Norma Reyes

LBS 355
The Evolution of Human Origins
In this article, Carol Ward mainly talked about the different beliefs and ideas scientists and
anthropologists had in reference to humans origin over the past 100 years and how these
perspectives have changed with more investigation and new fossil discoveries. As Ward has
mentioned in this article, it is important to understand how humans evolved with different
abilities than our ancestors to adapt to different selective pressures during the evolutionary
process. This article also mentions, how the ideas of hominin evolution and the order we
obtained our distinctive human characteristics also varied. Carol Ward stated, the
Pithecanthropus was the first specimen indicator that encephalization was not the initial
adaptation of human lineage due to its small cranial capacity eliminating at the same time the
theories of Chevalier, Darwin, Munro and many others. In other words, many researchers
believed that humans passed through Pithecanthropus and Neandertal stages, implying a linear
pattern of evolution with no branching- the species hypothesis. In her article, Ward also mentions
the discovery of the Taung child by Dart in 1924 as one of the most important fossil find of the
past century. Taungs apelike brain size, its geographical location and its association with the
savanna fauna were three significant things to delay the acceptance of Taung as a human
ancestor. According to Ward, the discovering of Taungs savanna setting provoked some of the
earliest adaptive explanations for hominin diversification. Consequently, the discovery of Taung
and the acceptance of Australopithecus and Homo erectus as part of human evolution history
in the 1930s, made many researchers considered bipedality and a dietary shift initial adaptations
that resulted in the separation from our ape forebears. Ward continues mentioning how
anthropology has changed into a question-oriented discipline. She believes that anthropological

questions require many perspectives and approaches and should be responded adequately. Ward
thinks this can be done with more integration of the sub-field-oriented disciples of
bioarcheology, ethnoarcheology, and human behavior ecology. Ward gave an example of how
behavioral ecology has given us morphological correlates of behavior, not only with diet and
locomotion but also the relationship between social behavior and sexual dimorphisms.
Ward finally stated how the developments in biology and technology now-a-days will contribute
to open up new methods of research and to integrate anthropology with all its branches. To
summarize this article, Ward is asking us to notices how anthropology has benefited from
advances in fact and theory in other disciplines and it is with interdisciplinary work that our
understanding can be maximized. Therefore, she is suggesting us to integrate theoretical
information and approaches from a variety of disciplines with those from our own to accurately
understand ourselves. In simpler terms, to pursue knowledge by constantly questioning existing
facts and theories will lead us to the discovery, perhaps, of human origins.