A variety of different physiological and behavioural/cultural characteristics appear with Homo erectus around or shortly after 2 million years ago. These have been discussed in several different lectures (especially Units 8 and 9.1). What are these traits and what sort of picture do they paint of Homo erectus' adaptations and how they differ from previous hominins?
The material culture hallmark of Homo erectus/ergaster is the handaxe. This tool appears about the same time and same place as this new hominin and they took this technology with them when they left Africa. Within Africa and the Middle East there are a number of sites with huge accumulations of handaxes. An example of this is the site of Olorgesailie in Kenya (mentioned in the text) where thousands of handaxes were left lying on the ground in a small area. Whatever the function of these tools (and we still have no good idea what they were used for, although the best guesses are multi-purpose knives) why would people keep bringing new handaxes to a site where there were already hundreds of still perfectly usable ones lying around? Can you think of some explanations for this?
-Explain in your own words how to determine the Minimum Number of Individuals (MNI) from a collection of bones.
-Explain how a sample of assorted skeletal remains from a large number of people from an ancient population, as was found at Sima de los Huesos, can provide more information about that ancient population than the remains of just one person, even if the remains of the one person are more complete.
-As discussed somewhat in the textbook in the section on Neandertal burials (pp. 266-267) there has been a serious, ongoing debate among Neandertal researchers about whether these people practiced intentional burial of their dead or not. Although, contrary to what is said in the text about sites such as La Ferrassie and Spy, the actual evidence that these were intentional burials is almost non-existent. Statements, like those made in the text, that these sites are clear examples of intentional burial is, unfortunately, just scholars repeating what one researcher said at some point in the past and the actual purported evidence is almost never re-examined. This was one of the reasons for the addition of the supplemental reading at the end of the text on the Neandertal child from Roc de Marsal.
After reading the supplemental section, what minimum criteria would you argue would conclusively demonstrate that a body had been intentionally buried? Keep in mind that natural processes can bury bodies and that the very first burial practices would be very simple so we would not expect to see elaborate tombs or headstones. Imagine the most basic of methods and customs that you might be familiar with around the world. This would be a very good topic for an online group discussion.