Masters of the Planet

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by Ian Tattersall


  Atkinson, Q. D. 2011. Phonemic diversity supports a serial founder effect model of language expansion from Africa. Science 332: 346–349.

  Balter, M. 2010. Did working memory spark creative culture? Science 328: 160–163.

  Coolidge, F. L., T. Wynn. 2009. The Rise of Homo sapiens: The Evolution of Modern Thinking. New York: Wiley-Blackwell.

  DeSalle, R., I. Tattersall. 2011. Brains: Big Bangs, Behavior and Beliefs. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

  Dunbar, R. I. M. 2004. The Human Story: A New History of Mankind’s Evolution. London: Faber & Faber.

  Geschwind, N. 1964. The development of the brain and the evolution of language. Monogr. Ser. Lang. Ling. 17: 155–169.

  Jorde, L. B., M. Bamshad, A. R. Rogers. 1998. Using mitochondrial and nuclear DNA markers to reconstruct human evolution. BioEssays 20: 126–136.

  Kegl, J., A. Senghas, M. Coppola. 1999. Creation through contact: Sign language emergence and sign language change in Nicaragua. In M. deGraaf (ed.). Comparative Grammatical Change: The Intersection of Language Acquisition, Creole Genesis and Diachronic Syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 179–237.

  Klein, R. 2009. The Human Career, 3rd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

  Krause, J., C. Lalueza-Fox, L. Orlando, W. Enard, R. E. Green, H. A, Burbano, J.-J. Hublin and 6 others. 2007. The derived FOXP2 variant of modern humans was shared with Neandertals. Curr. Biol. 17: 1908–1912.

  Lai, C. S., S. E. Fisher, J. A, Hurst, F. Vargha-Khadem, A. P. Monaco. 2001. A forkhead-domain gene is mutated in a severe speech and language disorder. Nature 413: 519–523.

  Lieberman, D. E. 2011. The Evolution of the Human Head. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

  Lieberman, P. 2007. The evolution of human speech: Its anatomical and neural bases. Curr. Anthropol. 48: 39–66.

  Ohnuma, K., K. Aoki, T. Akazawa. 1997. Transmission of tool-making through verbal and non-verbal communication: Preliminary experiments in Levallois flake production. Anthropol. Sci. 105 (3): 159–168.

  Schaller, S. 1991. A Man without Words. New York: Summit Books.

  Schwartz, J. H., I. Tattersall. 2003. The Human Fossil Record, Vol 2: Craniodental Morphology of Genus Homo (Africa and Asia). New York: Wiley-Liss.

  Tattersall, I. 2008. An evolutionary framework for the acquisition of symbolic cognition by Homo sapiens. Comp. Cogn. Behav. Revs 3: 99–114.

  Taylor, J. B. 2006. My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey. New York: Viking.

  CODA

  Marcus (2008) entertainingly details the deficiencies of the human mind. Earth’s erosional history is discussed by Wilkinson (2005), and the genetic underpinnings of violence and their neural correlates by Meyer-Lindburg et al. (2006). Crutzen (2002) summarized justifications for the Anthropocene.

  Crutzen, P. 2002. Geology of mankind. Nature 415: 23.

  Marcus, G. 2008. Kluge: The Haphazard Evolution of the Human Mind. New York: Houghton Mifflin.

  Meyer-Lindburg, A., J. W. Buckholtz, B. Kolachana, A. R. Hariri, L. Pezawas, G. Blasi, A. Wabnitz and 6 others. 2006. Neural mechanisms of genetic risk for impulsivity and violence in humans. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA 103: 6269–6274.

  Wilkinson, B. H. 2005. Humans as geologic agents: A deep-time perspective. Geology 33 (3): 161–164.

  INDEX

  A Man Without Words (Schaller), 217

  Abric Romaní (Spain), 173

  Abrigo do Lagar Velho (Portugal), 168, 248

  accommodation, 11, 22–3, 60, 71, 83, 103, 117, 149, 161

  Acheulean culture, 124–9, 186, 245–6

  Adam’s apple, 36

  adaptation, xvii, xx, 32, 35, 44, 59–60, 68–9, 73, 77, 148, 161, 210, 248

  “adaptive radiation,” 69

  “adaptive zone,” 69

  AL 333, 32–3

  See Hadar region

  Alemseged, Zeresenay, 37, 238

  Altai Mountains, 160, 248

  Altamira (cave) (Spain), xii-xiii, 180–1

  ambush-hunting techniques, 169

  American Museum of Natural History, 107

  American Sign Language (ASL), 217

  ancestry, ix-x, xv-xix, 4–12, 18–9, 25–6, 29, 40–1, 45–6, 55–63, 67, 81–2, 96, 105, 109–10, 130, 132, 148– 52, 167, 175, 185, 189, 192–4, 199, 205, 208, 215–6, 228, 231

  “angular gyrus,” 223

  animal proteins, 47, 108, 114, 169

  antelopes, 47–8, 72

  “Anthropocene,” 229–30

  Arago (cave) (France), 135

  archaeologists, xi-xii, 51, 103, 112, 119, 125, 137–8, 158, 160, 168–70, 194, 196, 204, 209, 214–5, 219, 224, 238

  Arctic Circle, 160, 196, 252

  Arctic ice cap, 146–51

  Ardipithecus (“Ardi”), 8–14, 21, 22, 29–30, 39, 41, 236

  Ardipithecus kadabba, 9, 11, 39, 236

  Ardipithecus ramidus, 8–10, 22, 236

  Asia, 2, 90, 120, 121, 132, 151, 160, 166, 196–7

  ASL, See American Sign Language

  Atapuerca site (Spain), 151–8

  Aterian site (Algeria), 187–9, 192–3, 195, 200, 251, 253

  Atkinson, Quentin, 215–6, 254

  Aurignacian, 182

  Australia, xxii, 110, 196, 205

  Australopithecus (“southern ape”), xxi, 20–4, 26–33, 35–41, 49, 59, 67–8, 69–79, 82–3, 87, 89, 93–4, 110, 112, 114, 133, 236, 238, 241

  climbing abilities, 49

  culture of, 114

  and diet, 72–3, 76–7

  and East Africa, 74–9

  gracile, 70–7, 82–3, 163

  omnivory of, 76

  robust, 70–7, 87, 112, 241

  as “stem” species, 69

  variety of, 69–79

  Australopithecus afarensis, 24, 26–33, 35–41, 59, 67–8, 69–70, 72–5, 78, 83, 89, 93–4, 110, 133, 236, 238, 241

  See “Lucy”

  Australopithecus africanus, 70–2, 75

  Australopithecus anamensis, 20–4

  Australopithecus garhi, 40–1

  Australopithecus ramidus, 23, 236

  Australopithecus sediba, 71, 78, 241

  Awash River, 8–9, 26, 35

  baboons, 58, 65, 167–8

  baseball, 53–4

  See throwing

  beads, 199–201, 204–5, 246

  Bed II cranium (Olduvai Gorge), 130

  bell curve, 228, 231

  Berekhat Ram, 142, 246

  Biache-St-Vaast fossil (France), 159–60, 248

  “bipedal apes” (hominids), 13–19, 20–4, 25–44, 46, 49

  See Dikika; Laetoli; Lucy; Woranso-Mille

  bipedality, 6–9, 15–24, 25–44, 46, 49, 53–62, 68, 72, 77, 82–3, 85, 89–93, 100, 104, 106, 109, 111, 116–7, 127, 133, 224–5, 236, 238

  and footprints, 33–4

  full-time, 89–93

  and hominids, See “bipedal apes”

  part-time, 8

  reasons for, 19

  rise of the, 25–44

  specialized behaviors of, 53–7

  Bir el Ater (Algeria), 187

  “Black Skull” (KNM-WT 17000), 76–7, 241

  bladders, 110

  “bladelets,” 201–2

  “blades, xxii, 141, 182, 246

  Blombos people, 200–6, 253

  Bodo skull (Ethiopia), 135–8

  body temperature, 16–17

  bonobos, 2, 6, 30, 33–4, 43, 50, 65

  Bouri fossils, 40–4, 68, 238

  brain size, 4–5, 9, 31, 46–7, 60–1, 70, 77–8, 91, 98–104, 106–9, 121, 129–33, 136–7, 145–6, 155, 159–60, 167, 180, 183–4, 190, 207–9, 242, 245

  and children, 98–100

  and Dmanisi, 121

  and energy, 106–9

  enlargement of, 129–33

  and maturation, 100–1

  of Neanderthals, 155, 159–60, 167, 183–4

  throughout time, 131

  and Turkana Boy, 98–104

  brains, human, See cognition;
language; symbolism

  breastfeeding, 115, 174

  breathing, 103, 242

  Broca, Paul, 102

  Broca’s area, 102, 137, 209, 223, 242

  Buia cranium (Ethiopia), 130, 245

  burial, 174–5, 179, 190–1, 203

  Burnett, James (Lord Monboddo), ix

  bushbaby, 51

  butchery, xi, 38–9, 42, 44, 53–6, 68, 107, 116, 128, 139–40, 152–3, 169–70, 172, 174

  C3 pathway, 47–8

  cane rats, 72

  canine teeth, 5–11, 31, 49, 58, 106

  cannibalism, 138, 152–4, 172–3, 203, 247

  carbon isotopes, 47–8, 169

  carnivores, 38, 45–7, 49, 54–5, 59, 61, 108, 111, 113, 116, 123, 156, 169

  “carrying angle,” 21, 23, 26–7, 30, 36

  cave art (Ice Age), xi-xv, 179–81, 205

  “cave men,” 181

  cerebral cortex, 101–2, 137, 219, 222–3

  Chad, 20

  chance, See genetic drift

  “Châtelperronian,” 182–3, 251

  Chauvet (France), xii, 180–1

  Cheney, Dorothy, 65–6

  Chesowanja, Kenya, 112, 244

  childbirth, 98–9, 113, 115, 164

  children, 98–100

  chimpanzees, ix-x, 2, 4, 6–7, 9–13, 16–18, 33, 47–59, 62, 64–70, 73, 96, 111, 113–4, 123–4, 142, 165, 194, 219

  and early hominids, 47–59

  and savagery, 56–7

  shared ancestry with humans, ix-x

  and sociality, 113–4

  and spears, 50–1

  China, 135–6, 196, 252

  choking, 212

  Clarke, Ron, 71–2

  “cleavers,” 125

  “click” languages, 216

  climate change, 227

  climatic change, 3, 121–3, 146, 155

  See Ice Age

  climbing, 3, 8, 10, 13–4, 19, 23, 28, 30, 36, 49, 49, 61, 106

  coding genes, 95–7

  cognition, x-xv, xx, xxii, 43, 49–50, 55–6, 61–8, 100, 109, 111, 114, 124–7, 130, 133, 137, 141–3, 164, 175, 180, 184–6, 193, 199, 202, 204–6, 208–10, 213–5, 218–25, 229, 232, 240

  and the brain, 221–5

  and early hominids, ix-xv, 61–8

  and handaxes, 125–6

  and intentionality, 213–4

  and intuition, 66, 220–1

  See language; subjectivity; symbolism

  Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (Long Island), 87, 242

  Collard, Mark, 88–9

  comparative linguistics, 215

  compassion, 123–4

  See empathy

  competition, xviii, 48, 78, 128–9, 132, 155, 173, 198, 212–3, 228

  continental crust erosion, 230

  Congo, 202–4

  Contrebandiers Cave (Morocco), 188

  cooking, 46, 111–3, 170–1, 239

  See fire

  copulation, 18, 53, 76, 168, 240

  cranium, 3, 7, 11, 14, 31–2, 40, 70, 74, 76–8, 83, 91, 120–1, 123, 129–30, 135–6, 155–6, 162–4, 169, 177, 185–91, 208–9, 212, 223, 238, 248–9

  Cranium V, 191

  creativity, xi-xv, 128, 141, 205–6, 220, 229, 232

  See cave art; symbolism

  Cro-Magnons, 179–84, 202–3, 205–6

  Cueva Mayor cave, 154

  “cultural” transmission, 50

  “culture,” 100

  cutting flakes, 38, 56

  Daka cranium (Ethiopia), 130

  Dali skull (China), 135

  Dar-es-Soltan II (Morocco), 188, 192

  Dart, Raymond, 57

  Darwin, Charles, xvii, 15, 18, 64, 81, 94–5

  de Lumley, Henry, 139

  deafness, 216–8, 220–1

  “debitage,” 56

  Denisova cave (Siberia), 166, 248–9

  dental enamel, 2–4, 7–9, 22, 155, 173

  See teeth

  Diepkloof, 203–5, 253

  diet, 4–5, 8, 32, 38, 45–55, 58–9, 61–2, 72–3, 76–7, 106–16, 122, 138, 140, 152–6, 168–73, 201, 203, 242, 247, 249

  and Australopithecus, 72–3, 76–7

  and early hominids, 45–9

  and food preparation, See butchery; cooking; fire and food acquisition, See hunting; scavenging

  generalist style of, 72–3

  and gut reduction, 107–8, 111

  and Homo ergaster, 106–13

  and protein, 45–7, 53, 62, 95–6, 108–14, 168–71

  See cannibalism; carnivores; herbivores; omnivores; vegetarianism

  digestion, 45–9, 111–3

  Dikika, 35–9, 41–4, 67–8, 84, 238

  diversity, ix-xi, xvi, xx, xxi, 5, 14, 69–73, 83–8, 131, 165, 173, 189, 193–5, 216

  Dmanisi skull (D3444/D3900), 119–24, 151, 245

  DNA, 6, 8, 11–2, 95–7, 109–10, 161–2, 164–6, 168, 173, 181, 185, 192–6, 207

  See mitochondrial DNA

  Dobzhansky, Theodosius, 87, 242

  Dubois, Eugene, 4, 6, 84, 89, 242

  East Africa, 74–9

  East Turkana, 76

  EKP, See Enkapune Ya Muto

  El Sidrón (Spain), 172–6, 183–4, 249

  empathy, 113–4, 124, 158, 175, 222

  endocasts, 101–2, 137, 223, 245

  endurance hunting, 108–10

  See hunting

  energy/energetics, 15–6, 21, 34, 47, 98–9, 106–11, 116, 165, 212, 221

  English language, 215–16

  English Piltdown “fossil” (1912), 4

  engravings, xxii

  Enkapune Ya Muto (EKP), 203–5

  enzymes, 46

  erosion, 1, 28, 181, 230, 255

  Ethiopia, 1–2, 9, 21–2, 26–7, 35, 37, 39, 41–4, 73–5, 77, 103, 130, 135–7, 167, 186, 236, 238

  Eurasia, 3, 119, 122–4, 146–8, 166, 193, 205, 246, 253

  Europeans, first, 151–4

  evolution, and radical change, xi, xv, 41, 94–104, 185–6, 207–11, 221–5

  See adaptation; ancestry; “exaptations”; natural selection

  Evolutionary Synthesis, 86–8, 94–5, 97, 130, 242

  “exaptations,” 44, 68, 210

  “executive” brain functions, 223

  extinction, 2, 6, 81–2, 89, 145, 148, 154–5, 159, 164, 185, 194, 197–8, 207

  femur, 21, 26, 29, 36, 39

  fingers, 8–11, 22, 30, 36, 43–4, 166

  Finland, 160

  fire, xxi, 46, 111–3, 138, 142, 153, 170–1, 202, 214–5, 244

  See cooking

  fishing, 108

  “fishing” for termites, 51

  flies, 96

  floods, 230

  “flowstones,” 156

  Fongoli, Senegal, 50–1, 57, 240

  Font de Gaume (cave) (France), xiii

  footprints, 33–5, 94, 238, 242

  forests, 2, 6–10, 14–5, 17, 19, 23, 26, 31–2, 34, 45, 47–52, 54, 57–8, 61–2, 70, 73, 77, 94, 105–6, 114, 122, 147

  fossil record, x-xi, 2–3, 20–1, 25–6, 119–20

  FOXP2 gene, 209–10, 254

  France, xii-xiv, 125, 138–9, 158–60, 176, 180–3, 246, 248, 251

  frontal lobe, 102, 223

  fruit, 2, 8, 17, 19, 23, 32, 50, 52, 72, 108

  Gallup, Gordon, 64

  Garcia, Gisselle, 131, 247

  genera, xvi, 2–3, 86–7, 89, 241

  generalists, 8, 32, 59, 72–3, 117, 123, 148, 221

  genes, xi, xv, xviii, xix-xx, 41, 86, 94–104, 149, 161–2, 164, 166–7, 185–6, 189, 207–13, 216, 221–5, 242, 248–9, 254

  coding genes, 95–7

  and genetic drift, xix-xx

  and “fixed” changes, 207–8

  and radical change, xi, xv, 41, 94–104, 185–6, 207–11, 221–5

  and language, 209–13

  genetic bottleneck, 194–5, 216, 251

  genetic drift, xix-xx

  genetics, xvii, 44, 68, 86–7, 95–8, 148, 160, 166–8, 185, 194, 206–10, 216, 223, 2
31

  genomes, xviii, xx, 96–7, 164–7, 173, 229, 248–9

  and change resistance, xviii

  genus, xvi, 5–6, 9, 20–1, 40, 42, 49, 61, 73–5, 77–9, 82–9, 91, 99, 101, 103–4, 111, 129–34, 145–6, 148–9, 152, 185, 200, 212

  Georgia, Republic of, 119, 122

  Geschwind, Norman, 222–3, 254

  Gibraltar, 160

  glacial cycle, xxi, 146–51, 160–1, 188, 196, 228

  Goldschmidt, Richard, 97, 242

  Gona (Ethiopia), 41–4, 103, 238

  Goode, Douglas, 49

  gorillas, 2, 11, 12–3, 23, 33, 36, 59, 65, 71, 109

  gracile australopith, 70–7, 82–3, 163

  See Australopithecus africanus

  gradualists, 87–8, 95, 130

  Gran Dolina (Spain), 152–5, 172, 247

  grasslands, xxi, 3, 8, 15, 17, 22, 50, 54, 58, 93–4, 122, 146

  Great Apes, 2

  See bonobos; chimpanzees; gorillas; orangutans

  Great East African Rift Valley, 1–22, 55, 119, 203, 236

  Grotte du Renne (France), 182, 251

  groups, large, xvi, 4–5, 52, 55, 58–61, 69, 114–6, 166, 171–3, 197, 230

  gut reduction, 107–8, 111

  Hadar region, 26–7, 30–3, 35, 38–40, 44, 75, 238

  hair, 17, 109–10, 161–2, 249

  hamadryas baboons, 167–8

  “handaxes,” 124–9, 137, 139, 157, 175–6, 186, 245

  hands, 11–5, 22, 30, 36–7, 43–4, 51, 54–5, 73, 93–4, 108

  hand-eye coordination, 54–5

  “handy man,” See Homo habilis

  Hart, Donna, 57–9

  Hawaii, 216

  Heidelberg, Germany, 135

  herbivores, 45–7, 72, 122–3, 170–1

  Herto fossils, 186–7, 189

  Hobbits of Flores, xxii, 133, 197, 245

  Holmes, John, 107

  Holocene epoch, 148, 229

  “holotype,”35

  Homo (genus), xvi, xxi, 5–6, 40–2, 49, 61, 73–9, 81–104, 111, 128–33, 145–9, 152

  defining, 81–7

  “early,” xxi

  and Ernst Mayr, 87–90

  and full-time bipedality, 89–90

  and radical change, 94–104

  Homo antecessor, xxi, 152–4, 247

  Homo erectus, xxi-xxii, 25, 82, 87, 89–91, 98–100, 103, 120–1, 127–33, 196–7, 242

  as “Peking Man,” 90, 196

  Homo ergaster, 90–104, 105–17, 121, 124, 127–30, 163, 185, 242

  and body hair, 109–10

  and childbirth, 115

  diet of, 106–13

  diorama of, 107

  and fire and cooking, 111–3

 

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