A tabular overview of the taxonomic ranking of Homo sapiens (with age estimates for each rank) is shown below. 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, began the slow transition from ape-like movement some six million years ago, but Homo sapiens wouldn’t show up for more than five million years. During that long interim, a menagerie of different human species lived, evolved and died out, intermingling and sometimes interbreeding along the way. As time went on, their bodies changed, as did their brains and their ability to think, as seen in their tools and technologies. Danuvius guggenmosi is the first-discovered Late Miocene great ape with preserved long bones, and greatly elucidates the anatomical structure and locomotion of contemporary apes. [30] It had adaptations for both hanging in trees ( suspensory behavior) and walking on two legs ( bipedalism)—whereas, among present-day hominids, humans are better adapted for the latter and the others for the former. Danuvius thus had a method of locomotion unlike any previously known ape called "extended limb clambering", walking directly along tree branches as well as using arms for suspending itself. The last common ancestor between humans and other apes possibly had a similar method of locomotion. Rubin also said analysis so far suggests human and Neanderthal DNA are some 99.5 percent to nearly 99.9 percent identical." Neanderthal bone gives DNA clues (URL accessed on November 16, 2006) A facial reconstruction of Homo heidelbergensis, a popular candidate as a common ancestor for modern humans, Neanderthals and Denisovans

The Theory That Men Evolved to Hunt and Women Evolved to

The Holozoa lineage of eukaryotes evolves many features for making cell colonies, and finally leads to the ancestor of animals (metazoans) and choanoflagellates. [5] [6] 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. Proterospongia (members of the Choanoflagellata) are the best living examples of what the ancestor of all animals may have looked like. They live in colonies, and show a primitive level of cellular specialization for different tasks. A jawbone found inside a collapsed cave on the slopes of Mount Carmel, Israel, reveals that modern humans dwelt there, alongside the Mediterranean, some 177,000 to 194,000 years ago. Not only are the jaw and teeth from Misliya Cave unambiguously similar to those seen in modern humans, they were found with sophisticated handaxes and flint tools.

Theories of Early Human Evolution

Stein, Richard A. (October 2015). "Copy Number Analysis Starts to Add Up". Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News. 35 (17): 20, 22–23. doi: 10.1089/gen.35.17.09. Last year a collection including sophisticated stone blades was discovered near Chennai, India, and dated to at least 250,000 years ago. The presence of this toolkit in India so soon after modern humans appeared in Africa suggests that other species may have also invented them independently—or that some modern humans spread the technology by leaving Africa earlier than most current thinking suggests. 100,000 to 210,000 Years Ago: Fossils Show Homo sapiens Lived Outside of Africa

Evolution | The Smithsonian Institution Introduction to Human Evolution | The Smithsonian Institution

Sexual reproduction evolves ( mitosis and meiosis) by this time at least, leading to faster evolution [4] where genes are mixed in every generation enabling greater variation for subsequent selection. Patrilineal and matrilineal most recent common ancestors (MRCAs) of living humans roughly between 200 and 100 kya [55] [56] Neanderthals once stretched across Eurasia from Portugal and the British Isles to Siberia. As Homo sapiens became more prevalent across these areas the Neanderthals faded in their turn, being generally consigned to history by some 40,000 years ago. Some evidence suggests that a few die-hards might have held on in enclaves, like Gibraltar, until perhaps 29,000 years ago. Even today traces of them remain because modern humans carry Neanderthal DNA in their genome. Raauma, Ryan; Sternera, K (2005). "Catarrhine primate divergence dates estimated from complete mitochondrial genomes" (PDF). Journal of Human Evolution. 48 (3): 237–57. doi: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2004.11.007. PMID 15737392.

New discoveries are always adding key waypoints to the chart of our human journey. This timeline of Homo sapiens features some of the best evidence documenting how we evolved. 550,000 to 750,000 Years Ago: The Beginning of the Homo sapiens Lineage Even as they acquired the more modern anatomy seen in living humans, the ways our ancestors lived, and the tools they created, changed as well. Callaway, Ewen (26 July 2012). "Hunter-gatherer genomes a trove of genetic diversity". Nature. doi: 10.1038/nature.2012.11076. S2CID 87081207. Richard E. Green; Krause, J.; Briggs, A.W.; Maricic, T.; Stenzel, U.; Kircher, M.; Patterson, N.; Li, H.; etal. (2010). "A Draft Sequence of the Neandertal Genome". Science. 328 (5979): 710–22. Bibcode: 2010Sci...328..710G. doi: 10.1126/science.1188021. PMC 5100745. PMID 20448178. Fragment remains of Pithecanthropus erectus were discovered in the Mid-Pleistocene of Solo River near Trimil, Java from 1891 until 1945.

Humans | Darwin - University of Cambridge Humans | Darwin - University of Cambridge

Ichthyostega is another extinct tetrapod. Being one of the first animals with only two pairs of limbs (also unique since they end in digits and have bones), Ichthyostega is seen as an intermediate between a fish and an amphibian. Ichthyostega had limbs but these probably were not used for walking. They may have spent very brief periods out of water and would have used their limbs to paw their way through the mud. [19] They both had more than five digits (eight or seven) at the end of each of their limbs, and their bodies were scaleless (except their bellies, where they remained as gastralia). Many evolutionary changes occurred at this stage: eyelids and tear glands evolved to keep the eyes wet out of water and the eyes became connected to the pharynx for draining the liquid; the hyomandibula (now called columella) shrank into the spiracle, which now also connected to the inner ear at one side and the pharynx at another, becoming the Eustachian tube (columella assisted in hearing); an early eardrum (a patch of connective tissue) evolved on the end of each tube (called the otic notch); and the ceratohyal and basihyal merged into the hyoid. These "fishapods" had more ossified and stronger bones to support themselves on land (especially skull and limb bones). Jaw bones fuse together while gill and opercular bones disappear.The theory that the savannah was expanding due to increasingly arid conditions, which then drove hominin adaptation. turnover pulse hypothesis

An Evolutionary Timeline of Homo Sapiens | Science

Charles Darwin has never implied the fact that humans have evolved from the apes, although many of his fellow mates have insisted that he had. Moreover, the concept of a missing link between the apes and humans was being considered preposterous by many scientists. This is because we have evolved alongside the great apes. However, we already have a common ancestor who has lived roughly around 7 million years ago. Moreover, the points of evolution in the presence of nodal fossils have a meaning that humans are being evolved gradually as opposed to a sudden change. Evolution of Man Skeletal structure of humans and other primates. A comparison of the skeletal structures of gibbons, humans, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans. Lissamphibia (extant amphibians) retain many features of early amphibians but they have only four digits ( caecilians have none). The fossils of anthropoids of the Miocene period show considerable diversity with some possessing pre-human features. They may have evolved into the human line and others leading towards the great apes. Dryopithecus, an anthropoid fossil, is regarded to stand close to the point of divergence.Finarelli, J.A.; Clyde, W.C. (2004). "Reassessing hominoid phylogeny: Evaluating congruence in the morphological and temporal data". Paleobiology. 30 (4): 614. Within the last 100,000 years or so, the most recent chapter in our story unfolded. Modern humans spread throughout the world and Neanderthals and Denisovans disappeared. Exactly why they went extinct is another great mystery, but it seems likely that our species played its part. Interactions weren’t entirely hostile, though: DNA evidence shows that modern humans sometimes interbred with both Neanderthals and Denisovans. Some freshwater lobe-finned fish (sarcopterygii) develop limbs and give rise to the Tetrapodomorpha. These fish evolved in shallow and swampy freshwater habitats, where they evolved large eyes and spiracles. Other adaptations include lessening of body hair, a chin, a descended larynx, and an emphasis on vision instead of smell. Of course, there could be multiple out of Africa dispersals,” says Akey. “The question is whether they contributed ancestry to present day individuals and we can say pretty definitely now that they did not.” 50,000 to 60,000 Years Ago: Genes and Climate Reconstructions Show a Migration Out of Africa