Human evolution is the biological and cultural development of humans. A human is any member of the species Homo sapiens, meaning "wise man." Since at least the Upper Paleolithic era, some 40,000 years ago, every human society has devised a creation myth to explain how humans came to be. Creation myths are based on cultural beliefs that have been adopted as a legitimate explanation by a society as to where we came from. The science of paleoanthropology, which also tries to create a narrative about how humans came to be, is deeply technical. Paleoantropology is the science of the evolution of humans, and it is the base of all research in that field. Humans have undergone many different changes during the last hundred million years, and it is …show more content…
Associated with these changes is a gradual reduction in the size of the face and jaws. In early hominines, the face was large and positioned in front of the braincase. As the teeth became smaller and the brain expanded, the face became smaller and its position changed. Thus, the relatively small face of modern humans is located below, rather than in front of, the large, expanded braincase. Evidence of immediate relatives of the human species begins about five million years ago with the Australopithecus genus and leads in to the primitive Homo genus to modern humans. The nature of the human 's evolution before that is uncertain, but scientists have hypothesized some ideas. What they do know is that between 7 and 20 million years ago, primitive apelike animals were widely distributed on the African and later on the Eurasian continents. Although many fossil bones and teeth have been found, the way of life of these creatures, and their evolutionary relationships to the living apes and humans, remain matters of strong disagreement among scientists. One of these fossil apes, known as Sivapithecus, appears to share many features with the living Asian great ape and the orangutan, whose direct ancestor it may well be. None of these fossils, however, offers convincing evidence of being on the evolutionary line leading to the hominid family generally. But they do help paint a picture of what early human relatives could have been like. The convincing
What evidence shows the changing from the early hominids to the modern humans? Throughout the human evolution body parts like legs and harms have changed for the better. By the early hominids being biped, meaning they are able to stand and even walk on two feet, it helped them to be able to do more things like getting around more and help with their tool making and hunting. A lot of the fossils discovered were found in the Great Rift Valley in East Africa, which contained many different lakes and small rivers. For many years researchers have been finding new species. These species have been named Australopithicus, robust australopithecines , Orrorin tugenensis, Homo habilis, Homo erectus, neanderthal, and Homo sapiens. These early
Describe the major developments of early human and social evolution. Throughout, discuss tool manufacturing, language development, agriculture, social behavior, and population growth.
of some sort to the general human gene pool, enough to be considered a different
Human evolution is the biological and cultural development of humans. A human is any member of the species Homo sapiens, meaning "wise man." Since at least the Upper Paleolithic era, some 40,000 years ago, every human society has devised a creation myth to explain how humans came to be. Creation myths are based on cultural beliefs that have been adopted as a legitimate explanation by a society as to where we came from.
The evolutionary of human living has taken place over millions of years of geological time. It has evolved millions of generations, and billions of individuals. The human evolution is not understandable completely yet. Evolutionary change within a population can take place at different time and different rates, which yield different consequences. This process still taking place in the natural selection and human evolution. One species may be merged to the new species or developed to the next stage of the same species. Homo Habilis, Homo Erectus, Homo Heidelbergensis, and Neanderthals were the close ancestors of modern human, which developed from Australopithecus afarensis.
Evolution is the process of change of living organisms over a long period of time due to difference of environment or circumstances that was not prevalent before. These evolutionary mutations occur due to things such as a change of environment where what may have been shallow water has gradually gotten deeper and thus the organisms that inhabited that land had to change in order to remain living in that area without risk. This also relates to things such as storms that may alter the habitat of the previous land where what something may have eaten has changed and the organism was altered to match that environment. This then has an affect on the history of human evolution, humans and apes relate to a similar origin and were very similar many years ago and this is known as primate phylogeny. This Extended research task will go in depth with the origins of man and the relation between man and apes through primate
The author of Human Evolution describes it as the changes from Miocene ape to modern person, over several million years. He states that this makes up the subject matter of human evolution. These changes involve skeletal modifications accompanying bipedalism and, later, manual dexterity and brain expansion.
Human evolution is “the process by which human beings developed on Earth from now-extinct primates” (Human Evolution, 2017). It is thought that human evolution began with a species of ape called Australopithecus, or one referred to as Neanderthals. These species most closely resemble the beginning of humans because they were a type of ape that walked up-right. As time progressed our primates began to adapt to the environment, and slowly changed into who we are today; Homo sapiens. Charles Darwin— an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist—was known for developing the theory of evolution. He explained that evolution was a “decent with modification” (On the Origin of Species, 1859). This meant that we all originated from a different species. However, we do not look exactly alike because we adapted to the environment we were exposed to. Although we all originated form a certain species, after undergoing serval mutations throughout generations to ensure
2. It can be concluded that both hominins and modern apes share flat face with forward facing eyes and molars present. The Phylogenetic Tree shows that the modern apes diverged from hominins. This implies that modern apes and hominins share a same ancestor, but early hominins did not evolve from modern apes. The closest relative of human (Homo sapiens) is Homo neanderthalensis. We share many characteristics, such as chain, large cranium and similar width of dental arcade to the length. One of differences is Homo neanderthalensis has Supraorbital bow, not human does not.
During the early 19th century, scientists, archeologist and other scholars, speculated, studied and disagreed about the development of humans and our origins. Some experts theorized that humans are monogenism and developed into various varieties of species. Others argue that we
Understanding human evolutions is important for identifying the stages of humanity and for understanding how our societies have developed. When most of us think about human
The central purpose of this essay is to critically discuss the importance of understanding human evolution and the history of psychology for the modern psychologist. For the human evolution, the essay will be addressing on how we and other species descended from our ancestors and how the different environment has helped to us to become more adaptable. Regarding the history of psychology, the essay will be discussing on how psychology branched off from the philosophy approach to become its own science. The essay will then go on discussing how the understanding of both human evolution and history of psychology would be used by modern psychologist.
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.”
Humans have existed on Earth for approximately 3.4 million years. The oldest known human ancestor is "Lucy," an Australopithecus. Over this extensive period of time, humans have evolved significantly. Homo Sapiens have grown from 3 to almost 6 feet (average), lost most of the body hair, became leaner and adapted to walking. Humans have come a long way, from Australopithecus to Homo sapiens, from living in trees to living in cities. Slowly, through hundreds of thousands of years, we mutated over and over again, natural selection ensuring that no destructive mutations continue. From the slow evolution, four distinctive species emerged and died out, each giving way to its ' descendant: Homo Habilis, Homo Erectus, Homo Sapiens Neanderthalesis, and Homo sapiens Sapiens.
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.