Australopithecus afarensis

Title of the Essay We Australopithecus afarensis had been living in the northeastern Africa ever since our first generation. Though not being known as the most powerful living species here, our ingrained talent in arboreal life helped us gain advantage over many other species in chance of survival. For centuries we firmly believed in the idea of all creatures were quadrupedal and we had never seen any exception. It was by accident that we discovered a group of species that featured bipedalism named Homo sapiens. This discovery refuted our long-held belief and successfully aroused us interests. The Homo sapiens were in fact similar to us in many aspects of body traits. Therefore, the key to the mystery would most likely lie in those distinctions…

Nicholas Pagano 12 November 2015 TA Elias Capello Friday 9:05-9:55 Anthropology 103 Australopithecus afarensis Named by Donald Johanson & Tim White in 1978 I. Classification Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Mammalia Order: Primates Family: Hominidae Subfamily: Hominidae Genus: Australopithecus Species: A. afarensis II. Physical Characteristics The Australopithecus afarensis without a doubt had both ape and human features. Just looking at the face of this animal you can see a…

Australopithecus Afarensis Species and Their Existence Humans are a species of hominidae. A hominid is any one of a family, hominidae, of mammals that includes humans with their extinct ancestral forms. Hominids evolved from each other. Humans have evolved over the millions of years from the first hominid. One of the hominid species that humans have evolved from is the Australopithecus Afarensis. A classification of an Australopithecus Afarensis is a Southern Ape. This species is a…

chance, but was created by some intelligent entity (God), referencing religious text as evidence. On the contrary, evolutionists believe in Darwinism, that through the process of natural selection in humans over millions of years evolved from the great apes. Despite their brilliant claim, in 1859 there was insufficient physical evidence to prove that man evolved from ape, evolutionist lacked the “missing link” fossils of transitional species between ape and human that would validate the theory…

the 20th Century Ever since discussions of human ancestry began, many people believed that Europe was the home of the first ancestors of humankind up until the end of the 20th century. An American paleoanthropologist by the name of Dr. Donald Carl Johanson, visited Ethiopia as part of the International Afar Research Expedition in 1973, as a result of this expedition, Dr. Johanson found a knee of a hominid that turned out to be about 3 million years old. Because of its size and the shape, he…

Dr. Donald Johanson discovery of Australopithecus Afarensis in Hadar, Ethiopia and Mary Leakey’s discovery of the Laetoli footprints in Olduvai Gorge, Ethiopia proved beyond any plausible doubt that human species had evolved and Lucy was one of the species that bridged this gap between pre-humans and modern day humans. On his way, back to camp, Dr. Donald Johanson discovered a knee joint in the great rift in Hadar which was more like that of human than that of apes. Dating of the knee joint by…

Mary Anning was considered to be the first female paleontologist and the greatest fossil finder. She overcame a lack of formal education to emerge as one of the foremost authorities on fossils. When she was twelve year old, she found the skeleton of one of the first Ichthyosaurus, a giant marine reptile that lived in the early time of Jurassic period in Asia and Europe. She discovered more Ichthyosaurus fossils and also many other important discoveries as an amateur fossil collector in the…

down large prey. Most larger land animals that early man hunted walked on four limbs making them inefficient at covering long distances. In class we watched a short film and discussed how one man could rely on his superior endurance to track down prey for miles to the point where the prey collapsed because of exhaustion. Bipedal organisms because of their posture received less solar radiation and more wind cooling, which lowered their chances of overheating when they traveled long distances.…

primitives primate’s feet (Venkataraman 2013). Although a great majority of scientists agree on the notion that Ardipithecus afarensis did have characteristics of habitual bipeds, they do dispute on the conception of Arboreality and if it necessary applies to them. The main occurring reasons for these disagreements tend to coincide with diverse viewpoints on how we should interpret primitive species. Ardipithecus afarensis could have differed in more ways from that of humans, “there is no…

great attention is given to a baby’s first steps, little, if any, attention is given to the advantages of this form of movement. The benefits of walking, running, and standing while using two legs instead of four go unremarked. It is simply natural for humans to travel this way. Humans are not the only animals to use bipedalism, birds and some mammals, including primates, can also walk on two legs, but none quite like human beings. This is truly an important trait shared by people and yet it is…