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2 - Technology: Dating, Diets, and Development

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2022

Ian Tattersall
Ian Tattersall
Affiliation:
Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History, New York
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Summary

Within the lifetimes of some of today’s older paleontologists, the armamentarium available to those who studied fossils was pretty limited, consisting mainly of hands, brain, and a rock hammer. A fossil, by the way, is any evidence of past life: An ancient footprint or worm burrow is technically a fossil, although as far as mammals like us are concerned the vast majority of fossils are the mineralized remains of bones and teeth. These are the hardest tissues of the body, and thus have the best chance of being preserved in the rock record. For reference, Figure 2.1 shows a human skeleton with the major bones identified.

Keywords

AdaptationaustralopithArdipithecusAustralopithecusbipedalismbipedalitycanine toothevolutionfossil humanshominidhomininHomohuman evolutionhuman fossilshuman fossil recordhunter-gathererPaleolithicParanthropusPithecanthopusPleistoceneSahelanthropusstone tools
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Understanding Human Evolution , pp. 18 - 33
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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