Chapter 2 if a gene (allele) is present in 50% of a population,

the gene frequency is 0.5.

Early Anthropological Approaches
Before anthropology was formalized as a Human evolution is the process leading to modern
scientific discipline, early attempts to humans. It began with the last
understand human origins were often rooted in common ancestor of all life, but typically focuses on
religion, myth, and philosophy. These the evolutionary history of primates,
texts, though not anthropological in the modern especially the genus Homo, and the emergence of
sense, laid the groundwork for later Homo sapiens as a distinct hominid
Inquiry. species. This process involves morphological,
developmental, physiological, and
Religious and Mythological Texts behavioural changes since the split between
humans and chimpanzees. Hominids are
• Genesis (Bible) – Presents a creationist view distinguished from apes by their bipedalism and
where humans are created by a larger brain size. All hominids are part of
divine being. the human family tree.

• Rigveda (India) – Describes cosmic origins and The Theories of Evolution

the emergence of mankind
through sacrificial acts of primordial beings. 1. The Theory of Acquired Characteristics of
Species
• Popol Vuh (Maya) – Depicts the gods’ multiple This theory was proposed by Jean Bastispe de
attempts to create humans, Lamarch. He observed the diverse
ending with people made from maize, the sacred characteristics of species but maintained the
crop. “non-evolutionary idea of
organisms.” Lamarch explained this diversity in two
While symbolic, these narratives offer folds:
anthropologists insight into how different cultures a. Organisms are ranked in a progressive order,
conceptualize human origins. with humans on top. He theorized
that evolution in constant striving for perfection
Evolutionary Anthropology and 19th-Century and he believed that deviation
Texts were due to local adaptations to specific
environments.
The 19th century saw the rise of scientific b. On the physical characteristics of the species, he
approaches to human origins, particularly emphasized that an
through evolutionary theory. organism acquired new characteristics in its
lifetime, by virtue of using or nor
Key Concepts using a body part or parts. For example, a tall tree,
if to be eaten by an animal
Evolution- complex process by which the must struck its neck constantly; as a result the neck
characteristics/traits of living organisms of animals gets stronger.
change over many generations as traits are passed
from

A gene is a segment of DNA that contains all of the

information necessary for the
expression of a protein or structural RNA.

Alleles are variants of a single gene, found in the

same position or locus on a
chromosome; they represent the possibilities for
variation in a population with respect to Bipedalism is the basic adaptation of the Hominin
a particular inherited trait. line and is considered the main cause behind a
suite of skeletal changes shared by all bipedal
Locus: refers to a location on a chromosome hominins.
occupied by a gene (which may have several
alleles).

Gene frequency represents how often an allele

occurs in a population. The number of
alleles for a particular trait is divided by the total
number of genes in the sample of the
population you are counting. Gene frequencies are
always expressed in decimals, so that
2. The Theory of Catastrophism the populations are closely related. Based on an
This theory reconciles both the old and the new estimate of the rate of expected mutation in the
beliefs, it further suggested that if mtDNA, they can calculate when the two
every layer of earth fossils of different flora and populations shared a common ancestor, the
fauna are found, this is because so-called Mitochondrial Eve. Despite some di
catastrophic events that lead to the destruction of erences of opinion among scientists in both fields,
old species and give rise to new there is broad consensus that modern humans
existence of younger organisms. evolved in Africa between 200,000 and 150,000
years ago (Encarta, 2009).
Charles Darwin – The Descent of Man (1871)
The GENUS HOMO
Darwin’s work extended his earlier theory of natural
selection to humans. He proposed People belong to the genus Homo, which first
that human beings evolved from common evolved at least 2.3 million to 2.5 million years ago.
ancestors shared with apes and emphasized The earliest members of this genus differed from
the role of sexual selection in shaping human traits. the australopiths in at least one important
Key Contributions: respect—they had larger brains than did their
• Humans are part of the animal kingdom. predecessors. The evolution of the modern human
• Evolution explains both physical and behavioral genus can be divided roughly into three periods:
traits. early, middle, and late. Species of early Homo
• Culture and morality also have evolutionary roots. resembled gracile australopiths in many ways.
Some early Homo species lived until possibly 1.6
Herbert Spencer and Social Darwinism million years ago. The period of middle Homo
began perhaps between 2 million and 1.8 million
Though controversial, Spencer applied evolutionary years ago, overlapping with the end of early Homo.
ideas to human societies, Species of middle Homo evolved an anatomy much
introducing the phrase “survival of the fittest.” His more similar to that of modern humans but had
work influenced early anthropological comparatively small brains. The transition from
models of cultural evolution, though it has since middle to late Homo probably occurred sometime
been discredited for its ethnocentric around 200,000 years ago. Species of late Homo
and racist assumptions. evolved large and complex brains and eventually
language. Culture also became an increasingly
3. Cultural Evolution and Human Society important part of human life during the most recent
period of evolution.
Lewis Henry Morgan – Ancient Society (1877)

Morgan proposed a three-stage model of human

progress: savagery → barbarism →
civilization. While now outdated, this framework
influenced later anthropologists and
Marxist theorists.

Legacy:
• Pioneered kinship studies.
• Inspired Marx and Engels in their writings on
primitive communism.

4. The Fossil Record and Physical Evolution traces human development through
Anthropology several stages or species from the first humanlike
beings to modern humans. Although we still do not
Archaeologists deal with fossil bones and artifacts, know exactly when the evolution of humans and
which are rare and are only found at a few apes diverged or who our common ancestor is, we
locations. Sophisticated dating methods used by do know that hominids (humanlike creatures)
archaeologists help place surviving fossils and began to appear over four million years ago.
artifacts in a chronology that can inform
conclusions about the course of human evolution. Reading Selection:
Physical anthropologists who specialize in
molecular genetics, in contrast, draw on enormous STUDY INDICATES MODERN HUMANS
samples of genetic material in living human beings. MIGRATED FROM AFRICA
They study mitochondrial deoxyribonucleic acid
(DNA), or mtDNA, a type of genetic material that A report published in the March 8, 1996, issue of
mutates very quickly. By analyzing the mtDNA of Science presented genetic evidence that modern
two populations, geneticists can determine whether humans may have evolved from a small population
that migrated out of northeastern Africa less than to a single female ancestral “Eve” who lived in
100,000 years ago. Lead author Sarah A. Tishko , Africa between 100,000 and 300,000 years ago. Y
a graduate student at Yale University in New chromosome variation studies suggest humans
Haven, Connecticut, and her team of coauthors swept the globe within the last 200,000 years.
coordinated by Yale geneticist Kenneth Kidd Multiregional theorists believe that humans evolved
examined deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), the basic around the same time in different geographic areas.
unit of heredity, in the nuclei of cells from 1600 A jaw fragment recently found in China may
people in 42 populations and discovered that support that theory. Tishko argues against
people in sub-Saharan Africa had many multiregionalism, stating that it would be highly
variations in a specific DNA segment, while unlikely that isolated populations would develop
individuals in northeastern Africa and non-African such uniformity in genetic patterns. They would
populations had only slight variations in that likely have greater diversity because of mutations.
segment. The samples came from geographically
disparate groups including European, Asian, Native Source: Encarta 2009
American, Pacific Islander, Middle Eastern,
northeast African, and sub-Saharan African people.

The researchers scrutinized two segments of

chromosome 12—one segment that has mutated
into 12 forms and another that has only 2 known
mutations. These two markers yield 24 possible
combinations, 21 of which occur mostly in
sub-Saharan African people. The pattern suggests
that there has been more time among sub-Saharan
African populations for genetic mutations to
accumulate and that modern humans recently
expanded from a small population out of northeast
Africa. Tishko noted that the variation the group
studied has been accumulating over the last Raymond Dart – Discovery of the
several million years in the ancestral African Australopithecus africanus (1924)
population from which modern African populations
descend. The marker that mutated into 12 forms is Dart's identification of a small-brained, bipedal
a short tandem repeat polymorphism (STRP) and is hominin in South Africa challenged the Eurocentric
defined as a series of repeated blocks of two to five view that humans originated in Europe or Asia.
nucleotides (the material that forms DNA) that recur
a varying number of times. This segment has a Mary and Louis Leakey
fairly high mutation rate. Only 3 of the possible 12
forms are found in populations originating outside Their excavations in Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania,
sub-Saharan Africa, with a slightly higher level of revealed key fossils and stone tools that illuminated
genetic variation in northeast African populations early hominin behavior and evolution.
such as Ethiopian Jews and Somalis. The study
noted that researchers often use the location on Notable Texts:
chromosome 12 to chart recent evolutionary • Adam’s Ancestors by Louis Leakey
developments. The other chromosome segment, • Olduvai Gorge excavation reports
known as Alu, has two forms. One form has the
complete 285 base pairs of genes, while the other
is a truncated version with only 29 base pairs. The 5. Modern Anthropological Perspectives
truncated version of Alu was rare or absent in nine
Asian, eight New World (North and South Richard Leakey – Origins (1977)
American), and three Pacific Islander populations
examined in the study. Additionally, this version Leakey synthesized fossil discoveries with genetic
occurs only in 25 to 30 percent of European and data, emphasizing Africa as the cradle of mankind.
Middle Eastern populations. The shortened Alu He supported the “Out of Africa” theory, which
does not occur in the great apes such as posits that anatomically modern humans (Homo
chimpanzees and orangutans, so Tishko estimated sapiens) evolved in Africa and spread across the
that the truncated version occurred after the globe.
divergence of humans from apes, roughly four
million to six million years ago. Theories that Donald Johanson – Lucy: The Beginnings of
humans came out of Africa to populate the globe Humankind (1981)
have been bolstered by studies of mitochondrial
DNA, which is passed from mothers to their o Johanson’s discovery of Australopithecus afarensis
spring, and Y chromosome DNA, which is passed (“Lucy”) provided critical evidence of early
from fathers to sons. Mitochondrial DNA studies bipedalism, predating large brain size.
suggest that all modern mitochondrial DNA is linked
6. Genetic Anthropology and the Genomic Era

Recent anthropological texts incorporate genetic

research to trace human lineages.

Key Works:

• Spencer Wells – The Journey of Man (2002)

Uses Y-chromosome data to map human migration
patterns.

• Svante Pääbo – Neanderthal Man: In Search of

Lost Genomes (2014)
Chronicles the decoding of Neanderthal DNA and
reveals interbreeding with modern humans.

• David Reich – Who We Are and How We Got

Here (2018)
Explores how ancient DNA reveals migration and
mixing patterns across continents.

7. Debates and Ethical Considerations

Modern anthropology recognizes the colonialist

legacy of earlier works and emphasizes ethical
considerations in studying human origins.
Indigenous knowledge systems are now being
integrated into anthropological frameworks,
creating a more holistic understanding of
humanity’s past.

Conclusion

Anthropological texts on the origin of mankind

reflect humanity's evolving understanding of itself.
From mythological origins to evolutionary theory
and genetic science, these works trace a path of
intellectual and scientific development. Today’s
anthropologists aim to balance empirical evidence
with respect for cultural narratives, offering a richer,
more inclusive account of where we come from and
who we are.