(a) What is hominization process ? Discuss the major trends in human evolution with the help of suitable examples and…

(a) Hominization and major trends in human evolution

Hominization is the evolutionary process by which the hominin lineage diverged from the ape line and acquired distinctly human features, through the interaction of biological change and culture.

Major trends:

1. Bipedalism: a forward foramen magnum, S-shaped spine, short broad pelvis, valgus knee and arched foot, seen in Australopithecus afarensis (Lucy, Laetoli footprints) and perfected in Homo erectus. It freed the hands.
2. Brain enlargement (encephalisation): about 400–500 cc in australopithecines, about 600–700 cc in Homo habilis, about 850–1100 cc in Homo erectus, and about 1350 cc in Homo sapiens. The Narmada cranium (Hathnora, about 1200 cc) shows the intermediate stage in India.
3. Face and jaw changes: reduced prognathism, lost brow ridges and sagittal crest, a chin, and a parabolic dental arch.
4. Dental reduction: smaller canines and molars, and loss of the diastema.
5. Hand and culture: an opposable, precise-grip thumb, with tools moving from Oldowan and Acheulian to Upper Palaeolithic technology, and growth of language and symbolic behaviour.
6. Prolonged childhood and reduced body hair.

Evolution was mosaic and branching, not linear.

(b) Clifford Geertz on religion, and anthropological versus psychological approaches

Geertz, in Religion as a Cultural System, defined religion as a system of symbols which establishes powerful and long-lasting moods and motivations by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing them with an aura of factuality. Religious symbols are both a "model of" reality, which describes the world, and a "model for" reality, which guides conduct. He thus read religion as meaning to be interpreted (interpretive anthropology, "thick description"), as in his study of Javanese and Balinese religion, and not as a mere function.

Difference: the anthropological approach is holistic, comparative and fieldwork-based, treating religion as a social and cultural institution studied through ritual, myth and belief (Durkheim, Malinowski, Evans-Pritchard, Geertz). The psychological approach studies individual minds and emotions: Freud saw religion as projection and neurosis arising from the Oedipus complex (Totem and Taboo), Jung stressed archetypes and the collective unconscious, and later cognitive approaches study mental structures. The first explains religion by society and culture, the second by the individual psyche.

(c) Mixed-longitudinal method of studying human growth

The mixed-longitudinal method combines the cross-sectional and longitudinal designs. Several age cohorts are selected, and each is followed repeatedly for a short period with overlapping ages (for example, children of 6, 7 and 8 years followed for three years each), and the data are linked to build the growth curve for the whole age range.

Merits:

• The study is much shorter and cheaper than a pure longitudinal study covering the full age range.
• It yields individual growth velocities, as in longitudinal study.
• Overlap of cohorts allows the continuity of the curve to be checked.
• Sample loss is less than in a long follow-up.

Demerits:

• Cohort effects and secular trends may differ between age groups.
• Statistical analysis is more complex.
• Repeated measurement still causes attrition, observer error and test effects.
• Linking of data can hide real cohort differences.