Inventing Homo gardarensis: Prestige, Pressure, and Human Evolution in Interwar Scandinavia

ArgumentIn the 1920s there were still very few fossil human remains to support an evolutionary explanation of human origins. Nonetheless, evolution as an explanatory framework was widely accepted. This led to a search for ancestors in several continents with fierce international competition. With so little fossil evidence available and the idea of a Missing Link as a crucial piece of evidence in human evolution still intact, many actors participated in the scientific race to identify the human ancestor. The curious case of Homo gardarensis serves as an example of how personal ambitions and national pride were deeply interconnected as scientific concerns were sometimes slighted in interwar palaeoanthropology.

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Biology and Behaviour in Human Evolution

Cambridge Archaeological Journal ◽

10.1017/s0959774300000366 ◽

1991 ◽

Vol 1 (2) ◽

pp. 207-226 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Phyllis C. Lee

Keyword(s):

Human Evolution ◽

Human Behaviour ◽

Archaeological Record ◽

Human Origins ◽

Biological Perspective ◽

Patterns And Processes ◽

Reductionist Approach

Of the diverse approaches to understanding patterns and processes in human evolution, a focus on the biology of behaviour using principles derived from the non-human primates may have some utility for archaeologists. This article seeks to outline some biologically-based areas that could prove fruitful in exploring the origins of human behaviour within the archaeological record. It attempts to initiate a dialogue between biologists, even with their limited understanding of the problems facing those working with human origins, and archaeologists, in the hope that this dialogue will move beyond a simple reductionist approach towards the goal of integrating behaviour into a more sophisticated biological perspective.

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Genetic and Fossil Evidence for Modern Human Origins

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199569885.013.0023 ◽

2013 ◽

Author(s):

Marta Lahr

Keyword(s):

Modern Human ◽

Human Origins ◽

Modern Human Origins ◽

Fossil Evidence

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Woman the Gatherer

Creatures of Cain ◽

10.23943/princeton/9780691181882.003.0008 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 133-142

Author(s):

Erika Lorraine Milam

Keyword(s):

Human Evolution ◽

Animal Behavior ◽

Field Research ◽

Human Origins ◽

Male Authority

This chapter considers the research of women anthropologists during this period. It shows how many anthropologists had fought to refute the picture of universal male authority implied by common narratives of human evolution were women, often at the very beginning of what turned out to be long, notable careers. Their research gave fuller form to a rhetorically powerful alternative to Man the Hunter in reconstructions of human origins—Woman the Gatherer. Like her partner, Woman the Gatherer found intellectual support in research on long-extinct human ancestors, studies of human cultures today, and animal behavior, with a new emphasis on field research among primates.

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Reconstructing the Role of Insects in the Diets of Early Hominins

Edible Insects and Human Evolution ◽

10.5744/florida/9780813056999.003.0006 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 90-108

Author(s):

Julie J. Lesnik

Keyword(s):

Human Evolution ◽

Social Insects ◽

Edible Insects ◽

Fossil Evidence

Ultimately the goal of the book is to reconstruct the role of insects over the course of human evolution. The aforementioned behavioral accounts will be combined with fossil evidence to reconstruct past diets and determine the role fulfilled by edible insects. This first paleoanthropology chapter focuses on australopithecines, our early ancestors on the hominin lineage. For these reconstructions, the data presented in the chapter on primates are especially enlightening. Chimpanzees as well as other apes tend to specialize in social insects such as termites and ants, making it likely that our earliest ancestors benefited from this behavior as well.

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