Paleoanthropology
The Paleoanthropology (from ancient Greek παλαιός Palaios "old" ἄνθρωπος Anthropos "man" and -logie "teaching"), also Paläanthropologie or occasionally Prehistoric Anthropology is the science of the ancient, evolutionarily early and mostly extinct species of Hominini . The subject of research is therefore the epoch since the separation of the two lines, which about six to eight million years ago led to chimpanzees on the one hand and anatomically modern humans ( Homo sapiens ) on the other . As a result, paleoanthropologists research and reconstruct the tribal history of humans and the development of their specific characteristics in the course of hominization .
Paleoanthropology is a branch of anthropology . There is a close relationship with paleontology and prehistoric archeology .
Interdisciplinary research
Paleoanthropology is an interdisciplinary and a multidisciplinary field of work in which researchers from anthropology, archeology , life sciences and earth sciences are active. Paleoanthropologists rely primarily on fossil finds , which are interpreted in connection with findings from various neighboring research disciplines on the basis of the theory of biological evolution .
These neighboring research disciplines include the life sciences and others. a. Systematics , anatomy , biostratigraphy , evolutionary ecology , paleoecology , paleogenetics , paleogeography , paleoclimatology , paleolimnology , paleophysiology and paleichnology , furthermore taphonomy , construction morphology (especially: functional morphology ); from the field of geosciences are u. a. involved: geology , geomorphology , geochronology , mineralogy , climatology , pedology , stratigraphy , volcanology ; and from the field of anthropology and archeology are u. a. involved: cultural anthropology , osteology , archeometry , ethnology , linguistics .
Questions
According to Winfried Henke , the key questions in paleoanthropology are:
- " Who are our closest living relatives in the primate order,
- when and where , d. H. at which point in the primate family tree branched off the line leading to humans ,
- which special evolutionary ecological framework conditions made the process of human incarnation possible;
- how many fossil hominine precursors there were, and
- How did the evolutionary emergence of our specifically human set of characteristics (especially historicity , language , morality )? "
The reconstruction of the tribal history takes place - as generally in palaeontology - in several stages. First of all, morphoclines are determined: gradients of the change in characteristics in the fossils. Then the direction of the change in these features is determined, i.e. the change in shape from original features through intermediate stages to derived features. This forms the basis for the definition of fossil species, each of which is differentiated from predecessor species on the basis of evolutionary novelties. The next step is the construction of a cladogram , a graphic representation of the relationships between the species without a time axis. Finally, a family tree is constructed with the inclusion of further analysis steps - such as stratigraphy , chronology and distribution area of a taxon . Finally, all the research scenarios ( "living pictures") are created, including, for example, in comparison to current living primate models on advancing as the ancestors of Homo sapiens , about their eating habits , their ecological niches and their social behavior .
It is particularly difficult in paleontology (and thus also in paleoanthropology) to assign anatomically similar fossils to different species and thus to differentiate them from one another. Living taxa can usually be differentiated from one another if they differ in the following properties, whereby peculiarities may already be sufficient for a single criterion: genotype , ontogenesis and peculiarities of the stages of life before and after growing up (e.g. length of childhood, duration the life expectancy after the menopause ), phenotype of adult individuals behavior . As a rule, paleoanthropologists can only fall back on a few and often deformed bones , that is - since soft tissue has not been handed down - on at best rough clues for the former phenotype; today living monkeys can be distinguished by their bones and their teeth only to considerable uncertainty, for example.
David Pilbeam , Professor of Human Evolution at Harvard University and Curator of Paleoanthropology at the Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology , described the difficulties of theory formation in the field of paleoanthropology in 1987 as follows:
- "I have come to believe that many of the statements we make about the how and why of human evolution say as much about us as paleoanthropologists and the society in which we live as about everything that is 'really' has happened."
See also
literature
- Winfried Henke : Paleoanthropology - determining the position of an innovative discipline. In: Archaeological Information. Volume 30, No. 1, 2007, pp. 1–23 (= Bulletin de la Société Suisse d'Anthropologie , Volume 13, No. 1, 2007), full text (PDF; 965 kB)
- Roger Lewin: Bones of Contention. Controversies in the Search for Human Origins. Touchstone 1988, ISBN 0-671-66837-4
- W. Eric Meikle, Sue Taylor Parker: Naming our Ancestors. An Anthology of Hominid Taxonomy. Waveland Press, Prospect Heights (Illinois) 1994, pp. 22-35, ISBN 0-88133-799-4
- Jeffrey H. Schwartz and Ian Tattersall : Fossil evidence for the origin of Homo sapiens. In: American Journal of Physical Anthropology. Volume 143, Supplement 51 (= Yearbook of Physical Anthropology), 2010, pp. 94-121, doi: 10.1002 / ajpa.21443
- Bernard Wood : Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Human Evolution. Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester 2011, ISBN 978-1-4051-5510-6 (also available as an e-book / Kindle edition)
- Emily K. Wilson: Women's experiences in early physical anthropology. In: American Journal of Physical Anthropology. Volume 170, No. 2, 2019, pp. 308-318, doi: 10.1002 / ajpa.23912
Web links
- Topic page anthropology on Spiegel Online
- Where does man come from? Video recordings of a series of lectures. From TIMMS, Tübingen Internet Multimedia Server of the University of Tübingen .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Winfried Henke : Paleoanthropology - Location determination of an innovative discipline. In: Archaeological Information , Volume 30, No. 1, 2007, p. 3 (= Bulletin de la Société Suisse d'Anthropologie , Volume 13, No. 1, 2007).
- ↑ The presentation follows Winfried Henke, Paläoanthropologie - Location determination of an innovative discipline , p. 7.
- ^ Matthew M. Skinner and Bernard Wood: The evolution of modern human life history - a paleontological perspective. In: Kristen Hawkes and Richard R. Paine (Eds.): The Evolution of Modern Human Life History. School of American Research Press, Santa Fe 2006, pp. 331-332, ISBN 978-1-930618-72-5 .
- ^ Matthew M. Skinner and Bernard Wood, The evolution of modern human life history ... , p. 338.
- ↑ David Pilbeam : Rethinking human origins . In: Russell L. Ciochon and John G. Fleagle (Eds.): Primate Evolution and Human Origins. Aldine de Gruyter, New York 1987, p. 220, ISBN 0-202-01175-5 .