The Evolution of Humanity
99.99999% of our evolutionary history follows the same line as chimpanzees, who arose in the surge of mammals following the death of the dinosaurs. That is until about six million years ago, when two creatures diverged from a common ancestor. One was to evolve into chimpanzees and the other into human beings.
About four million years ago, a new species of ape, Australopithecus, evolved in the tropical forests of Africa. They were as small as primary school children but were the first mammals to walk upright on two legs and became the dominant species of ape until Homo habilis evolved about two and a half million years ago.
Homo habilis had larger brains than the Australopithecus and were better equipped to learn by imitation. When one took a stone and shaped it into a hand axe, others could see how it was done and everyone could learn. Axe heads were manufactured in their thousands, apparently sometimes just for pleasure. Spears and axes were made that were too large and heavy to be used, giving them a symbolic purpose. The Australopithecus could not grasp this knowledge and vanished along with many of the other early species of two legged apes.
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Australopithecus Image credit: Teacher's Network Homo habilis Image credit: Teacher's Network
Almost two million years ago, Homo erectus arose, possibly having evolved directly from habilis. Their lives overlapped until just under one and a half million years ago when habilis died out. Homo erectus explored the Earth with a curiosity that defies explanation, travelling as far as China. Homo erectus were the first species to hunt, to use fire, to make complex tools and to build campsites. They looked after each other when they were weak or frail and their brain evolved an area for speech that their ancestors had never had. The first language was probably developed so that people could cooperate in order to hunt pack animals like hyenas. This gestured language then evolved into a simple verbal language which probably began with onomatopoeia, words that sound like what they represent, such as 'shh' to warn of snakes. The invention of language possibly led to them losing touch with their understanding of other animals, as they noticed they were different and begun to think of themselves as such. Homo erectus died out just over a million years ago.
Homo erectus Image credit: Teacher's Network Neanderthals
Two hundred thousand years ago a new species of ape arose, these were Homo sapiens, human beings, they travelled the world in small communities, displacing all of the other less intelligent species wherever they went. The human's brains evolved more rapidly than any apes had before, their heads grew disproportionately larger than their bodies and, for the first time, giving birth became painful. Despite taking all of the room they physically can, human children are still born whilst they are young and helpless. They have the longest childhood, relative to their life span, than any other animal and because of this they can learn more from others. They have a vast ability to adapt to new situations and can think for themselves.
The first humans travelled to Israel where they met another species of upright walking ape, the Neanderthals. Neanderthals evolved just over one hundred thousand years ago and died out about thirty thousand years ago, possibly due to the start of another ice age. They proved to be tougher than humans in some respects, living in the snow at a time when polar bears, cave lions and woolly rhinos walked across Europe. They had larger brains than humans and learnt how to make tools and mimic the jewellery humans wore, necklaces made of shells and ivory. But they never learnt to talk and couldn't master the same long range weapons that the humans had. Without the same understanding of arrows and spears they got hurt far more often. Elderly people were common in groups of humans but were nonexistent amongst Neanderthals.
Burial ceremonies were performed by all types of Stone Age man. Graves from over twenty four thousand years ago show that the dead were sometimes buried with jewellery made of shells and mammoth ivory. These were produced in quantities so vast that it implies mass production. Seventeen thousand years ago, whilst Europe was still engulfed in an ice age and sabre tooth tigers roamed the land, humans lived in caves and huts built with mammoth tusks and bone. Cave paintings were complex, some were life-sized and most to scale, the most commonly painted creature in Europe was the wild horse. The same symbols appear over vast regions, suggesting the beginnings of a common written language.
Prehistoric men and women were thought to have had roughly equal roles, women hunted the smaller animals and butchered the meat whilst the men hunted larger animals. All of the food was shared with the whole group, including the elderly or sick. Traditionally the hunter got the worse part of the meat but was respected for sharing.
Ten thousand years ago, the Earth became warm enough for people to farm. The domestic dog had first appeared seven thousand years earlier and goats, cows and cats were domesticated within a few thousand years. Towns and then cities soon began to develop as people formed larger and larger groups. Humans now live in the largest social group of any animal on Earth and are the most closely related species of animals. A group of just over fifty chimpanzees in West Africa were shown to have more genetic diversity than the whole human race.