Females hunt in groups and share kill

Reconciliation and Its Cultural Modification in Primates

There is evidence for reconciliation in more than 25 different primate species.

Reconciliation is common mechanism found whenever relationships need to be maintained despite occasional conflict.

Chimpanzees are the only animals to use mediators in conflict resolution.

Reconciliation is a learned social skill subject to what primatologists now increasingly call “culture”.

Human Ancestors

Bonobos, chimpanzees and gorillas – Closest living relatives to humans– Humans, bonobos and chimpanzees

98.5% genetically identical Separation from a common stock

– Genetics suggest divergence at least 5.5 million years ago

– Fossil evidence shows separation at least 4.4 mya

Human Ancestors

Ancestors of humans – Most likely apelike animals – Living in Africa– Forced by climactic changes to leave

trees

Monkeys, Apes, and Humans Molecular evidence indicates the split between

the human and African ape lines took place between 8 and 5 million years ago.

The First Hominines: Australopithecus Earliest well-known hominine, who lived

between 1 and 4.2, if not 5.6 m.y.a. and which includes several species.– Found in eastern Africa and westward into

Chad – Fully bipedal – Brain appears apelike – Teeth more like modern humans than apes– Males about twice the size of females– Likely depended upon animal flesh in diet

Homo habilis

Earliest species of the genus Homo Increased consumption of meat

– Living primarily on the savannah– Scavenging from carcasses– Dentition not suited for meat eating,

so they probably needed tools to butcher carcasses.

– Increased brain complexity and size

Homo habilis

Culture– Using wits to compete with large

animals– Food sharing and preparation– Butchering sites where carcasses are

brought

Homo habilis

Invention of tools about 2.5 million years ago– Oldowan tools

•Striking flakes from core– Paleolithic

•The Old Stone Age, characterized by chipped stone tools.

Homo erectus

Species directly ancestral to modern humans Had a body size and proportions similar to

modern humans, though with heavier musculature.

Average brain size fell within the higher range of H. habilis and the lower range of modern human brain size.

Dentition was fully human, though relatively large by modern standards.

Homo erectus

Culture– Fire and cooking circa 700,000 years

ago– Toolkit diversity– New tool making techniques– Selectivity of raw material– Evidence of organized hunting as the

means for procuring meat, animal hides, horn, bone, and sinew.

Paleoanthropological Sites

Homo sapiens

First appear about 300,000 years ago Archaic Homo sapiens

– Neanderthal• Europe and Asia• Large brained• Massive face

– Other groups found in Java, Zambia, China Modern Homo sapiens

• Less massive face• Less bony architecture

Anatomically Modern Peoples and the Upper Paleolithic Upper Paleolithic peoples

– First people of modern appearance, who lived in the last part of the Old Stone Age.

Culture emerges as a more potent force than biology

Tools surpass the physical equipment of predators

• Atlatl• Burin• Bow and arrow

Tool Making: Upper Paleolithic A technique used to manufacture blades: The stone was broken to create a

striking platform, then vertical blades were flaked off to form sharp-edged tools.

Anatomically Modern Peoples and the Upper Paleolithic Art

– Decoration– Sculpture– Pendants– Cave painting

Ritual– Trance– Burial

Race and Human Evolution Anthropologists agree no subspecies

exist within currently surviving Homo sapiens.

As far as contemporary humanity is concerned, race is not a valid biological category.

Anthropologists work to expose the concept of race as scientifically inapplicable to humans.

Ota Benga

Captured in a raid in the Congo, Ota came into the possession of a missionary-explorer looking for “savages” to exhibit in the U.S.

In 1904, Ota and a group of fellow pygmies were exhibited at a World’s Fair in Saint Louis, Missouri.

About 23 years old at the time, Ota was 4 feet 11 inches in height and weighed 103 pounds.

Ota Benga

The missionary returned to the Congo and with Ota’s help collected artifacts for the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

He returned to the U.S. with Ota in the summer of 1906, went bankrupt and Ota was left stranded in the city.

Ota was placed in the care of the museum and then taken to the Bronx Zoo where he was put on exhibit in the monkey house, with an orangutan as company.

Ota Benga

After protests, zoo officials released Ota from his cage during the day and let him roam free in the park.

Ota was then turned over to an orphanage for African American children.

In 1916, upon hearing that he would never return to his homeland, he took a revolver and shot himself through the heart.

Race as a Cultural Construct Although biological variation exists in the

human species, biological races or distinct subspecies do not.

Variation such as differences in skin color is the result of genetically adaptive processes to different natural environments.

The majority of human variation exists within populations rather than among populations due to– independent inheritance of individual traits – genetic openness of human populations