1.1. The cell is the basic unit of life for all organisms Every organism has at least one cell that is the baseline definition of an organism.
1.2. Each DNA sequence, each protein-generating code, is a gene; and the complete set of genes is the genome.
1.3. a diploid cell—a cell having its organism’s full set of chromosomes—divides to produce two cells, each of which also has the full set of chromosomes.
2. ch4 Genes and Their Evolution
2.1. Gene Frequencies in Equilibrium As this Punnett square illustrates, the Hardy– Weinberg equilibrium captures gene frequencies in a static moment, when no evolutionary change is taking place.
2.2. synonymous point mutation creates an altered triplet in the DNA, but the alteration carries with it the original amino acid. Because the amino acid is the same, the protein formed is the same
2.3. gene flow is the transfer of genes across population boundaries. Simply, members of two populations produce offspring. The key determinant for the amount of gene flow is accessibility to mates—the less the physical distance between populations, the greater the chance of gene flow
3. ch 5 Biology in the Present
3.1. Lewontin found that the so-called races accounted for only about 5%–10% of the overall genetic diversity.
3.2. The human growth cycle consists of three stages: prenatal stage, postnatal stage, and adult stage
3.3. Height is a sensitive indicator of diet and health. During periods of insufficient nutrition, growth can be slowed or arrested, leading to reduced adult stature
4. ch10 Early Hominin Origins and Evolution
4.1. bipedalism—and not human intelligence was the foundational behavior of the Hominini (humans and human-like ancestors), preceding most attributes associated with humans and with human behavior by millions of years
4.2. Drawing on the great British naturalist Thomas Huxley’s anatomical research on the living apes of Africa (both Darwin and Huxley are discussed in chapter 2), Darwin concluded that because of the remarkable anatomical similarity between humans and African apes, Africa was hominins’ likely place of origin
4.3. Pre-australopithecine fossils are few in number and quite fragmentary, but they have provided critically important information about the origins and earliest evolution of the Hominini.
5. ch 11 The Origins and Evolution of Early Homo
5.1. Eugène Dubois A Dutch anatomist and anthropologist, Dubois discovered the first early hominin remains found outside Europe
5.2. Zhoukoudian During excavations at this site in China between 1923 and 1927, H. erectus remains were discovered and called “Peking Man.” Excavations continued until the early 1940s. Today, the place is a UNESCO World Heritage Site
5.3. Within this diversity, the dominant tool is the handaxe. The handaxe’s sharp edge was used in cutting, scraping, and other functions.
6. ch 12 The Origins, Evolution, and Dispersal of Modern People
6.1. Modern people—people who essentially look like us—tend to have a high and vertical forehead, a projecting chin
6.2. Upper Paleolithic Refers to the most recent part of the Old Stone Age, associated with early modern Homo sapiens and characterized by finely crafted stone and other types of tools with various functions
6.3. Intentional Burial Like the Shanidar skeletons (among others), the LaChapelle-aux-Saints skeleton provides evidence of intentional burial. When this individual was found in a pit, it was the first suggestion that Neandertals cared for their dead in a way similar to modern humans’ methods.
7. ch 13 The Past 10,000 Years
7.1. domestication The process of converting wild animals or wild plants into forms that humans can care for and cultivate. Neolithic The late Pleistocene–early Holocene culture, during which humans domesticated plants and animals
7.2. superfoods Cereal grains, such as rice, corn, and wheat, that make up a substantial portion of the human population’s diet today
7.3. A misperception shared by the public and anthropologists is that with the appearance of essentially modern Homo sapiens in the late Pleistocene, human biological evolution ground to a halt. That is, many think that humans stopped evolving biologically once they became modern, in the Upper Paleolithic
8. ch1 what is Physical Anthropology
8.1. Anthropology is the study of humankind, viewed from the perspective of all people and all times. As it is practiced in the United States, it includes four branches or subdisciplines: cultural anthropology, archaeology, linguistic anthropology, and physical anthropology, also called biological anthropology
8.2. What Makes Humans So Different from Other Animals? social learning, bipedalism, nonhoning canine, culture, and Material culture
9. ch2 Evolution
9.1. Geology, Paleontology, Taxonomy, systematics, and Demography are the five scientific disciplines that Darwin drew on
9.2. Darwin hypothesized that surviving offspring had attributes advantageous for acquiring food. Because these offspring survived, the frequency of their advantageous characteristics increased over time. Meanwhile, as environmental conditions changed—such as when rainfall decreased—offspring lacking adaptive attributes suited to their survival in the new environment died off. Building on these observations and their implications, Darwin deduced that natural selection was the primary mechanism of evolution
9.3. DNA is deoxyribonucleic acid molecules have a ladderlike, double-helix structure.
10. ch 6 Biology in the Present THE OTHER LIVING PRIMATES
10.1. Primate Distribution primates inhabit every continent except Antarctica and Australia. New World primates live in North and South America, while Old World primates live in Europe, Africa, and Asia. Although they are often considered tropical animals that live in forested settings, primate species exist in a wide range of environments.
10.2. three prominent tendencies of primates arboreal adaptation, dietary plasticity, and parental investment
10.3. Female primates give birth to fewer offspring than do other female mammals. A single female primate’s births are spaced out over time—sometimes by several years
11. ch7 Primate Sociality, Social Behavior, and Culture
11.1. polygynous, polyandrous, and monogamous
11.2. primates can acquire food using only their bodies
11.3. loudest calls in a primate species’ repertoire transmit information over long distances and are typically produced during events such as an encounter with predators, an aggressive contest with another group, and one animal’s separation from its group.
12. ch8 Fossils and Their Place in Time and Nature
12.1. Fossils are the remains of once-living organisms. More specifically, they are the remains of organisms that have been wholly or partially transformed into rock through a long process of chemical replacement. In the replacement process, the minerals in bones and teeth, such as calcium and phosphorus, are very gradually replaced with rock-forming minerals like iron and silica.
12.2. Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic
12.3. The number representing the time it takes for half of the radioisotope to decay is called the half-life
13. ch9 Primate Origins and Evolution
13.1. visual predation hypothesis The proposition that unique primate traits arose as adaptations to preying on insects and on small animals.
13.2. angiosperm radiation hypothesis The proposition that certain primate traits, such as visual acuity, occurred in response to the availability of fruit and flowers after the spread of angiosperms
13.3. Theropithecus A genus of fossil and living Old World monkeys found in Africa; it was more diverse in the past than it is today and was one of the first monkey genera to appear in the evolutionary record.
