I had just found a thick, juicy lizard under a rock when I heard a loud rustling nearby. I quickly climbed into the nearest tree and sat on a tall branch to observe the intruder. It resembled my kind, Australopithecus afarensis, but it was way too tall to be one of us. After examining it for a longer period of time whilst it tried to harvest fruit from a tall branch, clearly incapable of climbing as efficiently as us, I realized it was a Homo sapiens. Although Homo sapiens and Australopithecus afarensis had some clear similarities, for example, bipedalism, I argue that we are different because our diet, skull and brain size, skeletal features, and height, when compared, conflict. They had always interested us Australopithecus afarensis so we often times studied them to get a clear picture of how we deviated from each other.
Homo sapiens consumed many of the same foods as us but their diets expanded to a plethora of other resources. Like us, we’ve seen them eat nuts, seeds, and soft, sugar-rich fruits but they are also known to eat meat besides lizards and fish. Because we have thick tooth enamel it showed that we only ate a mix of forest-savanna resources. Our occlusal slope is lesser than Homo sapiens which evidenced that we consumed hard, brittle items as fall-back foods (Ungar 2004). We tend to have large front teeth and large flat molars without high crests to crush fruits and seeds while Homo sapiens have smaller teeth to also slice through meat and small molars. Homo sapiens and Australopithecus afarensis’s dentition contrasted in many ways due to what our diet consisted of but it also had to do with our brains.
Our teeth adjusted to the food we could harvest which we could only acquire using techniques our brains came u...
... middle of paper ...
...s have a few similarities, our differences make each of us unique. From having an advanced form of communication, to a broad range for their diet, to their extreme height compared to us, Homo sapiens have really made a name for themselves. Australopithecus afarensis also has come a long way by being bipedal but continue to live arboreally. We have been able to learn a lot from watching and recording this species and hopefully to evolve from what we’ve learned about Homo sapiens.
Works Cited
Edey, Maitland and Donald Johanson
1981 Lucy The Beginnings of Humankind. New York: A Touchstone Book.
Larsen, Clark Spencer
2013 Essentials of Physical Anthropology. New York: W. W. Norton & Company Inc.
Ungar, Peter
2004 Dental topography and diets of Australopithecus afarensis and early Homo. Theme issue,
Journal of Human Evolution 46(5): 605-622.
Over the last few hundred years, more and more has been added to the world’s fossil collection, fossils from all over the world. New theories have been created and old theories have almost been proven about the evolution of man. For example, we have proof that different species of man existed with certain types of DNA sequences and instincts, some we may not have anymore, or some that other species did not have back then. Even though it is subjected to much debate, one of the most widely accepted theories however, is that Homo sapiens interbred with the slightly more primitive species of man, the Neanderthal.
Chimpanzees make tools and use them to procure foods and for social exhibitions; they have refined hunting tactics requiring collaboration, influence and rank; they are status cognizant, calculating and capable of trickery; they can learn to use symbols and understand facets of human language including some interpersonal composition, concepts of number and numerical sequence and they are proficient in spontaneous preparation for a future state or event.
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.
As archeological discoveries of bone fragments and fossils continue to support the existence of homo-sapiens
Tattersal, I. and Schwartz, J. H. (1999). Hominids and hybrids: The place of Neanderthals in human evolution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 96, 7117–7119.
Discovering two unknown fossil hominin species at two different locations is incredibly lucky and exciting. However, what is even more incredible is the information we can extrapolate from our findings. The Praenthropus dimorphicus and the Praeanthropus monomorphicus are the two species that we have unearthed the remains of and can effectively detail a number of their respective characteristics. Based strictly on the knowledge of living primates and deductive reasoning, we are able to reconstruct the socio-ecology of both species in terms of their habitat, ranging behavior and territoriality, diet, group size, and mating systems.
In recent years, the Homo Neanderthalensis were viewed as “subhuman brutes”, but are now seen as a different species from our own (Balter 2001). The Neanderthals were a branch of the Homo genus that evolved in Eurasia at least 200,000 years ago (Fagan 2010). The first Neand...
The species A. afarensis is one of the better known australopithecines, with regards to the number of samples attributed to the species. From speculations about their close relatives, the gorilla and chimpanzee, A. afarensis’ probable social structure can be presumed. The species was named by Johanson and Taieb in 1973. This discovery of a skeleton lead to a heated debate over the validity of the species. The species eventually was accepted by most researchers as a new species of australopithecine and a likely candidate for a human ancestor.
Research shows that the Neanderthals had a “protruding jaw, receding forehead, and weak chin.” (Ansering Genesis) The average brain of a Neanderthal was slightly larger than a modern humans brain. It is also stated that this specific species generally was larger in body size. The Neanderthals also tend to live mostly in colder climates. Researchers and paleontologists found many remains left by the Neanderthals, which include bones and stone tools, found in Eurasia, Western Europe to Central, Northern, and Western Asia. “Neanderthals (or Neandertals) are our closest extinct human relatives. There is some debate as to whether they were a distinct species of the Homo genus (Homo Neanderthalensis) or a subspecies of Homo sapiens. Our well-known, but often misunderstood, fossil kin lived in Eurasia 200,000 to 30,000 years ago, in the Pleistocene Epoch.” (Live Science) The Neanderthals had a very similar appearance to human, although they were “shorter and stockier with angled cheekbones, prominent brow ridges, and wide noses.” (Live
The proponents of the separate species hypothesis believe that they had a common ancestor, but Neanderthals and modern humans were separate species. They argue that the Neanderthal line was a dead end, and that for some reason Homo sapiens thrived while they went extinct.
To the ongoing question as to how humans evolved has still been a debate over several decades. Homo sapiens is a scientific name given to humans. Homo sapiens are classified under the kingdom-Animalia, phylum-chordata, class-mammalia, order-primates, family-Hominidae, genus-Homo and species-sapiens. According to Linnaeus Carlos, scientific way of classifying living organisms (Relethford, 2010). According to Relethford, Hominin is a tribe that comprises of humans and their closest ancestor. Hominin family has shown some resemblances with the evidences collected from fossil records as well as the evolutionary processes to the mordern humans. This article will try to describe the evolution of homonin tribe from the time period of Homo habilis to Mordern Homo sapiens. It will emphasis on the cranial capacity “skull proportions”, tools used and the cultural behavior.
In conclusion, the Homo Sapien is the most complex creature and it gets most of its features from past ancestors. The Homo Sapien gets its walking upright ability from the Australopithecus Genus. We get our large molars from the the Paranthropus Genus. We also get our cultural and artwork abilities from the Homo Erectus group. We learned our craftsman skills from the Homo Habilis group. Overall the Homo Sapien’s group is very diverse with all the evolving it has done from the beginning of time and passed on from generation to generation these skills, and these skills are still used until this day, we would never be as advanced as we are today if it weren't for the past of the human race.
The members of the Homo genus possess a combination of unique features that distinguish them from other related species. At the time that each respective species was alive, they were able to walk upright on two legs, use their large brains for the benefit of their species, and could thrive in many geographically and climatically diverse areas of the world. One of the most mysterious quandaries in science is how the lineage of the Homo genus became so different from their primate relatives. Bipedalism, brain size, and location diversity all have a common link that may explain this difference – dietary evolution allowed humans to adapt to their surroundings, and in turn, become a more advanced species. The Homo diet evolved in relation to food availability and nutritional necessity. With the ability to maintain a proper diet, the species of the Homo genus were able to flourish and advance toward the development of modern Homo sapiens.
The evidence for human evolution begins with the australopithecines. All the australopithecines were bipedal and therefore possible hominines. In details of their teeth, jaws, and brain size, however, they modify enough among themselves to be divided into five species: Australopithecus anamensis, A. afarensis, A. africanus, A. robustus, and A. boisei. Genus Homo are also divided in five different spices: Homo erectus, H. habilis, H. sapiens, and H. sapiens sapiens.
Throughout the long winding road that is human evolution; many species have helped shape who we are today. There was the early Australopithecus africanus which began to walk bipedally-upright with two feet and the Homo habilis which drastically developed the construction of handmade tools. But there is one species who is to be credited for the most critical advancements in human evolution; Homo erectus. Not only did Homo erectus advance us the most biologically, but also the most geographically.