7: Understanding the Fossil Context

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Learning Objectives

Describe how the Age of Wonder advanced scientific inquiry and helped develop modern anthropological methods.
Identify the different types of fossils and describe how they are formed.
Discuss relative and chronometric dating methods, the type of material they analyze, and their applications.
Describe the methods used to reconstruct past environments.

Image: Homo Naledi Foot 1 in (A) dorsal view; (B) medial view; (C) proximal articular surfaces of the metatarsals of Foot 1. (2015). By Lee Roger Berger research team under CC BY 4.0.

7.1: Fossil Study - An Evolving Process
The work of Mary Anning, Charles Darwin, Charles Lyell, and others laid the foundation for the modern methods we use today. Though anthropology is focused on humans and our primate relatives (and not dinosaurs as many people wrongly assume), you will see that methods developed in paleontology, geology, chemistry, biology, and physics are often applied in anthropological research.
7.2: Pre-historic Life and Fossils
Most of the evidence of human evolution comes from the study of the dead. To obtain as much information as possible from the remains of once-living creatures, one must understand the processes that occur after death. Taphonomy is the study of what happens to an organism after death. It includes the study of how an organism becomes a fossil.
7.3: Voice From the Past
Given that so few organisms ever become fossilized, any anthropologist or fossil hunter will tell you that finding a fossil is extremely exciting. But this is just the beginning of a fantastic mystery. With the creative application of scientific methods and deductive reasoning, a great deal can be learned about the fossilized organism and the environment in which it lived, leading to enhanced understanding of the world around us.
7.4: End of Chapter Review
Discussion questions and key term definitions.
7.5: Meet the Authors

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the staff of the Maturango Museum, Ridgecrest, California—and, specifically, Debbie Benson, executive director; Alexander K. Rogers, archaeology curator; Sherry Brubaker, natural history curator; and Elaine Wiley, history curator—for their generous help with photography and fossil images. The authors thank Sharlene Paxton, a librarian at Cerro Coso Community College, Ridgecrest, California, for her guidance and expertise with OER and open-source images, and John Stenger-Smith and Claudia Sellers from Cerro Coso Community College, Ridgecrest, California, for their feedback on the chemistry and plant biology content. Finally, the authors thank William and Lauren Zajicek, our community college students, for providing their impressions and extensive feedback on early drafts of the chapter.