What is paleoanthropology?
The multidisciplinary study of ancient humans—biology, behavior, ecology, geology, anatomy, etc.
What does paleoanthropology try to answer?
How we reconstruct human evolution.
What are trace fossils?
Remnants of past organisms such as coprolites or footprints.
What are casts and molds?
When original material is cast/molded from the surrounding rock.
What is taphonomy?
Processes that occur to remains after death.
What is replacement fossilization?
Minerals replace the original organic material.
What is taphonomic bias?
Fossil record is incomplete; preservation depends on chance, environment, and excavation location.
What are the two major categories of dating methods?
Relative dating and absolute (chronometric) dating.
What is stratigraphy?
Study of rock layers to determine relative age.
What is the Law of Superposition?
Lower layers are older than upper layers.
What is provenience?
The exact original location of a fossil or artifact.
What is biostratigraphic dating?
Using known fauna (e.g., Smilodon) to date layers.
What is cultural dating?
Using artifacts to estimate the age of a layer.
How does fluorine dating work?
Bones lose nitrogen and gain fluorine while in the ground; more fluorine = older (relative only).
Limitations of fluorine dating?
Only gives relative ages & depends on local groundwater chemistry.
What famous case involved fluorine dating?
Piltdown Man hoax.
What are isotopes?
Same element, different numbers of neutrons.
What is radioactive decay?
Unstable isotopes break down into stable daughter isotopes.
What is a half-life?
Time for half of a radioactive isotope to decay.
What isotope does radiocarbon dating use?
Carbon-14.
Radiocarbon dating half-life?
5,730 years.
What is the dating range for radiocarbon?
Up to ~50,000–75,000 years.
What materials can be radiocarbon dated?
Only organic material (contains carbon).
What does radiopotassium dating measure?
Potassium-40 decaying into Argon-40.
