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Hominid Evolution
Some early common ancestors of Homo sapiens
(modern humans)
Humans and
other primates share a
common ancestor
Many fossils are found in
Sedimentary Rocks
Lucy continuedA.afarensis
3-4 million years ago
Knee Bones
Brain size….430cc (close to a chimpanzee)
U-shaped jaw is
more apelike
(ours is more V-shaped)
A. afarensis footprint
Age:3.6 million years
Date of Discovery
1974-1975
Location:Tanzania
A. Afarensis Footprints…3.5 mil yrs. old
What “LUCY”
may have
looked like.
• 3.3 million years ago• 3 year old female• A. afarensis• Discovered 2000• Made news 9/20/06• Very complete fossil• 1.5 feet tall • Able to piece together throat structure to infer voice like a chimp• Unusual to find something so
complete that was a baby• Died in flash flood?• Found in Ethiopia
Australopithecus africanus….South Africa
Taung Child…A. africanus2.5-3.3 million years ago
Another view of the A. africanus child
Australopithecus africanusBrain Size….440 cc
Lack of browbridges on skull and less projecting face
A. africanus adult discovered in 1947…..brain = 485 cc, 2.5 million
years old
A. robustus …Discovered by 1994 at the Drimolen cave in South Africa. Estimated age is between 1.5 and 2.0 million
years. This is an almost complete skull and lower jaw of a female, one of the most complete hominid skulls ever found.
A fossil of a male robustus lower jaw, nicknamed Orpheus was found a few inches away
A. boiseiEstimated age ~ 1.7 million years
Brain size = 510cc
Discovered 1969 Kenya
Homo habilus….Tanzania
“The Handy Man”(Homo habilus)
Use of simple stone tools
Brain size….600cc
1.8 million years ago
Homo ergaster…..Kenya
Homo erectus
200,000—1 million years ago
Brain Size….1000cc
Large Browridge
• Homo erectus (maybe H.ergaster?)
• Found 1984
• Kenya
• 9-11 yr. old boy?
• Brain 880cc
• Adult 910cc• The most striking is that the holes in his vertebrae,
through which the spinal cord goes, have only about half the cross-sectional area found in modern humans. One suggested explanation for this is that the boy lacked the fine motor control we have in the thorax to control speech, implying that he wasn't nearly as
fluent a speaker as modern humans are.
Teeth similar to ours…but a bit
larger
Use of FIRE and tools
Homo neanderthalis
Neanderthals……….Short, strong body
Large rounded nasal opening
Adapted to cold climates of the
Pleistocene Ice Age
30,000-200,000 years agoSome remains found in graves with
flowers???
Old man neanderthal skull (30-40 years old at death had a healed broken rib, severe arthritis of the hip, lower neck, back and shoulders, and had lost most of his molar
teeth. The fact that he survived as long as he did indicates that Neanderthals must have
had a complex social structure. ~50, 000 years old
Cro-magnon
30,000 yrs oldFound in France
Homo sapiens
Compare neanderthal to cro-magon
H. floresiensisspecies of dwarf human discovered at the Liang Bua cave on the
Indonesian island of Flores in 2003 (lived 95,000 and 13,000 years ago)
~1 m heightBrain=417cc
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/flores.html
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