Anthropology Essay Assignment

What is anthropology? This is a question that can be answered in numerous ways, but we are going to define it as simple as possible. If we break the word down into its two components it means the study of human beings. “Anthropo” means human beings or human kind and “logy” or “logia” is Greek for the study or knowledge of something. When we put it all together, it is the study of human beings which can be very broad. Anthropology can be broken down into four subfields: physical anthropology, archaeology, linguistic anthropology, and cultural anthropology.

Evolution: the process by which different kinds of living organisms are thought to have developed and diversified from earlier forms during the history of the earth.

First, the author states that the soft and flexible organic matter which was detected in branching channels inside the fossil bones might be associated with the remaining of the animal's blood vessels. The professor, however, opposes this idea by referring to the bacterial activity as a possible source of the organic substance. According to the professor, after the animal is dead, some bacterias might colonize in the hollow channels inside the bones.

Trace fossils are able to examine the behavior of the dinosaur. According to Varricchio et al., (2007), dinosaur digging was developed over time. Simpson et al. (2010), reported new evidence of track fossils which indicated that dinosaurs used burrows to hunt for underground mammals. In addition, there were burrows that dinosaurs and mammals used as a shelter for parental investment, cold climate, and predators. This trace fossils were based on observations.

Fossils have been around for thousands of years, they are our window to the past. The word “fossil” comes from a Latin word “Fossus” meaning ‘dug up’. Fossils show us how life was in the past which is conserve in soil, rocks or amber. A small amount of them are usually the remaining parts of organisms, like plants or animals but only the hard parts fossilize. Internal organs like muscle or skin rapidly discompose. Fossils are one of the most valuable pieces of information of our Earths history. They can provide information even on our oldest fossils which is about 3.8 billion years ago. Fossil can also tell us not only about the animal and plant but also how they grew, ate and behaved. This report explains the different types of ways that a fossil can be formed, with examples from the Queensland museum and the clay quarry. This report will also evaluate the validity of depiction of the fossils that are displayed in the Queensland museum.

Animal fossils usually provide little information to study. Recently, there is a discovery that the T rex’s leg bone insides reveal some materials that seem to be remain of blood vessels, red blood cells and collage matrix. The lecture and reading passage discuss if the materials are blood vessels, red blood cells and collagen marix. The lecture puts forward three points and effectively contradicts the opinions of the reading passage.

A fossil Lagerstätten is a form of sedimentary deposit that is of high value due to the fossils that it contains (Clarkson, 1998). The geological horizons containing these deposits were named by the German Palaeontologist Adolf Seilacher in 1985 (Nudds & Seldon, 2008), ‘Lager’ meaning Stratum and ‘Stätte’ meaning place (Allaby, 2013).

The process of diagenesis encodes information regarding the physical and chemical processes operating in nature, which precedes the taphonomical journey of a bone into the lithosphere. When decoded, a fossil or an archaeological bone entails a series of natural processes of modification that perhaps decided the ‘destiny’ of a bone to transform into a fossil over the years of its residence into the sedimentary environment. Understanding these processes involved in the bone diagenesis is crucial to the reconstruction of ecological settings of an area(cite the papers on bone diagenesis and process of fossilization e.g. papers in “Archaeometry 2002 issue on bone diagenesis and also the proceesings of the Conference on “Bone Diagenesis” held

Archaeology. What is it exactly? The study of material remains of a community or society. Many describe archaeology as a crucial, yet demanding branch of anthropology. However, some say it is worth it and very rewarding, even with the hardships that come with being an archaeologist. On the other hand, to achieve this rewarding sense, archaeologists have to know many significant concepts, including, the three theoretical models in archaeology.

The Burgess Shale Phyllopod bed was discovered in the early 1900’s. This discovery was monumental in the field of geology. The Lagerstatten and its immaculate fossil fauna introduced geologists to the lost world of a Middle Cambrian sea bed. The unique imprint fossils of bizarre organisms like Pikaia, and Anomalocaris perplexed scientists for over a century. This was because of their preservation, but also because of their characteristics. These findings are much more than just preserved soft bodied remains. This perfect storm of preservation changed the world's view on evolution and phylogeny. The seemingly insignificant organisms

The fossils were found at the end of a series of chambers and narrow chutes deep in the ground, located 30 meters under the surface and nearly 90 meters

Evolution refers to change over time as species modifies and separate to produce several offspring species.

By testing sediment and recording whether it was deposited under conditions of normal polarity and then measuring successive layers, we can build a time chart. By matching different charts from different areas with similar fossils, a more global correlation can be made.

Macrofossils and ichnofossils can be used to generate reconstructions of ancient environments based on the nature of preservation. Both of these allow us to interpret different aspects of the environment the fossils were preserved in and its controls, however advantages and disadvantages of each must be considered so that the data collected is treated with the appropriate caution. Macrofossils, ranging from bones to shells, with exceptional preservation allowing for the analysis of soft tissues, focuses on the analysis of the organism itself to interpret the conditions that it lived in, whereas ichnofossils, or trace fossils as they are more commonly known, provide a more useful indicator as to how the organism lived in its environment.

Fossils can provide us with a great deal of information about the past. They can also help us to understand the present.