The Evolution of Home: English Interiors for a New Era

Product Information

In the Early Miocene, about 22million years ago, the many kinds of arboreally adapted primitive catarrhines from East Africa suggest a long history of prior diversification. Fossils at 20million years ago include fragments attributed to Victoriapithecus, the earliest Old World monkey. Among the genera thought to be in the ape lineage leading up to 13million years ago are Proconsul, Rangwapithecus, Dendropithecus, Limnopithecus, Nacholapithecus, Equatorius, Nyanzapithecus, Afropithecus, Heliopithecus, and Kenyapithecus, all from East Africa. Neanderthals also had significantly larger brains, as shown from brain endocasts, casting doubt on their intellectual inferiority to modern humans. However, the higher body mass of Neanderthals may have required larger brain mass for body control. [80] Also, recent research by Pearce, Stringer, and Dunbar has shown important differences in brain architecture. The larger size of the Neanderthal orbital chamber and occipital lobe suggests that they had a better visual acuity than modern humans, useful in the dimmer light of glacial Europe. Kuhlwilm M, Gronau I, Hubisz MJ, de Filippo C, Prado-Martinez J, Kircher M, Fu Q, Burbano HA, Lalueza-Fox C, de la Rasilla M, Rosas A, Rudan P, Brajkovic D, Kucan Ž, Gušic I, Marques-Bonet T, Andrés AM, Viola B, Pääbo S, Meyer M, Siepel A, Castellano S (2016). "Ancient gene flow from early modern humans into Eastern Neanderthals". Nature. 530 (7591): 429–433. Bibcode: 2016Natur.530..429K. doi: 10.1038/nature16544. PMC 4933530. PMID 26886800.

Until about 50,000–40,000 years ago, the use of stone tools seems to have progressed stepwise. Each phase ( H.habilis, H.ergaster, H.neanderthalensis) marked a new technology, followed by very slow development until the next phase. Currently paleoanthropologists are debating whether these Homo species possessed some or many modern human behaviors. They seem to have been culturally conservative, maintaining the same technologies and foraging patterns over very long periods. Homo sapiens is the only extant species of its genus, Homo. While some (extinct) Homo species might have been ancestors of Homo sapiens, many, perhaps most, were likely "cousins", having speciated away from the ancestral hominin line. [48] [49] There is yet no consensus as to which of these groups should be considered a separate species and which should be a subspecies; this may be due to the dearth of fossils or to the slight differences used to classify species in the genus Homo. [49] The Sahara pump theory (describing an occasionally passable "wet" Sahara desert) provides one possible explanation of the early variation in the genus Homo.

The Loudest Underwater Sound Ever Recorded Has No Scientific Explanation

Krings, Matthias; Stone, Anne; Schmitz, Ralf W.; etal. (July 11, 1997). "Neandertal DNA sequences and the origin of modern humans". Cell. 90 (1): 19–30. doi: 10.1016/S0092-8674(00)80310-4. hdl: 11858/00-001M-0000-0025-0960-8. ISSN 0092-8674. PMID 9230299. S2CID 13581775. Lordkipanidze, David; Vekua, Abesalom; Ferring, Reid; etal. (November 2006). "A fourth hominin skull from Dmanisi, Georgia". The Anatomical Record Part A: Discoveries in Molecular, Cellular, and Evolutionary Biology. 288A (11): 1146–1157. doi: 10.1002/ar.a.20379. ISSN 1552-4884. PMID 17031841. The earliest member of the genus Homo is Homo habilis which evolved around 2.8million years ago. [32] H.habilis is the first species for which we have positive evidence of the use of stone tools. They developed the Oldowan lithic technology, named after the Olduvai Gorge in which the first specimens were found. Some scientists consider Homo rudolfensis, a larger bodied group of fossils with similar morphology to the original H.habilis fossils, to be a separate species, while others consider them to be part of H.habilis—simply representing intraspecies variation, or perhaps even sexual dimorphism. The brains of these early hominins were about the same size as that of a chimpanzee, and their main adaptation was bipedalism as an adaptation to terrestrial living. The human species eventually developed a much larger brain than that of other primates—typically 1,330cm 3 (81cuin) in modern humans, nearly three times the size of a chimpanzee or gorilla brain. [136] After a period of stasis with Australopithecus anamensis and Ardipithecus, species which had smaller brains as a result of their bipedal locomotion, [137] the pattern of encephalization started with Homo habilis, whose 600cm 3 (37cuin) brain was slightly larger than that of chimpanzees. This evolution continued in Homo erectus with 800–1,100cm 3 (49–67cuin), and reached a maximum in Neanderthals with 1,200–1,900cm 3 (73–116cuin), larger even than modern Homo sapiens. This brain increase manifested during postnatal brain growth, far exceeding that of other apes ( heterochrony). It also allowed for extended periods of social learning and language acquisition in juvenile humans, beginning as much as 2million years ago. Encephalization may be due to a dependency on calorie-dense, difficult-to-acquire food. [138] Between 400,000 years ago and the second interglacial period in the Middle Pleistocene, around 250,000 years ago, the trend in intra-cranial volume expansion and the elaboration of stone tool technologies developed, providing evidence for a transition from H.erectus to H.sapiens. The direct evidence suggests there was a migration of H.erectus out of Africa, then a further speciation of H.sapiens from H.erectus in Africa. A subsequent migration (both within and out of Africa) eventually replaced the earlier dispersed H.erectus. This migration and origin theory is usually referred to as the "recent single-origin hypothesis" or "out of Africa" theory. H.sapiens interbred with archaic humans both in Africa and in Eurasia, in Eurasia notably with Neanderthals and Denisovans. [43] [97]

Viegas, Jennifer (May 21, 2010). "Toothy Tree-Swinger May Be Earliest Human". Discovery News. Silver Spring, MD: Discovery Communications, LLC. Archived from the original on May 9, 2015 . Retrieved April 28, 2015. While the divergence point of the mtDNA was unexpectedly deep in time, [94] the full genomic sequence suggested the Denisovans belonged to the same lineage as Neanderthals, with the two diverging shortly after their line split from the lineage that gave rise to modern humans. [43] Modern humans are known to have overlapped with Neanderthals in Europe and the Near East for possibly more than 40,000 years, [95] and the discovery raises the possibility that Neanderthals, Denisovans, and modern humans may have co-existed and interbred. The existence of this distant branch creates a much more complex picture of humankind during the Late Pleistocene than previously thought. [93] [96] Evidence has also been found that as much as 6% of the DNA of some modern Melanesians derive from Denisovans, indicating limited interbreeding in Southeast Asia. [97] [98] H. sapiens (the adjective sapiens is Latin for "wise" or "intelligent") emerged in Africa around 300,000 years ago, likely derived from H.heidelbergensis or a related lineage. [109] [110] In September 2019, scientists reported the computerized determination, based on 260 CT scans, of a virtual skull shape of the last common human ancestor to modern humans/ H. sapiens, representative of the earliest modern humans, and suggested that modern humans arose between 260,000 and 350,000 years ago through a merging of populations in East and South Africa. [111] [112]

Zimmer, Carl (August 31, 2023). "Humanity's Ancestors Nearly Died Out, Genetic Study Suggests - The population crashed following climate change about 930,000 years ago, scientists concluded. Other experts aren't convinced by the analysis". the New York Times. Archived from the original on August 31, 2023 . Retrieved September 2, 2023.