Changes Of Climate Change Across Earth
Hominins During the Pleistocene
What is the Pleistocene? According to Understanding Humans: Introduction to Physical
Anthropology and Archaeology, the Pleistocene, or the Ice Age, was a period 1.8 mya 10,000 ya
marked by drastic fluctuations of climate change across Earth. The Pleistocene alternated between
extreme periods of glaciations and interglacials. During glaciations, temperatures dropped
drastically. In northern continents this drop in temperature led to mass accumulations of ice,
measuring nearly a mile thick; however, these glaciers were not seen everywhere. In Africa,
glaciations led to more arid and dry climates. Interglacials, on the other hand, were periods of
warmer climate. During interglacials, climate would become ... Show more content on
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During both the Early Pleistocene and the Middle Pleistocene, we see a number of hominins that
paved the way to modern human development (Boaz Ciochon, 2004). One of these hominins is
Homo erectus (Lewis et al., 2013). According to Lewis (2013) while it is probable that they first
developed developed in Africa, it also . . . seems likely that H. erectus first arose in East Africa
and then very quickly migrated to other continents ; however, it is hard to prove this hypothesis
as new fossils are found (p. 236). While H. erectus characteristics vary across continents, the
majority share the same range in body size, brains, and cranial shape. H. erectus adults had robust
bodies weighing more than 100 lbs. and measuring 5 6 tall. The range in H. erectus brain size is
700 to 1250 cm(^3). The most distinct characteristic of H. erectus is its cranial shape. The cranium
displays a thick cranial bone, large brow ridges, a pointy nuchal torus at the posterior, low forehead
development, a wide cranium base, and finally a sagittal keel (Lewis et al., 2013). According to The
First Humans, environments during the Early Pleistocene fluctuated, but they tended to be more
open and wet than the Pliocene environments before them. Thus, it was warmer. These open
grassland environments yielded bulky, herding mammals. The First Humans also suggests the
anatomy and physiology of H. erectus allowed for the endurance they needed in order to obtain
these mammals for
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