Ask An Anthropologist
Ask An Anthropologist is an educational resource for students, teachers, parents, and life-long learners. We encourage anyone interested in anthropology to make use of its content.
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The differences between our brains and the brains of other animals is an important part of what makes us human. Find out why your brain is so big and what that allows you to do.
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Thumbs Up
When you tape down your thumb, you’ll get a sense of how hard it would be to do many things if our hands were shaped differently. Even a simple task like placing a straw in a bottle becomes difficult!
Pull it off
Even very young human children can learn simple games such as working together to pull a board. They can also figure out a fair way to share the rewards from cooperating. This activity may seem simple, but humans are the only animals with the ability and desire to work together and negotiate a fair deal in this way.
To the Laboratory!
The precious fossils are carefully bound in bubble wrap and placed in fireproof cases. Soon the fossils will have a new home—the laboratory— and the world will get to know all the secrets these fossils have to offer.
Head to Head
The modern human brain is the largest and most complex of any living primate. As you will learn in this activity, it is also larger than the brains of our ancient human ancestors. What does brain size have to do with our biology?