Bones, Stones, and Genes: The Origin of Modern Humans

Lecture 4 – Hominid Paleobiology

by Tim D. White, PhD
  1.  1.  Start of Lecture 4
  2.  2.  Profile of Dr. Tim White
  3.  3.  Introduction to Part 1: Our Last Four Million Years
  4.  4.  Video: Rift Valleys of Africa and Plate Tectonics
  5.  5.  Geography of the Afar Rift
  6.  6.  A tour of the Middle Awash study area
  7.  7.  Video: Floods Supply Sediments for Fossil Formation
  8.  8.  "Drilling down" in the Middle Awash
  9.  9.  Using volcanic rocks to date sediment
  10. 10.  Scope of Middle Awash project
  11. 11.  Sites and findings of the Middle Awash project research area
  12. 12.  Zooming into Herto village, a site of hominid fossil discovery
  13. 13.  Paleoanthropology: From discovery to publication
  14. 14.  Building research capacity in Ethiopia
  15. 15.  Testing a hypothesis by comparing skulls
  16. 16.  Earliest Homo sapiens: Herto
  17. 17.  Video: The Delicate Process of Excavating and Cleaning Fossils
  18. 18.  Herto skull compared with modern human skull
  19. 19.  Evidence of stone tool use by Herto man
  20. 20.  Bodo man from 0.5 Myr and Daka man from 1 Myr
  21. 21.  Invention of stone tools affected human evolution
  22. 22.  Australopithecus from 2.5 Myr used stone tools
  23. 23.  "Lucy" and other australopithecines, 4.1–3.2 Myr
  24. 24.  Australopithecus lineage, 4.2–2 Myr
  25. 25.  Robust Australopithecus lineage, 2.7–1.2 Myr
  26. 26.  Homo erectus expands from Africa, 1.8 Myr
  27. 27.  Neanderthal lineage in Europe, 0.6–0.03 Myr
  28. 28.  H. florensiensis: An 18,000-year-old extinct species
  29. 29.  How many species are in the human family tree?
  30. 30.  Did adaptive radiation occur in human evolution?
  31. 31.  The big picture: Hominid evolution from ~4.2 Myr to the present
  32. 32.  Q&A: How has our diet changed from our ancestors' diet?
  33. 33.  Q&A: How can you tell the age of the individuals?
  34. 34.  Q&A: How can you reconstruct a skull from an incomplete fossil?
  35. 35.  Q&A: Advantage of a small brain for our most recent relative?
  36. 36.  Intro to Part 2: Ardipithecus and Our Place in Nature
  37. 37.  Lamarck's ideas as the roots of the savanna hypothesis
  38. 38.  Darwin knew chimpanzees did not evolve into humans
  39. 39.  Ardipithecus: A hominid close to the common ancestor
  40. 40.  Central Awash Complex: Where Ardipithecus was found
  41. 41.  Video: Dung Beetles and Their Fossilized Evidence
  42. 42.  Fossils of many types of animals found at the "Ardi" site
  43. 43.  Discovery of hominid bones from 4.4 Myr
  44. 44.  Video: Hardening Fragile Fossils for Extraction
  45. 45.  Returning solidified fossils to museum
  46. 46.  Reconstructing past environment from fossil evidence
  47. 47.  Early hominid skeletons
  48. 48.  Comparing "Ardi" with "Lucy"
  49. 49.  Digitally reconstructing "Ardi" skull and what it tells us
  50. 50.  Comparing pelvises: "Ardi," "Lucy," human, and chimpanzee
  51. 51.  Comparing hands: "Ardi," human, and chimpanzee
  52. 52.  Comparing feet: "Ardi" and primates
  53. 53.  Making sense of "Ardi's" characteristics
  54. 54.  Teeth as indicators of behavior
  55. 55.  Chimpanzee-human common ancestor was not a chimpanzee
  56. 56.  Why human medicine must be evolution minded
  57. 57.  Evolution's perspective: Geographic range and preferred habitat
  58. 58.  Humans are the sole surviving hominid species
  59. 59.  Q&A: Procedures to be followed to get permission to dig?
  60. 60.  Q&A: Why should validity of our beliefs be based on a theory?
  61. 61.  Q&A: What will the chimpanzee-human common ancestor be like?


Player Features