Australopithecus afarensis

A major hallmark in the evolution of the hominid species is the modification in the size of the brain. The available fossil record is however incomplete and interpretation is often difficult. The supposed dominance of homo erectus species of hominids is generally credited to the proportions of their brain, that has evolved over the course of their evolutionary history. Direct evidence supporting the changes in the brain can only be obtained from the hominid fossil record, and by studying the…

change in the foot of a chimpanzee to the foot of Homo sapiens sapiens, and reinforces that chimpanzees are a proxy for pre-hominin ancestors. The medial column is ape-like, with no arch like in modern humans, showing that the arch discovered in A. afarensis continued in other Homo species rather than H. habilis. However, the lateral column does appear human-like to an extent. Unlike modern humans, H. habilis had an opposable toe. (Harcourt-Smith et al., 2004). With this in mind, researchers…

Chapter 11 in our textbook, called Early Hominins. This is because the exhibit went into detail to not only show but also describe in depth species of hominins, from the Sahelanthropus tchadensis who lived around 7 to 6 million years ago and the Australopithecus robustus who were walking on this planet up until 1.5 million years ago. This part of the exhibit was what interested me the most because I loved being able to see the actual different kinds of skulls and be able to compare sizes. Over…

evolution is going to turn you into a freak. On page 49 in Tuck Everlasting, Angus said, “And everywhere around us thing is moving and growing and changing.” One of these changes is evolution. Over 3 to 4 million years, humans evolved from australopithecus afarensis to homo sapiens sapiens. A few million years from now, who knows what humans would be like? We only know they’d be very different and may not even be the same species. The Tucks would be considered living early hominids.…

Humans Evolved From Apes Where humans came from is a question that has been asked since the beginning of time. Some people believe we were created by a god. Others believe we were created by multiple gods. However, anatomical and behavioral similarities with modern apes, along with fossil evidence of our evolutionary history, gives proof that humans evolved from an ape-like ancestor and are in fact, still apes. To understand the evidence behind this, some background information on evolution…

The first mammals evolved from mammal-like reptiles at the end of the triassic period. Therapsids, or mammal-like reptiles, is an order of reptiles that lived in the Permian and Triassic Periods before going extinct in the mid Jurassic Period. It is difficult for scientist to determine when the divide between therapsids and mammals occurred. Early mammals had small, mouselike forms. Very few were large, because dinosaurs were the unquestioned dominant land animals on earth. The ecological niche…

Homo ergaster, meaning ‘workman’, lived in eastern and southern Africa around 1.5 million years ago. The ergaster had a good run for about 500,000 years, until vanishing from fossil records 1.3 million years ago. Homo ergaster was discovered in 1949 somewhere in southern Africa by prominent South African hominin paleontologist, John T. Robinson. Researchers have argued back and forth on the the idea that Home ergaster is a valid taxon due to the similarities between ergaster and erectus. Some…

In today’s society, many people have good educational background however the usage of words sometimes did not match up to an individual’s knowledge. This can be seen using the word theory, especially in evolutionary theory. People usually refer to a theory as a guess and fact as the truth. However, according to the National Academy of Science, a theory is “a plausible or scientifically acceptable, well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of…

ourselves and to define what innately makes us human. Although many skeletons and species of Homo have been identified, we have not yet discovered our last common ancestor, and this has been a hot topic of debate. The genus Homo is bookended by Australopithecus afarensis and Homo erectus, the former more ape than human, while the latter was responsible for making stone tools. However as National Geographic claims, “there is still a murky million-year gap, a bipedal animal was transformed into a…

2015). History documents that human beings evolved from the apes at least seven million years ago or as early as thirteen million years ago. Various forms of species have been documented over all those years with transitions including; Australopithecus afarensis dated 3.2 million years ago, the Homo species dated about 2.8 million years ago (Drake, 2015). The Homo species which was inclusive of Homo erectus, Homo habilis and Homo sapiens. Evidence of evolution from my research is highly…