Teaching Responsibility
LJMU Schools involved in Delivery:
Biological and Environmental Sciences
Learning Methods
Lecture
Off Site
Practical
Workshop
Module Offerings
5316NATSCI-JAN-CTY
Aims
This module aims to provide students with an in-depth exploration of the human fossil record, investigating questions such as: who are we and where did we come from and what makes us as humans distinct from other animals? Key issues and topics in palaeoanthropology will be examined, ranging from the origins of the earliest hominins to modern human origins, as well as our fossil ape relatives, and how we know what we know.
Learning Outcomes
1.
Analyse primary and secondary literature on human and non-human ape evolution.
2.
Demonstrate critical knowledge of the paleoanthropological record and of key stages of human and hominid evolution.
3.
Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of major hypotheses on what made the human lineage distinct.
4.
Apply knowledge of anatomy and skeletal morphology to basic understanding of how to identify a hominin fossil, infer key aspects of the behaviour of the species it represents, and understand how it fits into the larger framework of hominin diversity over the past 6-7 million years.
Module Content
Outline Syllabus:What is human? The development of evolutionary theory. Phylogeny and taxonomy, dating techniques. Becoming Human/Bipedalism. Our earliest ancestors? The first true hominins: the australopiths. Early Homo. Early and later Homo erectus. Muddle in the Middle: between Homo erectus to Homo sapiens. Neanderthals: our sister species. Late surviving relics or something else? Homo naledi and Homo floresiensis. Anatomically modern humans.
Module Overview:
This module provides an in-depth exploration of the human fossil record, investigating questions such as: who are we and where did we come from and what makes us as humans distinct from other animals? Key issues and topics in palaeoanthropology are examined, ranging from the origins of the earliest hominins to modern human origins, as well as our fossil ape relatives, and how we know what we know.
This module provides an in-depth exploration of the human fossil record, investigating questions such as: who are we and where did we come from and what makes us as humans distinct from other animals? Key issues and topics in palaeoanthropology are examined, ranging from the origins of the earliest hominins to modern human origins, as well as our fossil ape relatives, and how we know what we know.
Additional Information:LJMU maintains a continually expanding and extensive cast collection of early and later hominin fossils, as well as fossil apes. This collection will be used extensively in the course: in workshops that coincide with lectures and stress fossil identification and behavioural inference. The module will also feature workshops where students learn to take 3D digital images of fossils and use data acquired from these images and Geometric Morphometric techniques to analyse differences in the human fossil record.
Assessments
Centralised Exam
Centralised Exam