Self-study
P1
Darwin's conception of early prehistoric humans as confident, clever hunter-gatherers has long dominated anthropology. ███
Traditional perspective ·
Early prehistoric humans were hunter-gatherers
Why this perspective persists ·
Most recent ancestors were discovered first
People confuse modern hunter-gatherer lifestyles with the lifestyle of our ancestors.
Author's criticism ·
Traditional perspective overlooks important differences
Modern hunter-gatherers are very advanced, and their environments are very different from our ancestors'.
P2
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New methodology and new perspective ·
Taphonomy questions perspective that ancesetors were hunters
Taphonomy involves studying bones. Example: pattern of bone pile deposits and the nature of markigns on bones.
P3
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Evidence against traditional view ·
Grooves on animal bone fossils
Markings made by stone tools on animal bone fossils are different from those made by carnivores' teeth or sedimentary abrasion. Animal bone fossils had carnivore markings underneath markings made by tools, and the tool markings were not systematically at joints. (The implication is that if our ancestors were hunters, we'd expect to see tool markings at joints and we wouldn't see carnivore marking underneath the tool markings.)
P4
███
New hypothesis ·
Ancestors were scavengers, not hunters
Additional evidence ·
Ancestors' teeth show diet primarily of fruit, only occasionally meat
Develop new hypothesis ·
Ancestors may have used trees to spot animal carcasses
Fossil record suggests our ancestors climbed trees and foraged or scavenged for food, rather than hunted live prey.
Passage Style
Critique or debate
Phenomenon-hypothesis (RC)
26.
Each of the following is █████████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ ████████████ ██ ██████████ █████████████ ████ ███ █████ ██ ██████████ █████ ██████ ███
a
order in which ███████ █████ ████ ██████
b
characteristic physical differences █████ ███ █████
c
approximate age of ███████ ██ █████ ███ █████ ███ █████
Not supported. Although we know that taphonomy has been applied to fossils and tools that were almost 2 million years old, that doesn’t imply taphonomy helped discover the age of the fossils.
d
agents that have ████ ███ █████
e
similarities to marks ██ ██████ █████