Question Set #10

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University of Calgary *

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Anthropology

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Jan 9, 2024

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1. What is one way to assess the locomotor adaptations of a primate? One way to assess the locomotor of a primate is by comparing the length of the hindlimb to that of the forelimb because the longer the forelimb the more likely to find a quadrupedal clamber or brachiator. If the forelimb and hindlimb are similar or almost close to length, more likely one is to be found as a quadruped. You can use the intermembrane indices formula to calculate the value of the locomotor pattern. 2. What type of locomotor pattern do the vast majority of primates exhibit? Patterns that primates exhibit are; 1) enhanced mobility in both the forelimbs and hindlimbs joints, 2) short tarsal bones, 3) femoral head that is rotated proximally, 4) distal femur that is as wide or wider than it is deep, 5) greater trochanter that is equal in height to the femoral head, and 6) hindlimbs are not elongated compared to their forelimbs. 3. Your reputation as a skilled osteologist has spread and a friend of yours who is just back from a trip around the world brings you three bags of bones or teeth and wants to know what animal left them and/or how the animal moved. Bag 1: humerus (22 cm long) radius (21 cm long) femur (26 cm long) tibia (22 cm long) Manner of locomotion?: Quadrupedalism Why?: Using the formula of intermembral indices by adding the length of the humerus plus the length of the radius divided by the length of the femur and tibia times 100 I got 90 as my value. That value is more commonly found with quadrupedalism. Bag 2: femur (40 cm long) with large femoral neck, robust femoral head, and a medial angle Manner of locomotion?: Bipedal Why?: These traits are commonly found in bipedal hominids. Having a medial angle helps bipedal hominids as a way to help center gravity with the knee and foot. Superfamily?: Hominoidea Bag 3: a molar that has cusps which are arranged in a rectangle linked by two transverse ridges Superfamily?: Cercopithecoidea (“Old World Monkeys”) On which continent(s) might your friend have found this tooth?: All live in Africa and Asia.

4. At one time Plesiadapiformes from the Paleocene (65-53 MYA) were classified as primates. Today they are not classified as primates; rather, some refer to these animals as “experiments in becoming primates.” With the diagnostic traits of primates in mind, compare the illustrations of the plesiadapid and prosimian (illustrative of the first true primates) below and label the manner in which these animals differ. Looking at the image below of the illustrations, the Plesiadapiforms have shorter hindlimbs and a shorter tail compared to Prosimians which have longer hind legs and a longer tail, Prosimians also have longer fingers and toes compared to Plesiadapiforms, whereas Plesidapiforms has longer nails and Prosimians have no signs of long nails, Plesiadapiforms has a longer snot with larger incisors on the lower jaw compared to Prosimians has a shorter snot and smaller incisors on the lower jaw, Plesiadapiform has wider zygomatic arch where's Prosimians has narrower zygomatic arch, Plesidapiforms teeth are more flat and in the back of the jaw wearers Prosimians has more jagged teeth, and Prosimians has a wider orbits encircle of bone for the eye sockets where Plesiadapiform has more narrow eye socket. 5. You find a fossilized skull in India and another in Spain. They are not identical. What might explain this difference? (See Marks' eight sources of variation.) 1. Are the two fossils that are being looked at part of two distinctly different evolving lineages, representatives of two different species (Marks, J. 2018. P, 181)? Would look at the physical difference between the two specimens and to some extent a judgemental call, but based on reasonable analogies to species in living primates (Marks, J. 2018. P, 181). 2. Another source is looking at the dental records of the two skulls (Marks, J. 2018. P, 181). Looking at the dental eruption can yield interesting insights into the fossil record when combined with new technologies (Marks, J. 2018. P, 181). For example, we can use CAT scans to reveal unerupted teeth embedded within the fossil jaws (Marks, J. 2018. P, 182). In humans, the first molar and first incisor erupt around the same time but in chimpanzees, the first molar erupts two years before the first incisor (Marks, J. 2018. P, 182). Comparing dental records from present primates could help us learn from the eruption pattern what the species could be.

3. Sexual dimorphism, males have larger size and more robust bones, whereas a female has smaller and more rounded shape bones (Marks, J. 2018. P, 182)). Compare the sizes to one another to see if you can see any physical differences. 4. Temporal, can be affected by the diet that affects the shape of the jaw and structure of the face (Marks, J. 2018. P, 182-183). With a change in diet, it could affect how large the animal could get. 5. Variation is geographic, a broadly distributed species often contains populations adapted to local conditions and more or less isolated from populations of the same species that live in a different habitat/region (Marks, J. 2018. P, 183). Were they found in the same region or a different region? 6. The range of existence among populations of organisms (Marks, J. 2018. P, 183). All parts of a body vary to some extent from one person to another (Marks, J. 2018. P, 183). Are they thinner or wider? Are they taller or shorter? Short limbs or long limbs? 7. There is an abnormal range of variation, which could be caused by different diseases, and traumas to the bones like dwarfism (sorry if that is the wrong term)(Marks, J. 2018. P, 183). 8. With fossils being buried for as long as a million years, lots of things could happen to the fossils from different causes (Marks, J. 2018. P, 184). Erosion, crushed, and distorted or deformed from geological processes could affect how the remains are found (Marks, J. 2018. P, 184). The shape of the skull could have been morphed and the bones could have more creaks in it. 6. What is Marks getting at with the weird title to the assigned chapter? Isn’t paleoanthropology simply paleontology applied to the evolution of our species? A persuasive answer will be supported by examples. Paleoanthropology looks at the history of our evolution and the evolution of our close relatives the primates. Paleontology looks at the evolution of all living things on this planet, even species that have gone extinct. For example, the dinosaurs are still studied long after their extinction (National Geographic. n.d). We can use the remains of dinosaurs to learn how closely they are related to living birds and can learn about what life was like.

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Paleontology also looks at the evolution of plants (National Geographic. n.d). Paleoanthropology only looks at the evolution of humans and primates. It helps us learn from where we started, when we split away from primates, and when we learn to start walking. Paleoanthropology looks at the fossil remains of Hominids in order to learn what the life of our ancestors was like. Lucy was found in northeastern Ethiopia back in 1974 (Hendry, L. 2018). When Donald Johnson and his team looked at the remains they found the skull was similar to that of primates, but what made her different was her femur and her pelvis. They weren’t similar to the structure of a gorilla or a chimpanzee, her pelvis was similar to what modern humans look like. This indicated that Lucy was part of the hominid family tree. When they dated the remains the scientist found her remains dated back to 3.18 million years ago (Hendry, L. 2018). This means human ancestors were just beginning to move from life in the trees to life on the ground and she still showed signs of living in the trees by looking at shoulders, arms, wrists, and hands (Hendry, L. 2018). But we don’t just look at the function of the remains but we can also use them to learn when human brains started to develop at a slower rate than other primates. Back in 1925, the skull of a child was found at a site in South Africa (far away from where Lucy was found) in Taung (Marks, J. 2018). Originally it was thought Taung baby was a missing link to the history of primates, but later in years other remains were found near that area, and people realized that the Taung baby wasn’t a primate but showed similar characteristics of human traits (Marks, J. 2018. P, 182)). The Taung baby was aged to be 3 years old when he died because looking at the teeth scientists tried to change him with the eruption pattern of humans but found that his teeth eruption was similar to primates (Marks, J. 2018. P, 182)). They used a CAT scan and found that his First molars had erupted but his incisors for adult teeth hadn’t erupted yet (Marks, J. 2018. P, 182). In humans, both first molars and incisors erupt around the same time, in chimpanzees the first molars erupt before the incisors by two years (Marks, J. 2018. P, 182). The scientist also found that the brain still was ape-like, which gave hints to the idea that the brain didn’t develop first to cause humans to start walking on two legs (Marks, J. 2018. P, 182). From being able to cross-reference between humans and primates, we have been able to learn more about human evolution and how we came from living in the trees to running in the open lands of Africa.

References Britannica, T. (2023). Paleontology. Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved from: https://www.britannica.com/science/paleontology Hendry, L. (2018). Australopithecus afarensis, Lucy’s species . Retrieved from https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/australopithecus-afarensis-lucy-species.html National Geographic. (n.d.). Paleontology . Retrieved from https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/paleontology/ Marks, J.(2018). The Alternative Introduction to Biological Anthropology . Second Edition. Oxford University Press. Ch. 10: If history is humanities, and evolution is science, what is paleoanthropology?

Question Set #10

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