Anthropology Chapter 8 – Flashcards

The study of extinct organisms, based on their fossilized remains

Preserved remnants of once living things, often buried in the ground

The study of the deposition of plant or animal remains and the environmental conditions affecting their preservation

The study of the Earth strata- layers of rock, representing various periods of deposition

The study of the order of rock layers and the sequence of events they reflect

Categories of time into which Earth's history is divided by geologists and paleontologists

GTS consists of

Earth is approximately _ billion years old.

Primates and human evolution occur in the _____ (the last _ million years

Geologic time scale is divided into two eons

_____ dates 4.6 billion- 543mya (divided into three eras) and it comprises almost 90% of Earth's history

_____ dates 543mya- present

Phanerozoic Eon is divided into three eras

Paleontologists order the _____, as geologists order Earth history- in a series of three eras Paleozoic Mesozoic Cenozoic

The first step in determining the antiquity of fossil remains is learning its

The origin or original source of a fossil (the precise location from which a fossil comes)

Establishing the age of a fossil in comparison to other materials found above and below it

Relative dating techniques use principles of

Chemical techniques within sites, such as similar chemical signatures, fluorine and other elements from the soil

Absolute dating techniques Estimate the age of an object in absolute terms through the use of a natural clock such as radioactive decay or tree ring growth

Dating method that uses tree ring count to determine numerical age

Absolute dating techniques Chronometric techniques that use radioactive decay of isotopes to estimate age

Two or more forms of a chemical element that have the same number of protons but vary in the number of neutrons

The time it takes for half of the radioisotopes in a substance to decay

Absolute dating techniques Radiometric dating method in which the ratio of 14C to 12C is measured to provide an absolute date for material younger than 50,000 years

Absolute dating techniques Measures the number of tracks left behind by isotope decay (fragments produced from isotope decay leave tracks on rock crystal)

_____ dating can date materials several million years old and is used to date volcanic ash and obsidian (volcanic glass)

Paleomagnetic dating and amino acid dating are

Based on changes in Earth's magnetic field, which changes the planet's polarity

Base on the decay of protein molecules following an organism's death

Electron spin resonance dating and thermo luminescence dating are

Uses microwave spectroscopy to measure electrons' spins in various materials

The energy trapped in a material is measured when the object is heated (base on the amount of the sun's energy trapped in the material)

DNA from living organisms can be compared to estimate the amount of time since two species diverged from a common ancestor- closely related species accumulate genetic differences over time at a regular rate

A thin layer of clay that seperates rock layers from the end of the Cretaceous period to those from the beginning of the Teritary period