Pliocene

Literature Review Main Article: 'The Advantage of Standing Up to fight and the Evolution of Habitual Bipedalism in Hominins' Citation: Carrier, D.R. 2011, 'The Advantage of Standing Up to fight and the Evolution of Habitual Bipedalism in Hominins', PloS ONE, vol. 6, no. 5, May, viewed 5 September 2012, Web of Science Database. The aim of this study was to determine whether assuming a bipedal stance, will provide an advantage for striking with forelimbs. Results were determined through human

at which time a lot of the vegetation by which it is thought their diet mainly consisted of, would have dried up. The herbivorous animals living on the plains would have also struggled to find food and the majority would have died out. In the late Pliocene era one line of the Australopithecines began to develop a larger brain, this could be due to increase in protein from the change to a more meaty diet. Fossils of these hominids are sufficiently human-like; they are classed in our own genus, Homo

artefact-determinant explanation for human evolution - was overturned by multiple lines of evidence in the 1970s, the idea that tool-use is part of what makes us human persists (Jolly 2009). The interplay of morphological adaptations and material culture in the Pliocene and Early Pleistocene is currently being debated in a series of hypotheses modeled primarily on evidence from palaeoanthropological, palaeoclimate, zooarchaeological and primate research, some of which explicitly debate the role of weaponry (e.g

human’s bipedalism. There are two fossil species available to the study of Ardipithecus: Ar. ramidus and Ar. kadabba (Gibbons, 2009). There is much greater evidence to analyze Ar. ramidus, a hominine that lived from the Late Miocene to the Early Pliocene (Gibbons, 2009). The 1994 discovery of A. ramidus, commonly referred to as Ardi, included “125 pieces of her skeleton” such as “pelvis, hands, arms, leg, and feet” (Gibbons, 2009, p. 1598). Furthermore, it was determined that Ardi was a female “based

Magmatism refers to action and movement of magma. Magma is the molten rock that exists within the earth’s mantle, and that is in a state of constant motion resulting from the enormous amount of pressure exerted on it by the overlying layers. The earth’s crust is divided into many plates which are also in a constant state of slow motion against each other. The edges of these plates form weak points at which volcanic activity often occurs. Rifts also form edges that run down to the earth’s mantle.

The Onset of the Northern Hemisphere Glaciation By Christina Ohrazda Student at Stockholm University 28.09.15 Introduction The Northern Hemisphere Glaciation (NHG) is believed to have initiated into large scale, permanent ice sheets ~2.5 Ma, which is almost 31.5 Ma after the initiation of the Antarctica ice sheets. There are many possible causes for the onset of this climate event, some of which we will be reviewing in this essay. In this essay we will look at the cores from IODP and ODP sites 302

hypothesis, conjures the idea that “...the rise of African dry savanna…” (Potts, 1998, 107:93-136) sparked the evolutionary transition to bipedalism and tool-making within some hominins. The other theory, the woodland/forest hypothesis, suggests “...Pliocene hominins had evolved in and were primarily attracted to closed habitats” (Potts, 1998, 107:93-136), such as the forest habitat of A. ramidus. Both may be applicable to A. ramidus, considering her lower-half could support the savanna hypothesis, while

the Soddo-Arba Minch areas. Damot Volcano is a large and complex silicic volcanic center; which rises over 1000 m from the surrounding rift escarpment, locally overlies the Nazret pyroclastic rocks. The trachytic lava flows from Damota are of Late Pliocene age (~2.9 Ma [Woldegabriel et al., 1990]). Hobitcha is Quaternary volcanic centers which is main sources of pyroclastic material to this ancestral lacustrine system, together with basaltic flows evident as hyloclastite layers in some sections of

Chapter 9 offers a very clear overview of how and when we become human (Bingham and Souza, 2009). For instance, the main individuals from the human lineage need numerous components that recognize us from different primates. Despite the fact that it has been a troublesome mission, we are nearer than any time to knowing the mother of every one of us. Up to this point, the evolutionary events that encompassed the inception of the hominin lineage — which incorporates modern humans and our fossil relatives

The earth has been around for 4.6 billion years, and over this time 99.9% of all of the species that have existed on earth have gone extinct. (Barnosky, et al) Palaeontologists characterize mass extinctions as times in Earth’s history when the Earth loses more than three-quarters of its species in a geologically short period of time. This has occurred 5 times over the past 540 million years, and scientists are now suggesting it is happening a 6th time. We are in the midst of a sixth mass extinction