All assessment scores will be available through iLearn. Please be patient with our markers as the large number of students makes it necessary for us to complete a lot of marking -- and then sit down to compare marks across different markers. Please make sure that your marks appear by the end of the semester, but recognise that it may take two weeks to finish large assessments that are hand marked. No quiz marks will be posted until the quiz closes.

We hope that the online tutorials are lively and informative. In the past, we have found that some of our best students in the unit as a whole (out of 500) are our external students. Internal, on-campus students have remarked that the online discussions have been so good in the past that they participate in these even when they are not required to.

Anth 151x is primarily a lecture and tutorial class, with lab-based activities conducted in tutorials. In some ways, the external format is challenging, as we have to provide electronic and virtual versions of objects that we use physically in the on-campus tutorials, but online resources are excellent. 

Technology used and required:

Students will need to have access to the iLearn section, as handouts, FAQs, video links, and a host of other resources will be available through iLearn. The online discussion sections for Anth 151x historically have been very active as students help each other to understand key concepts. The unit convenor makes extensive use of online slides, videos, Prezis, and other resources.

Readings

All readings for the unit will be available through iLearn. Students will not be able to complete the unit without these materials. The iLearn materials also contain weekly review sheets for key concepts and additional information about assessment tasks.

Lecture times

Lectures are Friday from 12 to 2 pm in the Lotus Theatre (W6D). Students are strongly encouraged to attend lectures, so even if you are registered as an external student (that is, in Anth151x), you are welcome to attend the lectures in person. You will still be required to do your tutorial work online if enrolled externally. All lectures are taped through Echo 360, and slide shows (including video links and other materials), made available through iLearn, so external students are welcome to use these. You will need to review the lecture material before taking the weekly quiz.

Teaching and Learning Strategy

The course as a whole is designed to convey the excitement, theoretical innovation, and new discoveries emerging in the study of human evolution.  A clearer understanding of evolutionary processes allows students to appreciate the role of evolution in shaping humans and other organisms and to better evaluate contemporary arguments that make use of evolutionary theory or research.  By the end of the unit, students should have a greater appreciation of the diversity of methods used to study human evolution, some of the most important debates within the field, and the distinctiveness of human beings among animals. 

The course provides an excellent foundation for further, more specialised study in anthropology at the 200-level, but it also provides a robust understanding of human evolution that might contribute to students’ continued study of such fields as health, psychology, politics, Aboriginal studies, and a host of other specialties. Although each week focuses roughly on a different time period in human evolution, the issues brought up in each will be extended to contemporary human life. 

For example, although the discussion of Technology in Week Eight focuses on the emergence of complex stone tools, especially the contrast between Neandertal material culture and the technology of comparable archaic Homo sapiens, we will also discussing how technological innovation affects the evolutionary development of humans up until the present. By examining how we came to be as a species, our ancestors and nearest relatives, we come to a deeper understanding of human nature itself, including the variation that exists within our species—both biological and cultural. 

Evolutionary theory is one of the most powerful explanatory mechanisms for understanding all life, but it is also prone to being abused; the thorough background provided in this unit may lead students to be more sceptical around certain types of evolutionary arguments without repudiating evolutionary theory itself. In addition, this unit on evolution and diversity provides a foundation for thinking about the relationship of culture to biology, of nature to nurture, and of psychology to social life. 

The questions posed by the origins of humanity are too big and difficult to solve with only half the evidence at our disposal, so we will become better practiced at understanding human holistically, one of the most important characteristics of anthropology. Students will do best if they realise that, to some degree, many of the key issues in the evolutionary history of our species and in the nature of our species' diversity are still subject to debate, although anthropologists and other scientists may agree on the broader outlines.

Information

Extensive support materials are provided through iLearn. Please consult iLearn with initial questions as the students are likely to find many resources there, including Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).

Lecture program (please see reader or iLearn for full list of readings):

Week One: Introduction  1.1 Introduction to unit requirements 1.2 Basics of evolutionary biology

Week Two: Natural selection and genetics  2.1 Darwin on natural selection 2.2 Updating Darwin: neo-Darwinism & the genetics revolution

Week Three: Humans among primates 3.1 Primates: origin and distinctive niche 3.2 The perils of comparison: chimpanzees, for example…

Week Four: Early hominids and bipedalism 4.1 Bipedalism: why walk on two feet? 4.2 The evidence of human evolution in paleoarchaeology

Week Five: Genus Homo: brain & dietary change 5.1 Brains, human & others (Guest lecturer: Prof. Ken Cheng) 5.2 How diet affects the brain: evolution & development

Week Six: Sex & reproduction 6.1 Human sexuality in evolutionary perspective 6.2 Human reproduction: is anything natural?

Week Seven: The first technology 7.1 Lithic technology: Paleolithic innovations 7.2 Fire, clothes & other human tricks: what could Neandertals do?

Week Eight: Language origins & development 8.1 The ability to communicate: do other animals talk? 8.2 Language change

Week Nine: NO MEETING! No lectures and no tutorials. Make sure to finish Outline Essay for submission during Week Ten.

Week Ten: The epic of humanity 19 October 10.1 The rise of anatomically modern humans 10.2 Getting out of Africa

Week Eleven: Food domestication and urbanisation 11.1 The Neolithic Revolution: growing our own food 11.2 The social ape & the first cities

Week Twelve: Human variation: genes, races and cultures 12.1 Modern human variation: are we all that different? 12.2 Traces of human adaptation

Week Thirteen: Is evolution over? 13.1 Do culture & technology replace selection?: genetic evidence 13.2 Future humans

Tutorial program (please see reader or iLearn for full list of readings):

Note: No meeting the first or seventh weeks!

Tutorial One: Evolutionary dynamics and adaptation  Gould, Stephen Jay, and Elisabeth S. Vrba.  1982.  ‘Exaptation—a missing term in the science of form.’  Paleobiology 8(1): 4-15.

Tutorial Two: Our nearest primate relatives: skulls, ‘culture’? ‘A Guide to the Cultures of Chimpanzees.’  From Scientific American 2001, Vol. 284.

Tutorial Three: Traces in the ash: the Laetoli footprints Laetoli footprint materials.

Tutorial Four: Food for thought: evolution, brain and diet Leonard, William R.  2003.  ‘Food for Thought: Dietary Change Was a Driving Force in Human Evolution.’  Scientific American (updated from December 2002): 62-71.

Tutorial Five: Mating strategies: the evolution dating game Small, Meredith F.  1997.  ‘Our Babies, Ourselves.’ Natural History Magazine (October):  42-51 (reprinted in Annual Editions: Anthropology 06/07, pp. 100-106) together with accompanying sidebars by LeVine et al.).

Tutorial Six: Stone tools Foley, Robert, and Marta Mirazón Lahr.  2003.  ‘On Stony Ground: Lithic Technology, Human Evolution, and the Emergence of Culture.’  Evolutionary Anthropology 12: 109-122.

Tutorial Seven: Reinventing language Diamond, Jared M.  1991.  ‘Reinvention of Human Language.’  Natural History 5/91: 22-28.  Reprinted in Through the Looking Glass: Readings in General Anthropology.  Second edition.  2000.  Pp. 26-35.

Tutorial Eight: Out of Africa Jurmain, Robert, Lynn Kilgore, and Wenda Trevathan, with Russell L. Ciochon.  2008.  The Origin and Dispersal of Modern Humans.  In Introduction to Physical Anthropology.  Eleventh edition.  Pp. 352-377.  Thomson-Wadsworth.

Tutorial Nine: Out modern ecological niche Mann, Charles.  2002.  ‘1491.’  The Atlantic Monthly (March): 1-13.

Tutorial Ten: Is race a useful concept? George W. Gill and Jonathan Marks.  1998 and 1994.  ‘Issue 1: Is Race a Useful Concept for Anthropologists?’  In Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in Anthropology.  Third edition.  Kirk M. Endicott and Robert L. Welsch, eds.  Pp. 2-15.  Dubuque, Iowa: McGraw-Hill/Dushkin.

Tutorial Eleven: Current selective pressures Ward, Peter.  2009.  ‘What Will Become of Homo sapiens?’ Scientific American 300 (1): 68-73.

The unit is largely the same as the version offered with high student satisfaction in 2014. The assessment tasks have been reweighted in importance to reflect student feedback, and a program of weekly quizzes has been replaced by use of the Reading Game. The weekly quiz program tended to reward rote learning whereas the Reading Game is much more interactive and encourages students to think about how they would test on the material (a better approach to preparing for the final exam). The online video tutorials, including those about the assessment tasks, were new for 2012. We also have new resources made available through collaboration with Open Universities Australia; these resources include high quality video tutorials for some of the key concepts in the first half of the semester and a free ebook (new in 2014 but undergoing expansion this year) with many key concepts. Tutorial formats have been substantially updated, and the preliminary survey added new last year (2014). The research project built around some tutorial activities to improve quality of delivery has been added this year. We hope that students especially enjoy the survey and learning about class responses during the course of the semester.