The Dawn of Man

Geologic Timeline: Geography

•

• Earth: 6 Billion Years Old

• Pangea: Super continent-1st land mass

400,000,000 BC

180,000,000 BC

• Split around 180 Million BC into Gondwanaland (South America, Africa, Australia, Antarctica) and Laurasia (Europe, Asia, North America)

Hominid and Evolution

• The belief system that we “evolved” from Apes is now relegated to backward status as Hominids (resembling Humans) are regarded as their own classification. The earliest hominids such as Lucy have certainly evolved but not from apes from themselves. This is a commonly accepted belief as many believe that humans are continually evolving today?

Evolutionary Path

Hominids

• First appearance of Hominids about 7,000,000 years ago… Australopithecus our “Lucy” specimen. A female from Africa.

Australopithecus Native to Africa • Upright, large teeth, slanted brow, massive

cheek bones, ears set back on head, flat wide nose.

• 7,000,000 years ago• Diet; nuts, roots, fruit, small game • Several types. • Demise; slow evolution into other physical forms,

difficult conditions on African savannah.• Lucy- found in 1974

Australopithecus

Homo Habilis: early toolmaker

• Stood about 4 ft, weighing roughly 100 pounds. • 2,200,000 years old, found at Olduvai Gorge in

Tanzania. • Brain 50% larger than Australopithecus. • First tool maker, split stone to create an edge to

gouge. • The advantages of tools allowed him to flourish,

in comparison to other hominids. • More mobile in hotter climate, more perspiration

stunted hair growth. • Mobility led to intelligence.

Homo Habilis: early toolmaker

• Handy Man• 2.2 million years

ago

Homo Erectus: Upright Man

• 2 million years ago. • 5’5”at twelve years old! • Possible migration as skulls have been found in

India, China, and Indonesia. • Larger brain, bones and capabilities• More advanced tools (axes…)• Likely the first to use fire for their own purposes. • Evidence suggests the use of fire for hunting,

cooking, and warmth.

Homo Erectus: Upright Man

Peking Man

• Another example of Home erectus

2 groups of Homo Sapiens emerge1. Neanderthals

• Emerged in Germany, France, Spain 250,000 years ago.

• Historical image/wrong.

• Similar brain size to modern man.

• Pre-planned hunts, social organization, may have had simple teepee structures.

• Remains discovered with burial gifts, belief in afterlife?

Homo Sapiens2. Early modern humans

• “Ancient Intelligent Man”

• Emerged 250,000-100,000 years ago

• Larger brain than Erectus and smaller teeth to go along with a flat brow. Made axes, cleavers and flake tools.

• Neanderthals have been proven to have coexisted alongside homo sapiens for thousands of years, destroying the evolutionary theory that they are our ancestors.

• They died out around 26,000 B.C., probably from being out competed for food by homo sapiens.

• Neanderthal man, once thought to be one our immediate ancestors, has now been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to be not an ancestor of homo sapiens,

but a form of mankind that had been created and had developed parallel to homo sapiens.• “Southern ape”

The end