Pre-history :: essays research papers

Pre-History Anthropologists: Anthropologists study the skeletal remains of prehistoric life. Two examples of famous anthropologists are Mary Leaky and Donald Johanson. Donald Johanson was the anthropologist who discovered â€Å"Lucy†. â€Å"Lucy†is the first known sign of humanity. The technical name for â€Å"Lucy† is Australopithecus. The odd thing about â€Å"Lucy† is that she was both modern and pre-historic, having arms longer that her legs, and being bipedal was a strange combination for a creature said to be three million years old. Anthropologists study all over the world, but â€Å"Lucy† was found in Africa. Radiocarbon Dating: Radio Carbon dating is a dating method in which the amount of carbon14 in an object is measured. The bodies carbons start to decay at death so they measure how old something is by measuring it’s amount of carbon. There are two major problems with this method though. 1) The specimen can only date back about 100,000 years. 2) If the original amount of carbon was distorted for any reason that will mess up the date given. For those reasons scientists developed other methods that help date things more accurately. These methods include the stardust theory and the river delta theory. Ice Age: Glaciers; large, slowly moving masses of snow and ice. Each of the four cold weather periods lasted from 10,000 to 50,000 years ago. The Ice Age. Scientists believe that the age we live in started after the 4th period Ice Age sone25,000 years ago. Today 1/2 the earth is covered in ice. During the third period 1/3 of the world was covered in ice. The ice age made animals either migrate or disappear entirely. (Saber Tooth Tiger, Woolly Mammoth) It also shaped the continents we live on today. There were also land bridges in the Ice age. Paleolithic Age: Paleolithic means â€Å"old stone† we called it the stone age. 1974 Ethiopia Donald Johanson a well known anthropologist discovered female skeletal remains that might have been as old as 3 million years. Cro-Magnon People: When neanders disappeared cro’s appeared in Europe. Better tools and weapons were made, the 1st spear and paintings were made in this age.