Ancient Human Impacts on the Environment

Contrary to the myth that ancient peoples "lived in harmony" with their environments, archaeologists have long known that ancient peoples drastically altered and impacted the landscapes that they inhabited. Here is an example of some of the research being done on these ancient environmental impacts. This research is being conduct by a team of scientists including archaeologists, geologists, bio-geographers, and ecologists.

Research Examines Impact of Ancient Aleuts on Their Landscape

Chicken DNA and Human Migration

Archaeologists have recently used DNA from ancient chicken bones to track long distance, ocean migrations of human!

Ancient Chickens and Human Migration

The 'Iceman'

Some of the most spectacular finds in archaeology and anthropology have been the result of happenstance. In September, 1991, two hikers following a trail in the Italian Alps stumbled across what they thought was the scene of a crime. They had found the frozen body of a man protruding from melting ice. The alerted authorities and upon closer inspection it became clear that these remains fell well outside the jurisdiction of local police, about 5000 years outside of their jurisdiction.

The frozen man, now referred to as Ötzi in reference to the location of his discovery, has become a wealth of information on the ways that people lived in Europe during the Chalcolithic period.

Attached below is a link to a RadioLab podcast all about "The Iceman". Even if podcasts usually aren't your thing, I encourage you to check this out. 

America's First 'Melting Pot'

In class we've discussed the role that migrations and other mass movements of people have on culture and evolution. People seem to have always been on the move. The people who lived in the Mississippi River Valley in the 1100s were no different. 

Cahokia Mounds, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is the largest earthwork site in North America. With estimates placing its population in the tens of thousands, Cahokia was arguably the first urban center in what is now the United States. But the questions of where did all of these people come from, and did they stay and actually live at Cahokia, have fueled archaeological research for the past several decades. 

New research using chemical methods has shown that people buried at Cahokia came from a variety of places that were quite a distance away from the city. Check out this article from ScienceDaily about a new research article published in the Journal of Archaeological Science about how Cahokia was America's first experimentation with urbanism and what that may have meant for regional population movements and individual identities. 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140304095029.htm

On another note, one of the US's premier archaeologists, and an expert on the Cahokia site will be giving a talk here at UGA on Thursday evening, March 27th. See the flyer below for more information!

UGA Archaeology Field School

Anthropology is a discipline based outside of the classroom. All of the concepts, facts, and examples presented in our 1102 class are based on research conducted by real Anthropologists. And here's your chance to do it yourself. 

Every year, UGA offers students the opportunity to learn about archaeology by doing archaeology. This 12 credit hour summer course is designed to teach students basic field and research skills by providing a hands-on learning experience. You'll learn how to conduct excavations, identify artifacts, conduct geophysical survey with tools like Ground Penetrating Radar and Magnetic Gradiometry. 

If you think that archaeology is something that you might like to do, or even just something cool to do for credit during the summer, check out this link to the UGA Department of Anthropology page discussing this summer's two field school choices. One of them even has a beach (which is honestly the least awesome thing about Ossabaw Island, GA)! 

If you want to know more, let me know and I'll answer any questions and point you in the right direction. http://anthropology.uga.edu/programs/field_school/

Lost Treasures

One of the enduring mysteries in paleoanthropology is the disappearance of Homo erectus fossils discovered in the Peking Man Cave in Zhoukoudian, China. The story behind the disappearance of these priceless fossils sounds more like a central plot from an  Indiana Jones than anything that could have happened in real life, as the articles Scavenging of the "Peking Man"  and Lost Treasures: Peking Man explain!

The Peking man fossils of Zhoukoudian were discovered 1920's, and still remain the largest cache of Homo erectus fossils ever discovered. These excavations were overseen by the Cenozoic Research Laboratory in Beijing, which included collaborators form both China and the US. During WWII, with the impending threat of Japanese occupation, the lead researcher in Beijing, Hu Chengzhi, placed the priceless fossils into wooden crates, and sent them to the United States for safekeeping. However, the crates containing the fossils never arrived, leaving Hu Chengzhi to be among the last humans to see these incredibly important fossils.

Since their disappearance, there have been many attempts over the years to try and locate these fossils, but to no avail. Though the original fossils are lost to history, casts and detailed notes were taken prior to their disappearance, which has proven to be invaluable remnants of these lost treasures.

Becoming Human

In class, we will soon be examining human evolution in-depth! Human evolution can be a very challenging subject for those who have not been introduced to it before, so I would like to recommend watching the NOVA special, "Becoming Human." 

"Becoming Human" is a very entertaining documentary that goes through human evolution, focusing on the theories that explain how we developed the unique characteristics that define our species, such as bipedalism and large brains. There are three different episodes from this series, each of which focuses on specific events that led to the evolution of our species. The first episode focuses on the reasons behind our ancestor's divergence from other great ape species. Episode two focuses on skeletal and behavioral changes that allowed hominin species to thrive. The final episode focuses on our closest hominin relatives (Neaderthals, the "Hobbits" of Flores Island)  and what lead to their extinction. 

Bonobos-Gentle Genius

I know we've viewed a couple of videos discussing primates such as the slow loris, tarsier, and lemur, so here's another TED talk (yay!) specifically about bonobos. Bonobos are a great ape and one of the two species making up the genus Pan. Along with the common chimpanzee, the bonobo is the closest extant relative to humans. 

In this video, Susan Savage Rumbaugh describes the apes she works with. The bonobos can understand spoken language and learn tasks by watching. This forces us to rethink how much of what a species can do is determined by biology — and how much by cultural exposure.

Your Great-great-great-great-great-...-great-grandparent, the Neanderthal

As we move on into the history of the evolution of our species, it begs the question, "Why modern humans, and not modern Neanderthals or Denisovans?" While there are some solid hypotheses out there about that, which we'll talk about in class and will be in your book, the question posed above is partially based on a misunderstanding of speciation. In fact, the case is such that Neanderthals didn't entirely go extinct so much as they bred into the Archaic Homo sapiens population! How do we know this and what does this mean for human evolution and our genetic diversity? Some answers are posed below in yet another TED talk (I really like TED talks, can't you tell?). This time, Svante Pääbo, a director of human evolutionary research at the Max Planck Institute, discusses the evidence for human evolution located in our own DNA.

Cuteness Contributes to Extinction!

Most of the primate species we will be covering in class are highly endangered. For many of these primates, their endangered status is due to anthropogenic habitat destruction, hunting, or war. However, for some species, an illegal exotic pet trade is contributing to the rapid population decline of these species. According to the article, Cuteness Curse: Slow Loris YouTube Videos Fuels Illegal Animal Trade, some primate species are becoming extinct simply because they are cute!

Slow lorises, a prosimian species that is widely found throughout Africa and Asia, have become a hot commodity in the Asian black market after an explosion of YouTube videos featured these wild, wide-eyed creatures. Though these animals have an adorable, cartoon-like exterior, they are the only mammal species that has a venomous bite. Despite their wild nature, the illegal trade of these animals is the number one threat to their survival as a species. The video below has more information about this species and the illegal trade that is threatening their survival.