Hominid

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 concluded that this knee belonged to an individual who was bipedal; a species that walks on two legs. A year after his first finding, Johanson went back…

morphological characteristics. This can determine the genus and species and time the hominid was likely alive. It can also help anthropologists know more about what the living conditions were like in the time that that species was alive. Traits like a sagittal keel or large molars can show that the food that that species consumed was likely tough and required a lot of chewing. The molars that are present in older hominids would slowly go away as species adapted to softer foods, as would the…

time that if they didn’t hurt the homo habilis, they could get free food all the time. So in turn, the wolves became the companions of the homo habilis, attacking anything that endangered the hominids, in exchange for food. This is how the term “man’s best friend” came to be, dogs have literally been with hominids for billions of…

Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection came to him after many years of travel on the British ship, HMS Beagle, around the world. Darwin was also greatly influenced by contemporaries, such as his professors, earlier naturalists, and so forth. On this voyage around the world, Darwin collected and observed numerous plant and animal species from all of the different environments he visited. The theory of natural selection can be defined as the evolution of species over time; species better…

The Australopithecus is an extinct hominin that lived between 3.9 and 2.9 million years ago. They were believed to have lived in Africa. These lived from 3.9 to 2.9 million years ago. They had a small braincase, and a small brain. They have an ape like face including a flat nose, and a strong projecting lower jaw. They had long strong arms with curved fingers which helped them climb trees. They also had small canine teeth and a body that stood on two legs and can walk upright. The…

(Steif, 2010). Even though the purpose behind cave art remains largely a mystery, this uniquely human capacity demonstrates the ability to think of abstract concepts and give meaning to ideas, which suggest that cognizance began to mature within hominids during the Upper…

At this very moment, there are over 5,400 species of mammals living on Earth, every one of them unlike the others. Humans, or Homo sapiens, are one of these numerous, utterly unique animals that inhabit this planet. We contain a vast amount of qualities that set us apart from all others organisms alive. One of the chief significances of these differences is the fact that humans are the only mammals that are permanently bipedal. We were not always able to walk on two legs, but thousands of years…

When first entering the Human Origins exhibit, the first thing that caught my eye was the skeleton structures of the Chimpanzee, the Neanderthal and the Modern Human. On the back of these statues there was a section titled “Meet Your Relatives”. This was interesting because it allowed everyone in the museum to compare themselves biologically to Chimpanzee’s and Neanderthals. One of the interesting facts I learned, structures of the chimpanzee and the neanderthal are similar when it comes to how…

Not just a species of hominids from which we evolved from, although we have one of those too, which paleoanthropology attempts to answer, through guesswork and morphology. Wells, however, believes the question of origin is really a question of genealogy, due to the fact that DNA…

The origins of human life are riddled with mystery, complexity, and controversy. Archeologists and historians have been able to unearth clues from beginnings of Human civilization in spite of various contentions. Evolution has transformed virtually every organism to grace planet Earth, and the evolutionary process that led to the modern day human commenced in the continent of Africa. Furthermore, as humanity developed the sexual dimorphism between both sexes led to varying roles for males and…