Archeology of Human Evolution, Essay Example

Broadly defined, evolution is the gradual change of something over time. In anthropology, the change studied pertains to humanity and attempts to determine our origin and how we have derived from other species. In the context of physical anthropology, evolution is used to study the variability among humans and their predecessors in addition to how environmental stresses enhance their adaptations. Anthropologists have many tools that are used to evaluate human evolution, including DNA analysis of a population, cultural studies of animal relatives such as chimpanzees, structural analysis of bones, and geographic studies to trace the locations of the first humans and how they had spread all over the planet.

To truly understand human evolution, it is necessary to understand humanity’s physical origin. To do so, researchers have uncovered the skeletal remains of what is supposed to be early humans. Thus, the archeology of human evolution is a useful tool to close important gaps in our current knowledge (Archeology of Human Evolution, n.d.). There are many societies that are dedicated to this cause and much progress has been made in this field. To date, many different members of the genus Homo have been unearthed in addition to human relatives that belong to other classifications. For a long time, scientists believed that a human ancestor named Lucy, discovered in Ethiopia and scientifically referred to as Australopithecus afarensis, was the oldest human ancestor to have existed. Since this discovery however, several other species believed to be related to modern humans have been found. Therefore, to trace our evolutionary history, it would be useful to continue this search and to analyze these findings so that we may come to a true understanding of early humans and their relationship to non-human primates. Scientists can used this information in addition to knowledge about plate tectonics to determine how early humans lived and how they travelled to the areas that their remains have been found in today. The goal of this will be to build both a physical and phylogenetic map that explains the series of evolution that has contributed to the development of Homo sapiens.

A second field of anthropology that would be useful for exploring how human ancestors have evolved and spread throughout the world during this process would be linguistic anthropology. The evolution of the human language closely reflects the evolution of humanity itself. As humans have travelled throughout the world, they have altered their language as a consequence of the communication they experienced with other groups of humans. Like physical evolution, linguistic evolution is a slow process and marks significant interactions between different groups of people. Although it is difficult to be certain of the ancient languages spoken by these groups, the research that linguistic anthropologists conduct operates in a manner that attempts to piece together these no longer spoken languages. We can use cave drawings and current understanding of ancient languages to infer how these groups once communicated and how this communication has changed over time. To put this technique to practice, it would be useful to begin the study of African languages due to the belief that Africa is where humanity originated. Then, it will be necessary to draw connections between these modern languages and ancient forms. Archeological digs will help unearth items that will then allow researchers to determine the structure and form of languages that are no longer spoken, which will provide clues concerning the communication of early man. An article entitled “What African Linguistics Can Contribute to Evolutionary Linguistics” explains the benefit of using linguistics to study human evolution (Mufwene, 2013). Ultimately, evolutionary linguistics and archeological evidence work hand and hand to allow researchers to generate a better picture of the groups of early people that they are trying to study.

Although physical anthropology and linguistic anthropology are useful tools when used together, these concepts occasionally contrast one another. Physical anthropology is capable of unearthing ancient human species and related distant relatives, which allow for classification based on many means, including sorting according to bone structure and occasionally genetic analysis if enough DNA is present. On the other hand, it is impossible to classify humans into phylogenetic groups of the basis of their language. Furthermore, physical anthropology allows us to work both forward and backwards to piece human history together. When using linguistic anthropology, we must start in modern times and work backwards, and if roadblocks are encountered we must continue to search for evidence before being able to draw conclusions.

While evolution can be studied using many approaches, it is important to do so using many techniques. Both physical and linguistic studies of evolution have their flaws, but these are minimized when used together. Furthermore, it would be useful to utilize other aspects of anthropology in this analysis as well. For example, cultural anthropology would be useful to reinforce our understanding linguistic evolution. Since cultures tend to evolve simultaneously with linguistics, independent studies of the two should be pooled together to gain a greater understanding of the spread and classification of humans throughout our history. Together with physical data, we will be allowed to more precisely predict how we are related to our human ancestors in addition to non-human primates. It would be beneficial for anthropologists to continue studies of this sort because the more evidence we are able to generate, the more valuable it will become to our understanding of ourselves.

References

Archeology of Human Evolution. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/studying/undergraduate/courses/ARCL3094

Mufwene SS. (2013). What African Linguistics Can Contribute to Evolutionary Linguistics. Linguistic Interfaces in African Languages. Retrieved from http://www.lingref.com/cpp/acal/43/paper2955.pdf