6. Mother of man - 3.2 million years ago
One fossil discovery above all
has transformed views of how
we became human. But who
was Lucy, and why is she so
important to human evolution?
Australopithecus Afarensis
7. Lucy was discovered in 1974
by anthropologist Professor
Donald Johanson and his
student Tom Gray in a maze of
ravines at Hadar in northern
Ethiopia.
8.
9. Like a chimpanzee, Lucy had a small
brain, long, dangly arms, short legs
and a cone-shaped thorax with a
large belly. But the structure of her
knee and pelvis show that she
routinely walked upright on two
legs, like us.
10. This form of locomotion,
known as 'bipedalism', is the
single most important
difference between humans
and apes, placing Lucy firmly
within the human family.
12. The breakthrough in his ideas came in the Galapagos
Islands, 500 miles west of South America.
13. Controversy
Darwin's theory was that
homo sapiens was simply
another form of animal. It
made it seem possible that
even people might just
have evolved - quite
possibly from apes
14.
15. Natural Selection
1. Adaptation: all 2. Variation: all
organisms adapt to organisms are variable
their environments. in their traits.
3. Since not all organisms are equally well adapted to their
environment, some will survive and reproduce better
than others -- this is known as natural selection. Sometimes this
is also referred to as "survival of the fittest".
16.
17. Humans have a highly developed cerebral cortex which
is responsible for memory and:
attention
perceptual awareness
reasoning and problem solving
language
consciousness.
18. Studies suggest that the shift to bipedalism
meant the upper limbs were free to engage in
other activities. This led to a sharp increase in
learning as the hands were used to manipulate
the environment around them.
20. Homo Erectus
HOMO HEIDELBERGENSIS
Homo Sapien
Homo Floresiensis
Homo Habilis HOMO NEANDERTHALENSIS
21.
22. Hominids
1 HOMO HABILIS ~ NICKNAME: Handyman LIVED: 2.4 to 1.6 million years ago HABITAT:
Tropical Africa DIET: Omnivorous – nuts, seeds, tubers, fruits, some meat
2 HOMO SAPIEN ~ NICKNAME: Human LIVED: 200,000 years ago to present HABITAT: All
DIET: Omnivorous - meat, vegetables, tubers, nuts, pizza, sushi
3 HOMO FLORESIENSIS ~ NICKNAME: Hobbit LIVED: 95,000 to 13,000 years ago HABITAT:
Flores, Indonesia (tropical) DIET: Omnivorous - meat included pygmy stegodon, giant rat
4 HOMO ERECTUS ~ NICKNAME: Erectus LIVED: 1.8 million years to 100,000 years ago
HABITAT: Tropical to temperate - Africa, Asia, Europe DIET: Omnivorous - meat, tubers,
fruits, nuts
5 PARANTHROPUS BOISEI ~ NICKNAME: Nutcracker man LIVED: 2.3 to 1.4 million years
ago HABITAT: Tropical Africa DIET: Omnivorous - nuts, seeds, leaves, tubers, fruits, maybe
some meat
6 HOMO HEIDELBERGENSIS ~ NICKNAME: Goliath LIVED: 700,000 to 300,000 years ago
HABITAT: Temperate and tropical, Africa and Europe DIET: Omnivorous - meat, vegetables,
tubers, nuts
7 HOMO NEANDERTHALENSIS ~ NICKNAME: Neanderthal LIVED: 250,000 to 30,000 years
ago HABITAT: Europe and Western Asia DIET: Relied heavily on meat, such as bison, deer
and musk ox
