Humans evolved from an early form of primates
By: Neil and Eric
The ancestors that didn’t breed
with the hybrid species evolved
into the apes that we know of
today.
The next step in human evolution
came with the development of the
brain. With a larger brain came a
new genus of species called “Homo”.
The first member of this genus was
the Handyman, Homo habilis. This
species earned its nickname from its
ability to use tools. With its
developed brain the Handyman
could use things such as primitive
knives. Though even with knives,
the Handyman was thought to be a
scavenger rather than a hunter.
The Homo sapien, which are the human
species of today, evolved from the
Homo erectus population in Africa.
With a highly developed brain and body
they were able to out-compete all other
hominoids. A key to their success was
the development of language.
Language has allowed humans to form a
complex society which is still in
existence today.
5 million years ago
4 million years ago
2.5 million years ago
1.8 million years ago
200,000 years ago
7 million years ago
200,000 years ago
Over time, an ancient
ancestor of humans and
chimpanzees developed
into a hybrid human/ape
species. That hybrid
then bred back into its
parent population and
developed into the
human ancestor.
Eventually, the hybrid species
stopped mating with the apes and
began to compete with them, as
the genus Australopithecus. The
first step in branching off was
bipedallism. A fossil of an early
Australopithecus afarensis, known
as “Lucy”, showed their ability to
walk upright on two legs, and
showed that it did that for most of
the time. These Austalopithecines
were not humans yet but they
were definitely not apes either.
After the Handyman came the
Homo erectus which had a larger
brain and was more
anatomically similar to today’s
humans. It was able to hunt
other animals as a main source
of food and was so successful
that it managed to migrate out
of Africa, where it originated
from, and into other parts of
Eurasia.
Neanderthals, or Homo
neanderthalensis, evolved from the
Homo erectus population in Europe
but were driven to extinction by the
more advanced Homo sapiens, who
migrated into Europe from Africa.
They are not direct ancestors of
humans as many people believe;
they are more like cousins of today’s
humans.
Other theories have described the theory of human evolution as a straight line from apes to humans. This theory is similar to ours as it
has many of the genus’s and species evolving at the correct moments in time and in the right order. This is shown through how the
Australopithecus comes before the Homo habilis which comes before the Homo erectus. However, this theory is incorrect in saying that it
was a straight line from the Homo erectus to the Neanderthal to the Homo sapien. This theory says the Neanderthal was a direct
ancestor of modern day humans when it was actually a cousin of today’s humans. It also does not account for how apes and humans split
apart into different species in the first place, as the hybridization of ancient apes does in our theory.
Sources Cited
Gifs images from googleimages.com - http://www.mentallyjumbled.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/human-evolution.gif
http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/chimp-2.jpg - http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40811000/jpg/_40811817_mockup250.jpg
http://churchofcriticalthinking.org/images/missinglinkdebate.jpg - http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-evolution-timeline-interactive
http://evolution-101.blogspot.com/2006/05/how-did-humans-evolve.html