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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Culture holds all the information needed to make tools, friends, and a living. Humans are good at learning and imitating what other people do, which has helped us survive and thrive.
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Becoming human brings together interactive multimedia, research and scholarship to promote greater understanding of the course of human evolution.
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Tool test
humans have evolved a whole suite of specialized skills to help us survive. Perhaps the most important of these skills was our ability to make and use tools. Did you know that crows use tools, too?
Chipping Away: Tools in the Stone Age
Since long ago, the survival of our ancestors has depended in part on technology. Even today, the shoes you put on and the car you drive are both built on previous discoveries. We can trace human technological developments way back to over three million years ago.
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!
The Tales of Teeth
You are sitting in a dark movie theater. You are trying to enjoy the movie, but you keep thinking about a pesky piece of popcorn stuck between your molars, the back teeth. After fumbling for a toothpick in your pocket, you dislodge the popcorn.