Habilis Human Evolution

Of all the animals to have ever walked our Earth, humans are by far the most intelligent and socially adept. To think we emerged from the same common ancestor as a tomato billions of years ago is staggering, yet true. Much more recently, though, humans broke off from our relatively similar ape ancestors, that physically resemble a cross between us and other living primates. Though we do not have direct links in all cases, tracing our history and evolution is interesting, and by looking to the past, we can see into the future. Possible ancestors include Australopithecus afarensis, africanus, and robustus, as well as Homo habilis, which all have near-human traits. The physical differentiation in these four species highlight evolution, and in

This culminates in vastly stronger jaw muscles, and this means that this animal likely chewed its food a lot more. The skull is also clearly larger, which suggests that this may have been a more intelligent species since it likely had a larger cranial capacity. Finally, there is H. habilis. Habilis has a skull very similar to our own, as its features align with ours in many ways. First, the face is much flatter, and the teeth are very well aligned, they do not have any sharp canines made for tearing flesh, or at least not as much so as some of the australopiths do. This skull also lacks any kind of pointed top, and the jaw bones are not as prominent as those of A. robustus, meaning H. habilis had weaker jaws. Looking at these ancient primates has revealed that many share traits similar to our own, and that these traits follow chronologically, and there is little setback, as a trend seems to form: as time goes on, these early primates begin to look more and more human. Although they were all bipedal, each of these hominids look different, and each had physical attributes that made them unique. These observed differences imply that evolution has been leading to us for a long time, and that we are likely still evolving into an even more intelligent being as time goes