All of this weeks information was new to me. I think learning about the really old fossils was very informative. I had heard of Lucy before the class but I did not really know what species she was or anything like that. I think that we need to go to a science curriculum in every school that at least teaches evolution. Despite learning a lot from going to a catholic college prep school, all of this is new to me.
One hominin trait that I think can inform us more about modern human biology is bipedalism. This was mentioned quite a few times in lecture and material for the week. The fact that a lot of primates started walking on four legs and evolved to walk on two shows us that we probably evolved this way. It is cool to look at now because we can see how the species adapted to changes in their environment and what impact it had on humans today. I think that anthropologists get a more full picture with every fossil they find. Wherever an early hominin fits in the timeline, their bone structure and their bipedalism are key.
Another trait that I had not considered previously is teeth. My roommate mentioned how much she enjoyed learning about teeth in her anthropology classes and I was so confused about this before but now I understand. Teeth can tell us SO MUCH about an organism! Especially hominins! First of all you can tell age from teeth from whether they were erupted or not. You can also tell what type of food they ate from the teeth.
I think that fossils can also tell us about the culture in the past as well. For early hominins, you can tell a lot by if they were buried with others, by themselves, and maybe with items that showed how evolved they were. For example, if ancient tools were found around them, we can infer that they may have made them and had the brain capacity to use them. If they were buried with others, it could show emotions like sympathy developing. I think looking at culture and emotion is more interesting than just looking at biology itself. I think it would be interesting to go back in time and observe how these beings lived since they obviously do not exist anymore. Maybe we would find out information that we had never realized before, like rituals they had or communication between them. To me this is more informative than just looking at only biology.
All in all, I think that hominins and our primate ancestors are imperative to learning about where humans came from and how we got here. I do not think that we have all the puzzle pieces, nor do we know how they all fit together, but we get closer and closer every day with research and work. One day we may find out how everything truly happened, but until then, we are striving to get there.
I did not think of the cultural aspect of these ancient organisms until now. I agree, it would be so fascinating to see how these beings grouped themselves and interacted with one another. To connect it with last week’s lessons, we saw that chimpanzees are capable of grieving the loss of group members, children, and relatives. I wonder if these emotional traits independently evolved in our two species or if this was a trait that our common ancestor had? One would think that the more these ancient species care and have emotional connections to one another, the more likely they are to work as a team, and thus, survive. Studying the fossils of early hominins could be the key to answering that question and unlocking other cultural behaviors of our ancestors.
Hello, Haley! I really related to your post because a lot of this information was new to me as well. Like you, there were some facts or pieces I previously heard of but never went into this much detail. The traits we share with hominins is fascinating! I was also surprised at how invested I was in the information on teeth- who would think they could be so interesting? However, after this week’s lessons, a lot of our mannerisms and abilities make sense now that we can understand how teeth have evolved and made such an impact on how we eat. I was also shocked to learn about how much information teeth can give us about an organism- age and diet as you mentioned.
Hi Haley! I have also heard of Lucy prior to this class, but it was in a world history class, so it was less focused on what/who she was, and on her historical importance. But I think it’s interesting that you shared your experience with learning about evolution in school, and I agree that it should be taught, so that at least people are aware! I also find it particularly cool how much you can learn about a hominin, or any fossil creature, based on their teeth. I remember it saying that based on the fact that certain teeth had erupted from the gums on Lucy, they were able to tell about how hold she was, or at least that she was an adult. I know that this coming week we are going to learn about Neanderthals and other later hominins, and how some actually tried to bury other individuals, which is really fascinating to see how non-human hominins expressed emotions, like sympathy (like you said).