You Are a Researcher Excavating a Site in a Cave

question 10

Multiple Choice

You are a researcher excavating a site in a cave in Israel.There are many layers of sediment and primitive artifacts (flint tools for cutting and scraping) from ancestral Homo species within the cave.As you work your way deeper and deeper through the layers,you notice that artifacts in the deeper layers (laid before 350,000 years ago) do not show any signs of having been exposed to fire.Artifacts in layers less than 350,000 years ago show rapidly increasing evidence of exposure to fire.Your colleagues working in nearby caves and caves scattered around the eastern Mediterranean Sea have found similar evidence dating in the same time frames.The evidence is also consistent with that of European sites.What does this suggest about the use of fire by ancestral humans?

• A) Ancestral humans could not have migrated into climates cooler than those found in Africa until about 150,000 years ago because they had not yet figured out how to use fire before that time.
• B) Ancestral humans (about 200,000 years ago) were simply using fire they obtained from lightning-sparked wildfires; they did not make or maintain their own fires.
• C) Ancestral humans who had migrated to areas around the eastern Mediterranean Sea and Europe very likely learned to control and use fire around the same time (about 300,000 to 350,000 years ago), and they became increasingly good at it.
• D) The hominins occupying the caves, making and using fire, must have been modern Homo sapiens because no other human ancestors were still surviving 300,000-350,000 years ago and no other human ancestors were ever able to use fire.

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Definitions:

Explicit Request

A direct and clear demand or appeal for something.

Deindividuation

The lessening of personal identity, self-restraint, and the sense of personal responsibility that can occur within a group.

Foot-In-The-Door Effect

A persuasive technique whereby agreeing to a small request increases the likelihood of agreeing to a second, larger request.

Polarization Phenomenon

The process where a group or individual's opinion becomes more extreme after discussion within the group, leading to more significant division.