4 million years ago
Name:_______________________________________ Block:______________
3 million years ago
1 million years ago
2 million years ago
Present

Traits:
Australopithecine:
Physical characteristics

Appeared in Africa around 4 to 1 million B.C

Brain capacity 375-500 cc.

Height of males about 4 feet, females about 3 feet, very heavy and robust

Hip, leg, and foot bones show all walked upright, some adaptation to tree-climbing

May have lived in family units
 “Lucy” was the name of the fossil discovered by Donald Johanson in Ethiopia in 1974
Diet


Fruit, vegetables, nuts, and tubers.
Competitors: monkeys/baboons (fruits and nuts), pigs(tubers), rodents (seeds/nuts)
Technology

Stone tools dated to a time when they co-existed with Homo Habilis.

Antelope bones that show cut marks of the kind made by stone tools.
Homo Habilis :
Physical characteristics

Appeared in East Africa around 2.5 million to 1.5 million B.C.

Discovered by Mary Leakey in northern Tanzania
 Name means “man of skill”


Brain capacity about 510-750 cc.
Inside shape of some skulls suggests left/right differentiation of brain, which may be a
pre-condition for language development, but no anatomical features for language.
 height: males: about 3 to 5 feet, females barely over 4 feet

Ape-like proportions of arm and leg length: all walked upright.
Diet

Fruit

Some opportunistic meat eating – typically scavenged not hunted
Technology

Stone tools used in butchering meat and in cutting or shaping wood


The tools are typically small (1-4 inches) and include choppers and scrapers
Tools made of lava rock with the fossils
Homo erectus “upright man”:
Physical characteristics

Appeared about 1.6 million to 30,000 BC in western Africa

May have been more intelligent that Homo Habilis

Brain capacity about 850-1200 cc.

Height of males about 5.9 feet, females 5.2 feet

Reduced arm length and narrower hips suggest an exclusively ground-dwelling way of life.

Anatomical features rule out human-like speech, articulation difficult or impossible.
Diet

Omnivore, with meat playing a much larger part in the diet: they were skilled hunters
Technology

Stone tools, Bone hammers, teardrop-shaped hand axe: Acheulean

Used for butchering animals as large as elephants
 Developed “technology” to meet needs

First species of hominids to migrate

Homo Sapiens – modern man “wise men”
Neanderthal
Physical Characteristics:

Existed between 200,000 and 30,000 B.C.

Brain capacity between 1200-1600 cc

Not a direct descendant of modern man, but lived and fought with Cro-Magnon

Found in 1856 in a rock quarry in Neander Valley in Germany

Powerfully built
Diet:

Omnivores - hunters
Technology:

Tried to control their world

Had religious beliefs and performed rituals 60,000 years ago had a funeral for a man in Iraq

Built shelters of wood and animal skin

Stone blades, scrapers, and other tools found near bodies
Cro-Magnon
Physical characteristics:

Emerge about 40,000 to 800,000 B.C.

Identical skeleton to modern humans

Strong about 5 foot 5 inches

Migrated to Europe and Asia
Diet:


Omnivores – hunters
Planned hunts

Stalked prey
Technology:

Made new tools with specialized uses

Developed spoken language

Possibly killed off by Neanderthals
Questions:
1.
According to the graphics, how did hominid brains develop over millions of years?
2.
What connection can you make between the brain size of hominids, and the complexity of their traditions?
3.
Why do you think Homo-erectus was the first hominid species to migrate out of Africa?
4.
Was there any time when multiple species of Hominids existed at the same time? Why do you think this is?
5.
We know that multiple species of Hominids existed at the same time, why do you think some species died out, while others survived and developed into modern man?