Exam 19: Human Evolution

As an archaeologist, a colleague asks you to confirm her identification of some fossilized burial remains of a hominin. The fossils were discovered relatively undisturbed, deep in a cave where the body was protected from scavengers. The hands of the skeleton were deliberately folded across the chest and a crude flute was clasped between the hands. The skull had a greatly reduced brow ridge and a flat face. Charcoal remains near the entrance of the cave included charred bones of a large game animal that date to approximately the same time as the skeleton; the bones were clearly scored by a tool. As which species of hominin would you identify the remains?

What does this figure tell us about the relationship between heterozygosity of H. pylori and its geographic origin?

If the population of the last common ancestor of humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas was very large, and humans split from chimpanzees very quickly after the gorilla lineage diverged, how might this influence the relationship between gene trees and species trees in this clade?

Which of the following evidence does NOT support the out-of-Africa hypothesis?

Based on the figure, is the common-language practice of referring to chimpanzees as monkeys accurate? Are monkeys a monophyletic group?

What is the advantage of using DNA sequences from many genes to reconstruct the evolutionary history of humans?

What do these data on mean haplotype heterozygosity from 938 human samples from around the world tell us about human migration?

Researchers studied the genetics of Helicobacter pylori, a stomach bacterium that is present in about half of the world, to see if H. pylori geographic patterns reflect those of their human host. What were the results of their study?

As the African tropics changed to savanna, hominins moved onto the savanna while other apes remained in the forest. A major adaptation to the savanna was the evolution of bipedal locomotion. Which of the following is NOT a skeletal change associated with bipedal locomotion?

How do Neanderthals physically differ from modern humans?

Which of the following is NOT a feature of the revised model of human evolution?

What is the "serial founder effect," and what are the dynamics of genetic diversity as each new population is established?

Gene trees for modern human populations were constructed using blood group data, mtDNA, and the Y chromosome. What did the research using mtDNA and Y chromosome data determine that the blood group data did not about the origin of modern humans?

How did migration patterns factor in to Richard Green et al.'s hypothesis about interbreeding among Neanderthals and modern humans?

List the distinguishing cultural features of Homo sapiens.

What is the primary distinction between the multiregional hypothesis for human evolution and the out-of-Africa hypothesis for human evolution?

What skull characteristics distinguish Paranthropus from other hominin lineages?

Who was "mitochondrial Eve" and how does she support the out-of-Africa hypothesis?

What does this figure tell us about diversification and effective population size in the Y chromosome and mtDNA?

What are the primary difficulties of host-pathogen coevolution studies?