Understanding Culture,

Society and Politics

What is an Artifact?
• an object made by a human being, typically an
item of cultural or historical interest.
• something observed in a scientific investigation
or experiment that is not naturally present but
occurs as a result of the preparative or
investigative procedure.
What is a Fossil?

• A fossil is the naturally preserved remains or traces of

animals or plants that lived in the geologic past.

Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone

imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved in
amber, hair, petrified wood, oil, coal, and DNA remnants.
Two main types of Fossil
1. Body fossils include the remains of organisms
that were once living

Examples: Bones, Teeth and claws, eggs, embryo and

nests, skin, muscles, tendons, organs and blood
vessels of a species or organisms.
• 2. Trace fossils are the signs that organisms
were present
In trace fossils there are 2.categories which are
the Track and trail
Tracks and trails tell more about the organism's
behavior rather than the organism itself. These traces
are typically formed when an organism moves over
the surface of soft sediment and leaves an
impression of its movement behind.
Tracks are the markings of movement that
vertebrates leave Examples: footprints
Trails are similar to tracks, but their
patterns are more irregular Examples: impression
left by a snail, crawling worm and etc.
Fossil Evidence of Human
remains
 Ardi was excavated
between 1994 and 1997 and has
been isotopically dated at 4.4
million years old. She is one of
more than 100 specimens from
the site that belong to
Ardipithecus ramidus , a species
considered by most scientists to
be a very ancient hominid.
A team led by American
paleoanthropologist Tim White
discovered the first Ardipithecus
ramidus fossils at Aramis in the
arid badlands near the Awash
River in Ethiopia.
 Lucy, nickname for a remarkably
complete (40 percent intact) hominin
skeleton found by Donald Johanson at
Africa near the village Hadar in the
Awash Valley of the Afar Triangle in
Ethiopia on Nov. 24, 1974, and dated to
3.2 million years ago.
The specimen is classified as
Australopithecus afarensis and
suggests—by having long arms, short
legs, an apelike chest and jaw, and a
small brain but a relatively humanlike
pelvis that bipedal locomotion
preceded the development of a
larger (more humanlike) brain in
hominin evolution. Lucy stood about 3
feet 7 inches (109 cm) tall and
weighed about 60 pounds (27 kg).
Taung child , the first
discovered fossil of
Australopithecus africanus with
an age of 2.8 mya.
Discovered by quarrymen
working for the Northern Lime
Company in Taung, South
Africa in 1924, the fossil was
recognized as a primitive
hominin (member of the
human lineage) by
paleoanthropologist Raymond
Dart .
 Selam (DIK-1/1) is the
fossilized skull and other skeletal
remains of a three-year-old
Australopithecus afarensis female
hominin, whose bones were first
found in Dikika, Ethiopia in 2000
and Discovered by Zeresenay
Alemseged an Ethiopian
paleoanthropologist. Although
Selam has often been nicknamed
Lucy's baby , the specimen has
been dated at 3.3 million years
ago, approximately 120,000
years older than " Lucy" (dated to
about 3.18 mya).
 The Talgai Skull is a human fossil found on the Talgai Station,
Queensland , Australia. It is the first direct proof of the Pleistocene
antiquity of Homo sapiens in Australia.
The Talgai Skull was discovered in 1886 on Talgai Homestead , as the first
fossil evidence of early human occupation in the area. It was found by fencing
contractor, William Naish. It had been embedded in the wall of Dalrymple Creek,
which had been scoured out by heavy rain. Radiocarbon dating suggests the Talga
skull is between 9,000 and 11,000 years old.
Thankyou!!!