The Greatest Debate Of Anthropology

Primates are some of the best-adapted animals in the planet. Throughout time their dentition has evolved into different patterns and forms, best fitted for their environment. From the early prosimians, to the modern men, the changes are a prime example of how diverse primates are. Throughout primate evolution, the changes in diet can be correlated with the changes in dentition patterns; however, dentition pattern can be different between male and female, and hold other purposes.

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.

There is a circumstance that has beset the understanding of evolution over time that there is no general theory involving primate evolution. Most of the theories are just mere speculation. Over the years, primates like gorillas, chimpanzees, and baboons all happened to have their turn in evolution. It was previously presumed that the taxon of interest happened to have the exact similar physiology and ecology as the analog taxon (Rafferty, 2010).The majority of the first primate species theories have been utilized because they solely share one fundamental characteristic with the hominines with the chimpanzees as the phylogenetic cousins. This paper addresses the different ecological conditions that handled the evolution of primates. It

Afropithecus is a fairly large extinct ape- 50kg, characterized by a lack of a prehensile tail, long snout with procumbent incisors, generalized limb proportions and thick molar enamel. The braincase of Afropithecus is fairly small in size compared to other Miocene apes and Old World Monkeys from the same area. The primitive characteristics of Afropithecus suggest a relation to early catarrhines- such as Aegyptopithecus. And the post-cranial fossil record suggest that it was both arboreal and quadrupedal, similar to the proconsul that Afropithecus is categorized

A recent discovery of four fossil primate teeth from the species Afrasia djijidae of the late middle Eocene Pondaung Formation of Myanmar has stirred up the debate of our primate origins. This new finding suggests that members of this clade originated in Asia then dispersed to Africa sometime during the middle Eocene, shortly before their first appearance in the African fossil record. Afrasia Djijdae is morphologically similar to Afrotarsius (North African Anthropoid). Afroasia’s dentition is very similar yet more primitive to Afrotarsius. After these phylogenetic analysis the two anthropoids have been deemed

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

Currently, there is a dichotomy among archaeologists concerning the origin of modern humans. One main argument places emphasis on multi regional expansion of humans in which anatomically modern humans arose in multiple regions around the world. Another proposes that modern humans originated strictly from Africa before migrating to the rest of the world. While both theories have merit, archaeological evidence is in support of the Out of Africa model.

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 differences that exist between early and late hominin species.

Evolution distinguishingly changed how humans live and primates and survived according to their environments. For this reason, in lab three we are analyzing the relationships between Tooth Shape, Diet Quality, and Daily Travel Distance in humans and primates. These aspects respectively related to one another in humans, other primates, and fossil hominins. In humans, our tooth shape replicates how we eat in our diet quality. Most people today eat meat, which sculpts our molars to be much smaller as compared to other primates. Also, our daily travel distance marks our diet quality score. The longer the travel distance, the higher the diet quality score will be to have enough calories for our travels. As for fossil hominins, their diet quality

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

1. Introduction The relationship between modern humans and Neanderthals has been argued for a long time. There are two main different ideas that explain the origin of modern humans, the Out of Africa theory and the Multiregional evolution theory. The first theory has been largely accepted by the scientist community, however, the issue is not a simple one, and a final theory has not been postulated yet. Different disciplines have provided evidences to reconstruct the Neanderthals history.

Australopithecine or Australopith, is an informal term used, primarily, to describe all species in the, related, Australopithecus and Paranthropus genera (McHenry 2017). The clade does, however, also include; Sahelanthropus tchadensis (7–6 mya), Orrorin tugenensis (6 mya), Ardipithecus kadabba and Ardipithecus ramidus (5.8–4.4 mya), Kenyanthropus platyops (3.5–3.2 mya), and other human-like primates (McHenry 2017; Szpak 2017). The distribution of Australopithecines stretches across Africa, encompassing species of varying ages and complex relationships (McHenry 2017). Paranthropus and Australopithecus are often referred to as ‘robust’ and ‘gracile’ clades of Australopithecine, respectively, as opposed to individual genera (Szpak 2017).

The Out of Africa hypothesis and the Multiregional hypothesis are the two most contentious theories pertaining to the origins and migration patterns of modern Homo sapiens. The aim of this essay is to examine the genetic and phenotypic evidence of these two greatly debatable theories using the scientific method to adapt, adjust, reject or accept these theories in order for the reader to retrieve information about this discussion and make an informed decision as to which theory they deem most logical. Recent studies (Jin & Su 2000) has suggested that both the Out of Africa (OOA) and Multiregional hypotheses agree that Homo erectus originated in Africa and expanded to Eurasia about one million years ago, but they vary in clarifying the origin of modern Homo sapiens. The Out

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.”

Human evolution according to research started over 6 million years ago. The outcome of the evolution process is the current human beings. Scientific studies have revealed over the years a remarkable affinity between the chimpanzees/Apes and human beings. Even though this reality is not a definitive prove that human beings evolved from apes, it does show that the human beings are in one way or another related to other primates. Scientists suppose that the humans and the primates shared a common ancestor. The subject of what makes humans what they are and their origin has been the exclusive purpose leading to many scientific studies globally (Coolidge & Wynn, 2011). Studies believe that Africa was the origin of evolution millions of years ago. Fossil remains have been discovered in different parts of Africa as well as other regions of the world. Different hominins have been discovered around the world in the last 1 million years. Thus, the different discoveries have led to comparisons between the various species of hominins to clarify on their similarities as well as differences. This essay seeks to explain whether they were distinctively different species or regional versions of the same species.