THE MISSING LINK by Elizabeth Strasser Department of Anthropology California State University, Sacramento

Introduction

You will be working with some skulls today in order to learn some basic skull anatomy and how we can make inferences about other parts of the body based on the skull. You are going to do this so that you can figure out the diet of the skull that the "hero" of our story finds and where it fits among the various skulls set on the lab tables in front of you. Our purpose today is to see connections and relations and not to learn scientific names or terminology; those will be for another day.

So, today our learning objectives are:

• Knowledge of skull anatomy
• Functions of skull components
• Knowledge of relationship of teeth and diet
• Relationship between skull anatomy and mode of locomotion
• Knowledge of some differences between apes and humans

In each group we'll need four individuals to serve specific roles.

• Will anyone volunteer to be the moderator of the group? The job of the moderator is to moderate the group process to make sure all members' views are heard and valued; to keep the group focused on the task.
• Will anyone volunteer to be the time-keeper of the group? The job of the time-keeper is to make sure you don't run out of time before the objective of each task is completed.
• Will anyone volunteer to be the recorder for the group? The job of the recorder is to write down the answers to each part of the case.
• Finally, will anyone volunteer to be the reporter for the group? The job of the reporter is to present to the class the findings of the group, which were recorded by the recorder.

There are five parts to this case. The case takes about 45 minutes to complete. We'll distribute our time as follows among the different parts:

Part I	15 minutes
Part II	10 minutes
Part III	5 minutes
Part IV	10 minutes
Part V	5 minutes

Date Case Posted: 9/2/00 nas