Australopithecus

Australopithecus africanus In the greatest debate of anthropology lies the all consuming desire to know where we as humans come from. Who were our ancestors and what made them so different from us? It is debated if Australopithecus africanus or Australopithecus afarensis is the direct ancestor to the genus homo. Through critical evaluation of the features of the skeleton, diet and dentition, and use of bipedality, it is evident that A. africanus is a direct ancestor to modern humans while still possessing features from both modern humans and previous hominins. What makes A. africanus primarily more human-like than other australopithecines are its teeth and premolars. They had relatively large molars and premolars with shorter canines, the…

Title of the Essay We Australopithecus afarensis had been living in the northeastern Africa ever since our first generation. Though not being known as the most powerful living species here, our ingrained talent in arboreal life helped us gain advantage over many other species in chance of survival. For centuries we firmly believed in the idea of all creatures were quadrupedal and we had never seen any exception. It was by accident that we discovered a group of species that featured bipedalism…

Paranthropus larger braincases than Australopithecus. Paranthropus is associated with stone tools both in southern and eastern Africa, and there is a considerable information they made and utilized by these robust australopithecines. Most the early Homo was the tool maker, and some of the hand fossils from Swartkrans, South Africa, indicate that the hand of Paranthropus robustus adapted for precision grasping and tool use. Most Paranthropus species seem almost not have language for their…

splitters paradigm results in different models of Hominin phylogeny. Ardipithecus lived 5.8-5.5 million year ago and Ardipithecus has upright, two legs and seems to have lived in woodland habitat. Their fossils suggest that they had cranial, facial, dental, and upper limb bones. They are ape like in size, anatomy and habitat. But they are categorized as Homini because of their bipedalism. Ardipithecus is the earliest widely accepted hominin genus who live Lumpur tree is saying that…

is the specific conditions required for attaining the fossilization of an organism – this leaves many organisms, or perhaps species of organisms based on their habitat, without documentation. It is still unsure the exact amount of hominine species that existed; however, with new fossils being discovered occasionally (take “Lucy” for example), human’s evolutionary timeline becomes less muddled. The earliest years of transition after the lineage split are poorly documented. The earliest…

Scientific Research, and Donald Carl Johanson, 34, of Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, discovered stone instruments going back 2.6 million years in the Afar area of Ethiopia. After two years their group made a considerably more sensational disclosure. On November 24, 1974, Donald Johanson and his understudy Tom Gray were reviewing a site named Hadar in the Afar area of Ethiopia, East -Africa when they saw a bone sticking out of the ground. They started…

important aspect to better understand how modern-day humans developed. The oldest of the species in the chart above is Australopithecus afarensis. Australopithecus afarensis appeared roughly 3.85 - 2.95 million years ago; while it more closely resembled an ape, the evolutionary development into modern humans was beginning. Australopithecus afarensis had more humanlike teeth, the canines were smaller than those found in modern apes and the jaw shape was somewhere between the rectangular shape…

Italian team unearths 800k year old Homo Erectus footprint A team of Italian researchers have possibly uncovered the oldest ever fossilized footprint left behind by modern man's early ancestor, Homo Erectus. The prints are thought to date back some 800,000 years and were unearthed in the desserts of south eastern Eritrea. “The footprints will reveal a lot about the evolution of man, because they provide vital clues as to our ancestors gait and locomotion,” Explained Alfredo Coppa, the…

The ancestry of the Malagan society begins with the discovery of the Australopithecus afarensis (A. afarensis) which split off and evolved into a group known as the Homo erectus (H. erectus) species which finally became the Archaic Homo sapiens (H. sapiens). As of today the Malagans are AMH’s or anatomically modern humans. First species on the evolutionary timeline of the Malagans would be A. afarensis. A. afarensis fossil evidence was found in 2 sites. The first of those sites being Laetoli in…

Becoming human was a process and still is a process that is happening that is making us the most advanced species on earth. Everyday scientist are finding new evidence on how we all came to be as humans. The starting point has always stayed the same though. We evolved from a from a special type primate. It all started when our ape ancestors started walking on their back legs changing their posture and also changing their minds. Australopithecus afarensis were primates that were proven to be…