Page 112 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol III

human evolution—overview 931

token for each white fox. Suppose that that year the
price of fox was twenty dollars each; we would take
up one square token and replace it with twenty round lution also rested on long-standing trends in primate
one-dollar tokens. Whenever an Eskimo bought behavior, including social learning and cooperation,
something, the tokens representing the value of his toolmaking, and group organization.
purchase were removed and the change was made in Before discussing human evolution in more detail,
smaller tokens. The biggest trouble with these thin however, a word about the evidence used in paleoan-
aluminum tokens was that all our trading was done thropology and the types of disputes that tend to arise is
in an unheated store, and the tokens were too thin to in order. Given the paucity of evidence available to pale-
pick up without the trader taking off his mitts.When oanthropologists, the immense gaps in existing knowl-
fingers were bared, the tokens froze nicely to the skin. edge, and the number of recent archeological finds that
Source: Pryde, D. (1972). Nunaga: my land, my country. Edmonton, Canada: M.G. Hur- call into question prevailing views, world historians
tig Ltd.
should not be surprised to find the experts constantly
disagreeing among themselves about the variables of
hominid evolution. They utilize detailed site surveys,
stratigraphic observations, chronometric methods of dat-
ing, and precise forms of climatological, biomolecular,
struct the patterns of prehistory that stretch back 5 to 7 and comparative anatomical analysis to begin to inter-
million years, when our earliest direct ancestors in the pret what they have found. They have increasingly
family of hominids, an amazing variety of distinct emphasized the diversity rather than the uniformity of
species, notably the australopithecines, or southern apes, early hominids and the possibility that early hominids
diverged onto their own evolutionary line. Seventy mil- lived widely throughout sub-Saharan Africa, but have
lion years of primate evolution set the parameters and remained divided over how to distinguish one species or
determined the possibilities for the origins and develop- genus from another, and hence over the use of proper
ment of hominids. From their primate heritage, human nomenclature. Such fundamentals aspects of human
beings have derived a unique
combination of physical attrib-
utes, including large brains rel-
ative to body size, eyes capable
of binocular vision, nimble
hands, smaller canine teeth,
and a skeleton designed for
upright walking. Human evo-

In this early work on
human evolution, this
drawing compares
human bones to those
other animals. This
focus on comparative
anatomy was an early
interest in the study of
human evolution.