Hominid Evolution

Some early common ancestors of Homo sapiens

(modern humans)

Humans and

other primates share a

common ancestor

Many fossils are found in

Sedimentary Rocks

Australopithecus afarensis(Lucy’s species)

Lucy continuedA.afarensis

3-4 million years ago

Knee Bones

Brain size….430cc (close to a chimpanzee)

                            

U-shaped jaw is

more apelike

(ours is more V-shaped)

A. afarensis footprint

Age:3.6 million years

Date of Discovery

1974-1975

Location:Tanzania

A. Afarensis Footprints…3.5 mil yrs. old

What “LUCY”

may have

looked like.

• 3.3 million years ago• 3 year old female• A. afarensis• Discovered 2000• Made news 9/20/06• Very complete fossil• 1.5 feet tall • Able to piece together throat structure to infer voice like a chimp• Unusual to find something so

complete that was a baby• Died in flash flood?• Found in Ethiopia

Australopithecus africanus….South Africa

Taung Child…A. africanus2.5-3.3 million years ago

Another view of the A. africanus child

Australopithecus africanusBrain Size….440 cc

Lack of browbridges on skull and less projecting face

A. africanus adult discovered in 1947…..brain = 485 cc, 2.5 million

years old

A. robustus …Discovered by 1994 at the Drimolen cave in South Africa. Estimated age is between 1.5 and 2.0 million

years. This is an almost complete skull and lower jaw of a female, one of the most complete hominid skulls ever found.

A fossil of a male robustus lower jaw, nicknamed Orpheus was found a few inches away

A. boiseiEstimated age ~ 1.7 million years

Brain size = 510cc

Discovered 1969 Kenya

Homo habilus….Tanzania

“The Handy Man”(Homo habilus)

Use of simple stone tools

Brain size….600cc

1.8 million years ago

Homo ergaster…..Kenya

Homo erectus

Homo erectus

200,000—1 million years ago

Brain Size….1000cc

Large Browridge

• Homo erectus (maybe H.ergaster?)

• Found 1984

• Kenya

• 9-11 yr. old boy?

• Brain 880cc

• Adult 910cc• The most striking is that the holes in his vertebrae,

through which the spinal cord goes, have only about half the cross-sectional area found in modern humans. One suggested explanation for this is that the boy lacked the fine motor control we have in the thorax to control speech, implying that he wasn't nearly as

fluent a speaker as modern humans are.

Teeth similar to ours…but a bit

larger

Use of FIRE and tools

Homo neanderthalis

                                                

         

Neanderthals……….Short, strong body

Large rounded nasal opening

Adapted to cold climates of the

Pleistocene Ice Age

30,000-200,000 years agoSome remains found in graves with

flowers???

Old man neanderthal skull (30-40 years old at death had a healed broken rib, severe arthritis of the hip, lower neck, back and shoulders, and had lost most of his molar

teeth. The fact that he survived as long as he did indicates that Neanderthals must have

had a complex social structure. ~50, 000 years old

Cro-magnon

30,000 yrs oldFound in France

Homo sapiens

Compare neanderthal to cro-magon

H. floresiensisspecies of dwarf human discovered at the Liang Bua cave on the

Indonesian island of Flores in 2003 (lived 95,000 and 13,000 years ago)

~1 m heightBrain=417cc

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/flores.html