We left of in the last blog post talking about hominins and
the last one of them we mentioned was part of what was called robust
australopithecines and his name was Australopithecus sediba
found in Africa and believed to be the transition to homo, already completed
the bipedalism transition but still lived around trees and although had more
protuberant noses, the brain continued small.
Australopithecus Sediba lived around Lived 1.78-1.95 million
years ago, but the first homo fossil found, dates 2.4 mya. So in conclusion,
the evolution was continuously happening, but a hypothesis of why there was a
transition to homo could have been because of the climate, considering 2.5 mya
the climated started getting cooler and also another possibility is habitat,
for example going from the jungle to the savanna.
One of the earliest homo finds is for the HOMO HABILIS who has a slightly larger brain but a
smaller face and teeth comparing to Australopithecus
or older hominin species, but it still presents
some ape-like features. Habilis
existed between 2.4 and 1.5 million years ago and the name, which means ‘handy
man’, was given in 1964 because this species was thought to represent the first
stone-tool maker.
Another early homo was HOMO RUDOLFENSIS found in Kenya, Africa and at first believed to be
Homo Habilis, but was distinguished because of larger body size.
Homo Erectus was
another one in the early homo group, existed between 1.8 million and
300,000 years ago. The skeleton is more robust than those of modern humans,
implying greater strength, but body proportions vary. Firstly found in Asia,
but later on it was also found in Africa and Europe. Homo
ergaster was found in the African continent but later on in other
places like Israel. Scientists continue to debate whether H.
Ergaster and H. Erectus are
the same species. They present some similarities, but very slight differences
in some aspects. H. Ergaster seems to be more robust than the H. Erectus found
in Asia, for instance.
Homo Heidelbergensis
is already part of the more modern group of homo dating back up to 600,000 ya with evidence of their presence in Africa,
Europe and Asia. Homo Heidelbergensis was the ancestor of the Neanderthal they
had larger brains like modern humans, and other features similar to modern
humans, but they were very big on hunting. Because of the Ice age and
considering that it affected Europe much more than it affected Africa, by
300,000 ya it was possible to see a variation in the Heidelbergensis in Europe,
who had adapted to the cold, and the Heidelbergensis in Africa. By 130,000 ya,
the Heidelbergensis were a new whole species called Neanderthal.
The Neanderthals
were mostly found in Europe dating in between 130,000 and 40,000 ya. In
Europe, Neanderthals were big, robust, with heavy muscles and larger chests,
which indicate a form of adaptation to the cold. The Neanderthals found in
Middle East were not as robust. They were very big in sophisticated tool making,
especially using wood and stone. Before the modern humans came along, came H.
Neanderthalensis which was a less robust version of the known Neanderthal,
about 50,00ya.
At this stage in time, there is plenty of evidence of tool
making, human burial, some social organization and also a certain level of non –
linguistic communication. As the first two elements were evidently found in
form of artifacts and on archeological sites, the two last are just hypothesis
based on the finds and the research applied on the remains.
Lastly, the first biologically modern Homo Sapiens evolved
around 100,000 ya in Africa. However, it was until about 50,000 years ago that
they developed modern behaviors like jewelry-making, wall painting, musical
instruments, human burial, religion and abstract thought.
Tools
It’s not known who were the first tool makers, but they
earliest tool were found in OLDUVAI GORGE, Tanzania among fossils of different
species, so there is no evidence of which one would have made them. It’s
thought that there were created for scavenging and cutting purposes.
Early Human
Migrations
There is still a debate regarding the hypothesis of who left
Africa first, but the most accepted hypothesis is that H. Erectus left Africa
around 2 mya. It is believed that they left Africa because of the changes of
climate, fauna and flora that were happening at the time. They went through the
Levantine Corridor until they arrived in Europe/Asia. Key sites for this early
migration out of Africa are Riwat in Pakistanand Dmanisi
in the Caucasus both with evidence of life dating 1.5 and 1.7 mya. China was
also populated around 1.6 mya according to the evidence found in artifacts in Nihewan Basin.
Personal Input
This was a very interesting journey to where we, modern
humans, came from. I found it particularly interesting the fact that all the
evolution makes a lot of sense looking as if it was on a “fast forward” mode,
but it all happened over millions of years, which is almost hard to imagine.
Like for example the Neanderthals and their adaption to cold weather in Europe,
took thousands of years until and interestingly, throughout all these years species
leave behind animal like features and acquire more and more human like ones,
for example the face of the face changes to make space for a bigger brain.
Another factor that seems to have happened fast, when
studying this subject, is the migration out of Africa. Reality is, the
migration also took thousands of years and several generations.
Out of all species, during this blog post, the one that
caught my attention the most was the Neanderthal. That might have been because
we watched the movie in class. I found it fascinating our modern human DNA
relation with them. And most of all the
evidence of botanical remains of flowers findings around their dead bodies
during burials. Although the controversy exists regarding if the flowers were
put there intentionally, but I prefer to believe so.
Additional Information
For the additional information on this blog post, I decided
to add only the things that were most interesting to me.
Of course I couldn’t leave out a fun game to play that
relates to the subject. I found this game online for free and basically goes
all the way from animal evolution to modern human and you are supposed to
collect the elements that helps you evolve and keep going. Truthfully, I couldn’t
arrive to modern human because I played really badly, but I hope you can!
My second additional information was based on a “ critical
thinking” question from the book that was about our opinion on the presence of
flowers on Neanderthals burial. Since I was so interested about this subject, I
decided to search further and found this website that offers some hypothesis
and explanations, but what really caught my attention here was the image that
recreates the burial moment. I found it very dramatic and beautiful and would
like to share with you.
Of course we cannot talk about human evolution without
mentioning Homo Erectus and Dmanisi, so I went out to find some extra
information. I found a blog from a man called John Hawks that had a very
detailed explanation of the H. Erectus that I found very interesting with
supporting images, but since we cannot believe everything we see online, I
researched about the author of the blog to make sure he was trustworthy before
sharing with you. It turns out John Hawks is a professor of Anthropology at
University of Wisconsin with a Doctor thesis titled, "The Evolution of
Human Population Size: A Synthesis of Paleontological, Archaeological, and
Genetic Data." Since I found enough evidence of the truthfulness of this
blog, I decided to share with you.
This next link is to a video that describes the Homo Sapien migration.
The video is short and it’s based on arrows expanding on a map representing the
migrations, but it is an interactive way to see what we have been reading on
the book.
My last additional information piece in a map that I found
very interesting, simplified and easy to understand, describing human
migration. It is a big PDF file so it might take long to load, but hang in
there because it is worth it.
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