Internet Exercises

Chapter 6: The Earliest Hominines

1. Access the Davidson Black site at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/dblack.html for biographical material to summarize his life and contributions to palaeoanthropology.
   
   
2. In the past few years, there have been many important fossil discoveries that have pushed back the dates for our earliest ancestors. Compare what we know about Sahelanthropus tchadensis http://www.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2002/07/10/toumai_fossil
   020610.html and Orrorin tugenensis http://www.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2004/09/02/hominid
   040902.html. Do you think these fossils provide conclusive proof of early bipedalism and/or ancestral relation? What are some of the problems with palaeoanthropological analysis and the development of fossil species?