PBS NOVA Becoming Human: Last Human Standing

In this documentary, it talks about the how we(Homo Sapians), were the last ones standing. A couple of interesting facts i got from the documentary were:

1. The Neanderthals dissapered/died out after the ice age.
2. Some places were early humans were found were Africa, Asia, Australia, and Europe!
3. At that time, when "we" arrived to Australia, the animals wayed over 100 POUNDS!!!! But after a few thousand years after we arrived, they disappeared.

Some Questions I had were:

1. Why did Neanderthals die out?
2. Weren't they use to the cold weather?
3. Did homo Sapiens interbred with Neanderthals?

Conclusion:

Most of my questions were answered by my group, but i still didn't understand if Neanderthals interbred with Homo Sapiens. If you have an answer, leave the comment bellow. If you dont know, then, just look at the comments if there is any!

"Last Human Stnading ." Becoming Huamn. PBS NOVA. 31 Aug. 2011. Television.

From Grunts to Grammar

About 2, 500,000 year ago, our ancestors probably had at least the beginning of speech. About 1 1/2 million years ago, the Larynx began to slowly do down into its place were it is now. "The Larynx contains the vocal cords that allow us to produce sounds from our throat. In most mammals the larynx sits higher in the throat and connects with the nasal passages." As soon as our ancestors started chasing game, the larynx got lower, and we could run longer distances because we were now breathing through the mouth and the nose! Although, our ancestors couldn't talk, they surely used hand gestures and facial expressions to communicate with one another. However when building complex water crafts for sea voyages later on, they must have needed some complexity in their speech because they needed to decide on where they were going and who was going to go. In conclusion, I now know what a larynx is, how it came to were it is now, and what are the advantages of having it lower for humans/ancestors.

"From Grunts to Grammar: The Evolution of Language." Odyssey: Adventures in Science Oct. 2009: n. pag. Print.

Taming Fire- The First Scientist?

Since the creation of fire, it changed the way we live ever since. Wild fires were started by natural phenomena, like for example, lightning from a thunderstorm. When wild fires swept through vast or small areas, prehistoric people and animals had to get out of its way. But there was a benefit to this natural disaster. If the early humans got away in time, but if the animals didn't get out in time they would be cooked, therefor the humans would have a very good food source instead of cooking it themselves. Humans have use fire intentionally for at least 250,000 years. About 250,000 years ago, hearths began to appear in Europe. From the definition in the article, hearths are: "Hearths are rudimentary fire places often identified by a ring of rocks that outlines them." An interesting fact about hearth fires, are that they heat objects to a higher temperature than wiled fires do. The first use of fire might have bean used about 1,000,000 years ago. They found prehistoric human remains in the Swartkrans caves of south Africa with burnt animal bones. They believed that the ancestors that had used fire, might have not known how to actually make it but dragged a log back to their cave from a wild fire. Cooking food took away food born parasites like bacteria and worms and destroyed toxins that in the meat. As a source of heat, campfires were very good at keeping our ancestors warm overnight or during a winter storm.

On Our Own Two Feet

Upright walking is very old, and came long before modern humans evolved big brains.We share a common ancestor with chimpanzees. The human skull is relatively flat but the chimps skull sticks out in front. A. afarensis live about 3 million years ago half way between chimps and humans. Human's Foramen magnum is in the center of the skull, and its larger to. The chimps is more in the back of the skull and it is smaller. One theory was that we stood up to use/make stone tools but big brains and stone tools didn't appear until a million years ago after bipedality. Another theory by C. Lovejoy was that we stood up on 2 legs to carry food to our mates, taking care of offspring and learning new behaviors which lead to a more developed brain. Another theory was that we stood up to cross the hot savanna to get to the forests or to get over the streams. However, none of these and more theories have bean proven to be true because they are difficult to test.