Summary Of David Lordkipanidze

It’s an alligator! It’s a crocodile! It’s a lizard! It’s.. a fish? All educated guesses even preschoolers can notice. The discovery of Tiktaalik has given many scientists something to think about. The first being that humans may after all be closely related to fish. When first hearing this theory, for anyone it is hard to believe. Humans have fingers and fishes have fins! They have gills and we have lungs! Many things point towards the fact that humans have nothing in common with fish until one looks at the bone structure of each and how exceptionally similar they are. The reason for the similarity is because both species share a common ancestor.

In the Article “Redrawing Humanity’s Family Tree” by John Noble Wilford, describes how two different skulls challenge the theories of human origins and migrations. The Central African skull, that dates back to nearly 7 million years ago, was assigned to a whole new genus and species because of its apelike and evolved hominid species. The 1.75-million-year-old Georgian skull shows evidence that the first hominids may have been intercontinental travelers who set motion the migrations that occupied the whole planet. Finally a third skull was found that is the same age and shares a resemblance but, the size of the skull suggests that the brain was smaller than expected for H. erectus.

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

Human evolution: the study of how and why our human ancestors changed over millions of years.

Scientist show the ancestors of humans and chimpanzees, and show the similarities between them. Scientist also use Darwin's theory to show the change over time and develop natural selection to compete in its environment. The purpose of this lab is to explain the theory of evolution by observing skulls fossils to prove the change from quadrupedal

With a writing style that is enabled by an obvious adoration of the subject, Neil Shubin explores the predecessors of the human species in his book Your Inner Fish. Shubin draws upon his unique background as a paleontologist, embryologist, and geneticist to trace defining phenotypical traits that are inherent to humans to even the simplest of organisms. He delves into the difficult details of evolution that have long remained mysteries until recent years, specifically analyzing the transition from water to land, the rise of vision, basic body plans and scent. The magic of the book is that although these discoveries required the brightest minds of the past two centuries, Shubin unwraps them in a delightful manner that is interesting to both high school student and university professor. Your Inner Fish is meant to be persuasive, to educate and formulate opinions. By tracking these seeming complexities of human development, Shubin attempts to persuade a broad audience in the veracity of the common ancestor.

In this chapter, Diamond examines if humans on one continent had an advantage over others by examining the evolution and spread of humans to other continents. Diamond first examines human origin around 7 million years ago when a population of African apes evolved into some of the earliest humans. This evolutionary process occurred and remained in Africa until around 1.5 million years ago when Homo erectus spread beyond Africa. By about .5 million years ago, human populations had differentiated with Neanderthals in Europe, relatively modern structured humans in Africa, and humans different from both in East Asia. It wasn’t until 50,000 years ago when biologically and behaviorally modern humans ,the Cro-Magnons , appeared did humans advanced from crude stone tools to multipiece tools, sewn clothing, arts, and boats.

A longstanding view of human evolution holds that the first hominids to leave Africa did so with the help of bigger brains, longer legs and fancier tools than those of their predecessors. That scenario suffered a major blow a couple of years ago, however, when paleontologists working in Dmanisi, Georgia unearthed the oldest human remains yet found outside of Africa---two 1.7-million-year-old skulls belonging to early members of our genus, Homo--and discovered primitive tools alongside them. Now a new finding may topple another pillar of the theory. According to a report in the current issue of the journal Science,researchers working at the same site have recovered a third skull--one that housed a surprisingly small brain.

The “Out of Africa” theory asserts that modern humans evolved from early Homo in Africa and then spread throughout the world to regions such as Asia and Europe. According to this theory, the early Homo ancestors interbreed with other hominids living at the time and acquired characteristics that afforded them an evolutionary advantage that led to increased survival, later known as natural selection and variation. Homo led to the extinction of other hominids that coexisted with them (Laland, Odling-Smee and Myles, 2010). Evidence for the “Out of Africa” model comes primarily from genetic studies of early hominid and human populations since the fossil record does not contain extensive evidence before the advent of agriculture due to most early materials being highly decomposable.

The next species to appear were the Homo erectus which might have descended from Homo habilis. They were the first human whose fossils were found outside of Africa. They also had larger brain than the species before them. Homo sapiens sapiens came after the Homo Neanderthalensis; they are the only human species around. This could have been due to the result of increase brain sizes that allows more cognitive abilities that help them adapt to different environment changes and hence survive. Global evidence have been found of art, music, and culture and advanced tool making. In Mithen’s 3 phase of mind proposes that the shape of the Neanderthals’ frontal lobe was similar to the one of the modern Homo sapiens and this indicated that they were able to cope with complex cognitive functioning. Evidence for this could be explained using the phonological approach by Frank Gall (1758-1828).

In Bioanthropology, the dispersal of early hominins is a common and a significant study that can reveal missing puzzles from the events that lead to the evolution of humans and its dispersal. In recent years, researches have argued the idea that Homo erectus was not the first Homo species that invaded Europe and Asia, but rather it had evolved in Eurasia (Reid, et al. 2011). Since the discovery of the Dmanisi fossil beds, dating up to 1.85 Ma in the Republic of Georgia, the theory

Understanding human evolutions is important for identifying the stages of humanity and for understanding how our societies have developed. When most of us think about human

According to physical evidence, and theories, scholars have concluded upon a whole hypothesis. Based on their knowledge and belief, modern humans diverged from Homo sapiens between 200,000 and 150,000 years ago specifically in Africa, that between 125,000 and 60,000 years ago members of Homo sapiens left Africa, and that these

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.”

During both the Early Pleistocene and the Middle Pleistocene, we see a number of hominins that paved the way to modern human development (Boaz & Ciochon, 2004). One of these hominins is Homo erectus (Lewis et al., 2013). According to Lewis (2013) while it is probable that they first developed developed in Africa, it also “. . . seems likely that H. erectus first arose in East Africa and then very quickly migrated to other continents”; however, it is hard to prove this hypothesis as new fossils are found (p. 236). While H. erectus characteristics vary across continents, the majority share the same range in body size, brains, and cranial shape. H. erectus adults had robust bodies weighing more than 100 lbs. and measuring 5’6” tall. The range in H. erectus brain size is 700 to 1250 cm(^3). The most distinct characteristic of H. erectus is its cranial shape. The cranium displays a thick cranial bone, large brow ridges, a pointy nuchal torus at the posterior, low forehead development, a wide cranium base, and finally a sagittal keel (Lewis et al., 2013).