This week’s videos and articles provided some very shocking, but equally interesting information. Learning of more modern ascendants of humans has probably been the most engaging topic for me. I was surprised to see how similar we are to our most recent ancestors, despite them living so long ago and in almost completely different environments. I noticed that even though our traits were different based on environment and location, they still shared a lot of functions and purposes. I was also fascinated with how much information scientists are able to retain from studying some fossils. This week’s material provided facts on brain sizes, bone structures, and somehow scientists were even able to create an image of what Neanderthals looked like. They provided a lot of shocking insight to how effective modern technology is.
Continuing the discussion of Neanderthals, our material this week provided a lot of information on how they lived, where they lived, and what they were like (physically). Neanderthals were dated back into the Ice Age; which I think I already knew because of the Ice Age movies (who knew they were historically accurate). Living in such harsh and cold environments required specific physical traits for survival because this species faced many battles with natural selection. Natural selection caused a lot of changes in different groups within these species, because they were either killed off or forced to drift away. This week’s lessons described physical characteristics of Neanderthals, including brain size and bone structure. Their brain/head sizes were larger than your modern-day human (which goes against the stereotype that they were all pea-brained and stupid) and they grew at a faster pace than what ours do. Also, their fossil records implied that they lived a very fit and mobile lifestyle. Their fossils were large which implies that their muscles were also big, leading to the assumption that they were active and strong.
The study of these fossils and early species are very important to understanding the human body and its structure. Learning all of this information of how these Neanderthals functioned provides us more clarity on how and why evolution led us to our current species on Earth. The fossil records allow us to piece together the puzzle pieces left behind from evolution and natural selection- why are our traits so successful today? For example, we learned that because Neanderthals had larger brains that grew at an accelerated pace, they were unable to retain as much information. This being said, we can assume that natural selection chose our present-day brain size/growth rate because we are able to learn much more with it. These early species can almost be compared to trial runs for the universe; used in order to create an ideal species.
In conclusion, I was shocked at all of the information we are able to retain from fossil records. Just by assembling some bones, we can make assumptions of the functions of certain body parts, which leads to creating an idea of what their daily lives were like.
Hi Rachel! I agree with you that this week’s information was both interesting an shocking. I was very interested to learn about the multiple species of hominin that inhabited the earth, some of which shared the same environments. I also found the physical characteristics of Neanderthals shaped by their environment to be very interesting because of the predictions that Bergmann’s rule would make about the stature of hominins living during the Ice Age. By understanding how the environment shaped Neanderthals we can begin to understand how our environment has shaped our bodies and had an effect on our biology. I also liked your point about the difference in Neanderthal and Homo sapien brains and how it may have been an advantage that allowed our species to persist while Neanderthals and other hominin species died out.
Hi Rachel,
Great reflection post! I agree that learning more about modern ascendants of humans was something that was very interesting for me as well. In my reflection, I decided to write about Homo Floresiensis. Both are equally fascinating findings, but I think that they both shared one thing in my overall learning experience. I found it shocking on how very limited fossil records of these hominines can be and their physical development (e.g. brain, teeth, bipedal, and other physical primitive like features) that can be difficult at times to categories.
I know it might sound cliché to say this but I honestly had no idea that findings these fossils could give us that much information about them and ourselves. Like how the Neanderthals had lived an active lifestyle.