Haeckel 's Paleontological Tree of Vertebrates (c. 1879). The evolutionary history of species has been described as a "tree" with many branches arising from a single trunk. While Haeckel's tree is outdated, it illustrates clearly the principles that more complex and accurate modern reconstructions can obscure. The timeline of human evolution outlines the major events in the evolutionary ...
Where do we come from? Many people have their own theories about the origins of humans. Science shows that human evolution goes back for millions of years on Earth.
This age did not fit the pattern of previous discoveries, or the prevailing visions of how our story began. As the oldest find at Omo-Kibosh was in Eastern Africa, where modern humans were believed to have began, it did not make sense for another human from the same time period to be dug up on another side of the continent.
DNA Suggests Modern Humans Emerged From Several Groups in Africa, Not One Scientists used computer modeling and the genomes of several hundred living people to examine our prehistoric origins
Over their evolutionary history, humans gradually developed traits such as bipedalism, dexterity, and complex language, [2] as well as interbreeding with other hominins (a tribe of the African hominid subfamily), [3] indicating that human evolution was not linear but weblike. [4][5][6][7] The study of the origins of humans involves several ...
Human evolution Human evolution is the lengthy process of change by which people originated from apelike ancestors. Scientific evidence shows that the physical and behavioral traits shared by all people originated from apelike ancestors and evolved over a period of approximately six million years. One of the earliest defining human traits, bipedalism -- the ability to walk on two legs ...
We have evidence of the first sporadic use of fire, with discolored sediments found in Koobi Fora, Kenya. An often overlooked factor that likely greatly influenced human evolution is that our ancestors decided to start cooking their food. Unless you can afford to buy the oils and supplements necessary, modern humans need to eat cooked food.
Homo sapiens - Evolution, Migration, Neanderthals: The earliest candidate for hominin status is Sahelanthropus tchadensis, based on a cranium from of Chad in north-central Africa. Announced in 2002, this specimen is dated to the period between 7 and 6 mya. The distinctive mark of Hominini, the lineage that includes humans and their direct ancestors, is generally taken to be upright land ...
The long evolutionary journey that created modern humans began with a single step—or more accurately—with the ability to walk on two legs. One of our earliest-known ancestors, Sahelanthropus ...
When did Homo sapiens first appear? Narrowing down exactly how long ago Homo sapiens emerged is difficult. It’s hard to identify early members of our species, especially when key characteristics used to define Homo sapiens didn’t all evolve at the same time.
How Did Human Life Begin? Unraveling the Mysteries of Our Origins Human life, like all life on Earth, began through a long and complex process of evolution. While the exact mechanisms are still being investigated, the prevailing scientific theory states that life originated from simple, single-celled organisms billions of years ago. These early organisms, through processes of mutation, natural ...
Our species, <i>Homo sapiens</i>, has now spread to all parts of the world but it's generally believed that we originated in Africa by about 200,000 years ago. We interacted with local archaic human populations as we colonised the globe.
Humans evolved much later in Earth's history, possibly around 1 million to 700,000 years ago, although the earliest fossil evidence dates to around 300,000 years ago.
How Did the First Person Come Alive? Unraveling the Mystery of Human Origins The question of how the first person came alive is a profound one, straddling the realms of science, philosophy, and even spirituality. Scientifically, the answer isn’t a single event of “poof, here’s a person!” but rather a gradual evolutionary process. The “first person” wasn’t born one day; instead ...
“Great leap forward”: human culture starts to change much more rapidly than before; people begin burying their dead ritually; create clothes from animal hides; and develop complex hunting ...
When did something like us first appear on the planet? It turns out there’s remarkably little agreement on this question. Fossils and DNA suggest people looking like us, anatomically modern Homo ...
New evidence shows that early humans left Africa much sooner than once thought. Did Homo sapiens evolve in many places at once?
How did human life begin? Human life began through a process called biological evolution. Scientific evidence shows that humans originated from apelike ancestors and evolved over a period of approximately six million years.