Question 5
“Fossils classified in the genus Australopithecus and other early hominid fossils have been found in Africa only and nowhere else in the world”.
Darwin’s theory extends on believing that all human life has been extended from Africa in origins, this belief has so far been supported with the skeletons and remains of both Homo and Australopithecus species (M. Denton, 1986). Geographically there were not as confined to the area of Africa alone but may have stayed with in the vicinity due to Food and well known game trails, shelter and safety or even means such as travelling was impended by lack of water or resources during parts of seasons and or drought. Many if not all early hominid remains have been found within Africa and even tools have been found with the bodies, these tools are found more so with the Homo erectus species and not the australopithecine(Y. Benyene, 2014). With the evidence of tools present with the H. erectus bodies it is clear that a bigger brain size was present in the homo genus as the knowledge to create, craft with and use crude stone tools would have given the Erectus species a huge advantage survival wise and increased their brain cc, “The genus Australopithecus appeared ~4 million years ago and is the ancestor of Homo and thus modern humans. Despite this connection to later stone tool capable species nobody really believed that Australopithecus was capable of creating such technology. This is because they are markedly similar to apes in many aspects, with long arms, long curved fingers, short legs, small brains and they spent a lot of time residing in trees” (A. Benton, 2013). Evolution is generally considered to have started when we began to walk upright so why is it that the great African apes typically using a knuckle walk? The African great apes used the knuckle walk due to their physiology as did early hominids, we became bipedal walkers as our bodies started to change due to our spines increasing in size and our brains becoming larger and heavier due to an increase in brain mass and density(Brain evolution, 2011). It is entirely possible that due to our weight increase of the skull and brain our bodies began to walk upright so more muscles could be used to support the neck. Hunting and gathering for food is a fundamental part of our nomadic societies and has been for millions of years, this is not the case for sedentary societies. A sedentary society focuses on living with in one place for a long/ extended period of time and due to this socially core belief resources such as food must be abundant or the society would not survive, nomadic structured societies tend to follow food sources and continuously move due to seasons or the amount of resources available.
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Oct 29th, 2015 02:03 PM
