Hurrah for Hominins Trivia Quiz

Answer: No

Ramapithecus, meaning "Rama's ape," is an obsolete name for specimens of a prehistoric ape found in India, which was once thought to form its own genus, but which has since been subsumed into the genus Sivapethicus. A specimen found in 1932 had what was thought to be a human-like jawbone, leading to claims that it was ancestral to humanity. However, later, more complete specimens showed that it was less human-like than originally thought. Currently, it is believed to be either ancestral to, or closely related to modern orangutans, which diverged from the great apes long before hominins diverged from their common ancestor with chimpanzees.

Additionally, Ramapithecus (or Sivapethicus) lived in the Miocene epoch about 12 million years ago, long before the Pliocene. In Julian May's series, Ramapithecines have been domesticated by an alien race who use them as slaves and as surrogate mothers for their own embryos, as they have fertility difficulties under earth's sun. Unsurprisingly, this breeding scheme has a high failure rate.

Answer: Millennium Man

The year of its discovery is a clue to the species' nickname. The genus name Orrorin means "original man" in the Tugen language, while the species name tugenensis is in honour of the Tugen Hills where it was discovered. Orrorin tugenensis is remarkable because, despite being older than the australopithecines, it appears to have a closer resemblance to humans than later species such as Australopithecus afarensis (which is best known for the famous fossil "Lucy").

Specifically, it had smaller teeth (having smaller teeth than apes is a distinctive feature of most hominins) and its femur (thigh bone) appears to be more similar to that of modern humans than that of Lucy for example. Its femur is also quite important in that it provides evidence that Orrorin tugenensis walked bipedally, indicating that upright walking was established about 2 million years earlier than was previously thought. Like australopithecines though, it seems to have also spent considerable time in the trees. The differences between Orrorin tugenensis and later australopithecine species has prompted suggestions that the latter may not have been directly ancestral to humans, but may have represented a divergent lineage, although this is still being debated.

The accompanying photo depicts the Millennium Man Statue in Victoria, Australia.

Answer: The Eastern Mediterranean

Graecopithecus is known from two fossils, specifically, a jawbone found in Athens, Greece, in 1944, and a single tooth found in Bulgaria. The 2017 study found that the roots of the Graecopithecus premolars are widely fused, which is similar to what is found in both humans and known pre-humans, while great apes typically have two or three separate and diverging roots. Graecopithecus is older than the oldest known suspected hominin found in Africa, Sahelanthropus tchadensis, by some two hundred thousand years. Therefore, if this hypothesis, which the authors call the "North Side Story," is correct, it would indicate that Graecopithecus is more closely related to humans than apes and that the initial split between hominins and chimpanzees occurred in Europe rather than Africa, as widely believed.

The authors note that Southern Europe was covered in savannahs at the time of Graecopithecus, while the Sahara Desert had begun to form in North Africa. They argue that this may have been a crucial factor in the splitting of the human and chimpanzee lineages. Other scientists have expressed scepticism that the fossil data provides enough evidence to support this theory, and the theory remains controversial.

Answer: Ethiopia

Ardi is the most complete early hominin specimen ever found, with most of the skull, teeth, pelvis, hands and feet intact. Ardi was found in the Afar desert of Ethiopia, at a site called Aramis in the Middle Awash region, which is about 46 km from where the famous fossil called "Lucy" of the younger species Australopithecus afarensis, was found in 1974. The name "Ardi" means "ground floor" in the Afar language, signifying that this species lived on the ground. Based on her legs, feet, and pelvis, she is believed to have been bipedal, although she also had both opposable big toes and thumbs that would have been used when climbing trees.

Ardi weighed about 50 kg and may have been up to 120 cm tall. Ardi's skeleton is also remarkable in that it combines advanced characteristics found only in hominins and primitive traits seen in much older apes that were unlike modern chimpanzees or gorillas. This suggests that the earliest ancestors of humans may not have closely resembled any of the living apes.

Answer: They made stone tools

Discovered in the Afar region of Ethiopia, Australopithecus garhi had a brain volume of 450 cc and a protruding jaw like other australopithecine species.

The scientists who discovered its skull were surprised by some of its features, especially the enormous back teeth. What was also surprising was that the remains were accompanied by antelope bones bearing cut marks, apparently from stone tools.

Based on this, Australopithecus garhi is the first hominin prior to genus Homo to be believed to have manufactured stone tools, which were probably used in butchering animals. Previously, it had been thought that the first stone tools were made by Homo habilis and that this behaviour separated genus Homo from its predecessors.

Answer: Handy man

Homo habilis lived about 2.3-1.65 million years ago in East and South Africa. Habilis is a Latin word meaning "able, handy, mentally skillful, vigorous," and the species name was proposed by Louis Leakey and colleagues in a 1964 paper in the journal "Nature."

They justified including the new species in the genus Homo based on a number of anatomical differences from australopithecines, especially, the larger cranium. Australopithecine brain sizes generally range from 400-500 cc, while those of Homo habilis have been estimated to range from 500-900 cc (compared to an average of about 1200 cc for modern humans). One theory that has been proposed to explain the increase in brain size in Homo habilis compared to their australopithecine ancestors is that the former ate more meat, which allowed them to meet the greater energy requirements of a larger brain. Homo habilis is believed to have obtained meat from scavenging, perhaps by stealing carcasses from smaller predators such as jackals or cheetahs, as they are not thought to have engaged in organized hunting, unlike later hominins.

"Working man" is a translation of Homo ergaster, a later species. The other two names I made up.

Answer: Heidelberg man

Heidelberg man's scientific name is Homo heidelbergensis, although some scientists argue that they are a subspecies of archaic humans and classify them as Homo sapiens heidelbergensis. The first known fossil of this hominin (a jawbone) was found in 1907 near Heidelberg, Germany, hence the name.

Homo heidelbergensis is believed to be descended from an African population of Homo erectus that dispersed at some point into Europe. Heidelberg man had an average brain size of about 1,200 cc, comparable to modern humans, and considerably larger than that of Homo erectus, which was estimated to average 973 cc during the previous million years.

Additionally, they had a much more humanlike face than Homo erectus, although they still had a prominent brow ridge and a receding chin. They are believed to have actively hunted big game animals, including elephants, and depended more heavily on meat than their predecessors. There is speculation that they may have developed an early form of language, because they had a modern humanlike hyoid bone supporting the tongue and finely developed middle ear bones that would have allowed them to hear the range of sounds used in human speech. However, others have argued that they do not seem to have demonstrated the cognitive sophistication required for true language.

Java Man and Peking Man refer to popular names of early specimens of Homo erectus, while Piltdown Man was a notorious hoax.

Answer: The cave art was painted by Neanderthals

Prior to this study, it was widely though that the oldest cave paintings were about 40,000 years old and were painted by humans who had fully modern features.

However, using uranium-thorium dating of carbonate crusts overlying paintings in three Spanish caves (La Pasiega, Maltravieso, and Ardales), they found that the paintings had to be at least 64,000 years old, which predates the arrival of modern humans in the area by about 20,000 years. Neanderthals were known to live in the area at this time, which implies that they created these paintings, which consist of red dots, lines, and hand stencils.

Neanderthals have long had a reputation of being dim-witted and it was once thought that they never created art. However, increasing evidence suggests that they may have been more like humans in their behaviour than they have been given credit for. The location of the paintings deep underground means that the artist would have needed to prepare the pigments in advance and bring a steady light source, all of which shows considerable planning ability, while the art itself shows capacity for symbolic thought, suggesting a fair degree of cognitive sophistication.

The authors of the study note that similar kinds of cave art can be found throughout western Europe, raising the possibility that some of these may have been created by Neanderthals as well.

Answer: True

Denisovans are known from only a few remains including, teeth, finger and limb bones, a mandible, and a skull fragment. The specimens date from between about 52,000 to 285,000 years ago. DNA has been successfully extracted from the remains that suggests that they were a distinct lineage from both modern humans and Neanderthals.

It has been debated whether they are distinct species or an archaic subspecies of Homo sapiens. One specimen, an arm or leg bone fragment, appears to have come from an adolescent female who had a Denisovan father and a Neanderthal mother.

Denisovan DNA has also been found in some modern populations indicating that they interbred with prehistoric humans, as Melanesians and Aboriginal Australians derive about 3-5% and Papuans about 7-8% of their DNA from Denisovans. Such interbreeding may have occurred as recently as 30,000 years ago. This suggests that Denisovans probably ranged across East Asia and parts of Oceania.

Answer: Magdalenian

The Lascaux cave complex contains over 600 paintings deep within the caves, mostly depicting large animals, especially horses, as well as some human figures and abstract signs. The paintings are dated to about 17,000 years ago and were painted by descendants of the first anatomically modern humans to enter Europe, who migrated from Africa about 48,000 years ago.

The paintings are considered to have been produced during the period of the Magdalenian cultures, which date from around 17,000 to 12,000 years ago and are named after La Madeleine, a rock shelter located in the Vézère valley in France. This period is marked by considerable progress in art, culture, and tool making. Examples of art works from this period include carvings in antler, bone, and animal teeth, as well as musical instruments such as flutes. Humans from this period are popularly known as Cro-Magnons, after the name of a cave in France where early human remains were discovered in the nineteenth century. Cro-Magnons were known to have co-existed with Neanderthals, who disappeared about 40 to 35 thousand years ago. They are also known to have interbred at least occasionally, as modern humans outside of sub-Saharan Africa derive 1-4% of their DNA from Neanderthals. So, in a sense, they did not really go extinct, as their descendants are still with us.

Aurignacian refers to the archaeological culture that existed from 43,000 to 26,000 years ago. Mousterian refers to the stone tool making industry primarily associated with Neanderthals and to a lesser extent with early modern humans. Oldowan refers to the oldest known stone tool making tradition that originated about 2.5 million years ago.