HUMAN

EVOLUTION
AND
CULTURE
Module 2
Objective • At the end of this module:
1. Trace the biological and cultural evolution
of early to modern humans.
2. Explore the significance if human material
remains as pieces of artificial evidence in
interpreting cultural and social, political,
and economic processes.
3. Recognize national, local, and specialized
museums, and archeological and historical
sites as venues to appreciate and reflect on
the complexities of bicultural and social
evolution as part of being and becoming
human.
4. Identify forms of tangible and intangible
heritage, and the threat to these.
 CULTURAL
BEGINNINGS
Culture • It is defines as “that complex
whole which encompasses beliefs,
practices, values, attitudes, laws,
norms, artifacts, symbols,
knowledge, and everything that a
person learns and shares as a
member of a society” (Tylor, 2010).
• It is a by-- product of the attempt
of humans to survive their
environment and to compensate
for their biological characteristics
and limitations.
Culture • To understand culture, you
need to know the following:
1. Biological capacity of
humans for culture
2. Place of humans in the
animal kingdom
3. How humans came to
develop early forms of
culture
Biological • The need to scrutinize human
anatomy to understand
Capacity culture is indispensable.
for Culture Physical and cultural
anthropologists argue that we
could trace how culture
became possible by
understanding our biological
makeup.
 Biological
Capacity for
Culture
1. Our Thinking
Capacity
Fig. 2.1. The Human
Brain and Its Parts
Biological Capacity • The primary biological
for Culture
component of human that
allowed for culture is the
1. Our Thinking
Capacity developed brain.
• It has the necessary parts for
facilitating pertinent skills
such as speaking, touching,
feeling, seeing, and smelling.
Biological Capacity • Frontal lobe and the motor
for Culture
cortex function for cognition
and motor abilities.
1. Our Thinking
Capacity • Parietal lobe allows for
touch and taste abilities.
• Temporal lobe allows for
hearing skills.
• Occipital lobe allows for
visual skills.
Biological Capacity • Compared with other primates,
for Culture human have a larger brain,
weighing 1.4 kg.
1. Our Thinking • Chimpanzees have a brain weighing
Capacity only 420 g, and those of gorillas
weigh 500 g.
• Due to the size of their brain and
the complexity of its parts, human
were able to create survival skills
that helped them adapt to their
environment and outlive their less
adaptive biological relatives.
 Biological
Capacity for
Culture
1. Our Thinking
Capacity
Fig. 2.2 Brain Size
Comparison among
primates
Biological Capacity • As the brain is the primary
for Culture
source of humans’ capacity to
comprehend sound and
2. Our speaking
capacity provide meaning to it, the
vocal tract acts as the
mechanism by which sounds
are produced and reproduced
to transmit ideas and
Biological Capacity • The vocal tract of human is
for Culture longer than that of a
chimpanzee.
2. Our speaking • A longer vocal tract means that
capacity there is a longer vibration
surface, allowing humans to
produce a wider array of sounds
than chimpanzees.
• The tongue of humans is also
more flexible than that of a
chimpanzee allowing for more
control in making sounds.
 Biological
Capacity for
Culture
2. Our speaking
capacity
Fig. 2.3. Vocal Tract
Comparison Between a
Chimpanzee and a
Human
Biological Capacity • Traditional scientific beliefs pegs
for Culture the development of language at 100
000 years ago, making it an
exclusive trait of the modern
2. Our speaking human.
capacity • However, Dan Dediu from the Max
Planck Institute for
Psycholinguistics in the
Netherlands argued that the origin
of language may be rooted as far
back as 500 000 years ago based on
the discovered bone from an
ancestor known as homo
heidelbergensis.
Biological Capacity • This fossil is a hyoid bone
for Culture
which is “crucial for speaking
as it supports the root of the
2. Our speaking
capacity tongue” (Hoenboom, 2013).
• Homo neanderthalensis
(Neanderthals), our nearest
relative, was also found to
have the same bone, which
functions similarly as ours.
Biological Capacity • Look at our hands. Notice how
for Culture your thumbs relates with your
other fingers.
3. Our gripping • This capacity to directly oppose
capacity your thumb with your other
fingers is an exclusive trait of
humans.
• It allowed us to have a finer
grip. Thus we have the
capability to craft materials
with precision.
 Biological
Capacity for
Culture
3. Our gripping
capacity
Fig. 2.4. Hands of
Selected Primates
Biological Capacity • The hand of human has digits
for Culture (fingers) that are straight, as
compared with the curved ones
3. Our gripping of the other primates.
capacity • Notice that the thumb of human
is proportionately longer than
those of the other primates.
• These characteristics of the
human hand allowed for two
types of grip: power and
precision.
Biological Capacity • Power grip enabled humans to
for Culture wrap the thumb and fingers on
an object; it became the
3. Our gripping cornerstone of our capacity to
capacity hold tools firmly for hunting and
other activities.
• Precision grip enabled
humans to hold and pick objects
steadily using their fingers, this
capacity was crucial for tool-
making activities.
Biological Capacity • Primates has two forms of locomotion:
for Culture bipedalism and quadropedalism.
• Bipedalism is the capacity to walk
and stand on two feet.
4. Our walking / • Quadropedalism uses all for limbs.
standing capacity • Humans are the only fully bipedal
primates. Humans gained more
capacity to move while carrying objects
with their free hands.
• It give humans more productivity with
their hands. It gains a more efficient
form of locomotion suitable for hunting
and foraging.
HUMAN ORIGINS
AND THE
CAPACITY FOR
CULTURE
• Our evolution toward humanity as
we know it has been a long journey of
survival against the elements of the
environment and against competing
species.
• As our ancestors evolved biologically
in response to their environment ,
they have also developed cultural
technologies that aided them to
efficiently obtain food and deter
predators.
• Archeologist refer to these early
traditions as stone tool industries
instead of culture.
 The • It is a stone tool industry that is
characterized by the use of “ hard
Oldowan waterworn creek cobbles made out of

Industry volcanic rock” (O’ Niel, 2012).

• These raw materials were then made
into tools trough percussion flaking,
which a process involving the
systematic collision of a hammer
stone with a core stone.
• The impact of the collision produces a
core tool (used for general purposes)
and a flake tool (used as a knife).
 The • Supporting the existence of
this industry is the evidence
Oldowan found by Mary and Louis
Industry Leakey at Olduvai Gorge,
Tanzania, which was dated
at2.6 million years ago.
• This industry is known to
have been used by Homo
Habilis.
The Oldowan
Industry

Fig. 2.6. Percussion

Flaking Method
 The • These forms of technology allowed for
the species to “butcher large animals,
Oldowan because human teeth and fingers are

Industry totally inadequate for cutting

through thick skins and slicing off
pieces of meat.
• Evidence of their use in this manner
can be seen in cut marks that still
are visible on bones” and it improved
their food gathering skills using the
“hammering, digging, and chopping
implements””.
 The • From Africa, this industry spread
out to Europe and Asia during the
Oldowan migration of Homo erectus, who
Industry acquired it from Homo habilis
within 1.9- 1.8 million years ago.
• By 1.8- 1.6 million years ago, the
oldowan industry has already
reached Java, Indonesia and
Northern China.
 The • Homo erectus developed a more
complex industry from what they
Acheulian inherited from Homo habilis.

Industry • Using the same process of

percussion flaking, they created
hand axes that were bifacial,
shaped in both sides, and with
straighter and sharper edges.
• Some archeologist contest the
general label of “ hand axes,” as
the stone implements were used in
in different context.
 The
Acheulian
Industry
Fig. 2.7. Bifacial
Stone tool from the
Acheulian Industry
 The • These stone implements were used
in multiple activities such as light
Acheulian chopping of wood, digging up roots
Industry and bulbs, butchering animals,
and cracking nuts and small
bones.
• Homo erectus made other tools
such as “choppers, cleavers, and
hammers as well as flakes used as
knives and scrapers” (O’Neil,
2012).
 The • this industry was developed by Homo
neaderthalensis (Neanderthals) in

Mousterian
Europe and West Asia between 300 000 and
30 000 years ago.

Industry • This industry was named after a site in

France called Le Moustier, where evidence
was uncovered in 1860.
• The tools from this industry, combined
Acheulian industry techniques with the
Levallloisian technique, which involved the
use of a premade core tool and the
extraction of a flake tool that has sharpened
edges.
• This type of tools is very efficient as all the
sides of the flake tool are sharpened and,
due to the reduction in size, more handy.