Visit our textbook-specific Online Learning Center Web site at www.mhhe.com/relethford8e to access the exercises that follow.
Homo heidelbergensis: Simply a Chronospecies?
ArchaeologyInfo.com is a project born of the work of Patrick Johnson, Jon Kurpis, and other researchers working in northern Kenya. Before you visit the ArchaeologyInfo.com site, make sure you are familiar with the term "chronospecies." Then go to the Homo heidelbergensis link: http://www.archaeologyinfo.com/homoheidelbergensis.htm.
What was the first evidence of Homo heidelbergensis that was discovered? Why was it first designated Homo heidelbergensis?
Why do many researchers argue that heidelbergensis is not a valid designation?
The article lists a number of "diagnostic features" that differentiate it from H. erectus and H. neanderthalensis. What are three of these features?
It is possible that several other discoveries in other parts of the world can be attributed to Homo heidelbergensis. What other sites contain hominins attributed to Homo heidelbergensis?
Do you agree with the assessment that heidelbergensis may simply be a "chronospecies"? Why or why not?
Code of the Caveman
Read the article "Code of the Caveman" from the July 2006 issue of Wired magazine: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.07/caveman.html. In it, writer Annalee Newitz discusses the work of geneticist Eddy Rubin in sequencing and reading Neandertal DNA.
How was Rubin able to successfully persuade two museums to provide him with small amounts of Neandertal bone fragments?
The process for extracting Neandertal DNA that Newitz describes refers to "metagenomics." What is another, more familiar application of metagenomics?
What was Rubin's conclusion concerning the probable divergence date of humans and Neandertals into recognizably separate groups?
How was Rubin able to determine this?
What other major evidence did Rubin extract from the data concerning Neandertal DNA and modern humans?
