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Human evolution
Human evolution is about the origin of the human beings. All humans belong to the same species, which has spread from its birthplace in Africa to almost all parts of the world. Its origin in Africa is proved by the fossils which have been found there. The term 'human' in this context means the genus Homo. However, studies of human evolution usually include other hominids, such as the Australopithecines, from which the genus Homo had diverged (split) by about 2.3 to 2.4 million years ago in Africa.[1] [2] It was known for a long time several centuries that man and the apes were related. At heart, their anatomy is similar, despite many superficial differences. This was the reason why Buffon and Linnaeus, in the 18th century, put them together in one family. Charles Darwin's theory of evolution says that such basic structural similarity comes from the common origin of the group. The apes and man are close relatives, and are primates: the order of mammals which includes monkeys, apes, lemurs and tarsiers.
Shows similarities of apes and man. The human skeleton is on the right. Figures are drawn to scale, but the gibbon, on the left, is drawn at double size.
The great apes live in tropical rainforests. It is thought that human evolution started when a group of apes began to live more in the savannah. Savannah is more open, with trees, shrubs and grass. This group, the australopithecines started walking on two legs. They began to use their hands to carry things. Life in the open was quite different, and there was a big advantage in having better brains. Their brains grew to be much larger, and they began to make simple tools. All this began at least 5 million years ago. We have fossils of two or three different groups of walking apes, and one was the ancestor of humans. The biological name for "human" or "man" is Homo. The modern human species is called Homo sapiens. "Sapiens" means "thought". Homo sapiens means "the thinking man". The science that is concerned with finding out how human evolution happened is called physical anthropology or paleoanthropology. It explains how the human race developed, by looking at ancient humans fossils, tools, and other signs of human life in the past. The modern field of paleoanthropology began in the 19th century with the discovery of a skull of "Neanderthal man" in 1856.
Human evolution
Distinguishing features
Primates have diversified in habitats such as trees and bushes. They retain many features which are adaptations to this environment.[7] Here are some of those traits: Shoulder joints which allow high degrees of movement in all directions.[7] Five digits on the fore and hind limbs with opposable thumbs and big toes; hands can grasp, and usually big toes as well.[7] Nails on the fingers and toes (in most species).[8] Sensitive tactile pads on the ends of the digits.[7] Sockets of eyes encircled in bone.[9] A trend towards a reduced snout and flattened face, attributed to a reliance on vision at the expense of smell.[9] A complex visual system with binocular (stereoscopic) vision, high visual acuity and color vision.[7] Brain with a well developed cerebellum for good balance.[9] Brain large in comparison to body size, especially in simians (old world monkeys and apes).[7] Enlarged cerebral cortex (brain): learning, problem solving.[7] Reduced number of teeth compared to primitive mammals;.[7] A well-developed cecum: vegetable digestion.[9]
Human evolution Two pectoral mammary glands.[7] Typically one young per pregnancy.[7] A pendulous penis and scrotal testes.[9] Long gestation and developmental period.[7] and A trend towards holding the torso upright leading to bipedalism.[7]
Not all primates exhibit these anatomical traits, nor is every trait unique to primates. In regard to behavior, primates are frequently highly social, live in groups with 'flexible dominance hierarchies'.[10] [11]
Other similarities
Closely related animals almost always have closely related parasites. This usually comes about because parasites evolve with their hosts, and when host populations split, their parasites split also.[12] It is also possible for parasites to get from one species to another. Two of the most serious parasitic infections of humans in Africa have originated in apes. Each may have been transferred to humans by a single cross-species event. There are several species of mosquito, and several species of the malarial parasite Plasmodium. The most serious type, P. falciparum, which kills many millions of people each year, originated in gorillas.[13] It is now virtually certain that chimpanzees are the source of HIV-1, the major cause of AIDS.[14] This information is got by the sequence analysis of the nucleic acid of ape and human parasites. The relevance of this to evolution is that our physiology is so close to the apes that their parasites were able to transfer to humans with great success. Humans have much less resistance to these parasites, which are ancient in origin, but comparatively new to our species.
A cast of the cranium of "Tournai", Sahelanthropus tchadensis, a member of an extinct hominid species who lived about 7 million years ago.
It took another 20 years before Dart's claims were taken seriously. This was after other similar skeletons had been found. The most common view of the time was that a large brain evolved before bipedality, the ability to move on two feet. It was thought that intelligence similar to that of modern humans was a prerequisite to bipedalism.
Human evolution
The australopithecines are now thought to be immediate ancestors of the genus Homo, the group to which modern humans belong.[16] Both australopithecines and Homo sapiens are part of the tribe Hominini, but recent data has brought into doubt the position of A. africanus as a direct ancestor of modern humans; it may well have been a cousin.[17] The australopithecines were originally classified as either gracile or robust. The robust variety of Australopithecus has since been reclassified as Paranthropus, although it is still regarded as a subgenus of Australopithecus by some authors.[18] In the 1930s, when the robust specimens were first described, the Paranthropus genus was used. During the 1960s, the robust variety was moved into Australopithecus. The recent trend has been back to the original classification as a separate genus.
The evolution of the genus Homo took place mostly in the Pleistocene. The whole genus is characterised by its use of stone tools, initially crude, and becoming ever more sophisticated. So much so that in archaeology and anthropology the Pleistocene is usually referred to as
Human evolution
Homo habilis
Homo habilils was likely the first species of Homo. It developed from the Australopithecus, about 2.5 million years ago. It lived until about 1.4 million years ago. It had smaller molars (back teeth) and larger brains than the Australopithecines.
Neanderthal Man
Homo neaderthalensis (usually called Neanderthal man) lived from about 250,000 to about 30,000 years ago. Also, less usual, as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis: there is still some discussion if it was a separate species Homo neanderthalensis, or a subspecies of H. sapiens.[27] While the debate remains unsettled, evidence from mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosomal DNA sequencing indicates that little or no gene flow occurred between H. neanderthalensis and H. sapiens, and, therefore, the two were separate species.[28] In 1997, Dr. Mark Stoneking, then an associate professor of anthropology at Pennsylvania State University, stated: "These results [based on mitochondrial DNA extracted from Neanderthal bone] indicate that Neanderthals did not contribute mitochondrial DNA to modern humans Neanderthals are not our ancestors." More investigation of a second source of Neanderthal DNA supported these findings.[29] A third species A genetic analysis of a piece of finger bone found in Siberia has produced a surprise result. It dates to about 40,000 years ago, at a time when Neanderthals and modern man were living in the area. German researchers found its mitochondrial DNA did not match either our species or Neanderthals. The possibility is that the bone may belong to a previously unknown species. The degree of difference in the DNA suggests this species split off from our family tree about a million years ago, well before the split between our species and Neanderthals.[30]
Human evolution
Homo floresiensis
Homo floresiensis, which lived about 100,00012,000 years ago has been nicknamed hobbit for its small size. Its size may be a result of island dwarfism, the tendency for large mammals to evolve smaller forms on islands.[31] H. floresiensis is intriguing both for its size and its age. It is a concrete example of a recent species of the genus Homo that shows derived traits not shared with modern humans. In other words, H. floresiensis share a common ancestor with modern humans, but split from the modern human lineage and followed a different evolutionary path. The main find was a skeleton believed to be a woman of about 30 years of age. Found in 2003 it has been dated to approximately 18,000 years old. The living woman was estimated to be one meter in height, with a brain volume of just 380cm3 (considered small for a chimpanzee and less than a third of the H. sapiens average of 1400cm3). There is an ongoing debate over whether H. floresiensis is indeed a separate species.[32] Some scientists believe that H. floresiensis was a modern H. sapiens suffering from pathological dwarfism.[33] Modern humans who live on Flores, the island where the skeleton was found, are pygmies. This fact is consistent with either theory. One line of attack on H. floresiensis is that it was found with tools only associated with H. sapiens.[33] Human arrival on Flores Stone artefacts have now been found on Flores which can be dated to a million years ago. These artefacts are proxies; which means there were no skeletons of humans, but only a species of Homo could have made the artefacts. The artefacts are flakes and other implements, 48 in all, some of which show signs of being worked to produce a cutting edge. This means that humans were present on Flores by that date, but it does not tell us which species that was.[34]
Homo sapiens
Homo sapiens has lived from about 250,000 years ago to the present. Between 400,000 years ago and the second warm period in the Middle Pleistocene, around 250,000 years ago, its skull grew and more sophisticated technologies based on stone tools developed. One possibility is that a transition between H. erectus to H. sapiens occurred. The evidence of Java Man suggests there was an initial migration of H. erectus out of Africa. Then, much later, a further development of H. sapiens from H. erectus in Africa. Then a subsequent migration within and out of Africa eventually replaced the earlier H. erectus. Out of Africa Studies of human Y-chromosome DNA and mitochondrial DNA have largely supported a recent African origin.[35] Evidence from autosomal DNA also supports the recent African origin. The details of this great saga are not fully established yet, but by about 90,000 years ago they had moved into Eurasia and the Middle East. This was the area where Neanderthals, Homo neanderthalensis, had been living for a long time (at least 350,000 years). By about 42 to 44,000 years ago Homo sapiens had reached western Europe, including Britain.[36] In Europe and western Asia, Homo sapiens replaced the Neanderthals by about 35,000 years ago. The details of how this happened are not known. At roughly the same time Homo sapiens arrived in Australia. Their arrival in the Americas was much later, about 15,000 years ago.[37] All these earlier groups of modern man were hunter-gatherers. Current research has established that human beings are genetically rather homogenous (similar). The DNA of individuals is more alike than usual for most species. This may have resulted from their relatively recent evolution or from the Toba catastrophe. Distinctive genetic have arisen as a result of small groups of people moving into new environmental circumstances. These adapted traits are a very small component of the Homo sapiens genome and include such outward 'racial' characteristics as skin color and nose shape, and internal characteristics such as the ability to breathe more efficiently at high altitudes.
Human evolution H. sapiens idaltu, from Ethiopia, about 160,000 years ago, is a proposed subspecies. It is the oldest known anatomically modern human.
Species list
This list is in chronological order by genus. Sahelanthropus Sahelanthropus tchadensis Orrorin Orrorin tugenensis Ardipithecus Ardipithecus kadabba Ardipithecus ramidus Australopithecus Australopithecus anamensis Australopithecus afarensis Australopithecus bahrelghazali Australopithecus africanus Australopithecus garhi Paranthropus Paranthropus aethiopicus Paranthropus boisei Paranthropus robustus Kenyanthropus Kenyanthropus platyops Homo Homo habilis Homo rudolfensis Homo ergaster Homo georgicus Homo erectus Homo cepranensis Homo antecessor Homo heidelbergensis Homo rhodesiensis Homo neanderthalensis Homo sapiens idaltu Homo sapiens (Cro-magnon) Homo sapiens sapiens Homo floresiensis
Human evolution
References
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(2002). "Discovery of a new hominid at Dmanisi (Transcaucasia, Georgia)". Comptes Rendus Palevol, 1 (4): 243-53. doi:10.1016/S1631-0683(02)00032-5. [24] Lordkipanidze D, Vekua A, Ferring R, et al (2006). "A fourth hominin skull from Dmanisi, Georgia". The anatomical record. Part A, Discoveries in molecular, cellular, and evolutionary biology 288 (11): 1146-57. doi:10.1002/ar.a.20379. PMID17031841. [25] Turner W (1895). "On M. Dubois' Description of Remains recently found in Java, named by him Pithecanthropus erectus: with remarks on so-called transitional forms between Apes and Man". Journal of Anatomy and Physiology 29 (Pt 3): 424445. PMID17232143. [26] Spoor F, Wood B, Zonneveld F (1994). "Implications of early hominid labyrinthine morphology for evolution of human bipedal locomotion". Nature 369 (6482): 6458. doi:10.1038/369645a0. PMID8208290. [27] Harvati K (2003). "The Neanderthal taxonomic position: models of intra- and inter-specific craniofacial variation". J. Hum. Evol. 44 (1): 107132. PMID12604307. [28] Krings M, Stone A, Schmitz RW, Krainitzki H, Stoneking M, Pbo S (1997). "Neandertal DNA sequences and the origin of modern humans". Cell 90 (1): 1930. PMID9230299. [29] Serre D, Langaney A, Chech M, et al (2004). "No evidence of Neandertal mtDNA contribution to early modern humans". PLoS Biol. 2 (3): E57. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0020057. PMID15024415. [30] Dalton, Rex 2010. Fossil finger points to new human species. Nature 464, 4723. [31] Brown P, Sutikna T, Morwood MJ, et al (2004). "A new small-bodied hominin from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia". Nature 431 (7012): 10551061. doi:10.1038/nature02999. PMID15514638. [32] Argue D, Donlon D, Groves C, Wright R (2006). "Homo floresiensis: microcephalic, pygmoid, Australopithecus, or Homo?". J. Hum. Evol. 51 (4): 360374. doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2006.04.013. PMID16919706. [33] Martin R.D. Maclarnon A.M. Phillips J.L. and Dobyns W.B. (2006). "Flores hominid: new species or microcephalic dwarf?". The anatomical record. Part A, Discoveries in molecular, cellular, and evolutionary biology 288 (11): 11231145. doi:10.1002/ar.a.20389. PMID17031806. [34] Brumm, Adam et al 2010. Hominins on Flores, Indonesia, by one million years ago. Nature 464,748752. [35] Jorde LB, Bamshad M, Rogers AR (February 1998). "Using mitochondrial and nuclear DNA markers to reconstruct human evolution". Bioessays 20 (2): 12636. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1521-1878(199802)20:2<126::AID-BIES5>3.0.CO;2-R. PMID9631658. [36] Amos, Jonathan 2011. BBC Science News (http:/ / www. bbc. co. uk/ news/ science-environment-15540464)
Human evolution
[37] "Fossil faeces is earliest evidence of North American humans" (http:/ / news. nationalgeographic. com/ news/ 2008/ 04/ 080403-first-americans. html). .
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