Modern Humans
Modern Humans

Author: John F. Hoffecker

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2017-10-31

Total Pages: 362

ISBN-13: 0231543743

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Modern Humans is a vivid account of the most recent—and perhaps the most important—phase of human evolution: the appearance of anatomically modern people (Homo sapiens) in Africa less than half a million years ago and their later spread throughout the world. Leaving no stone unturned, John F. Hoffecker demonstrates that Homo sapiens represents a “major transition” in the evolution of living systems in terms of fundamental changes in the role of non-genetic information. Modern Humans synthesizes recent findings from genetics (including the rapidly growing body of ancient DNA), the human fossil record, and archaeology relating to the African origin and global dispersal of anatomically modern people. Hoffecker places humans in the broad context of the evolution of life, emphasizing the critical role of genetic and non-genetic forms of information in living systems as well as how changes in the storage, transmission, and translation of information underlie major transitions in evolution. He also draws on information and complexity theory to explain the emergence of Homo sapiens in Africa several hundred thousand years ago and the rapid and unprecedented spread of our species into a variety of environments in Australia and Eurasia, including the Arctic and Beringia, beginning between 75,000 and 60,000 years ago. This magisterial work will appeal to all with an interest in the ever-fascinating field of human evolution.

Neanderthals and Modern Humans
Neanderthals and Modern Humans

Author: Clive Finlayson

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2004-03-11

Total Pages: 267

ISBN-13: 1139449710

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Neanderthals and Modern Humans develops the theme of the close relationship between climate change, ecological change and biogeographical patterns in humans during the Pleistocene. In particular, it challenges the view that Modern Human 'superiority' caused the extinction of the Neanderthals between 40 and 30 thousand years ago. Clive Finlayson shows that to understand human evolution, the spread of humankind across the world and the extinction of archaic populations, we must move away from a purely theoretical evolutionary ecology base and realise the importance of wider biogeographic patterns including the role of tropical and temperate refugia. His proposal is that Neanderthals became extinct because their world changed faster than they could cope with, and that their relationship with the arriving Modern Humans, where they met, was subtle.

The Origins of Modern Humans
The Origins of Modern Humans

Author: Fred H. Smith

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2013-07-09

Total Pages: 585

ISBN-13: 1118659902

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This update to the award-winning The Origins of Modern Humans: A World Survey of the Fossil Evidence covers the most accepted common theories concerning the emergence of modern Homo sapiens adding fresh insight from top young scholars on the key new discoveries of the past 25 years. The Origins of Modern Humans: Biology Reconsidered allows field leaders to discuss and assess the assemblage of hominid fossil material in each region of the world during the Pleistocene epoch. It features new fossil and molecular evidence, such as the evolutionary inferences drawn from assessments of modern humans and large segments of the Neandertal genome. It also addresses the impact of digital imagery and the more sophisticated morphometrics that have entered the analytical fray since 1984. Beginning with a thoughtful introduction by the authors on modern human origins, the book offers such insightful chapter contributions as: Africa: The Cradle of Modern People Crossroads of the Old World: Late Hominin Evolution in Western Asia A River Runs through It: Modern Human Origins in East Asia Perspectives on the Origins of Modern Australians Modern Human Origins in Central Europe The Makers of the Early Upper Paleolithic in Western Eurasia Neandertal Craniofacial Growth and Development and Its Relevance for Modern Human Origins Energetics and the Origin of Modern Humans Understanding Human Cranial Variation in Light of Modern Human Origins The Relevance of Archaic Genomes to Modern Human Origins The Process of Modern Human Origins: The Evolutionary and Demographic Changes Giving Rise to Modern Humans The Paleobiology of Modern Human Emergence Elegant and thought provoking, The Origins of Modern Humans: Biology Reconsidered is an ideal read for students, grad students, and professionals in human evolution and paleoanthropology.

Origins of Anatomically Modern Humans
Origins of Anatomically Modern Humans

Author: Doris V. Nitecki

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-11-11

Total Pages: 347

ISBN-13: 1489915079

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This volume is based on the Field Museum of Natural History Spring System atics Symposium held in Chicago on May 11, 1991. The financial support of Ray and Jean Auel and of the Field Museum is gratefully acknowledged. When we teach or write, we present only those elements that support our arguments. We avoid all weak points of our debate and all the uncer tainties of our models. Thus, we offer hypotheses as facts. Multiauthored books like ours, which simultaneously advocate and question diverse views, avoid the pitfalls and lessen the impact of indoctrination. In this volume we analyze the anthropological and biological disagreements and the positions taken on the origins of modern humans, point out difficultieswith the inter pretations, and suggest that the concept of the human origin can be explained only when we first attempt to define Homo sapiens sapiens. One of the major controversies in physical anthropology concerns the geographic origin of anatomically modern humans. It is undisputed, due to the extensive research of the Leakeys and their colleagues, that the family Hominidae originated in Africa, but the geographic origin of Homo sapiens sapiens is less concretely accepted. Two schools of thought existon this topic.

The Evolution of Modern Humans in Africa
The Evolution of Modern Humans in Africa

Author: Pamela R. Willoughby

Publisher: Rowman Altamira

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 470

ISBN-13: 9780759101197

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A fascinating, detailed study of the origins of modern humans. Includes material from Willoughby's own research in Tanzania.

The Origin of Modern Humans
The Origin of Modern Humans

Author: Roger Lewin

Publisher: Times Books

Published: 1998-01-01

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 9780716760238

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The tools used to unearth the facts of our prehistoric past have not always been tangible. Each fossil discovery and new methods of analysis is met with an avalanche of debate, alternate interpretations, and the refutation of competing theories. This text is a concise and provocative look at some answers to the question " Where did we come from? " .

Cro-Magnon
Cro-Magnon

Author: Brian Fagan

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2011-05-17

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 1608194051

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Cro-Magnons were the first fully modern Europeans--not only the creators of the stunning cave paintings at Lascaux and elsewhere, but the most adaptable and technologically inventive people that had yet lived on earth. The prolonged encounter between theCro-Magnons and the archaic Neanderthals, between 45,000 and 30,000 years ago, was one of the defining moments of history. The Neanderthals survived for some 15,000 years in the face of the newcomers, but were finally pushed aside by the Cro-Magnons' vastly superior intellectual abilities and cutting-edge technologies. What do we know about this remarkable takeover? Who were these first modern Europeans and what were they like? How did they manage to thrive in such an extreme environment? And what legacydid they leave behind them after the cold millennia? This is the story of a little known, yet seminal, chapter of human experience.--From publisher description.

Neanderthal Man
Neanderthal Man

Author: Svante Pääbo

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 2014-02-11

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 0465080685

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A preeminent geneticist, winner of the 2022 Nobel Prize in medicine, hunts the Neanderthal and Denisovan genomes to answer the biggest question of them all: how did our ancestors become human? Neanderthal Man tells the riveting personal and scientific story of the quest to use ancient DNA to unlock the secrets of human evolution. Beginning with the study of DNA in Egyptian mummies in the early 1980s and culminating in the sequencing of the Neanderthal genome in 2010, Neanderthal Man describes the events, intrigues, failures, and triumphs of these scientifically rich years through the lens of the pioneer and inventor of the field of ancient DNA, Svante Pääbo. We learn that Neanderthal genes offer a unique window into the lives of our ancient relatives and may hold the key to unlocking the mysteries of where language came from as well as why humans survived while Neanderthals went extinct. Pääbo redrew our family tree and permanently changed the way we think about who we are and how we got here. For readers of Richard Dawkins, David Reich, and Hope Jahren, Neanderthal Man is the must-read account of how he did it.

Early Modern Humans at the Moravian Gate
Early Modern Humans at the Moravian Gate

Author: Maria Teschler-Nicola

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2007-07-28

Total Pages: 535

ISBN-13: 3211492941

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The Upper Paleolithic fossils of the Mladec caves, South Moravia, excavated at the end of the 19th century, hold a key position in the current discussion on modern human emergence within Europe and the fate of the Neanderthals. Although undoubtedly early modern humans - recently radio carbon dated to 31.000 years BP - their morphological variability and the presence of archaic features are indicative to some degree of regional Neanderthal ancestry. The beautifully illustrated monograph addresses - for the first time - the complete assemblage of the finds, including the human cranial, post cranial, teeth and jaw fragments of several individuals (most of them stored at the Natural History Museum Vienna) as well as the faunal remains and the archaeological objects. Leading scientists present their results, obtained with innovative techniques such as DNA analysis, 3D-morphometry and isotope analysis, which are of great importance for further discussions on both human evolution and archaeological issues.

The Impact of Information on Modern Humans
The Impact of Information on Modern Humans

Author: Elena G. Popkova

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-03-06

Total Pages: 763

ISBN-13: 3319753835

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This book features contributions from various spheres of socio-humanitarian sciences presented at the scientific and practical conference on “Humans as an Object of Study by Modern Science,” which took place in Nizhny Novgorod (Russian Federation) on November 23–24, 2017. The conference was organized by Kozma Minin Nizhny Novgorod State Pedagogical University and the non-profit organization “Institute of Scientific Communications.” Presenting the results of multidisciplinary studies as well as new approaches, the target audience of the book includes postgraduates, lecturers at higher educational establishments, and researchers studying socio-humanitarian sciences. The complex study of humans by representatives of various socio-humanitarian sciences (philosophy, pedagogics, jurisprudence, social sciences, and economics) allows a comprehensive concept of the field to be developed. Selecting humans as an object of research opens wide possibilities for studying various issues related to their activities, while considering humans within multiple sciences means that the methods of induction and deduction can be combined to achieve precise results. This book includes the results of leading scientific studies on the following key issues: establishment of an information economy under the influence of scientific and technical progress: new challenges and opportunities; information and communication technologies as a new vector of development of the modern world economy; specifics and experience of using new information and communication technologies in developed and developing countries; problems of implementing new information and communication technologies in the modern economy; and priorities of using new information and communication technologies in the modern economy.