Essay on Australopithecines Vs. Homo

What evidence shows the changing from the early hominids to the modern humans? Throughout the human evolution body parts like legs and harms have changed for the better. By the early hominids being biped, meaning they are able to stand and even walk on two feet, it helped them to be able to do more things like getting around more and help with their tool making and hunting. A lot of the fossils discovered were found in the Great Rift Valley in East Africa, which contained many different lakes and small rivers. For many years researchers have been finding new species. These species have been named Australopithicus, robust australopithecines , Orrorin tugenensis, Homo habilis, Homo erectus, neanderthal, and Homo sapiens. These early

In the quest to explain human origins it is necessary to find a species that bridges modern man (Homo sapiens) with the apes. To fill this gap evolutionists have set forth Homo erectus, who lived approximately 400,000 to 1.6 million years ago (Johanson and Shreeve1989). Although the distinctions are somewhat vague, below the neck, Homo sapiens and Homo erectus are practically Identical and Homo erectus was responsible for pioneering the use of standard tools (such as the hand axe), big-game hunting, and the use of fire (Johanson and Shreeve1989).

Encyclopaedia Britannica also states that it is “proved to be a versatile technique of dating fossils and archaeological specimens from 500 to 50,000 years old” (1998). This method of age determination is dependent upon the decay of nitrogen and radiocarbon (Carbon-14) (Encyclopaediea Britannica, 1998; Opinions of Radiocarbon Dating, 2011). Carbon-14 is continually formed in nature by the interaction of neutrons with nitrogen-14 in the Earth’s atmosphere (Encyclopaediea Britannica, 1998; Opinions of Radiocarbon Dating, 2011) and all living things exchange the gas carbon-14 with the atmosphere surrounding them. The amount of carbon-14 exchanged into the living organism is perfectly balanced with its surroundings, but when an organism dies, they stop taking in the gas and that equilibrium is damaged. Because Carbon-14 slowly decays at a known rate called its “half-life” in a dead organism, scientists can figure out how long ago it had stopped exchanging carbon with its atmosphere. Thus, its age can be determined by measuring the amount of Carbon-14 in a sample (Hirst, 2017; Opinions of Radiocarbon Dating, 2017; Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit Research Laboratory for Archaeology, n.d.; Earthsky, 2017; Cram, 1993). With the utilisation of Radiocarbon Dating, scientists have been able to discover that Lindow

We share almost 99 percent of our genetic material with chimpanzees. Yet we have several traits that are very different. Two legged walking, or bipedalism seems to be one of the earliest of the major hominine characteristics to have evolved. To

The Australopithecine are some of the earliest known hominids and they embody many characteristics that are associated with bipedalism. Bipedalism is a highly specialized and unusual form of primate locomotion that sets modern humans apart from all other living primates as we are the only extant obligate bipeds. Many evolutionary biologists and paleoanthropologists have devoted innumerable research hours to attempting to understand this unique form of locomotion and how it evolved. A number of interdependent morphological adaptations occurred over a long period of time to solve challenges posed by habitual bipedalism. As a result, there are obvious differences that exist between early and late hominin species.

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The first behavior, locomotion, is well known for hominins because of the evolution to bipedalism. Bipedal locomotion allows for the carrying of objects, provisioning family, and efficiency of energy, among many other reasons. Not all primates are bipedal. Chimpanzees can walk both bipedally and quadrupedally. They have been a common point of reference for a better understanding of the evolution of bipedal locomotion in early ape-like hominins. Many studies have looked into the evolution of walking quadrupedally to bipedally. These bipedal performances of contemporary non-human primates have given important context that can help in reconstructing early hominin bipedalism. Many anthropologists claim that biomechanical models link locomotor performance to anatomy and have the potential to reveal robust form function relationships, however, this is only given to the extent that locomotor performance of chimpanzees and other species are shown to fit

The main component of human evolution involves change. Because of the significant differences between each of the hominids and the ancestors of the chimpanzee determined by the categories of muzzle angle, Position of forearm Magnum, cranial capacity and finally the brain size to body weight ratio, provides exclusive data that the evolution of each of the species changed constantly over time. The phylogeny above was determined based on the data collected using the aspects above as the sole evidence on this subject matter. The time period in which they lived (refer to

This week’s video is about how humans evolved and their ancestor, homo erectus. The homo erectus were the first apes to be able to walk on two feet just like humans. They evolved from apes about two million years ago. Compared to apes, homo erectus had bigger arms, longer legs, and bigger brains. This made them really similar to humans. They even have the same skeletal structure as humans. Although they have similarities they also have differences. Unlike humans the homo erectus had smaller brains and slightly larger jaw structures.Although they had smaller brains they were able to think more advanced than apes. They also grew at a faster rate than humans. They are the perfect example of human evolution.

Bipedalism is a highly specialized and unusual form of primate locomotion that sets modern humans apart from all other living primates as we are the only extant obligate bipeds. Many evolutionary biologists and paleoanthropologists have devoted innumerable research hours to this unique form of locomotion. While much of the extinct taxa within Hominidae were bipedal, but the degree to which they were bipedal remains the subject of considerable debate. The significant discoveries of fossil hominin remains in the last 40 years have resulted in this debate becoming increasingly focused on how bipedal certain fossil taxa were rather than on the overall process. Although the early hominin fossil record remains poor, evidence points to at least

Approximately 4 million years ago a wonderful evolutionary phenomenon was happening in Africa. Early hominids, man’s ancestors, were beginning a giant leap in their evolution. These hominids were moving out of the forest and beginning to walk upright, out on the open plains (Fagan, 98). This change from quadrupedalism was the most significant adaptation that ever happened to these early hominids. It caused many adaptations that make man what he is today. This process occurred in early hominids for many different reasons, each reason helping to perfect the upright walking posture. Bipedalism is thought to have occurred because of changes in environment, feeding habits, thermal regulation, and

This method is used to determine the exact age of fossils, artifacts and the earth. This involves, examining several strata of the crust of the earth to show the time intervals of one layer of rock to another layer as well as use the layering principle to confirm the series of cultures.

According to astronomical research and geological evidence, scientist indicate the universe is approximately thirteen thousand eight hundred and twenty billion years old. The first link to humanity started with a primate group called Ardipithecus. While our ancestors have been around for about six million years, the modern form of humans only evolved about two hundred thousand years ago. The age of the Earth is estimated about four point fifty four billion years because that is the age of the oldest rocks with fossil evidence of life on earth. The oldest rocks on Earth found to date are the Acasta Gneisses in northwestern Canada near the Great Slave Lake, which are four point three billion years old. The study of the origin of life on Earth, more specifically abiogenesis, is the natural process of life arising from non-living matter. Life on Earth is believed to have began from organic compounds about three point eight to four billion years ago. Despite several competing theories for how life arose on Earth scientist only know when life first appeared on Earth and are still far from answering how it appeared. Since it is hard to prove or disprove them, no fully accepted theories of the origin of life exists.

Human evolution is the gradual process in which people, or Homo sapiens, originated from apelike ancestors. Scientific evidence, particularly in the form of fossils and secondary remains, show that the physical and behavioral traits shared by all people evolved over a period of approximately six million years. Humans are primates. Both genetic and physical similarities show that humans and the great apes (large apes) of Africa, chimpanzees (including bonobos, or so-called “pygmy chimpanzees”) and gorillas share a common ancestor that lived between 8 and 6 million years ago. The volume of fossils found in Africa suggests that most evolution occurred there and is likely the place of origin for early humans. This brings to fruition the “out of Africa” theory, also called the “single-origin hypothesis.”

There has been a great deal of heated debate for the last few decades about where modern Homo sapiens originated. From the battle grounds, two main theories emerged. One theory, labeled “Out-of-Africa” or “population replacement” explains that all modern Homo sapiens evolved from a common Homo erectus ancestor in Africa 100,000 years ago. The species began to spread and replace all other archaic human-like populations around 35,000 to 89,000 years ago. The rivaling opinion, entitled the “regional continuity” theory or “multiregional evolution” model refutes this theory and states modern humans evolved from various species of Homo erectus who interbred with others that lived in