introduction to social sciences

summaries for each chapter

there is 8 chapter

What is social
science?
FALL 23-24
IT Is the field of human knowledge that
deals with all aspects of the group life
of human beings.
What are
the main
sciences in
the world?

The ancient Greek civilization

The Enlightenment Era
Social science as an academic field of study developed out of the Age of Enlightenment (or the Age
of Reason), which flourished through much of the 18th century in Europe. Adam Smith, Voltaire,
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Denis Diderot, Immanuel Kant, and David Hume were among the major
intellectuals at the time who laid the foundations for the study of social science in the Western
world.
Why would we need social science?
Social Science IS ..
 Evolving
 Holistic
 Fluid
Holism = holistic perspective
What are
the
disciplines
of S.S.?
Sociology

The scientific study of
human interactions.
 Choose to marry from
a sociological
perspective?
• Anthropology
study of human
beings
through
time and space
Geography
 Study of spatial
variation, spatial
interactions of
individuals and how the
environment influences
social and cultural
development.
History
The study of past
events
Psychology
deals with the mind and
the personality of the
individual. Social science
because humans are
social creatures.
Political science
 The study of social
arrangements to maintain
peace and order within a
given society. It deals with
government.
Economics
 The study of the ways in
which men and women
make a living, the most
pressing problem most
human beings face.
Considers the social
organization through
which people satisfy
their wants for scarce
goods and services.
Group activity
 Form your 7 groups (one for each discipline)
 Define your field
 Two Main interests of the field
 Find research topics related to your field
 Find research questions and methodologies to
question Mass Media according to your discipline
Group
Discussion
 What is a scientific
knowledge?
 How does it differ
from knowledge
acquired
“unconsciously?
ANTHROPOLOGY
A DISCIPLINE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
WHAT IS ANTHROPOLOGY?
The study of Humanity throughout time, space
and place, including the Pre-historic Origins of
Humans our nonhuman primate relatives,
contemporary human Biological, and Cultural
variation, and human communication past &
present.
• “Anthropology is the most humanistic
of the sciences and the most scientific
of the humanities”.
ALFRED LOUIS KROEBER
( J U N E 1 1 , 1 8 7 6 – O C TO B E R
5, 1960)
Biological / Physical Anthropology
• Study how the human species has changed
physically over time (hundreds of millions of
years) – called Biological evolution
• Study of Primatology – primates (apes, chimps
as ancestors of humans)
• Genetic inheritance : Why we have certain
physical characteristics from our ancestors (i.e.
skin color…)
• Forensic Anthropology : applying skeletal analysis
to solving criminal cases.
• The study of humans as biological
organisms, including their
evolution and contemporary
variation
ARCHAEOLOGY
Study prehistory and early history of cultures
around the world
Study and analyze remains and waste
Study Major trends in cultural evolution
Techniques for finding, excavating, dating, and
analyzing material remains of past societies
Archaeological Field Methods:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m9wq_mt
Y4Q
• The study of past human cultures
through their material remains.
LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY
Studies human languages:
• Description of a language – the way a
sentence is formed or a verb conjugated.
• History of languages – the way languages
change over time.
• The study of cultural context and
differences of language
• The study of language in its social setting,
such as discourse – an extended speech
act on a particular topic.
THE INUIT PEOPLE HAVE
AROUND 50 DIFFERENT
WORDS FOR “SNOW”
Tlapa – powder snow
Tlaslo – snow that falls slowly
Shiya – snow at dawn
Striktla – snow that is no good for building
And the list goes on…
The Sami people
have
1000 different
words for
“reindeer”
Words indicate the reindeer’s physical appearance,
character, antler shape and so on.
Leami – short fat female reindeer
Njirru – unmanageable female
Snarri – reindeer whose antlers are short and branched
“the comparative study of the ways
in which language shapes social life”
So! It is: the study of human
communication, including its
origins, history and contemporary
variation and change.
CULTURAL
ANTHROPOLOGY
• Culture and traditions of a group of people
• The study of different patterns in human behavior,
thought, and feelings.
• Focuses on humans as culture-producing and culturereproducing creatures.
• Two main components: ethnography and ethnology.
Is the study of living people and
their cultures, including variation and
change.
Cultural Anthropology contains
many subfields, including Economic
Anthropology ,
Political Anthropology,
Psychological Anthropology,
Medical Anthropology,
Development Anthropology,
ORIGINS OF
HUMAN
WHO ARE H. SAPIENS SAPIENS?
Humans first evolved in Africa about 2.5 million years ago.
From about 2 million years ago until 10,000 years ago, multiple human species roamed the earth together. The
depiction of man evolving from hunched over to upright incorrectly displays human evolution as a linear trajectory
H. sapiens most likely developed in the Horn of Africa between 300,000 and 200,000 years ago.
HOMO SAPIENS
WHERE IT ALL
BEGAN
HOW DID HOMO SAPIENS EXIST
AROUND THE WORLD?
THE MULTIREGIONAL HYPOTHESIS VS .
O.O.A.
• The “recent African origin” model proposes that all modern non-African populations are
substantially descended from populations of H. sapiens that left Africa after that time.
There were at least several “out-of-Africa” dispersals of modern humans, possibly beginning as
early as 270,000 years ago, and certainly during 130,000 to 115,000 ago via northern
Africa.These early waves appear to have mostly died out or retreated by 80,000 years ago.
• Prehistoric humans (2 million years old or so) were no more important and impressive than
other mammals.
THE MULTIREGIONAL HYPOTHESIS VS .
O.O.A.
• The multiregional hypothesis proposed that the genus Homo contained only a single
interconnected population as it does today (not separate species), and that its evolution took
place worldwide continuously over the last couple of million years. This model was proposed
in 1988 by Milford H. Wolpoff. In contrast the “out of Africa” model proposed that modern H.
sapiens speciated in Africa recently (that is, approximately 200,000 years ago) and the
subsequent migration through Eurasia resulted in nearly complete replacement of other Homo
species
HOW DID WE H. S.S. EXIST HERE AND
NOW?
INTERBREEDING THEORY AND
REPLACEMENT THEORY.
• When Homo sapiens landed in Arabia, most of Eurasia was already settled by other humans. What
happened to them? There are two conflicting theories. The ‘Interbreeding Theory’ tells a story of
attraction,. As the African immigrants spread around the world, they bred with other human
populations, and people today are the outcome of this interbreeding. For example, when Sapiens
reached the Middle East and Europe, they encountered the Neanderthals. These humans were more
muscular than Sapiens, had larger brains, and were better adapted to cold climes. They used tools
and fire, were good hunters, and apparently took care of their sick. (Archaeologists have discovered
the bones of Neanderthals who lived for many years with severe physical handicaps, evidence that
they were cared for by their relatives.) Neanderthals are often depicted in caricatures as the
archetypical brutish and stupid ‘cave people’, but recent evidence has changed their image.
According to the Interbreeding Theory, when Sapiens spread into Neanderthal lands,
Sapiens bred with Neanderthals until the two populations merged.
• The two populations remained completely distinct, and when the Neanderthals
died out, or were killed off, their genes died with them. According to this view,
Sapiens replaced all the previous human populations without merging with them.
If that is the case, the lineages of all contemporary humans can be traced back,
exclusively, to East Africa, 70,000 years ago. We are all ‘pure Sapiens’.
• In recent decades the Replacement Theory has been the common wisdom in the field. It
had former archaeological backing, and was more politically correct (scientists had no desire to
open up the Pandora’s box of racism by claiming significant genetic diversity among modern
human populations). But that ended in 2010, when the results of a four-year effort to map the
Neanderthal genome were published. Geneticists were able to collect enough intact
Neanderthal DNA from fossils to make a broad comparison between it and the DNA of
contemporary humans. The results stunned the scientific community. It turned out that 1–4 per
cent of the unique human DNA of modern populations in the Middle East and Europe is
Neanderthal DNA. That’s not a huge amount, but it’s significant.
• But if the Neanderthals, and other human species didn’t merge with Sapiens, why did they
vanish? One possibility is that Homo sapiens drove them to extinction. Imagine a
Sapiens band reaching a Balkan valley where Neanderthals had lived for hundreds
of thousands of years.The newcomers began to hunt the deer and gather the nuts
and berries that were the Neanderthals’ traditional staples. Sapiens were more
efficient hunters and gatherers – thanks to better technology and superior social
skills – so they multiplied and spread.The less resourceful Neanderthals found it
increasingly difficult to feed themselves.Their population dwindled and they slowly
died out, Another possibility is that competition for resources, up into violence and
genocide.
THE THREE REVOLUTIONS THAT
SHAPED HUMANITY
• The Cognitive Revolution: occurred between 70,000 to 30,000 years ago.
It allowed Homo sapiens to communicate at a level never seen before in
language.
• The Agricultural Revolution: also known as the Neolithic Revolution, is
the transformation of human societies from hunting and gathering
to farming.This transition occurred worldwide 10,000 – 12,000years ago.
• The scientific / industrial Revolution: the “Scientific Revolution“ “Industrial
Revolution” refers to historical changes in thought & belief, to changes in social
& institutional organization, that unfolded in Europe between roughly 15501700
• The last 500 years have witnessed a phenomenal and unprecedented growth in
human power. In the year 1500, there were about 500 million Homo sapiens in
the entire world. Today, there are 7 billion.
• Human adaptations to the environment:
• Genetic
• Phonotypical / physical
• Cultural
• What do we adapt to?
• Weather and climate
• Altitudes
• Geographical environments
• Contemporary life
EVOLUTION
“THE GRADUAL
DEVELOPMENT OF
SOMETHING”
CHARLES DARWIN’S THEORY
• On the Origin of Species (1859, Darwin’s book)
CHARLES DARWIN : THE THEORY OF
EVOLUTION
What is evolution ?
Evolution: progressive change
Natural selection: various species have
the characteristics more favorable for
meeting the conditions of life and more
likely to survive.
Survival of the fittest
GENETICS
• Genetics studies how the hereditary characteristics
of species and individuals are transmitted
biologically to their offspring.
• Genes : units within cells that retain their original
character for generation after generations.
Gregor Mendel late 19th
founder of genetics
MUTATION
• Mutation : random
genetic changes that lead
to new characteristic
• Mutation make evolution
possible
NATURAL SELECTION
• Various species have the
characteristics more favorable
for meeting the conditions of
life and more likely to survive.
Species that are better adapted to an environment are more
likely to survive and reproduce than organisms that are less
well adapted
DNA
• The basic chemical building
block of genes. Humans 25,000
genes only 6000 more than a
worm ☺
• 1953 James Watson and Francis
Crick reveled the double helix
structure
• Genetic engineering:
rearranging genetic material to
create new ones
– Cloning
– Ethical?
CHANGES IN THE ENVIRONMENT
Example, the pepper moth.
Originally, the pepper moth was white, which was good because it could blend in.
Then, trains were invented and the soot they produced covered the trees. Making
the trees black.The moths that were black could now survive better.
EVIDENCE OF
EVOLUTION
• Fossil Record
• Similarities in Body
Structure
• Similarities in Early
Development
• Vestigial Structures
• Similarities in DNA
D O B I O L O G I C A L LY
S E PA R AT E R A C E S E X I S T ?
HOW IS RACE
CONSTRUCTED AROUND
THE WORLD?
RACE
• Flawed system of classification, created, and recreated over time that uses certain physical
characteristics to divide the human population
• Genetics- one race 99.9 same DNA
• Race : no clear and absolute genetic lines can be
drawn to separate people into distinct, biologically
discrete, “racial” populations.
PHYSICAL
ANTHROPOLOGY
• Genotype
• Genotype refers to the inherited genetic factors that
provide the framework for an organism’s physical form.
It can’t be determined by simple observation; it
requires biological testing. Genotype is inherited
from an organism’s parents
• Phenotype
• Phenotype refers to the way genes are expressed in
an organism’s physical form as a result of genotype
interaction with environmental factors (based on the
environmental factors, nutrition, disease, and stress,
etc.). visible or observable expression of the results
of genes, combined with the environmental
influence on an organism’s appearance or behavior
WHICH IS WHICH?
• The set of genes in its DNA
responsible for a particular trait.
• The physical expression of those
genes on expressed physical traits.
What is meant by ‘Racism’ and ‘Classism’?
SOCIOBIOLOGY = SOCIOLOGY +
BIOLOGY
RACISM
• Individuals’ thoughts and actions and
institutional patterns and policies that create
or reproduce unequal access to power,
privilege, resources, and opportunities based
on imagined differences among groups.
WHAT ELSE COULD IT DETERMINE? OR
IMPACT?
Discussion
Explaine!
What are the functions of theory?
Chapter 2-3
Paradigms, Theory,
Research, and Ethnics of
Social Research
Definition of Theory: A theory is a systematic
set of interrelated statements intended to
explain some aspect of social life.
„ Functions of theory:
„
Prevents “flukes”.
Make sense of observed patterns in ways that
suggest other possibilities.
„ Shapes and directs research efforts.
„
„
What is the difference between
macrotheory and microtheory?
microtheory?
What is a paradigm?
A paradigm is a fundamental model or scheme
that organizes our view of something.
„ Social sciences use a variety of paradigms to
organize how they understand and inquire into
social life.
„
„
Macrotheory:
Macrotheory: Theories that focuses on society
at large or at least on large portions of it.
„
„
Microtheory:
Microtheory: Theories that deals with society
at the level of individuals and small groups
„
What are the major social science
paradigms?
„
Positivism – assumes we can scientifically discover the rules
governing social life.
„
„
„
„
„
„
George Herbert Mead: most interactions revolve around the process
process of
individuals reaching a common understanding through language and
other symbolic systems.
Ethnomethodology – focuses on how people make sense of
life while they are living it.
„
One method commonly used is to break the rules to see how people
react to that, such as facing the rear of the elevator instead of
of facing the
front.
„
Structural functionalism – focuses on the functions the
elements of society perform for the whole system of society.
„
Feminist paradigms – examines how previous images of
social reality have often come from and reinforced the
experiences of men.
Karl Marx: class struggle
Symbolic interactionism – examines development of shared
meanings and social patterns in the course of social
interactions.
Examples: marriage and divorce behavior,
consumer decisiondecision-making
What are the major social science
paradigms (continued)?
Auguste Comte: societies can be studied and understood logically and
rationally.
Conflict – focuses on attempts of a person or group to
dominate and avoid being dominated.
Examples: government fiscal policy, international
trade
„
„
Example: The function of the police in the larger society
Example: occupations traditionally dominated by men vs. those by
women, and how such occupations offer different wage rates.
1
An example showing deductive
methods
What are the two logical systems?
Deduction: Progress from general principles
and theories to specific cases.
„ Induction : Proceed from particular cases to
general theories.
„
Grades (a) Theory and
Hypothesis
Grades
(b) Observations
Hours Studying
Hours Studying
(c) Accept or reject hypothesis
Grades
Hours Studying
An example showing inductive
methods
Grades (a) Observations
Grades
(b) Finding a pattern
What are the steps of deductive
research (hypothesis testing)?
„
„
Literature review of relevant theories and past findings
Theory and hypothesis
„
„
„
Hours Studying
Hours Studying
(c) Tentative conclusion
Grades
Operationalization
„
„
„
„
„
Literature review of whatever has been done in
the topic area
„ Observation
„
„
„
„
Statistical methods – accept or reject the hypotheses
What is the wheel of science?
„
The wheel of science refers to the interaction
between induction and deduction.
Sample, data collection
Data analysis
„
Actual collection of data to test the hypotheses
Issues related: sampling, mode of observation
Data analysis
„
What are the steps of inductive
research (grounded theory)?
Measurement of variables
Issues related: conceptualization, operationalization,
operationalization, measurement
Observation
„
Hours Studying
Develop theoretical arguments for your study
Develop hypotheses based on your theoretical arguments
The main purpose of data analysis here is to find
patterns in behavior/attitude
Pattern finding and theory construction
Theories
INDUCTION
DEDUCTION
Empirical
Generalizations
Hypotheses
Observations
2
What are the ethical issues in social
research?
„
Voluntary participation – no one should be forced to
participate.
„
„
„
Unless wellwell-informed give consent. For example, some pioneering
medical treatments
„
Anonymity: even researchers cannot identify subjects
Confidentiality: researchers promise to keep information about the
the
subjects private by, probably, destroying the records containing such
information.
Deception of the subjects
„
Deception in research requires very strong justifications. Unless
Unless
absolutely necessary, deception should not be allowed
Analysis and reporting
„
„
Researchers have the obligation to be truthful in their
analysis and should report the results fully and accurately.
Institutional Review Boards (IRB)
Reviews all research proposals to guarantee subjects rights
and interests are protected.
„ Visit U. of U. IRB: http://www.utah.edu/irb
http://www.utah.edu/irb//
„
Anonymity and confidentiality
„
„
„
This norm can conflict with the scientific need for generalizability
No harm to participants
„
What are the ethical issues in social
research (continued)?
„
Professional codes of ethics
Professional associations in several disciplines publish
codes of ethics to guide researchers.
„ View American Psychological Association 2002 code of
conduct at http://www.apa.org/ethics/code2002.html
„
Additional Things to Do
Read Diekmann,
Diekmann, JungbauerJungbauer-Gans,
Gans, Krassig,
Krassig, &
Lorenz (1996) and Salari & Rich (2002).
Again, you are not expected to understand
everything in these articles at this point.
„ Pay attention to two issues: (1) did they use
deductive or inductive approach? And (2)
What are the ethical issues involved and how
did the researchers deal with them?
„
3
25/09/2023, 13:19
An Evolutionary Timeline of Homo Sapiens | Science | Smithsonian Magazine
SCIENCE | FEBRUARY 2, 2021
An Evolutionary Timeline of Homo Sapiens
Scientists share the findings that helped them pinpoint key moments in the rise of
our species
These five skulls, which range from an approximately 2.5-million-year-old Australopithecus africanus on
the left to an approximately 4,800-year-old Homo sapiens on the right, show changes in the size of the
braincase, slope of the face and shape of the brow ridges over just less than half of human evolutionary
history. Human Origins Program, NMNH, Smithsonian Institution
Brian Handwerk
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/essential-timeline-understanding-evolution-homo-sapiens-180976807/
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An Evolutionary Timeline of Homo Sapiens | Science | Smithsonian Magazine
Science Correspondent








The long evolutionary journey that created modern humans began with a
single step—or more accurately—with the ability to walk on two legs. One of
our earliest-known ancestors, Sahelanthropus, began the slow transition from
ape-like movement some six million years ago, but Homo sapiens wouldn’t
show up for more than five million years. During that long interim, a menagerie
of different human species lived, evolved and died out, intermingling and
sometimes interbreeding along the way. As time went on, their bodies
changed, as did their brains and their ability to think, as seen in their tools and
technologies.
To understand how Homo sapiens eventually evolved from these older lineages
of hominins, the group including modern humans and our closest extinct
relatives and ancestors, scientists are unearthing ancient bones and stone
tools, digging into our genes and recreating the changing environments that
helped shape our ancestors’ world and guide their evolution.
These lines of evidence increasingly indicate that H. sapiens originated in Africa,
although not necessarily in a single time and place. Instead it seems diverse
groups of human ancestors lived in habitable regions around Africa, evolving
physically and culturally in relative isolation, until climate driven changes to
African landscapes spurred them to intermittently mix and swap everything
from genes to tool techniques. Eventually, this process gave rise to the unique
genetic makeup of modern humans.
“East Africa was a setting in foment—one conducive to migrations across Africa
during the period when Homo sapiens arose,” says Rick Potts, director of the
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An Evolutionary Timeline of Homo Sapiens | Science | Smithsonian Magazine
Smithsonian’s Human Origins Program. “It seems to have been an ideal setting
for the mixing of genes from migrating populations widely spread across the
continent. The implication is that the human genome arose in Africa. Everyone
is African, and yet not from any one part of Africa.”
New discoveries are always adding key waypoints to the chart of our human
journey. This timeline of Homo sapiens features some of the best evidence
documenting how we evolved.
550,000 to 750,000 Years Ago: The
Beginning of the Homo sapiens
Lineage
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/essential-timeline-understanding-evolution-homo-sapiens-180976807/
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An Evolutionary Timeline of Homo Sapiens | Science | Smithsonian Magazine
A facial reconstruction of Homo heidelbergensis, a popular candidate as a common ancestor for modern
humans, Neanderthals and Denisovans John Gurche
Genes, rather than fossils, can help us chart the migrations, movements and
evolution of our own species—and those we descended from or interbred with
over the ages.
The oldest-recovered DNA of an early human relative comes from Sima de los
Huesos, the “Pit of Bones.” At the bottom of a cave in Spain’s Atapuerca
Mountains scientists found thousands of teeth and bones from 28 different
individuals who somehow ended up collected en masse. In 2016, scientists
painstakingly teased out the partial genome from these 430,000-year-old
remains to reveal that the humans in the pit are the oldest known
Neanderthals, our very successful and most familiar close relatives. Scientists
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/essential-timeline-understanding-evolution-homo-sapiens-180976807/
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An Evolutionary Timeline of Homo Sapiens | Science | Smithsonian Magazine
used the molecular clock to estimate how long it took to accumulate the
differences between this oldest Neanderthal genome and that of modern
humans, and the researchers suggest that a common ancestor lived sometime
between 550,000 and 750,000 years ago.
Pinpoint dating isn’t the strength of genetic analyses, as the 200,000-year
margin of error shows. “In general, estimating ages with genetics is imprecise,”
says Joshua Akey, who studies evolution of the human genome at Princeton
University. “Genetics is really good at telling us qualitative things about the
order of events, and relative time frames.” Before genetics, these divergence
dates were estimated by the oldest fossils of various lineages scientists found.
In the case of H. sapiens, known remains only date back some 300,000 years, so
gene studies have located the divergence far more accurately on our
evolutionary timeline than bones alone ever could.
Though our genes clearly show that modern humans, Neanderthals and
Denisovans—a mysterious hominin species that left behind substantial traces
in our DNA but, so far, only a handful of tooth and bone remains—do share a
common ancestor, it’s not apparent who it was. Homo heidelbergensis, a species
that existed from 200,000 to 700,000 years ago, is a popular candidate. It
appears that the African family tree of this species leads to Homo sapiens while
a European branch leads to Homo neanderthalensis and the Denisovans.
More ancient DNA could help provide a clearer picture, but finding it is no sure
bet. Unfortunately, the cold, dry and stable conditions best for long-term
preservation aren’t common in Africa, and few ancient African human genomes
have been sequenced that are older than 10,000 years.
“We currently have no ancient DNA from Africa that even comes near the
timeframes of our evolution—a process that is likely to have largely taken place
between 800,000 and 300,000 years ago,” says Eleanor Scerri, an
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An Evolutionary Timeline of Homo Sapiens | Science | Smithsonian Magazine
archaeological scientist at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human
History in Germany.
300,000 Years Ago: Fossils Found of
Oldest Homo sapiens
Two views of a composite reconstruction of the earliest known Homo sapiens fossils from Jebel Irhoud
Philipp Gunz, MPI EVA Leipzig via CC-BY-SA 2.0
As the physical remains of actual ancient people, fossils tell us most about
what they were like in life. But bones or teeth are still subject to a significant
amount of interpretation. While human remains can survive after hundreds of
thousands of years, scientists can’t always make sense of the wide range of
morphological features they see to definitively classify the remains as Homo
sapiens, or as different species of human relatives.
Fossils often boast a mixture of modern and primitive features, and those don’t
evolve uniformly toward our modern anatomy. Instead, certain features seem
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An Evolutionary Timeline of Homo Sapiens | Science | Smithsonian Magazine
to change in different places and times, suggesting separate clusters of
anatomical evolution would have produced quite different looking people.
No scientists suggest that Homo sapiens first lived in what’s now Morocco,
because so much early evidence for our species has been found in both South
Africa and East Africa. But fragments of 300,000-year-old skulls, jaws, teeth and
other fossils found at Jebel Irhoud, a rich site also home to advanced stone
tools, are the oldest Homo sapiens remains yet found.
The remains of five individuals at Jebel Irhoud exhibit traits of a face that looks
compellingly modern, mixed with other traits like an elongated brain case
reminiscent of more archaic humans. The remains’ presence in the
northwestern corner of Africa isn’t evidence of our origin point, but rather of
how widely spread humans were across Africa even at this early date.
Other very old fossils often classified as early Homo sapiens come from
Florisbad, South Africa (around 260,000 years old), and the Kibish Formation
along Ethiopia’s Omo River (around 195,000 years old).
The 160,000-year-old skulls of two adults and a child at Herto, Ethiopia, were
classified as the subspecies Homo sapiens idaltu because of slight
morphological differences including larger size. But they are otherwise so
similar to modern humans that some argue they aren’t a subspecies at all. A
skull discovered at Ngaloba, Tanzania, also considered Homo sapiens,
represents a 120,000-year-old individual with a mix of archaic traits and more
modern aspects like smaller facial features and a further reduced brow.
Debate over the definition of which fossil remains represent modern humans,
given these disparities, is common among experts. So much so that some seek
to simplify the characterization by considering them part of a single, diverse
group.
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An Evolutionary Timeline of Homo Sapiens | Science | Smithsonian Magazine
“The fact of the matter is that all fossils before about 40,000 to 100,000 years
ago contain different combinations of so called archaic and modern features.
It’s therefore impossible to pick and choose which of the older fossils are
members of our lineage or evolutionary dead ends,” Scerri suggests. “The best
model is currently one in which they are all early Homo sapiens, as their
material culture also indicates.”
As Scerri references, African material culture shows a widespread shift some
300,000 years ago from clunky, handheld stone tools to the more refined
blades and projectile points known as Middle Stone Age toolkits.
So when did fossils finally first show fully modern humans with all
representative features? It’s not an easy answer. One skull (but only one of
several) from Omo Kibish looks much like a modern human at 195,000 years
old, while another found in Nigeria’s Iwo Eleru cave, appears very archaic, but
is only 13,000 years old. These discrepancies illustrate that the process wasn’t
linear, reaching some single point after which all people were modern humans.
300,000 Years Ago: Artifacts Show a
Revolution in Tools
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An Evolutionary Timeline of Homo Sapiens | Science | Smithsonian Magazine
The two objects on the right are pigments used between 320,000 and 500,000 years ago in East Africa.
All other objects are stone tools used during the same time period in the same area. Human Origins
Program, NMNH, Smithsonian Institution
Our ancestors used stone tools as long as 3.3 million years ago and by 1.75
million years ago they’d adopted the Acheulean culture, a suite of chunky
handaxes and other cutting implements that remained in vogue for nearly 1.5
million years. As recently as 400,000 years ago, thrusting spears used during
the hunt of large prey in what is now Germany were state of the art. But they
could only be used up close, an obvious and sometimes dangerous limitation.
Even as they acquired the more modern anatomy seen in living humans, the
ways our ancestors lived, and the tools they created, changed as well.
Humans took a leap in tool tech with the Middle Stone Age some 300,000 years
ago by making those finely crafted tools with flaked points and attaching them
to handles and spear shafts to greatly improve hunting prowess. Projectile
points like those Potts and colleagues dated to 298,000 to 320,000 years old in
southern Kenya were an innovation that suddenly made it possible to kill all
manner of elusive or dangerous prey. “It ultimately changed how these earliest
sapiens interacted with their ecosystems, and with other people,” says Potts.
Scrapers and awls, which could be used to work animal hides for clothing and
to shave wood and other materials, appeared around this time. By at least
90,000 years ago barbed points made of bone—like those discovered at
Katanda, Democratic Republic of the Congo—were used to spearfish
As with fossils, tool advancements appear in different places and times,
suggesting that distinct groups of people evolved, and possibly later shared,
these tool technologies. Those groups may include other humans who are not
part of our own lineage.
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An Evolutionary Timeline of Homo Sapiens | Science | Smithsonian Magazine
Last year a collection including sophisticated stone blades was discovered near
Chennai, India, and dated to at least 250,000 years ago. The presence of this
toolkit in India so soon after modern humans appeared in Africa suggests that
other species may have also invented them independently—or that some
modern humans spread the technology by leaving Africa earlier than most
current thinking suggests.
100,000 to 210,000 Years Ago: Fossils
Show Homo sapiens Lived Outside of
Africa
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An Evolutionary Timeline of Homo Sapiens | Science | Smithsonian Magazine
A skull found in Qafzeh, from the collection at the American Museum of Natural History Wapondaponda via
Wikipedia under CC BY-SA 3.0
Many genetic analyses tracing our roots back to Africa make it clear that Homo
sapiens originated on that continent. But it appears that we had a tendency to
wander from a much earlier era than scientists had previously suspected.
A jawbone found inside a collapsed cave on the slopes of Mount Carmel, Israel,
reveals that modern humans dwelt there, alongside the Mediterranean, some
177,000 to 194,000 years ago. Not only are the jaw and teeth from Misliya Cave
unambiguously similar to those seen in modern humans, they were found with
sophisticated handaxes and flint tools.
Other finds in the region, including multiple individuals at Qafzeh, Israel, are
dated later. They range from 100,000 to 130,000 years ago, suggesting a long
presence for humans in the region. At Qafzeh, human remains were found with
pieces of red ocher and ocher-stained tools in a site that has been interpreted
as the oldest intentional human burial.
Among the limestone cave systems of southern China, more evidence has
turned up from between 80,000 and 120,000 years ago. A 100,000-year-old
jawbone, complete with a pair of teeth, from Zhirendong retains some archaic
traits like a less prominent chin, but otherwise appears so modern that it may
represent Homo sapiens. A cave at Daoxian yielded a surprising array of ancient
teeth, barely distinguishable from our own, which suggest that Homo sapiens
groups were already living very far from Africa from 80,000 to 120,000 years
ago.
Even earlier migrations are possible; some believe evidence exists of humans
reaching Europe as long as 210,000 years ago. While most early human finds
spark some scholarly debate, few reach the level of the Apidima skull fragment,
in southern Greece, which may be more than 200,000 years old and might
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possibly represent the earliest modern human fossil discovered outside of
Africa. The site is steeped in controversy, however, with some scholars
believing that the badly preserved remains look less those of our own species
and more like Neanderthals, whose remains are found just a few feet away in
the same cave. Others question the accuracy of the dating analysis undertaken
at the site, which is tricky because the fossils have long since fallen out of the
geological layers in which they were deposited.
While various groups of humans lived outside of Africa during this era,
ultimately, they aren’t part of our own evolutionary story. Genetics can reveal
which groups of people were our distant ancestors and which had descendants
who eventually died out.
“Of course, there could be multiple out of Africa dispersals,” says Akey. “The
question is whether they contributed ancestry to present day individuals and
we can say pretty definitely now that they did not.”
50,000 to 60,000 Years Ago: Genes
and Climate Reconstructions Show a
Migration Out of Africa
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An Evolutionary Timeline of Homo Sapiens | Science | Smithsonian Magazine
A digital rendering of a satellite view of the Arabian Peninsula, where humans are believed to have
migrated from Africa roughly 55,000 years ago Przemek Pietrak via Wikipedia under CC BY 3.0
All living non-Africans, from Europeans to Australia’s aboriginal people, can
trace most of their ancestry to humans who were part of a landmark migration
out of Africa beginning some 50,000 to 60,000 years ago, according to
numerous genetic studies published in recent years. Reconstructions of climate
suggest that lower sea levels created several advantageous periods for humans
to leave Africa for the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle East, including one
about 55,000 years ago.
“Just by looking at DNA from present day individuals we’ve been able to infer a
pretty good outline of human history,” Akey says. “A group dispersed out of
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An Evolutionary Timeline of Homo Sapiens | Science | Smithsonian Magazine
Africa maybe 50 to 60 thousand years ago, and then that group traveled
around the world and eventually made it to all habitable places of the world.”
While earlier African emigres to the Middle East or China may have interbred
with some of the more archaic hominids still living at that time, their lineage
appears to have faded out or been overwhelmed by the later migration.
15,000 to 40,000 Years Ago: Genetics
and Fossils Show Homo sapiens
Became the Only Surviving Human
Species
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An Evolutionary Timeline of Homo Sapiens | Science | Smithsonian Magazine
A facial reconstruction of Homo floresiensis, a diminutive early human that may have lived until 50,000
years ago John Gurche
For most of our history on this planet, Homo sapiens have not been the only
humans. We coexisted, and as our genes make clear frequently interbred with
various hominin species, including some we haven’t yet identified. But they
dropped off, one by one, leaving our own species to represent all humanity. On
an evolutionary timescale, some of these species vanished only recently.
On the Indonesian island of Flores, fossils evidence a curious and diminutive
early human species nicknamed “hobbit.” Homo floresiensis appear to have
been living until perhaps 50,000 years ago, but what happened to them is a
mystery. They don’t appear to have any close relation to modern humans
including the Rampasasa pygmy group, which lives in the same region today.
Neanderthals once stretched across Eurasia from Portugal and the British Isles
to Siberia. As Homo sapiens became more prevalent across these areas the
Neanderthals faded in their turn, being generally consigned to history by some
40,000 years ago. Some evidence suggests that a few die-hards might have
held on in enclaves, like Gibraltar, until perhaps 29,000 years ago. Even today
traces of them remain because modern humans carry Neanderthal DNA in
their genome.
Our more mysterious cousins, the Denisovans, left behind so few identifiable
fossils that scientists aren’t exactly sure what they looked like, or if they might
have been more than one species. A recent study of human genomes in Papua
New Guinea suggests that humans may have lived with and interbred with
Denisovans there as recently as 15,000 years ago, though the claims are
controversial. Their genetic legacy is more certain. Many living Asian people
inherited perhaps 3 to 5 percent of their DNA from the Denisovans.
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An Evolutionary Timeline of Homo Sapiens | Science | Smithsonian Magazine
Despite the bits of genetic ancestry they contributed to living people, all of our
close relatives eventually died out, leaving Homo sapiens as the only human
species. Their extinctions add one more intriguing, perhaps unanswerable
question to the story of our evolution—why were we the only humans to
survive?
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Brian Handwerk
Brian Handwerk is a science correspondent based in Amherst, New Hampshire.
Filed Under: Anthropology, Archaeology, Artifacts, Evolution, Fossils, Genetics, Hominids, Human Evolution,
Natural History Museum
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Racism – Jane Eeliot

Racism – Jane Eeliot

Racism – Jane Eeliot