Internet Exercises

Chapter 9: Archaic Homo sapiens and the Middle Paleolithic

1. When, how and why did modern human behaviour develop? This is a topic of much debate among scientists. Somewhere around fifty thousand years ago, our ancestors left Africa and replaced the Neanderthals that had been living in Europe. Listen to some Canadian researchers and their theories about when Anatomically modern H. sapiens became culturally modern here: http://radio.cbc.ca/programs/quirks/archives/01-02/apr1302.htm
   
   
2. Visit Jennifer Thompson’s page at http://anthro-ets.unlv.edu/thompsonj/. Why is her research on the Le Moustier 1 Neandertal skeleton so important? What types of analyses are being performed on the fossil remains?
   
   
3. Visit the site http://www.webster.sk.ca/GREENWICH/chewchip.htm, which is an analysis of the Neandertal bone ‘flute’. Do you think this object is a flute? What is the main evidence in favour of it being a flute? What is the evidence against it being a flute? What can this tell you about problems with using archaeological materials to reconstruct past human behaviour?