The Australopithecus Afarensis

1. Humans first appeared on Earth during the Paleolithic Era. The evidence of burial grounds, stone tools, and other items shows a general migration path of humans out of Africa, and support the theory that these groups were nomadic hunters and foragers. Early humans were mobile and could adapt to different geographical settings from savannah to Ice Age tundra. Anthropologists infer that these bands were relatively egalitarian.

Ardipithecus has been discovered, an Ancestor that dates back prior to the remains of Lucy. In the article written by Ann Gibbons and others, it dives into the discovery of our most ancient ancestor and the clues given to us from all 110 remains that have been found of A. ramidus. First let me begin with Lucy whose remains were found in 1974 and that dated back to 3.2 million years ago. These skeletal remains gave us the evidence needed to prove that our ancient ancestors were bipedal before evolving their big brains. After Lucy was discovered the scientist found themselves with even more questions, such as, were any previous ancestors before Lucy bipedal or did

2) Lucy is a collection of fossils from an early hominid species that is over 3 million years old. Lucy's fossils were discovered in Ethiopia, and Lucy was also very short compared to the average modern

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

In terms of lower limb proportions comparing Australopithecines and Paranthropus, only a few post cranial remains have been discovered. Comparing the post cranial remains of these genera to those of modern day non-human and human apes can give great insight to the locomotion and stature of Paranthropus and Australopithecines.

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

“How old is the oldest human fossil?,” If you had said about 700,000 years, you would probably have been right until just recently that is, “The September 1998 issue of Discover magazine”, reports that Ernesto Abbate, a geology professor from Florence, Italy, has just discovered the fossilized skull and teeth of a humanlike creature who might have lived, as far back as, one million years ago. Calling this creature Buia Man after the city in northeastern Africa where the remains were found. Prof. Abbate thinks he has discovered the earliest fossil that displays physical features associated with Homo sapiens, the species to which modern humans belong. Moreover, Buia Man says, Prof. Abbate also shows physical

Anthropologists of primeval and present times have been tasked to research on the Neanderthal and find out the exact time that they lived. They argued that the first humans that had proto-Neanderthal traits existed as early as 350,000-600,000 years ago (Jordan 114). Later they discovered that “true Neanderthals” appeared between 200,000 and 250,000 years ago. Nevertheless, the exact date during which they existed has been disputed by many scientists. According to (Pääbo 76), the first recognized human fossils were discovered in 1856 a pre-historic site a long Neander Valley in Germany (hence the name Neanderthal man); this creature is suspected to have a close resemblance to the modern man, differing in their genetic composition by just 0.12%.

Australopithecus afarensis, called Lucy (named after the Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (p. 290)); classified as australopiths and “the more primitive than any of the other later australopiths fossils.” A female partial hominid fossils (40% skeletal remains) discovered by Donald Johanson in Hadar, Ethiopia. A. afarensis considered as sexually dimorphic, that is male species are larger than females. Studies show that Lucy lived between 3.7 and 3.5 mya and had a combination features of both ape and human. Apelike features, the face forward-projecting jaw and small brain measured not more than 420 cm- about 1/3 the human brain size; humanlike features, had humanlike teeth, pelvis and leg bones; thus had an ability to walk upright

Scientists have been able to discover things about our past that are almost inconceivable over 150 years ago when Charles Darwin was releasing his book, “The Origin of Species” (Gibbons, 2009a). Fossils from different australopith species have been found that lived between 4 million and 2 million years ago that show the clearer transition to human. The author, Kate Wong (2013) believes the Australopithecus sediba is the most important human ancestor discovered. Even though the discovery of Au. sediba allowed anthropologists to see human species a long time ago, there are opinions on whether it was the most important human ancestor discovered. This essay will explore how hominids have gone through many changes to get from Ardipithecus to Homo habilis and the important discoveries by scientists and what I think is the most important to the study of human origins.

The overall stature of Australopithecines compared to of that of Paranthropus, is smaller. Based on the estimates of Johanson and Edgar, 2006; Jungers, 1988, I created a table (Figure 1) illustrating the size of both genera. The average weight of a male in the genus Australopithecines is 43 kg and for Paranthropus is 44.5 kg. The average weight of a female in the genus Australopithecines is 29.5 kg and for Paranthropus is 33 kg. The average male height for Australopithecines is 1.45 m and for Paranthropus it is 1.35 m. The average female height for genus Australopithecines is 1.10 m and for the genus Paranthropus it is 1.15 m. Both genera have sexual dimorphism, where the females are of smaller stature and weight. This type of sexual dimorphism

Lucy is a 3.2 million old ape that was found in 1974. She was the first Australopithecus Afarensis to ever be found. She looked like a mixture of ape and human. She is 3 and a half feet tall, from this they determined that she was a female because afarensis males are a bit larger than the females. The finding of Lucy is very important because it proves that

The ancient relative of humanity dubbed "Lucy" may have been one of a harem of girls that mated with a single male, according to research that suggests her species was polygynous.Among the earliest known relatives of humanity whose skeletons were made for walking upright was Australopithecus afarensis, the species that included Lucy.Members of the Australopithecus lineage, known as australopithecines, are among the leading candidates for direct ancestors of the human lineage, living about 2.9 million to 3.8 million years ago in East Africa.To learn more about Lucy's species, researchers investigated the area of Laetoli in northern Tanzania, which previously showed the earliest known footprints belonging to hominins humans and related species

Australopithecus afarensis was discovered in Ethiopia on November 24, 1974 by paleoanthropologists Donald Johanson, Maurice Taieb, Yves Coppens, and Tom Gray in the Afar Depression in Ethiopia, Africa. The first fossil was found by Johanson in ’71 when he discovered a shinbone and femur. They returned in 1974 and the team found several hundred fragments of bones all belonging to a single individual. The individual was deemed to be a female based on the width of the pelvic opening. The fossil samples were argon-argon dated by Robert Walter in 1992 and it was determined that “she” was approximately 3.22-3.18 million years old. The species itself lived between 3.85 and 2.95 million years ago. This specimen was named “Lucy” after the

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.