Assignment
View the PBS NOVA film, "The Dawn of Humanity."
After viewing, "The Dawn of Humanity" and reading the article about the Homo naledi, please answer the following questions in your post:
1.) Discuss the steps that led to the discovery of Homo naledi. How do you think these women felt during this process?
2.) Discuss the physical characteristics that incicate that Homo naledi is a member of genus Homo and not an Australopithecine.
3.) Why does Lee Berger and John Hawks believe that the 'Rising Star Chamber' may be an example of an intentional burial site? Why would this be a 'big deal' to paleoanthropology?
4.) Discuss why the process of human evolution should be viewed as a braided delta instead of as a tree. Do you think that the general public has a misunderstanding of how human evolution occurred (in a linear fashion?)
5.) Do you think that Homo naledi should be considered it's own species? Or should these fossils be included with Homo habilis or Homo erectus? Describe why you think this.
Make sure that your reponses are organized into complete sentences. You should exercise college-level writting skills with correct spelling, grammar and punctuation. You should include reference to at least 2-3 academic resources throughout your discussion post response. Approved academic sources include the Larsen textbook, PowerPoint slides, academic journal articles from the library databases (not from google searchs), approved films and film clips. Please note that Wikipedia and other internet sources are NOT approved academic sources. You should include properly formatted intext citations whenevever referencing a source. The Owl Purdue site is a very useful site when learning to properly cite your sources. Just google Owl Purdue and it will come up.
APA format = (last name of the author(s) year of publication) Ex. (Larsen 2017)
MLA format = (last name of the author(s) page number) Ex. (Larsen 304)