CLASS #

Contents
1. Human Evolution
2. Lucy
3. Discovery of a Lifetime
4. Outdoors Type
5. Tough to Chew
6. Out of Africa
7. Neanderthal Man
8. Mini Test
 Human Evolution
Ardipithecus ramidus
The most primitive.
4.4 million years ago.
first fossils found 1992
Australopithecus anamensis
Exhibiting some chimp-like characteristics.
4.2 - 3.9 million years ago
first fossil found 1965
Australopithecus afarensis
This species includes "Lucy," the 3.2 million year old
fossil.
3.5 - 2.9 million years ago
first fossils found 1973
Australopithecus africanus
3.0 - 2.4 million years ago
first fossils found 1924
Australopithecus robustus
2.1 - 1.6 million years ago
first fossil found 1938
Australopithecus boisei
2.3 - 1.1 million years ago
first fossil found 1959
Homo habilis
2.4 - 1.5 million years ago
first fossil found 1960
Homo erectus
1.8 million years ago 300,000 years ago
first fossil found in 1893
Homo sapiens (archaic)
500,000 - 200,000 years ago
first fossil found in 1921
Homo sapiens neanderthalensis
230,000 - 30,000 years ago
first fossil found in 1856
Homo sapiens (modern)
120,000 years ago - present
first "Cro-Magnon" specimens found in 1868
 Lucy
• One fossil discovery above all has transformed views of how we
became human. But who was Lucy, and why is she so important to
human evolution?

• Lucy was discovered in 1974 by anthropologist Professor Donald

Johanson and his student Tom Gray in northern Ethiopia.
• Johanson and Gray were out searching the scorched terrain for animal
bones in the sand, ash and silt when they spotted a tiny fragment of arm
bone.
• Johanson and Gray named their fossil skeleton Lucy, after the Beatles
song 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds'. Lucy may have looked something
like this.
 Discovery of a lifetime

Lucy
• An upright chimp
• Admired from Afar
• Standing tall
• Forest origin
• Chimp cousins
 Outdoors Type
Homo erectus travelled long distances on foot, as it
worked hard to scavenge enough meat to feed its growing
body and brain.
 Tough to Chew
• In East Africa, a hominid called
• Homo habilis had small
teeth and ate anything it
could lay its hands on,
especially meat. But habilis
was no hunter.
Paranthropus boisei
became specialised so that it
could eat tough-to-chew but
more abundant plant foods such
as nuts, roots and tubers
(largely underground
vegetables, the potato being a
modern example).
 Out of Africa
Shortly after Homo erectus appeared 1.8 million years
ago, humans began to leave Africa for the first time and
migrate to other continents.
Early humans reached Dmanisi in ex-Soviet Georgia around
1.8 million years ago.
"They may have used bamboo to make spears for hunting and
poles to knock animals down from the tall trees"
 Neanderthal Man
• Neanderthal man, or Homo neanderthalensis,
had a jutting nose set in a large face with massive
brow ridges and no chin. From around 190,000 years
ago, they lived across Europe and the southwest of
Asia.
 CLASS #18

Main lines of primate evolutions

https://www.toppr.com/guides/biology/evolution/stages-of-evolu
tion/