Hominids

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Hominids

• All information in these slides was taken from
• http//www.wsu.edu/gened/learn-modules/top_longfor
  /lfopen-index.html
  

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Australopithicus afarensis

• Australopithicus afarensis lived from
  approximately 4 to 2.7 million years ago along
  the northern rift valley of east Africa, and
  perhaps even earlier.

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Australopithicus afarensis

• The illustration on the right shows "Lucy" in
  comparison with a modern human female. She was
  only about 3 feet, 8 inches tall. Males were
  somewhat taller and twice as robust.

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Afarensis continued

• This species lived in small foraging social
  groups.
  
• The teeth of A. afarensis are small and
  unspecialized, indicating a mixed, omnivorous
  diet of mostly soft foods, such as fruits.
  
• Sexual dimorphism in terms of body size is quite
  pronounced in this species, with males
  approximately twice as large in bulk as females
  and considerably taller. In mammals, this large
  size disparity in the sexes usually means that
  males compete for mating privileges with females.
  

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Australopithicus africanus

• Australopithicus africanus is both larger in body
  size and brain than the earlier A. afarensis, but
  the configuration of its brain is still more
  ape-like than human thus it is classified as an
  ape.
• Lived from before 3 million years ago to
  approximately 2 million years ago, and was a
  contemporary of early human species
  
• perhaps competing with early humans.

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Africanus Continued

• The artist's reconstruction of A. africanus on
  the right shows the species' erect posture and
  bi-pedalism, and it places tools (weapons) of
  wood and bone in this male speciman's hands.
• Primitive stone choppers and flakes have been
  discovered at sites which are potassium-argon
  dated to 3.1 and 2.5 million years ago.

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Africanus continued

• A. africanus was efficiently bi-pedal and
  upright, and the posture suggested by the
  alignment of skull and spine is like our own.
  This family group--a nuclear family, apparently,
  and not the extended kinship group which would
  most probably have characterized the life-style
  of this species--is also shown as dark-skinned
  and relatively hairless.

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Australopithicus robustus

• These australopithicines (ape species) are small
  brained (about 400 cc) compared to human species
  contemporaneous with them, and they are not
  regarded as ancestral to human beings.
• Their huge teeth and skulls, often with prominent
  dorsal crests to which large jaw muscles
  attached, show that they specialized in eating
  tough plant material. They were apparently
  vegetarians, while our ancestors evolved as
  omnivores with a taste for meat.

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Would you date this guy?
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Yum yums

• Hominids lived among the great predators of the
  African plains, and they must therefore have
  often played the role of hunted prey.
  
• It is also possible that robustus was preyed upon
  by early human (genus Homo) species, who were
  omnivorous.
  

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Robustus

• Australopithicus robustus and closely related
  species are known to have lived from at least 2
  to approximately 1 million years ago in eastern
  and southern Africa.

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Homo habilis The first human species

• Homo habilis is the earliest known species of the
  genus Homo that is, the first human species. It
  existed from approximately 2.2 to 1.6 million
  years ago in east Africa.

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Homo habilis

• H. habilis brains are about 30 larger than those
  of A. africanus.
  
• Lived in open bush and savannah country in east
  Africa. This must must have been a very
  challenging environment, filled with large
  predators.

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Habilis

• Homo habilis ("handy man") qualifies as a human
  almost solely by skeletal anatomy, which is quite
  like our own. Very little is known of its life or
  mental capabilities, athough the stone tools
  shown above are thought to have been fashioned by
  this species.

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Food for thought

• Was Homo habilis a hunter of large game and a
  successful competitor with the great predators of
  Africa--lions, leopards, hyenas? Or was this
  species an opportunistic taker of small game and
  a scavenger? Present evidence cannot answer the
  question, but a scavenging role seems more
  likely.

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Habilis

• Homo habilis was first discovered in 1959 in the
  Olduvai gorge in Tanzania. The nearly complete
  skull of H. habilis pictured here (inset) was
  discovered in 1972 at Koobi Fora on the shores of
  lake Turkana in Kenya. Its age is estimated at
  1.8 million years and its brain capacity at 800
  cc.

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Homo Erectus
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Homo Erectus

• Homo erectus lived from approximately 2 million
  to around 400,000 years ago.
  
• Homo erectus is a large brained species, with
  adult brains ranging from 900 to 1200 cc.
  
• Homo erectus was an accomplished tool maker and
  tool user Hand-axes were widely used in addition
  to sharp-edged flakes.

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Homo Erectus

• The tools of Homo erectus are the first in the
  fossil record to show conscious design of any
  complexity. Wooden tools and weapons are also
  assumed to be present in the tool kit of this
  species, but none has been preserved in the
  fossil record.

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Homo Erectus

• H. Erectus may have been the first species to use
  and control fire. This milestone in human
  development occurred 1 to l.5 million years ago.
  Control of fire may have enabled humans to move
  out of Africa and into colder climates in Europe
  and Asia.

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Homo Erectus

• The earliest specimens of homo erectus are found
  in Africa, but, sometime after 1 million years
  ago, homo erectus apparently migrated out of
  Arica. Tools and remains of this species have
  been found widely distributed in Europe and Asia.
  Homo erectus is thus the first human species to
  migrate out of Africa and adapt to a variety of
  old world environments.

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Homo Erectus

• The earliest homo erectus finds are in the rift
  valley of Africa and in south Africa. Homo
  erectus co-existed with other species of hominids
  such as A. africanus and the robust
  autralopithicines. Stone tools and camp sites are
  widely distributed over Africa, including sites
  in what is now the Sahara desert. By at least 1
  million years ago, H. Erectus migrated out of
  Africa to Asia and Europe.

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Homo Erectus
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Homo Sapiens Earliest Forms of Our Own Species

• The surviving physical evidence, from skulls such
  as these, suggests that the transition from homo
  erectus to homo sapiens, the earliest forms of
  our own species, occurred approximately 300,000
  to 400,000 years ago. At the same time, more
  detail begins to be preserved in the fossil
  record, such as wooden tools and weapons which
  give evidence of a hunting life-style.

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Homo Sapien

• The well-preserved skull at the left was found in
  Germany and is believed to be that of an archaic
  homo sapiens woman who lived approximately
  250,000 years ago. She has a large cranium with a
  high forehead and less massive brow ridges than
  are typical in homo erectus Similarly, the eye
  sockets are larger and more angular than in homo
  erectus.

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Sapien Sites in Europe
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Homo Sapiens neandertalensis

• The Neanderthals remain something of a mystery in
  the story of human descent. Scientists still
  debate whether they are a closely related
  sub-species of modern humans or represent a
  collateral line of late Homo erectus, related to
  but not ancestral to modern humans. Below are two
  artists' depictions of Neanderthal life in
  ice-age Europe.

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Homo Sapiens neanderthalensis

• At first glance, Neanderthal remains appear
  primitive and crude, rather like Homo erectus and
  quite different from modern humans. Their arm and
  leg bones were, in fact, approximately twice as
  thick as ours, suggesting their immense strength
  and the rugged conditions of their existence.
  Otherwise, their bodies are strikingly modern.

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Homo sapiens neanderthalensis

• Homo sapiens neanderthalensis--"Neanderthal
  man"--was a robust human species occupying Europe
  and western Asia from approximately 135,000 to
  30,000 years ago. They flourished in both warm
  interglacial periods and in the challenging
  conditions of glacial advance.

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Homo Sapiens neanderthalensis

• They had prominent noses, long faces with sloping
  foreheads and big skulls. Their average brain
  capacity (1400-1500 cc) actually exceeds that of
  modern humans-- although the configuration of
  parts of the brain is different. The speech areas
  of the Neanderthal brain are not as developed as
  ours and the forebrain is smaller.

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Homo Sapiens neanderthalensis

• The Neanderthal were the first humans to live in
  ice age conditions, surviving by hunting the
  largest and most formidable Pleistocene
  mammals--the mammoth, wooly rhinoceros, and wild
  cattle. They competed with large wolves and lions
  in an extremely harsh ice age environment.

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Homo Sapiens neanderthalensis
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Homo Sapiens neanderthalensis

• Neanderthal sites often reveal evidence of
  cultural practices. The image at left is a museum
  reconstruction of a Neanderthal cave burial at
  Dordogne, France. The deceased was buried in a
  fetal position with tools and food A bear skull
  lies at the edge of the grave. Flower pollen
  found in the grave suggests that medicinal plants
  were scattered over the body as well. These
  practices obviously suggest complex beliefs and
  rituals.

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Homo Sapiens neanderthalensis

• Neanderthals disappeared shortly after the time
  that modern humans appeared in Europe. It is not
  clear whether Neanderthals were out-competed by
  our ancestors, directly exterminated, or absorbed
  into the gene pool of modern humans. The first
  possibility appears most likely, given present
  evidence.

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Homo Sapiens Sapiens

• The H. sapiens sapiens skull is smaller and more
  compact and the face is much less elongated than
  the Neanderthal the modern human skull has a
  higher forehead, less prominent brow-ridges and
  smaller teeth. Modern humans are typically much
  less robust in body form and skeleton than
  Neanderthals.

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Homo Sapiens Sapiens
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Homo Sapiens Sapiens

• The necklace at far right contains the claws and
  teeth of cave bear and the teeth of a lion. Human
  beings are probably unique in their response to
  predators--the animals which prey upon them
  humans actively seek out and attack feared
  predators and attempt to magically appropriate
  their powers by consuming their flesh or adorning
  themselves with symbols of their strength.

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Homo Sapiens Sapiens

• Dozens of cave sites have been found in Europe
  with remarkable paintings and other art work
  dating from the period of intense cold,
  25,000-14,000 years ago.

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Homo Sapiens Sapiens
Cave sites are still being discovered in Europe.
Cave art is found usually deep underground, far
removed from the living areas of the caves, which
helps account for their preservation.
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Homo Sapiens Sapiens
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Homo Sapiens Sapiens
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Homo Sapiens Sapiens

• Trip to Lascaux

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Links to Information

• The Physical Characteristics of Humans
  http//www.wsu.edu/gened/learn-modules/top_longfor
  /phychar/culture-humans-1one.html