Morphology: Hominins

First of all, Lucy had many traits to her physically and structurally. Lucy is an ape like human who was found in Ethiopia 3.2 million years ago. She was discovered by Donald Johanson and Tom Gray in November 24, 1974. She was named after the song “Lucy in The Sky with Diamond.” Only 40% of her skeleton was found. She was pronounced as a full grown adult by the evidence of the wisdom teeth, but she only stood at 3 ½ feet.

Three recent fossil findings believed to be hominin ancestors have been selected for description and any controversy surrounding their discovery will be discussed. The three fossils are: Homo floresiensis, Homo rudolfensis and Kenyanthropus

“Analyses of the hominid indicate that they belonged to a previously unidentified species, which anthropologist Yohannes Haile-Selassie of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and his colleagues are calling

This discovery was Ardipithecus ramidus, whose nickname is “Ardi”. Ardi seemed to fill the “gap” between apes and humans. Ardi had a mix of primitive traits and others that hominids share. Her pelvis supported bipedal locomotion, but feet had a divergent hallux, which relates to climbing trees and holding onto branches (Smiley, Unit 7). Ardi engaged in both bipedalism and arboreal activity, therefore, living in the forests. Ardi’s brain was still small and ate fruits, based on her teeth structure. She still had an projecting muzzle, giving her an ape-like appearance and was about 120 cm tall. Therefore, Ardi had characteristics that were common to both panins and hominins (Smiley, Unit

This is going to be a paper on the genus Hominins. Hominins are early human ancestors the first being Sahelanthropus Tchadensis and ends with Homo Sapiens. A specie is a group of similar animals, or plants and in our case homo, paranthropus and australopithecus that can interbreed between each other and have a direct connection in lineage.A genus is a grouping of alike and related species that all share in many traits. It is an overview of species that are different enough to be put in one group but similar to be put under an umbrella term. In this paper it will take about the later half of the hominin genus, from Homo rudolfensis to Homo sapiens. We will be taking a look into how they are connected if they are, why I did not connect others and the culture behind it all.

In an attempt to find a correct phylogenetic tree, our group has found that Phylogenetic tree C shows a significant lineage. After researching, Phylogenetic Tree C seems to be an accurate depiction of hominid evolution. It shows a clear line of lineage that begins with the common ancestor A. Afarensis. To explain how the hominids connected in the lineage, our group decided to compare the skulls’ cranium width and length of braincase. We concluded that over millions of years, the width of the cranium of the hominids have increased, along with the length of braincases. Our explanation matched up with tree C respectively. The order of the width of craniums recorded are: A. Afarensis (80 mm), A. Boisei (80 mm), A. Africanus (85 mm), H. Habilis (98 mm), H. Erectus (108 mm), H. Heidelbergensis (122 mm), H. Neanderthalensis (128 mm), and H. Sapien

In this lab, section 3EG2 went to the American Museum of Natural History. At the museum, we gained more insight on human evolution, how fossils are dated using multiple techniques, and the evidence from fossils to reconstruct the hominid history. Human evolution states modern humans evolved from primates gradually from generation to generation over the time of millions of years and the H. sapiens (modern humans) are currently the only known descendants of the first known hominid (Lucy). To unmask the mystery surrounding this history, scientist have developed several techniques to estimate the age of fossils and their connection to the evolution. One technique scientists have used to determine the age of fossils is by observing the age of the

Until recently, the oldest fossil species to provide evidence for bipedalism was Australopithecus afarensis, of which the best example of is the 3.2 million year old skeleton called Lucy found in Hadar, Ethiopia. According to article 19: Sunset at the Savanna, in 1995 Meave Leakey of the national Museums of Kenya and her colleagues made public the discovery of and older hominid species Australopithecus anamensis (getting its name from the Turkana word for lake "anam" having been found near lake Turkana and the site of another ancient lake). Leakey's team found a tibia from this creature that is quite human like and emphatically bipedal, "in size and practically all details of the knee and ankle

Lucy was a very early stage of hominid species that have since taken on different shapes and become more and more capable of thriving on this planet. From studying fossilized bones such as that of Lucy’s, we can pursue further studies on how greatly humans have evolved over the years. (Human

Due to the constant battle between similarities and differences between different species of the genus Homo, one major concept to retain from this article is the fact that ‘later’ hominins are not just simply scaled-down versions of older hominins. Evolution and adaptation is not a simple straight, perfect line that can be simply traced. It is a complex, non-linear progression, full of error and imperfect

The scientist predict that Lucy is at least 20 years old because her wisdom teeth had fully come in. Her head looked primitive and her brain was not much bigger than a chimpanzee’s. She was an ape with a human looking body but underdeveloped skull and brain. We obviously still had a long way to come in the 3.18 million years between then and now, but Lucy already showed clear differences from the normal apes. The shape of her hip bones and her upright posture means that Lucy is closer to us than the chimpanzee. Knowing that Lucy could walk on two legs and was about 3’6’’ tall.

Bipedalism is the trait that isolates humans from apes. Many Hypothesis has emerged about bipedalism like big brains had make hominids walk, the placement of foramen magnum or the efficiency of bipedalism etc. On the 20 century, scientist had come up with the hypothesis that big brains had made hominids walk and they believed that because the fossil of hominid had big brains such as the homo erectus or the Neanderthals which was the empirical evidence. In 1920s, scientist had come across a skull which had altered the thinking of scientist and make them revise the first hypothesis. The empirical evidence was skull was named Taung Child which was approximately three million years old from South Africa which had showed that the foramen magnum had been positioned further forward under the skull than an ape’s. In the 1930’s and 1940’s, this discovery had convinced scientist that bipedalism had begun before big brains. This showed the hypothesis for big brain caused bipedalism was not testable and the study could not be replicated due to the finding of the skull Taung Child.

To become the modern human an organism went through a series of evolutions to get to where we are now it went as ordered Sahelanthropus, Orririn, Ardipithecus, Australopithecus, Kenyanthropus and Homo. The most intriguing organisms of these evolutions our the Sahelanthropus Tchadensis which is the beginning organism of the cycle, it has a small brain and its cranial size is from 330 to 350 but archeologist couldn’t confirm the shape of its body only can assume it had a chimp like form for reasons to why they assume that it look like that was because it was the start of the hominin cycle, Australopithecus Sediba is an organism that’s around the middle of the cycle it had a small brain its cranial capacity was 420 it as well had long arms but one interesting feature a about it was that it shows features of the genus homo, Homo Erectus and Homo Sapien are the last of the hominid evolutions both of these have evolved to have human like features, they’re both capable of creating tools and exploring unknown environments but what separates all the hominin organisms from there chimpanzee ancestors is two things bipedalism which is using lower limbs to walk or run and the foramen magnum, it’s the opening in the skull where the spine column has to join

First, the results of study are derived from plenty of samples. The news item points out that modern human (Homo sapien) and Homo naledi both are part of the Homo genus. The Homo genus and the Australopithecus genus are referred to as hominins. In the original article, researchers not only compare foot of H. naledi with that of H. sapiens, but also gather samples (e.g. G. gorilla, Pan troglodytes, Au. Africanus, Au. Sediba, Au. Afarensis, Au ramidus, H. floresiensis, Neanderthal etc.) from several different museums. The abundant samples enable researchers to come up with rational conclusion through plenty of comparison. The news item mentions that Homo genus also includes Homo erectus and Homo

The discoveries in East Africa have brought more information on the evolution of the human species. Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, and other places have been areas where archeologists have discovered bones and tools of human ancestors. The objects discovered can be dated back to about five million years ago; for the remains of Lucy which were found in Handan, Ethiopia. Lucy is a species called Australopithecus. Australopithecus means southern ape which was a species that flourished in east Africa about four million years ago.