Worksheet for Human Evolution
Use your text and the following website to answer the following questions:
http://www.wsu.edu/gened/learn-modules/top_longfor/lfopen-index.html
1. Who are our closest living relatives in the primate world?
2. What is the Class, Order, Family, Genus and species of modern day humans?
Class
Order
Family
Genus
Species
3. What is our scientific name and what does it mean?
4. According to Darwin, what two factors have led to evolution of life on this planet?
5. Where did Darwin believe that early man probably originated from? Why?
6. Who was Java Man, what was he renamed to, who discovered him and why is Java Man considered
important?
7. How many different species are there total in the evolutionary history of the Homo genus? List
them also please.
8. Describe the evolutionary history of hominids for the last six million years or so. (Hint: is it more
bush like or a consecutive string of bipedal forms?)
9. Why is there so much difference of opinion as to the ancestors of modern day humans?
10. Which evolved first, large brains or upright walking? About when do the fossils show upright
walking evolving?
11. Which group evolved first, H. neandertalensis or H. erectus? When did each live?
12. Who was Homo floresiensis and what makes them such a curiosity?
Human Physical Characteristics
Summarize these various human characteristics in terms of evolutionary significance and probable reason
for the current level of adaptation seen in humans.
1) Brain size
2) Erect posture and bi-pedalism
3) The human skin as a heat diffusion device
4) The hand with its uniquely opposable thumb
5) The face and eyes
6) Jaw and teeth
7) The throat and the position of the larynx
8) The subtle forms of sexual differences or dimorphism
9) Neoteny
10) The retardation of maturation in human offspring