Neanderthals - HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT
I STRONGLY ADVISE you to read the National Geographic document Neanderthals (by Stephen S. Hall) BEFORE completing this video assignment. The article is available on the class web site as Neanderthals.
The assignment is due at the beginning of class on the day you take your final exam. This assignment is worth 15 points.
In 1848 a strange skull was discovered on the military outpost of Gibraltar. It was undoubtedly human, but also had some of the heavy features of an ape: distinct brow ridges, and a forward projecting face. Just what was this ancient creature? And when had it lived? As more remains were discovered one thing became clear, these humans had once lived right across Europe. The remains were named Homo neanderthalensis (Neanderthal man), an ancient and archaic form of human. Over the next century and a half, the accumulating archaeological evidence showed that the Neanderthals were a distinctive group of hominids who occupied Europe and Western Asia beginning about 200,000 years ago. They were superb large game hunters, had evolved a biology well-adapted to surviving some of the harshest climatic conditions humans have ever had to face, controlled fired, occasionally buried their dead, and yet by 30,000 years ago they were gone forever, just at the time when the first modern humans appear in Europe. The story has it that our ancestors, modern humans with better brains and more sophisticated tools, spread out of Africa about 100,000 years ago and as they moved into Neanderthal territory, they simply out-competed their more archaic cousins. But was Neanderthal really the brutish ape-man of legend, or an effective rival to our own species? And how exactly had they been driven to extinction?
You are to watch – as homework - a video (see the links below) about the Neandertals. The video presents data on a number of topics related to the Neanderthals. As you watch the video take notes on the four topics: Cold Adaptation, Hunting, Intelligence, Extinction. Then write a short essay summarizing the evidence presented in the video on each of these four topics. At the end of your summary, give your own opinion as to what happened to the Neandertals, and why. Be sure to cite the data on which your opinion is based.
This homework assignment is to be machine printed on white paper, 1-inch margins all round, your name and page number on each page, and all pages stapled together in the upper left hand corner.
The VIDEO that forms the basis of this assignment is available on several Internet sites including:
- YouTube, where it comes in five separate parts:
- Part 1:
- Part 2:
- Part 3:
- Part 4:
- Part 5:
- Veoh ( where it shows in its completeness, but requires one to download the Veoh viewer
- NinjaVideo ( but requires one to download their viewer
- Quicksilver Screen (