What are the five spheres that create Earth’s environments? How does each affect

What are the five spheres that create Earth’s environments? How does each affect the environments of Earth?
What characteristics do humans share with other mammals? With other primates?
What is a typical habitat for a (non-human) primate? What are some variations in primate habitat?
What are some ways in which primate niches vary? What are some important primate social behaviors? Which are found in humans and which are not? What social behaviors are found in humans but not in other primates.
What environmental changes did apes have to contend with during the Pliocene epoch? What were some of the variations within the Plio-Pleistocene hominins and how might they reflect differences in habitat and/or niche?
What one trait did they all share (we have it too!)?
How were they similar and different from modern humans (all of us)?
What are some possible advantages of bipedal locomotion in a savanna habitat?
To what niche were the first stone tools best suited?
Hunting with tools has been suggested as the key to evolution of the basic human pattern (“Man the Hunter”). What are some of the problems with this idea? Why is “Person the Sharer” a better explanation of early human evolution?
In what ways did control of fire (beginning as early as 1 million years ago) influence human ecology?
Among present-day hunter-gatherers, which provides most of the food: hunting or gathering?
Describe the ecological niche of hunter-gatherers of recent times. What are its implications for humans in the following areas: settlement pattern, population density, technology, personal property, social hierarchy, surplus production?
What kinds of habitats are hunter-gatherers capable of inhabiting? Can hunter-gatherers exist in areas where farmers cannot? Is the reverse also true? What does the example of Kakadu in northern Australia suggest about hunter-gatherers using burning to manage their environments and its significance in the present day?
What is the overkill hypothesis? What evidence supports it and what evidence undermines it? What evidence supports/undermines climate change as an alternative to overkill?