4 Charles Darwin and the Fossil Evidence for Human Evolution A reflection on Darwin’s Chapter 4: On the Manner of Development of Man from Some Lower Form

2021 ◽  
pp. 82-102
Keyword(s):  
Human Evolution ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Fossil Evidence ◽  
Lower Form

Reconstructing the Role of Insects in the Diets of Early Hominins

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.

Annie's Box: Charles Darwin, His Daughter and Human Evolution

Endeavour ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 169-170
Author(s):  
Robert W Wallace
Keyword(s):  
Human Evolution ◽  
Charles Darwin

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

2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 359-383 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter C. Kjærgaard
Keyword(s):  
Human Evolution ◽  
Human Remains ◽  
International Competition ◽  
Evolutionary Explanation ◽  
Human Origins ◽  
Missing Link ◽  
Explanatory Framework ◽  
National Pride ◽  
Fossil Evidence

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.

scholarly journals Darwin's Use of Intellectual Disability in The Descent of Man

2008 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven A. Gelb
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Disability ◽  
Natural Selection ◽  
Intellectual Disabilities ◽  
Human Evolution ◽  
Mental State ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
Descent Of Man

When Charles Darwin turned his attention to writing about human descent in 1871 he attempted to narrow the fossil gap between human beings and higher primates by presenting persons with intellectual disabilities — "idiots" in the language of the day — as evidence in support of the theory of evolution. This paper explores the four ways that Darwin used persons with intellectual disabilities in The Descent of Man: 1) as intermediate rung on the evolutionary ladder connecting humans and primates; 2) as exemplars of the inevitable waste and loss produced by natural selection acting upon variability; 3) as the floor of a scale representing the "lowest", most unfit variety of any species when individuals were rank ordered by intelligence; and 4) as atavistic reversions to extinct forms whose study would reveal the characteristics of earlier stages of human evolution. Darwin's strategic use of intellectual disability is brought to bear on the controversy regarding the mental state of Darwin's last child.

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