1. Some early common ancestors of Homo sapiens (modern humans)
Hominid Evolution
Some early common ancestors of Homo sapiens
(modern humans)

2. Humans and other primates share a common ancestor

3. Many fossils are found in Sedimentary Rocks

4. Australopithecus afarensis (Lucy’s species)

5. Lucy continued A.afarensis 3-4 million years ago Knee Bones
Brain size….430cc (close to a chimpanzee)
                            

6. U-shaped jaw is more apelike (ours is more V-shaped)

7. A. afarensis footprint Age:3
A. afarensis footprint Age:3.6 million years Date of Discovery Location:Tanzania

8. Afarensis Footprints…3.5 mil yrs. old

9. What “LUCY” may have looked like.

10. 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

11. Australopithecus africanus…. South Africa

12. Taung Child…A. africanus 2.5-3.3 million years ago

13. Another view of the A. africanus child

14. Australopithecus africanus Brain Size…
Australopithecus africanus Brain Size….440 cc Lack of browbridges on skull and less projecting face

15. A. africanus adult discovered in 1947…. brain = 485 cc, 2
A. africanus adult discovered in 1947…..brain = 485 cc, 2.5 million years old

16. A. robustus …Discovered by 1994 at the Drimolen cave in South Africa
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

17. A. boisei Estimated age ~ 1
A. boisei Estimated age ~ 1.7 million years Brain size = 510cc Discovered 1969 Kenya

18. Homo habilus….Tanzania

19. “The Handy Man” (Homo habilus)
Use of simple stone tools
Brain size….600cc
1.8 million years ago

20. Homo ergaster…..Kenya

21. Homo erectus

22. 200,000—1 million years ago Brain Size….1000cc Large Browridge
Homo erectus
200,000—1 million years ago
Brain Size….1000cc
Large Browridge

23. 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.

24. Teeth similar to ours…but a bit larger Use of FIRE and tools

25. Homo neanderthalis
                                                         

26. Neanderthals………. Short, strong body Large rounded nasal opening
Adapted to cold climates of the
Pleistocene Ice Age
30, ,000 years ago
Some remains found in graves with flowers???

27. 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

28. Cro-magnon 30,000 yrs old Found in France Homo sapiens

29. Compare neanderthal to cro-magon

30. H. floresiensis species 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 height
Brain=417cc