Becoming Human Webquest

Evidence

2. Where is Hadar and why is it significant? Ethiopia, Africa; place of pilgrimage for those

who wish to study where humans came from

3. What is a hominid? A creature that walks upright

4. Why was the 3.2 milion year old hominid fossil found in Hadar called "Lucy"? Because a song with the name Lucy was playing over & over again in the lab and the fossil was a female

Evidence

5. What does the word Australopithecus mean? Southern Ape

6. What is a paleoecologist? A scientist that reconstructs the environment in which ancestors lived

Evidence—Related Exhibits

7. The scientific method begins with an observation, information drawn from these observations rests on the principles of scientific thinking. What are the 3 principles of scientific thinking?

a. A real universe existsb. The universe behaves according to

predictable laws without outside influence

c. These laws are knowable because they can be observed and tested

8. Finding fossils can be difficult, name 4 locations on the earth where significant hominid fossil finds occur.

 Answers vary9. When a fossil is found, profiling can be done

to answer questions about the organism. How do scientists determine:

The species – anatomical features of the teeth, skull, & skeleton

The age – looking at teeth & bonesThe sex – sexual dimorphism (robustness &

the pelvis)The health – by examining the skeleton for

degenerative diseases or infections

Anatomy

10 What is the closest living relative to the human? How closely are we related?

African chimpanzee; 98% 11. What is a common ancestor? African

Ape

12. How does the human foot compare to the foot of a chimpanzee?Our big toe is line with the other toes whereas theirs is not (bipedialism)

13. How does the skull of homo erectus compare to the skull of homo sapiens?

They are built like our own (larger and their brain size was similar)

14. Humans are like other primates in many ways. Name two similarities between humans and other primates.

  1) opposable thumbs & 2) complex brains/communication ability

15. Bipedalism requires anatomical changes in bone structure to allow walking upright. Name one difference between the skeleton of a chimpanzee and a human that aids humans in walking upright.

Lineages

16. Where are most Neanderthal fossils found?

Europe & Western Asia17. How did the face of Neanderthals differ

from modern humans? it was bigger and it protruded in the

front of the skull more than ours18. Suggest one reason why Neanderthals

became extinct. because Homo sapiens came on the

scene

Lineage—Related Links19.What is the Missing Link and why is it not an

accurate term for hominid evolution? A half-ape/half-human intermediate of

modern day humans and apes

20. How humans populated the globe is a question among paleoanthroplogists. Compare the "Out of Africa Theory" to the "Multiregional Theory.“

OAT: we evolved from a local pop. of archaic humans in Africa 100, 000-200, 000 years ago

MT: archaic human populations slowly evolved from different regions

21. How does evolution explain the diversity of people throughout the world, like types of skin color? Areas with more sun had people with more melanin to protect from UV rays