Human Evolution

The evolution of archaic humans was likely some type of punctuated equilibrium. Remember that this means the evolution happened relatively quickly over a short period of time. Brain size increased from about 900 milliliters in Homo erectus to about 1300 milliliters. It reached a peak and has since started to decline in modern mankind.

Archaic humans most likely used language for the first time. This is based on what we know of the brain size in these humans and the fact that they likely lived in larger groups. It is argued that, if humans lived in large groups, they must have had language in order to stay together.

HUMAN EVOLUTION

Human evolution started with the first evolutionary strides of primates. There are several terms used to describe human evolution you should know about in order to understand how humans have evolved:

1. Hominoid—this defines an ape, which also includes the gibbons and the hominids in general.

2. Hominid—this defines the great apes, including gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees, and humans.

3. Hominine—this defines the subfamily that includes gorillas, humans, and chimpanzees, but doesn’t include orangutans.

4. Hominin—this defines the Hominini tribe, which includes chimpanzees and humans.

5. Homininan—this includes humans and their ancestral relatives but doesn’t include chimpanzees

6. Human—this defines only Homo sapiens, of which modern humans are the only extant species.

The process of human evolution requires the development of language and bipedalism. This was never a linear ascension but was more web-like because it involved a great deal of interbreeding with archaic human forms until there was the ascension of modern man. Everyone has a small number of Neanderthal genes in their DNA.

In terms of relatedness, the first separation away from other great apes occurred with the gibbon family about 15 to 20 million years ago. Next, there was the divergence from the orangutan family about 14 million years ago. Then came the breakoff from the gorilla family about 8