Ardipithecus Essays

arguments. Some other arguments state that standing tall makes the primates look more intimidating to other primates. Also, an advantage of walking on two legs included easier food carriage and moving infants to a safe place to feed. The discovery of Ardipithecus ramidus “Ardi” in Ethiopia

Chapter 1: Before History (to 2500 BCE) Hominids adapted to only walking on two legs after spending more time on the ground. They started walking upright in East Africa 6 and 7 million years ago. Hominid means a primate of a family. They can adapt themselves to environments such as the use of tools, and language, which connects to their culture. The hominids can use their language to help them communicate to others for protection and defense. These are forms of identity, such as language and culture

How humans came to walk on 2 feet while any relative of homo sapiens like apes, chimpanzees, or monkeys walk quadrupedally has sparked many thoughts and questions about how this came to be, some scientists and anthropologists have produced educated guesses that are reinforced by evidence linking to their hypotheses being correct. The hypotheses of bipedalism and how it’s origins came to be are heavily debated still to this day. Some hypotheses are gaining more support than others as technology of

Geographically speaking, East Africa’s Great Rift Valley is home to a number of hominins including the Australopithecus. These fossils date back to 8 mya, closing a 4 million year gap, which we previously knew little about. A number of scientist hypothesized on the reasons for a shift to bipedalism. Charles Darwin proposed that the shift to bipedalism was motivated primarily by the desire to hunt. Early humans freed their hands so they would be able to carry weapons and tools. Peter Rodman

Article Review #3 The article “Ardipithecus ramidus: A New Kind of Ancestor: Ardipithecus Unveiled” written by Anna Gibbons, talks about how scientist learn many things about human evolution through artifacts of ancestors, DNA and bones. All of this helps reveals different things about our past and how we came to be. This article briefly mentions Lucy and it mainly focuses on the discovery of ardipithecus ramidus. In the short introductory paragraph, Gibbons mentions Lucy, a 3.2-million-year-old

Adaptations require a reproductive advantage to become fixed in a population. Bipedality has many negative factors including increased risk of injury, decreased speed and agility, and the inability to cooperatively carry infants. Considering these drawbacks of bipedality, there had to be an extreme selective pressure to adapt bipedality. Ape populations declined as the Miocene progressed, except for hominids. This was a result of the Miocene apes becoming increasingly K-selected. Unlike hominids

humans). Hominin: Humans and their ancestors (Homo habilis, Homo erectus etc.). the group consisting of modern humans, extinct human species and all our immediate ancestors (including members of the genera Homo, Australopithecus, Paranthropus and Ardipithecus). - See Key differences: Humans and their ancestors do not have opposable thumbs and adapted to different environments and therefore evolved quicker and smarter. 2. Find a timeline/ancestral pathway of human evolution and identify the

After the Beagle returned to England in October 1836, Darwin began reflecting on his observations and experiences, and over the next two years developed the basic outline of his groundbreaking theory of evolution through natural selection. But beyond sharing his ideas with a close circle of scientist friends, Darwin told no one of his views on the origin and development of life. Indeed, he did not publish his now-famous volume, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, until 1859, more

The process by which humans originated from apelike ancestors are known to be called human evolution. Evolution occurs when there is a change in DNA. Over the years, human evolution has been a big question of our society. Evolution doesn’t just happen to a single individual; it happens to population over a long period of time. (Potts, 2016) C. Loring Brace and Milford Wolpoff hypothesized that only one species existed earlier in life, that were not yet homo sapiens (Lewin, 1984), which brings about

As my team and I discovered a new fossil in our excavation project, the unknown site yielded the skull of a mysterious specimen. Our goal as reputable anthropologist was to analyze the specimen to the best of our ability so our team can provide the most probable and reliable taxonomic identification. In order for us to effectively interpret the results our experiment yielded, we needed to review our knowledge in human evolution. The field that uncovers the mystery of the evolution of humans is paleoanthropology

the act of walking upright. This powerful adaptation in early hominins deserves an explanation. As a result, anthropologists have wrestled with numerous scientific hypotheses to explain this locomotion phenomenon found in early Australopithecus, Ardipithecus, Sahelanthropus, etc. Therefore, the purpose of this exercise paper is to explore the different hypotheses and adaptations associated with the development of bipedalism in early hominin populations. As mentioned previously, bipedalism is defined

The world of anthropology is ever changing and each new discovery can discredit multiple other discoveries. Laetoli, Tanzania has been one site that has discovered and rediscovered multiple species of hominins, but the greatest discovery there was an ancient footprint trail left by our hominin ancestors. There have been other footprint trails discovered in other parts of the world, but none as old as the Laetoli trail. The Laetoli footprints are important because it lets us look into the species