The record fossil in Human Evolution

Recommended Prerequisites

None.

Teaching Methods

Power point presentations are used and afterwards made available for the students. The students have the opportunity to work with human fossil casts.

Discussion of recent discoveries and scientific articles.

Learning Outcomes

This curricular unit aims to provide the kowledge on the different phases of human evolution, from early forms to the emergence of the modern humans and its dispersal across the different continents, based on the fossil and archeological records. 

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

Introduction to human evolution; Why Africa?

The first hominins: the fossils from the Miocene; Australopithecus and Paranthropus; Bipedality; Phylogenethic relations among Homo and the pre existing forms.

Early Homo; Phylogenetic relations.

Homo erectus and the first out of Africa.

Human evolution on the Pleistocene. Phylogenetic relations. The pre-neanderthals.

The importance of Atapuerca: main archaeological sites and the fossil record.

The origin of Neanderthals; Morphological and cultural characterization of Homo neanderthalensis; Geographic distribution; Neanderthals extinction.

The emergence of modern humans and their dispersal. Interbreeding between Homo sapiens and neanderthals.  

Head Lecturer(s)

Cláudia Isabel Soares Umbelino

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Exam: 30.0%
Synthesis work: 70.0%

Bibliography

Boyd, R.; Silk, J.B. 2017. How humans evolved. 8th Edition. New York, W. W. Norton & Company.

Cunha, E. 2010. Como nos tornámos humanos. Coimbra, Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra.

Klein, R.G. 2009. The human career: human biological and culture origins. 3^rd Edition. Chicago, Chicago University Press.