Quaternary Essay
I am studying the Quaternary Period for my science project because it was when man first lived and I thought that was the most interesting and I wanted to learn more. The things I researched about the Quaternary Period is how early humans lived and looked, the climate at that time and how it affected life on earth, and the animals that inhabited the land.
Humans first started evolving in Africa. They were called Homo Habilis and they were believed to start at the beginning of the Pleistocene epoch 2.4 million years ago. They were thought to use stone tools, which were useful in hostile environments. They looked like big chimpanzees, but were thought to be smarter then normal chimpanzees. We know this because H. Habilis was not the best hunter, but used it’s tools for scavenging and cutting meat off the bones. They lived in caves because they were available and were already a good shelter, which meant they did not have to build their own. The Homo Habilis lasted about one million years. After Homo Habilis there have been many more types of humans. Right now we are the Homo Sapiens. This type has been around for 200 thousand years.
The climate in the Quaternary period changed quite a bit. This period is when the ice age started. During this time many of the people and animals died. When some of the ice went away it was really hot, which was also hard to live in for the animals. The Earth started to shape and form to the Earth it looks like now, although there was more ice at the north and south poles. The C02 levels were also changing, and causing many of the changes to animals, because when it gets warmer new animals start evolving. If we lived back in that time we would not be as adapted to it because there would be a lot more animals roaming around, and we would not be the main predator. We would not be accustomed to the extreme weather, and we would have to make, gather, and hunt all of our food, rather then buying it.
In the Quaternary period there have been many different animals. Also a lot of the animals became extinct in this time including the Mammoth, the Saber Tooth Cat, and the Glyptodon. The Mammoth was a big elephant type looking animal, but covered in hair. They had 11 foot long tusks. They weighed about 6 to 8 tons. Mammoths were really big, so big that in fact “mammoth” has been adapted to an adjective meaning “massive.” Mammoths became extinct in about 10,000 BC. The Saber tooth cat were known for having big K-9 teeth sometimes being 20 inches long. They were great hunters, hunting bigger prey such as mammoths and sloths. Unlike todays cats the Saber Tooth Cat had a bigger build to it almost like a bear. The Glyptodon was a large mammal with a shell. The Glyptodon is a relative to the modern day armadillo. It was about the same size of a Volkswagen Beetle. it was thought to be a herbivore, eating grass and plants it found. The shell is made up of more then 1,000 bony plates. They became extinct about the same time as the Mammoth. Some people think they became extent because this is when humans started to become a bigger predator, and hunted them all to extinction. Others think it was because the climate changed, leaving animals who were used to the cold now in the warmer weather.
The Quaternary period is still going on. Scientists are still studying the Quaternary because they want to know more about the period they are currently in and about early human, animal, and plant life. Ultimately they can use this information so they can try to predict where life is headed, and guess how climate changes like global warming will effect human, plant, and animal life in the future.
