Human Antiquity : Did Mainstream Science Get It Wrong?

We are only a brief second in the long history of the universe; many things have preceded us to make us the most complex creatures that ever walked the Earth. We are a “new level of complexity” which makes us different from all other creatures that have come before us. Our species has only been around for 250,000 years, a short time compared to the formation of the Earth at 4.5 billion years ago and the creation of the Universe at 13.7 billion years ago, but the time we have had on this Earth has greatly affected the outcome of history. In an attempt to provide an overview of human history in his book This Fleeting World, David Christian introduces it in the context of the history of the universe and then systematically breaks it down

The infamous event of the Piltdown hoax is one that continues to draw speculative attention over a century after the initial announcement of the paleoanthropological findings. Although many scientists, especially those involved in the field of paleoanthropology, would like to forget the incident entirely, the Piltdown man—taxonomically referred to as Eoanthropus dawsoni—is perhaps the greatest hoax in anthropological history. By 1912, British archaeologists and paleontologists were desperate for a significant paleoanthropological finding that would provide the missing link between humans and apes in hominin evolution (Prosser, 2009). The Piltdown man was originally a famous finding that straddled the human-animal boundary, dichotomously

Thinking of life back almost 40,000 years ago can be a challenge to wrap the mind around. To learn about the human species’ past, we must decipher the clues left behind of how humans used to live.

This Fleeting World is a small summary of ‘big history’. David Christian’s book is a mere 92 pages long with an included 9-page prequel (on topics during the first years without humans such as Earth’s creation and more) and 16-page appendix on the book’s use in school, historical periodization, and a 4-page list of sources. With around 120 pages, this short book seems to be the perfect size to represent how our species’ history is only miniscule fraction compared to the history of that around us. In a world that has been around for over four and a half billion years old (6) in a universe that is 13.8 billion years old (1), homo sapiens have been around for only approximately 250,000 of those years (9). It seems impossible, though, to fit those hundreds of thousands of years into the modest text. However, Christian does the impossible and makes a well written short ‘big history’. Where many other historians before him have failed at making one, Christian’s book, This Fleeting World, summarizes history from the big-bang all

Human evolution was one of the most believed theories that explained how humans were created. As time progressed, so did the humans. However, there were many differences between modern humans and the prehistoric man which includes the capacity to think, larger brains, and a longer life expectancy. The prehistoric man had to survive on their own for the most part like finding food and shelter. Life for prehistoric man was not easy due to the harsh environments they had to live through by creating weapons, tools and communities.

Discoveries relating to the human lineage are extremely exciting and often baffling. This is the case with the recent discovery of what seems to be the oldest member of the human family. A skull found in northern Chad in 2001, has been deemed the earliest relative to the human ever found. Nicknamed Toumai, and discovered by Michel Brunet and his paleontology team, this new category of human has been given the scientific name, Sahelanthropus tchaensis. What makes this skull so definitive is the fact that it dates back approximately 6-7 million years in the earth’s history (Whitfield 2002). Since the discovery there have been anthropologists and paleontologists that have

The evolutionary of human living has taken place over millions of years of geological time. It has evolved millions of generations, and billions of individuals. The human evolution is not understandable completely yet. Evolutionary change within a population can take place at different time and different rates, which yield different consequences. This process still taking place in the natural selection and human evolution. One species may be merged to the new species or developed to the next stage of the same species. Homo Habilis, Homo Erectus, Homo Heidelbergensis, and Neanderthals were the close ancestors of modern human, which developed from Australopithecus afarensis.

Evolution is the process of change of living organisms over a long period of time due to difference of environment or circumstances that was not prevalent before. These evolutionary mutations occur due to things such as a change of environment where what may have been shallow water has gradually gotten deeper and thus the organisms that inhabited that land had to change in order to remain living in that area without risk. This also relates to things such as storms that may alter the habitat of the previous land where what something may have eaten has changed and the organism was altered to match that environment. This then has an affect on the history of human evolution, humans and apes relate to a similar origin and were very similar many years ago and this is known as primate phylogeny. This Extended research task will go in depth with the origins of man and the relation between man and apes through primate

This chapter beings explaining the evolution of mankind. Prior to 11,000 BCE, all humans were equal. Due to our evolutionary past, we branched off from apes to humans and spread around the world. Nearly 4 million years ago, humans began their mark on earth in Africa. Jared Diamond compares human development on all seven continents about 13,000 years ago. Although many early humans were found primarily in Eurasia and Africa, over time they expanded and gained new territory. The early humans created tools as they evolved, and many became hunter and gatherers. Then, human history made a Great Leap Forward around 40,000 BCE. The Great Leap Forward was when the earliest humans created new technology and exciting innovations that did not exist previously

As early as 1600AD scholars and scientists such as Isaac Newton believed that the words written in the Book of Genesis describing the creation of the Earth and mankind were in fact true. According to most biblical timelines the Earth and mankind were created around 6,000 years ago and it has only been within the past 300 years that scientists studying geological along with archaeological evidence that we now know how the Earth was created along with the evolution of humans. Today, a combination of several types of sciences tell us that over 4,000,000,000 years ago the Earth began to form and that the modern human didn't evolve until between 400,000 to 200,000 years ago.

There was a chief new discovery of fossil bones and teeth belonging to the earliest human ancestors ever discovered. The fossil bones predate the oldest formerly discovered human ancestor by more than a million years. The discovery was of fossil remains of a hominid that lived in present day Ethiopia between 5.2 and 9.8 million years ago. (Hominids include all species following the split as of the chimpanzees on the “human” side of the evolutionary tree.)

During the early 19th century, scientists, archeologist and other scholars, speculated, studied and disagreed about the development of humans and our origins. Some experts theorized that humans are monogenism and developed into various varieties of species. Others argue that we

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

Humans have existed on Earth for approximately 3.4 million years. The oldest known human ancestor is "Lucy," an Australopithecus. Over this extensive period of time, humans have evolved significantly. Homo Sapiens have grown from 3 to almost 6 feet (average), lost most of the body hair, became leaner and adapted to walking. Humans have come a long way, from Australopithecus to Homo sapiens, from living in trees to living in cities. Slowly, through hundreds of thousands of years, we mutated over and over again, natural selection ensuring that no destructive mutations continue. From the slow evolution, four distinctive species emerged and died out, each giving way to its ' descendant: Homo Habilis, Homo Erectus, Homo Sapiens Neanderthalesis, and Homo sapiens Sapiens.