Name: Olivia Ray Date: September 27, 2012 Period: 1 and 2 Assignment: Early Human Inquiry Early Humans

Inquiry History 30% Project Inquiry What is Your Question? (Complex QuestionHow, Why or What) How did the Australopithecus survive if they were always fighting with other groups of their kind?

Prediction What do you think you will find? (Be specific; Draw connections) I think they were able to survive because they hid in trees and avoided other groups.

Investigation What did you uncover? (Expected and unexpected answers to your question) DEAD END? Critics do agree that A. sediba is a new species but believe it became extinct without evolving into another species. That type of extinction is common in evolution, says Ian Tattersall, a paleoanthropologist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Nature's way of experimenting is by throwing different species into the ecological arena, he explains. The better-adapted species survive, while the others go extinct. Indeed, two or three early Homo species might have lived side by side 1.9 million years ago in Africa. It's possible that A. sediba lived among those species. [Evolution is] not a linear process, says Tattersall, explaining that one species doesn't necessarily give way to another and another. There are many "evolutionary dead ends" -- species that simply die out. Even if A. sediba is one of those dead ends, Tattersall maintains, it gives us a better picture of what hominids looked like at the time. This is quoted from an article called, The Descendants: Is a newfound prehistoric species our direct ancestor? I also learned about a 9 year old boy and his dog found a 1.9 million year old collarbone that belonged to an Australopithecus at a South African dig site.

Name: Olivia Ray Date: September 27, 2012 Period: 1 and 2 Assignment: Early Human Inquiry

References Who were your expert sources? (Identify names, organizations, dates)
I used ebscohost.com 1. Authors: Oerzen, Bobby The site: http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=5&hid=19&sid=e3208e03-e4074362-937078889de860c0%40sessionmgr15&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3 d#db=mih&AN=72321815 2