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Annotated bibliography on human evolution
Essay on primate evolution
Annotated bibliography on human evolution
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Evolution In Africa
Humans, as we consider ourselves, evolved in Africa. Not entirely, but from early primates to our present state. Many people dispute this fact, despite astounding evidence supporting the theory, for various reasons. Showing all the genetic, paleological, and geological proof, I find it very hard indeed to contradict the evidence.
True, humans didn’t evolve entirely in Africa. As a matter of fact the first known ancestors of humans where found in North America, in the Utah Valley. These animals where nothing more than a shrew in the shadow of the dinosaurs. However, with the event that killed the dinosaurs, they where finally allowed to reproduce and spread. At this time, according to isotope dating, the world was averaging 4 times warmer than it now is. As time went on, the small mammal had spread throughout Eurasia. All of Eurasia then was covered in tropical forests. Primates evolved in what is now the Indian Subcontinent.
From their placement in India, then still lowland, primates spread throughout the world once more. Some returned to North America, only to be wiped out by rodents already living there. Others spread to Europe and the Middle East.
By this time, Africa had just split from marsupial overrun Gondwanaland. About a million years later it reached the Middle East, and primates moved in. By now the world had cooled enough that the primates in Europe had been decimated to near extinction. They also migrated south, for the Mediterranean Sea was at that time dry lowland. Now almost all of the primates left in the world were in Africa, and the only marsupial that wasn’t wiped out was the opossum. Primates and large cats now ruled, with rodents scarce, which meant that the primates had to adapt to keep from becoming lunch. In light of this, natural selection shows only those primates with larger bodies and higher intelligence survived.
The once rodent sized primates, lemurs, now only exist in Madagascar, which had separated from Africa in the early Eocene Epoch, and where there were no predators to be found. In most of Africa, however, the primates got larger. They shifted evolutionary gears to start becoming apes and hominids.
The first apes to evolve, Afropithecus was very small by ape standards. They were dumb tree swingers, but it was by their appearance that we owe our existence, along with chimps, gorillas, and orangutans. These apes, despite their stupidity, were very successful and spread back to India once more.
The evolution of man is constantly in question. While we are reasonably sure that modern humans and primates are both related to the same common ancestor, there is constant debate over what initially caused the two species to split into early hominids and apes. According to some, our longest and most popular theory on the division of man and ape is profoundly wrong. However, those same individuals usually offer an equally controversial theory as a substitute, one that is almost impossible to scientifically test or prove. Both the Savanna Theory and the Aquatic Ape Theory offer solutions to how and why humans evolved into bipedal toolmakers. But with enough questioning, each loses its accountability to rhetorical science.
1) The device Orwell uses to introduce his thesis are chiasmi. The first chiasmus is “A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks” and the second chiasmus is “It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.” Both sentences are examples of chiasmus since they reverse key terms in their clauses, the key terms being “drinking” and “failure” in the first, and the state of the language and “foolish thoughts” in the second sentence.
Besides humans, who occupy each continent, majority primates live in tropical regions of the Africa ,Asia and also America(Anon ,1911). They are very different in size from Madame Berthe's mouse lemur, which is only 30 g (1 oz.), whereas the eastern lowland gorilla, is over 200 kg (440 lb.). According to fossil evidence, the early predecessor of primates might have been existed in the late Cretaceous period which was between 145.5 and 65.5 million years ago; an early close primate relative known from ample that still remains is the Late Paleocene Plesiadapis, circa 55–58 million years ago (Chatterjee, Ho, Barnes and Groves ,2009). The primate branch might be even older than first thought, emerging in mid-Cretaceous era which was around 85 million years ago as being suggested by the molecular clock study (Chatterjee et al. 2009).
Apes, gibbons, monkeys, tarsiers, lemurs, and lorises make up the diverse and beautiful world of primates. We humans are primates, and there are more 300 species of primates in the world. The smallest primate is the pygmy mouse lemur, which can fit in the palm of your hand. The largest—the gorilla—can weigh more than 400 pounds. Almost every primate species is endangered, and the overhunting and forest devastation has brought some species to within a few dozen heads of final extinction.
According to the San Jose Research Center, there are about 190 living species of primates known to man. There are three existent theories regarding the origin of primates. The first theory to be studied by human kind is the arboreal theory. This is the theory that claims that primates have evolved from their ancestors by adapting to arboreal life. What this means is that primates are believed to have developed certain characteristics when adapting to living in trees. Another important factor to consider when thinking about the arboreal theory is that primates relied on sight rather than smell. This could possibly be due to the depth perception needed to swing through trees efficiently to get to certain places. No...
The idea that humans could possibly have evolved from apes was thought impossible until about 150 years. Charles Darwin, an English naturalist and geologist, best known for his contribution to evolutionary theory, stated “humans evolved from an apelike ancestor” (1). Still after Darwin’s theories, many people still doubted the chances of this being true. Just in the past decade have scientists reached a general agreement about the evolutionary relationships between humans and apes. DNA evidence indicates that chimps and bonobos are more closely related to humans than they are to gorillas! Technically humans are a kind of great ape, and that is why throughout the article Smuts will refer to apes as forest apes.
The first group of primates was the Ardipithecus group. They were the earliest humans closely related to other primates. The Ardipithecus group evolved in Africa and took the first step upright on two feet. Sahelanthropus tchadensis was the first human species to ever walk the earth. They were the building block of more complex species to come. There were many species that started the human race such as the Orrorin tugenensis. This species was nicknamed the Millenium Man and live 5.8-6.2 million years a...
When talking about evolution, it is not stating that man comes from monkey but rather that man evolves and adapts to his surroundings and environment due to natural selection. In the days of the cavemen, men were hunting while women were caretakers and cooks. Because men were hunters, they became bigger, faster, and stronger in order to have better skills for hunting which was essential for survival. These men passed down these “dominated traits – some flexibility, an instinctive ability to respo...
Both Orwell's novel and essay carry a grave warning about the political powers of language. He uses his media to demonstrate not only how language can cloak truth, but also how language can be used as an ultimate tool for maintenance of totalitarian regimes. While language is usually thought to extend cultural considerations and improve one's understanding of the world, Orwell's works illustrate how it can, when used in a vicious political way, become an instrument against human consciousness.
Love is an essential human desire. Once it is caught, dramatic, unexpected changes in ones life occur. Protecting the people one loves is a natural instinct that cannot be controlled. William Shakespeare demonstrates this in Twelfth Night through the relationship between Antonio and Sebastian. Furthermore, Viola continues to ensure the happiness of Orsino is met even if that means sacrificing the happiness of herself. Also, love is evident when one pays attention to, and dedicates himself to the small details in other peoples lives. William Shakespeare demonstrates in Twelfth Night the nature of true love through loyal friendship, bold romance and secretive love.
His love for her isn’t real. Like Olivia Viola has also lost her brother (at least she thinks she has) and the midst of silently grieving her brother she finds love in Orsino. “Viola 's status as Orsino 's servant is the condition of possibility and impossibility of her love for him and also of Olivia 's erotic desire for her as Cesario” (Schalkwy “Love and Service”). Viola’s love appears more real than Orsino and Olivia’s love because of her devotion and self sacrifice. Viola although in love with Orsino herself assists him in winning the love of Olivia “I’ll do my best/To woo your lady—(aside) Yet, a barful strife—/Whoe 'er I woo, myself would be his wife.”(1.4.40-42). In act 5 scene one Viola tells Orsino that she is willing to die for him “And I, most jocund, apt, and willingly,/To do you rest, a thousand deaths would die.” (5.1.126-127). When Viola is finally able to come clean to Orsino about her true identity she reiterates her feelings for him, and now that Orsino knows she’s a woman it holds more meaning “Orsino: Boy, thou hast said to me a thousand times/Thou never shouldst love woman like to me. Viola: And all those sayings will I overswear;/And those swearings keep as true in soul/As doth that orbèd continent the fire/That severs day from night.”(5.1.258-264). It appears as though Viola has found true love, but as
According to Britannica Encyclopædia, Australopithecus anamensis lived in Kenya between 4.2 million and 3.9 million years ago. A. afarensis lived in eastern Africa between 3 and 4 million years ago. This australopithecine had a brain size a little larger than chimpanzees. Some had canine teeth more sticking out than those of later hominines. No tools of any kind have been found with A. afarensis fossils.
Though computers have had a very large effect on society, its uses can be perceived from a positive point of view and a negative point of view because technology has an effect on economic and cultural growths; and, growths as an individual (My Essay Point, 2015). The two most positive impacts of computing would be easy information access and fast, accurate data processing; whereas the two most negative impacts of computing would be family and leisure interruptions, and a loss of privacy.
Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is a comedy that explores gender and sexuality through the relationships of its main characters. Viola, an aristocratic woman, is shipwrecked on the shores of Illyria. Assuming her brother is dead, Viola assumes the identity of Cesario, becoming the page to the Duke Orsino. While serving Orsino as he attempts to court Olivia, Viola falls in love with him. Our performance focused on the end of the Act 2.4. Following the Feste’s sad love song, Orsino asks Viola to try to woo Olivia on his behalf once more. When Viola questions the Duke, they engage in a debate whether a woman’s love and passion could possibly be a strong and sincere as a man’s. In Twelfth Night, demonstrating various forms and levels of sexual attraction and homoerotic relationships become central to the play, found between Viola and Olivia, Orsino and Cesario, and Antonia and Sebastian. The motif of disguise is used throughout the play, crossing not only gender but also systems of class and status. Cross-dressing or androgynous performances of Viola and the men playing her upset restrictions of attraction within one subject. Viola’s breeches role prohibits her from acting on her own passions. However, it is Viola’s disguise as a youth that allows the characters to interact openly and intimately. In Illyria, love is not only celebrated but is satirized, rarely genuine and easily transferrable.
The origin of human beings has to trace back to the chimps which lived in millions of years ago. About six to eight million years ago, people’s ancestor split from chimp (Pickrell, 2006). In The Origin of Species, which is published by Darwin in 1859, African apes were thought as the ancestor of human beings. And in the next