by Randall Susman
Calliope: Exploring World History
Article Summary: How exactly did we get here and what makes us so different from other early humans? where did we originate and why did some early hominids (our ancestors) not survive? These are all questions that we have been asking ourselves for a while and well, now we have some answers. What helped us get them and what helps us get new information is the fossil record. What the fossil record is good for is that it lets us know how our early ancestors adapted and changed their behaviors and appearances over time, however you need to have enough fossils for this. The fossil record also gives us a little window to the past so that we can see how we developed, what has changed, and why we changed. For many centuries the only way that we though of us coming into existence was through religion. For examples, Christians believe that Adam and Eve were the first humans to walk the Earth, and that they were just as developed as we are today, not at all ape-like how our ancestors were. Also with hominid fossils it allows us to see that our early ancestors, on the outside, looked more so like apes and monkeys than we do today, however on the inside, their body structure and bones looked much more like a humans today than an apes or chimpanzees today. The article also tells us about primates and that they are “a member of the highest order of mammals.”And hominids are “any of the two legged primates, extinct or living, including man.” All hominids are always primates, however primates are not always hominids. From the article I learned that from studying the behaviors of animals living today we can learn more about our ancestors.
Charles Darwin, the first man to contradict the churches teachings on how man came into existence. He states that all plants and animals change react and adapt due to the changes around them over a long period of time. However, there was no proof of this until the year of 1925 when the first hominid fossil was discovered in South Africa by Raymond Dart. This shocking and amazing discovery would change the rout of our beliefs on how we came into existence and it also lead to many new theories about what our true ancestors were like. There is debate amongst historians, scientists, and archaeologists weather we “were tree dwelling apes or four legged knuckle walkers, or even bipeds who lived in water.” A Biped is any animal that walks on two legs. The reason this is important is because we need to know when the turning point was for us, when we went from walking like apes to only occasionally using our 2 legs for a short time to walking on our two legs twenty-four seven. Our ancestors are very interesting and they are related to both us and apes and monkeys, to me, it appears that they are a cross between us and apes and monkeys. and in this unit in humanities I will be learning about and answering more questions about the evolution of man-kind
(Charles Darwin's Theory)
(Charles Darwin)
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