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School of Archaeology and Anthropology · ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences
This course will provide an introduction to the fossil evidence for human evolution in the context of living great apes and modern humans. The course will proceed chronologically from our earliest human ancestors, who originated around 7 million years ago, up until modern humans who inhabit the world today. We will ask the questions of why our ancestors became bipedal, what they ate, how they grew up, and when they left Africa. We will cover topics such as how can we reconstruct behaviour using skeletal evidence and will critically examine how the evolutionary relationships among our extinct hominin relatives can be inferred from the fossil evidence.
Essay proposal, 500 words
Learning outcomes 1, 2, 3, 4
Major essay, 2500 words
Learning outcomes 1, 2, 3, 4
Take-home test, 5 working days
Learning outcomes 1, 2, 3, 4
Tutorial participation
Learning outcomes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
130 hours of total student learning time made up from: a) 36 hours of contact over 12 weeks: 24 hours of lectures and 12 hours of tutorials, labs and online activities; and b) 94 hours of independent student research, reading and writing
Processes in Human Evolution: The journey from early hominins to Neandertals and Modern Humans, Francisco J. Ayala and Camilo J. Cela-Conde, 2017, OUP Oxford (2nd Edition)