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Q: Why do anthropologists believe that humans first evolved in Africa?

 

A: Nineteenth-century naturalist Charles Darwin pointed out that tropical Africa held the greatest diversity of apes, including the chimpanzee, the closest living primate relative of humans. He argued that human evolution therefore had its origins in Africa. Since then, scientists have confirmed that the earliest hominid fossils come from Africa, including the first toolmakers 2.5 million years ago. Nowhere else does the fossil record go back so far, so Darwin was almost certainly correct.

 

Q: When did humans first use fire to cook food?

 

A: The earliest record of the use of fire is approximately 1.8 million years ago, in East Africa. Anthropologists believe fire was first tamed by Homo erectus, an ancient human species that was endowed with a larger brain and a more modern body than earlier hominines. Homo erectus also developed more sophisticated stone tools, including hand axes and handheld cleavers with sharp edges. The record for this first use of fire is slender, little more than burned soil. The earliest record after that appears about 500,000 years ago, in Europe.

 

Q: Why did the Inca practice mummification?

 

A: The Inca mummified their rulers because they believed that the rulers were immortal. After death, a mummified ruler still lived in his palace and retained his land, servants, and possessions. He visited other kings, was paraded through the streets at public ceremonies, and held conversations with his followers.

Royal mummies were vital icons of the state. On the dry, low-lying coast of western South America, mummified corpses wrapped in textiles last for centuries in near perfect condition thanks to the arid climate.

 

Q: Why did the ancient Native Americans of southern Peru construct large geometric ground drawings of animals and plants?

 

A: The famous Nazca lines of southern Peru have generated considerable controversy. Some way-out observers even claim these lines were the work of ancient astronauts, who built them as runways. No serious scholar accepts this theory. Most experts believe the huge drawings of animals and geometric shapes were ceremonial lines connected with ancestor and rainmaking rituals. These figures were apparently built to be viewed by the gods in the sky. Similar rituals are still practiced in modified form in the region today.

 

Q: How important to an archaeologist is the interpretation of their findings to the public? What forms do these interpretations take?

 

A: One eminent Briton once compared archaeology to a play that awaits performance before an audience.

Archaeology, like paleontology and astronomy, has a broad popular audience for its research. In recent decades, archaeology has become increasingly specialized, with an incomprehensible jargon of its own. This comes at a time when sites are being destroyed by looters and industrial development, as well as by mining and deep plowing.

Because of this destruction, communication with the public is imperative. This communication takes many forms—lectures, radio, TV, the Web, books, and articles, for example. Oddly enough, radio, with its short spots, is one of the most effective media. But the potential of the Web for such communication is just beginning to be tapped.



 

Q.We take for granted the use of heat and fire to destroy contaminants in our food. How did it come to pass that that early man decided to “cook” his food? What necessitated it?

 

A: No one knows when people first cooked food and controlled fire. Many experts believe fire was tamed in tropical Africa about 1.8 million years ago, but the date may actually be much later, perhaps nearer 600,000 years ago. We simply do not know.

Fire was probably tamed as a result of a lightning strike or some other accident. People then carried it in brands until they learned how to ignite it by rubbing soft and hard sticks together or by using a fire drill rubbed between the hands. Cooking food was obviously a byproduct of domestication, and it occurred quite naturally—perhaps when meat got burned in a fire and smelled good. Of course, this had the effect of destroying contaminants.

I don’t think anything necessitated cooking food. I think it simply happened as a logical extension of the domestication of fire, which was vital both for protection and as a hunting weapon.

 


Date: 2015-02-16; view: 783


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