Wellesley 207.02x (May-July 2015) - Introduction to Human Evolution

Course syllabus and outline

Course Description:

As contemporary humans, we are a product of our evolutionary past. That past can be directly observed through the study of the human fossil record, the materials preserved for archaeological study, and the DNA of living and extinct human populations. This course will provide an overview of human evolutionary history from the present--contemporary human variation in a comparative context--through our last common ancestor with the living great apes, some 5-7 million years in the past. Emphasis will be placed on major evolutionary changes in the development of humans and the methodological approaches used by paleoanthropologists and related investigators to develop that knowledge. The course will begin by asking basic questions about how evolution operates to shape biological variation and what patterns of variation look like in living humans and apes. We will then look at how the human lineage first began to differentiate from apes, the rise and fall of the Australopithecines, the origin and dispersal of the genus Homo, and eventually the radical evolutionary changes associated with the development of agricultural practices in the past 15,000 years. Throughout the course students will be exposed to the primary data, places and theories that shape our understanding of human evolution.

Texts:

All readings for Wellesley 207x will be provided via the course site. You do not need to purchase any texts for this course.

Grading:

Successful completion of the course will entail achieving a 60% or better cumulative score based on the following assignments:

• Weekly homework exercises (20%)
• Weekly lab exercises (20%)
• Midterm exam (30%)
• Final exam (30%)

 

COURSE SCHEDULE 

Week 1: What is evolution?

Readings:

•  "Evolution is change in the inherited traits of a population through successive generations" NKP, Forbes (2010)
•  "Genetic Mutation" NKP, Loewe (2008)     
•  "Natural Selection, Genetic Drift, and Gene Flow Do Not Act in Isolation in Natural Populations" NKP, Andrews (2010)

Week 2: Biological variation in humans and apes

Readings:

•  "Notes from the field: A primatologist's point of view" NKP, Morgan (2012)
• "Primate sociality and social systems" NKP, Swedell (2012)
• "Primate locomotion" NKP, Gebo (2013)
• "Primate communication" NKP, Zuberbuhler (2012)

Week 3: Studying the fossil record

Readings:

• "Tips on how to become a good fossil" National Geographic, Switek (2013)
• "What is it like to be a Biological Anthropologist? A field paleontologist's point of view" NKP, Su (2012)
• "Survey of Academic Field Experiences (SAFE): Trainees Report Harassment and Assault" PLOS One, Clancy, et al. (2014)
• "Speciation: The origin of new species" NKP, Safran & Nosil (2012)
• "Primate speciation: A case study of African apes" NKP, Mitchell & Gonder (2013)

Week 4: The origin of hominins

Readings:

• "Neutrality and molecular clocks" NKP, Yi (2013)
• "Overview of hominin evolution" NKP, Pontzer (2012)
• "The earliest hominins: Sahelanthropus, Orrorin, and Ardipithecus" NKP, Su (2013)
• "Ardipithecus ramidus and the Paleobiology of Early Hominids" Science, White, et al. (2009)
• "Reexamining Human Origins in Light of Ardipithecus ramidus" Science, Lovejoy, et al. (2009)

Week 5: Early Australopithecines

Readings:

• "Paleoecology and Paleoenvironment: a Case Study of Plio-Pleistocene Mammals from Laetoli" NKP, Kovarovic (2012)
•  "Reconstructing Hominin Life History" NKP, Smith (2012)
• “Energetics, Reproductive Ecology, and Human Evolution” Paleoanthropology, Ellison (2008)
•  “Lucy” Redux: A review of research on Australopithecus afarensis” Yearbook of Physical Anthropology, Kimbel & Delezene (2009)

Week 6: Later Australopithecines

Readings:

•  “Metopic suture of Taung (Australopithecus africanus) and its implications for hominin brain evolution” PNAS, Falk, et al. (2012)
•  "Australopithecus sediba: A New Species of Homo-Like Australopith from South Africa" Science, Berger, et al. (2010)
•  “Evidence of termite foraging by Swartkrans early hominids” PNAS, Blackwell & d’Errico (2001)

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MIDTERM EXAM

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Week 7: The “robust” Australopithecines

Readings:

•  "The Robust Australopiths" NKP, Constantino (2013)
•  “Diet of Paranthropus boisei in the early Pleistocene of East Africa” PNAS, Cerling, et al. (2011)

Week 8: The origin of Homo

Readings:

• "A primer on Paleolithic technology" NKP, Ferraro (2012)
•  "Evidence for meat-eating by early humans" NKP, Pobiner (2013)

• ·      “The expensive tissue hypothesis” Current Anthropology, Aiello & Wheeler (1995)

Week 9: Human evolution in the Lower and Middle Pleistocene

Readings:

• "Homo erectus – a bigger, smarter, faster hominin lineage" NKP, Van Arsdale (2013)
•  “A single lineage hypothesis in early Homo” Evolution, Van Arsdale & Wolpoff (2013)

• “Metabolic hypothesis for human altriciality” PNAS, Dunsworth, et al. (2012)

 Week 10: Archaic humans

 Readings:

•  "Archaic Homo sapiens" NKP, Bae (2013)
•  "Milankovitch Cycles, Paleoclimatic Change, and Hominin Evolution" NKP, Campisano (2012)
• “Beyond the tools: Innovation and the evolution of human behavior” Paleoanthropology, Coward & Groves (2011)
•  “Neandertal behavior” NKP, Monnier (2012)

Week 11: Modern human origins

Readings:

• "Testing models of modern human origins" NKP, Tryon & Bailey (2013)
• "The transition to modern behavior" NKP, Wurz (2012)
• "Older age becomes common late in human evolution” PNAS, Caspari & Lee (2004)
• “Late Pleistocene Demography and the Appearance of Modern Human Behavior” PNAS, Powell, et al. (2009)

 Week 12: Past, Present, and Future

Readings:

• "Homo florisiensis" NKP, Baab (2012)
• “Recent acceleration of human adaptive evolution” PNAS, Hawks, et al. (2007)
• "Evolutionary adaptation in the human lineage" NKP, Shaffner & Sabeti (2008)

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FINAL EXAM

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