On the BIOL 471 website, click on the Smithsonian Institution's human evolution website .  This provides an overview of paleoanthroplogy and discusses a number of topics.  Pictures of specimens can be viewed from the family tree available at the site.  There is also a nice review sheet of known hominid fossils at the Bellarmine University website maintained by W. J. Tietjen. Review the Smithsonian material dealing with primate evolution, hominid evolution and the genetic diversification of H. sapiens and answer the following questions.

1.(1) How long ago in the past did Ardipithecus ramidus live?
 

2.(1) How are Paranthropus spp. different from Australopithecus spp.?
 
 

3.(2) Homo habilis existed in Africa during what period of time?  What is the relationship between H. habilis and H. rudolfensis, which lived in Africa at about the same time?
 
 
 
 

4.(2) What is the relationship between H. ergaster, H. erectus, and H. heidelbergensis?
 
 
 
 

5.(2) So-called "archaic" forms of H. sapiens (including the species now called H. neanderthalensis and H. heidelbergensis) first appear how long ago in the fossil record?  How does the cranial capacity of these H. sapiens forms compare with that of H. erectus?
 
 
 

6.(2) Discuss how a combined theory of modern human origin links the "out-of-Africa hypothesis" with the "multiregional hypothesis."