I definitely had an easier time this week with both the content and the new vocabulary. I was actually really interested in reading about the different fossil discoveries around the world, though to be the earliest hominins. I really enjoyed reading about Nariokotome. It was a fossil of and young boy, estimated to be around eight years old found in East Turkana. He is to date the most complete homo erectus skeleton to be discovered. And he is dated to be around 1.6 million years old. Although not identical, he is incredibly similar to modern humans. I think I am really fascinated by Nariokotome because of how interesting it is to see an almost complete skeleton from that time period. Almost all the other images of fossils found are just skulls or mandibles, so I found it really interesting to be able to look and see the similarities to a human skeleton. 

I also really enjoyed reading about the dig site in Beijing called Zhoukoudian. It is the largest collection of homo erectus material found anywhere. Before reading about it I had assumed that the largest collection of these fossils would have come from Africa, but they have found remains belonging to over forty adults and children at Zhoukoudian. While it was posited that they had once lived in the cave where they were found it is actually most likely the result of now extinct, giant hyenas, which I thought was really interesting. 

I did a lot better this week in terms of note taking and really thoroughly reading the textbook chapter assigned. I feel like I have a much better grasp on everything this week than I did last week. I was really confused after the textbook reading last week, I felt really overwhelmed by all the information. I felt really confident going into my midterm and felt like I did well on the essay questions but I definitely missed more of the multiple choice questions than I thought I would have, having fully filled in every question on the study guide. If anyone has any tips that really worked for them they would be much appreciated!