Development of Early Humans

and the Neolithic Age

Humanitas-international.org

Early HumansF

Early HumansAustralopithecine and other early hominin fossils have been found only in Africa. The majority of them were discovered in East and South Africa. However, some also were found in Chad, which is located in North Central Africa. The following species are the most widely accepted ones:

1. Australopithecus anamensis

2. Australopithecus afarensis

3. Australopithecus africanus

4. Paranthropus aethiopicus (or Australopithecus aethiopicus)

5. Paranthropus boisei (or Australopithecus boisei)

6. Paranthropus robustus (or Australopithecus robustus)

Early HumansAustralopithecine Species

Australopithecus anamensis may have been the earliest australopithecine species. They lived about 4.2-3.9 million years ago in East Africa. Unfortunately, little is known about them due to the scarcity of their fossils and the fact that the ones that have been found are highly fragmentary. This species apparently was descended from Ardipithecus ramidus, which lived around 4.4 million years ago, or an even earlier ape/hominin transitional species near the beginning of the Pliocene Epoch. Anamensis was bipedal but may still have been an efficient tree climber.

Australopithecus afarensis lived about 3.7-3.0 million years ago in East Africa. Skeletally, they were still somewhat transitional from earlier ape species. This can be seen in their legs which were relatively shorter than those of the later australopithecines and humans.

Australopithecus africanus lived about 3.3-2.5 million years ago in South and East Africa. Skeletally, they were less ape-like than earlier species of australopithecines but were still usually small and light in frame like afarensis. However, the teeth of africanus were in some ways more like humans than like afarensis. Specifically, the front teeth of africanus were relatively large like ours and their canine teeth did not project beyond the others.

Early HumansParanthropoid Species

Paranthropus aethiopicus (the "black skull") other than it apparently was one of the earliest robust species--it lived about 2.5 million years ago. So far, this species has been found only in East Africa. Since it had a smaller brain than the other robust species and it was early, aethiopicus is thought to be a transitional form from one of the gracile species that came before. It had an unusually large sagittal crest.

Paranthropus robustus was a South African robust species that lived about 2.0-1.4 million years ago. They had strong jaws and very large molar and premolar teeth with thick enamel. Males also had pronounced sagittal crests, though not as large as the species listed next.

Paranthropus boisei was a super-robust East African species that lived about 2.0-1.4 million years ago. They tended to be more massive and beefy-looking even than Paranthropus robustus. Male boisei were especially muscular. Like their South African cousins, robustus, they had prominent sagittal crests and very large grinding teeth with thick enamel. These teeth would have been capable of cracking hard nuts and dry seeds.

Early Humanshttp://anthro.palomar.edu/hominid/australo_2.htm

Early HumansReplacement Model

Christopher Stringer and Peter Andrews proposes that modern humans evolved from archaic humans 200,000-150,000 years ago only in Africa and then some of them migrated into the rest of the Old World replacing all of the Neandertals and other late archaic humans beginning around 60,000-40,000 years ago or somewhat earlier. If this interpretation of the fossil record is correct, all people today share a relatively modern African ancestry.

Regional Continuity Model

(or multiregional evolution model) advocated by Milford Wolpoff proposes that modern humans evolved more or less simultaneously in all major regions of the Old World from local archaic humans. Supporters of this model believe that the ultimate common ancestor of all modern people was an early Homo erectus in Africa who lived at least 1.8 million years ago. It is further suggested that since then there was sufficient gene flow between Europe, Africa, and Asia to prevent long-term reproductive isolation and the subsequent evolution of distinct regional species.

Early HumansF

Early HumansAssimilation Model

The assimilation (or partial replacement) model takes a middle ground and incorporates both of the old models. Gunter Brauer, of the University of Hamburg in Germany, proposes that the first modern humans did evolve in Africa, but when they migrated into other regions they did not simply replace existing human populations. Rather, they interbred to a limited degree with late archaic humans resulting in hybrid populations.

In 2003, a discovery was made in a Romanian cave named Peştera cu Oase that supports this hypothesis. It was a partial skeleton of a 15-16 year old male Homo sapiens who lived about 30,000 years ago or a bit earlier. He had a mix of old and new anatomical features. The skull had characteristics of both modern and archaic humans.

Alan Templeton, also of Washington University, reported that a computer-based analysis of 10 different human DNA sequences indicates that there has been interbreeding between people living in Asia, Europe, and Africa for at least 600,000 years.

Early HumansExpansion out from the Old World

Homo sapiens began migrating into the lower latitudes of East Asia by at least 70,000 years ago.

Homo sapiens from Southeast Asia travelled to Australia by 46,000 years ago and possibly as early as 60,000 years ago. Because Australia was not connected to Southeast Asia by land, it is probable that these first Australian Aborigines arrived by simple boats or rafts.

Modern humans reached the Japanese Islands by 30,000 years ago or somewhat earlier.

Around 35,000-30,000 years ago, Homo sapiens big game hunters moved into Northeastern Siberia. Some of them migrated into North America via the Bering Plain, or Beringia by 20,000-15,000 years ago.

Some Homo sapiens may have reached the Americas a bit earlier than this, but the evidence is still considered questionable by most paleoanthropologists. The Bering Plain intercontinental land connection appeared between Siberia and Alaska as a result of sea levels dropping up to 450 feet (137 m.) during the final major cold period of the last ice age. Until that time, all human evolution had occurred in the Old World.

http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo2/mod_homo_4.htm

Early HumansEarly Humans

Humans are members of the genus Homo modern people are Homo sapiens. The immediate ancestors of early humans were most likely late australopithecines. At present, the leading contender for that ancestral species is Australopithecus garhi . There may have been one or possibly two species of the first humans living in East Africa--Homo rudolfensis and Homo habilis.

Early transitional human fossils were first discovered in 1960 by Louis and Mary Leakey at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. The Leakeys named them Homo habilis (Latin for "handy or skilled human") because they apparently made stone tools. Similar fossils were found at East Lake Turkana in Kenya by Richard Leakey's team of fieldworkers that began searching there in 1969. These latter specimens were named Homo rudolfensis after Lake Rudolf (i.e., the former name for Lake Turkana).

Early transitional humans had brains that on average were

about 35% larger than those of Australopithecus africanus.

In fact, it is beginning with Homo habilis that our ancestors

finally had brains that were consistently bigger than those

of the great apes.

As the early human cranium, or brain case, began to enlarge

in response to increased brain size, the mouth became smaller.

http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo/homo_1.htm

Early HumansEarly Humans

Homo erectus were anatomically much like modern humans from the neck down.

Their arm and leg bones were essentially the same as modern people in shape and relative proportions. This strongly supports the view that they were equal to us in their ability to walk and run bipedality.

It has been suggested that this capability would have allowed them to run down small and even medium size game animals on the tropical savannas of East Africa.

Their foreheads were shallow, sloping back from very prominent bony brow ridges

Homo erectus teeth were generally intermediate between modern humans and the australopithecines in shape and size.

http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo/homo_2.htm

Early HumansEarly Humans Culture

Hunters/Gathers

--Located in Central and Southern Africa

--Traveled in small groups

--Pre-determined patterns to gather food

Homo Sapiens Neanderthal found in the Neander Valley in Germany in 1857

--lived 135,000—30,000 years ago

--arms and legs twice as thick as ours

--long faces with sloping foreheads

--buried their dead/believed in an afterlife

Homo-sapiens Cro-Magnon

--hunted caribou, mammoth and reindeer herds

--some lived to middle age or older

--flower pollen on graves indicates beliefs and rituals

--It is believed that homo sapiens killed off neanderthal

Early HumansEarly Humans Culture

Periodization

The Stone Age

The development of human cultures when tools and weapons were made of stone. They are divided into three periods:

Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) 500,000-10,000 years ago

Tools such as chipped pebbles, stone or bone implements were common.

Mesolithic (Middle Stone age) 10,000-8,000 years ago

Technology advances and the use of the microlith (triangular-shaped blade), bow and arrow and the fish hook are common

Neolithic (New Stone Age) 8,000-5,000

Time period of the Neolithic Revolution, why? People went from food gathering to food producing

Early HumansEarly Humans Culture

Periodization

Paleolithic and Mesolithic

--hunters and gathers followed predetermined paths for food

--Society of 30 to 50 people in a clan, close together collectivistic

Versus

Neolithic

--beginning of agriculture, why? Large animals breed slowly, smaller animals breed

quicker

--Impersonal structure, many individualistic based on wealth

--Learned how to weave