350-word Anthropology Essay Reaction. Needs to be original. will submit on turnitin.com

Assignment #11 - Due Friday, October 2nd at 1159am Examine the anatomical differences between Homo habilis and Homo erectus presented in the table above. In less than 300,000 years (between 2.0 and 1.7 million years ago) hominins changed from an ape-like biped (with a small brain, prognathic face with big chewing teeth, long arms with curved phalanges for efficient tree climbing, a flaring lower rib cage to accommodate a long digestive tract) to a proto-human biped (with a large brain, flatter face due to the reduced size of chewing teeth, short arms with flat phalanges, long legs for efficient bipedality, a barrel-like rib cage above a short digestive tract). We are left asking, What factors facilitated the rapid change in hominin anatomy? . . . climate change? a change in the quantity of animal protein in the diet? Most impressive is the 33% increase in brain size. The human brain is a relatively hungry organ, accounting for 20% of the body's resting metabolic rate. This means that for a hominin brain to increase in relative size, the body must have an energy and nutrient surplus. Where did the necessary surplus for the observed increase in H. erectus brain size come from? Harvard biological anthropologist, Dr. Richard Wrangham hypothesizes that the surplus came from not only what Homo erectus was eating (including larger quantities of meat, bone marrow, and brains) but how they were processing what they ate. Watch his 2017 lecture at the Leaky Foundation to learn more about what is called the Cooking Hypothesis: Survival: The Human Diet | Richard Wrangham (Links to an external site.) (16 mins.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcR6sbYH9GY "The cooking hypothesis posits that control of fire leads to such a large increase in energy acquisition and reduces the physical challenges of eating food so greatly that the evolution of an obligation to incorporate cooked food into the diet should be recognizable by evidence of novel digestive adaptations and increased energy use. It also claims that the only time in the fossil record when the appropriate changes are seen is the early Lower Paleolithic [the time of Homo erectus]." https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.1086/692113 Wrangham, Richard. 2017. "Control of Fire in the Paleolithic: Evaluating the Cooking Hypothesis." Current Anthropology 58 (16): S303-S313. Cooking led to: increased energy & nutrient bioavailability (particularly of long-chain carbohydrates, proteins, and lipids) decreased chewing and digestive energy expenditure ending with a net energy gain (estimated to be +30%) and the nutrient surplus needed for brain size increase. Look back at the H. habilis-H. erectus comparative anatomy table above. Dr. Wrangham argues that each one of the significant morphological changes evident in the Homo erectus skeleton can be explained by the possession of controlled use of fire and an adaptation to eating cooked food. You might ask, How does the Cooking Hypothesis explain the change in arm-to-leg proportions and the flattening of the phalanges? Well, it is not cooking per se that changed limb length and phalange curvature. Rather, the controlled use of fire changed Homo erectus' interaction with their environment. Through changes in behavior, the fine tuning of bipedal anatomy took place. While the Cooking Hypothesis accounts for most, if not all, anatomical changes at this point in hominin evolution (2.0 to 1.7 million years ago), it does have its critics. The major criticism comes from the relative scarcity of archaeological evidence for controlled use of fire before 400,000 years ago. Wrangham warns that "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." Perhaps, the evidence still waits to be found. In fact, the earliest known evidence of controlled use of fire was just published in August of last year. Archaeologists working at Koobi Fora, Kenya found 1.5 million-year-old fire-burned stone tools, soil, and bone fragments. Hlubik, Sarah, et al. 2019. "Hominin fire use in the Okote member at Koobi Fora, Kenya: New evidence for the old debate." Journal of Human Evolution 133: 214-229. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047248419301411 Prompt: For your assignment, I want to get your reaction to this hypothesis. Are you convinced? If so, what evidence did you find compelling. Or, does the criticism leave you with doubts? If so, why? Make sure to write a strong defense of your opinion that includes specific data from the video. In addition, I want you to think about how the mastery of fire changed Homo erectus beyond anatomy. What was the impact on behavior and culture? on their daily routine? on their social interaction? Put yourself into their 'shoes' and describe how fire would change how they interacted with each other and with their natural environment. Write a 350-word (minimum) essay that addresses both parts of the prompt. Your essay should demonstrate critical thinking about the hypothesis and its evidence, plus imaginative exploration of life in the time of Homo erectus.