Human Origins

1. Human Origins

2. Human as primates • The primates are an order of mammals, including apes, monkeys, tarsiers and lemurs. • They were named primates because they were considered the highest order of animals. • We are also categorized under primates, due to our anatomical similarities.

3. Characteristics similar to humans. • Grasping limbs, with long fingers and a separated opposable thumb. • Mobile arms, with shoulder joints allowing movement in three planes and the bones of the shoulder girdle allowing weight to be transferred via the arms. • Stereoscopic vision, with forward facing eyes on a flattened face, giving overlapping fields of view. • Skull modified for upright posture.

4. Human origins Ardipthecusramidus (4.4 million years) They suggest characters intermediate between chimpanzees and Australopithecus: • Small numbers of large molars, like chimps • Incisors slightly smaller than those of chimps • Canines blunt and projecting less than nose of chimps • Foramen magnum (hole through which spinal cord enters the skull) further forward than in apes, suggesting Ardipithecus was at least partially bipedal.

5. Human origwins

6. Trends in hominid fossils • Hominids are members of the family Hominidae – the family that includes humans. • A notable feature of this family I walking on two - legs bipedalism. • Homo sapiens is currently the only species of hominid but other species existed in the past.

7. Trends in hominid fossils • AT various stages in hominid evolution, several species almost certainly co-existed, for example Homo sapiens with Homo neanderthalensis. • Many hominid fossils have been found, dated and assigned to a species.

8. Hominid fossils • These fossils shows the following evolutionary threads: • Including increasing adaptation to bipedalism. • Increasing brain size in relation to body size.

9. Brain sizes