Paleoanthropology

Paleoanthropology, also Paläanthropologie or Prehistoric Anthropology, is a branch of anthropology and prehistoric archeology. A close relationship exists with the paleontology. Paleoanthropology is concerned with the emergence of the specific characteristics of the people ( with the humanization ) and the phylogeny of man, that is with the reconstruction of kinship lines of the species Homo sapiens.

Research Methods

Winfried Henke, according to the key questions of paleoanthropology:

• "Who are our closest living relatives in the primate order,
• When and where, ie where in the primate family tree, branched off the main line leading to man,
• Which specific evolutionary ecological framework enabled the process of the Incarnation;
• How many fossil hominin precursor forms there, and
• How did the evolutionary origins of our specifically human characteristic structure (in particular historicity, language, morality)? "

Paleoanthropology thus explores the development process since the separation of the lines of chimpanzees and Hominini - has expired in the lineage leading to modern humans - about six to eight million years ago. It is based on fossil finds, which are interpreted in conjunction with findings from various neighboring disciplines on the basis of the theory of biological evolution. These neighboring research disciplines include not only the evolutionary ecology etc. paleoecology, paleogenetics, paleogeography, paleoclimatology, palaeolimnology, palaeophysiology and Palichnologie, further taphonomy, phylogenetic systematics, construction morphology ( specifically: functional morphology ) and Archaeometry.

The reconstruction of the phylogeny is taking place - as generally in paleontology - in several stages. First Morphoklines be determined: the gradient of the change in characteristics in the fossil record. After that, the direction of change of these features is determined, ie, the shape change of original features through intermediate stages to derived features. This forms the basis for the definition of fossil species that are each delimited on the basis of evolutionary novelties of precursor species. In a further step, the construction of a Kladogramms, a graphical representation of the relationships of the species without timeline follows. Finally, with respect to further analysis steps - such as stratigraphy, chronology and distribution range of a taxon - a family tree constructed. ( " Living pictures " ) are finally incorporating all research scenarios created, for example in comparison with extant primate models on the locomotion of the ancestors of Homo sapiens, about their eating habits, their ecological niches and their social behavior.

As a special difficult it turns out in paleontology (and thus also in paleoanthropology ), assign anatomically similar fossils different types and distinguish them against each other. Living taxa can then be distinguished from each other in general, if they differ in the following characteristics, which features in a single criterion may already be sufficient: genotype, ontogeny and peculiarities of the stages of life before and after growing up (for example, length of childhood, duration life expectancy after menopause ), phenotype of adult individuals behavior. Paleoanthropologists have access rule only to a few and also often deformed bones, that is - because soft tissue is not recorded - to any possible rough indication of the erstwhile phenotype; now living monkeys, for example, are differentiated by their bones and their teeth only with considerable uncertainty.

David Pilbeam, Professor of Social Science at Harvard University and curator of paleoanthropology at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology has the problems of theory formation in the field of paleoanthropology in 1987 described as follows: