OHS 2019 Chap1

• How do we know that our human story began 7 million years ago?
• Why do only our species on the human lineage still exist and not the other ones? p.18-19
• Are there other features than anatomical ones that can be shared by two distinct species ? p.9
• If the common ancestor is considered as a hypothetical ancestor, how can we be sure that apes are our "cousins"? p.9
• How did the environment put pressure on species of the human lineage? What sort of pressure it can be for instance? How one can visualize it?
• On page 13, you mentioned " Because of the variation seen in living and fossil apes, scientists can't be sure that the last common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans was a knuckle walker". If there is a significant variation between living and fossil apes, why don't we consider them as two different species? Why do we have lots of extinct species in the human lineage and not in the ape lineage? Is there a reason for that?
• Since the common ancestor is a concept, why do we focus on it, on his mean of walking?
• When a scientist finds a fossil what conclusion can he draw from it?
• What was the most recent major discovery that changed our perception of the past?
• What are the exact anatomical features that are similar between Homo sapiens, chimpazees and gorillas?
• Are molecular clocks reliable enough to date new species?
• Why are modern humans larger and heavier than their ancestors?
• How does a warmer climate affect the evolution of a hominin?
• How did we realise that cooking meat was beneficial not only to our survival but also to our development?
• How and why did chimpanzees and homonins take a different path in evolution?
• Are there any fundamental physiological differences between hunters and scavengers? (p.17)
• Were there any hominins that fed exclusively on plants?
• What conditions allowed hominins to appear in Africa?
• What are the best conditions for remains to fossilize?
• Were the first homonims nomadic or sedentary?

Chap_1 Final questions

• In the first sentences of the book, you say that our human story began 7 million years ago. How did scientists define such a relatively precise time?
• We saw in the book that many hominins fed on plants. Do we have any evidence that some of them would feed exclusively on plants? How did scientists realise that eating meat was beneficial not only for their survival but also for their development?
• What were the conditions that allowed hominins to appear in Africa and why did they appear there and not somewhere else?
• If the common ancestor is considered as a hypothetical ancestor, how can we be sure that apes are our "cousins"? p.9

---

• retour à Our_Human_Story_2019
  
• retour à Accueil