Personally, I really enjoyed the content this week. I feel that I learned a lot of new information about how our physical characteristics, as humans, have been evolving for so long. This was so interesting to me because I hadn’t thought much about it before and this week’s content really just made me realize that the way humans look now is the product of thousands and thousands of years of evolution. The topic of evolution is very intriguing to me so I absolutely loved reading and watching this week’s course material. Something I have always been interested by, and that was covered in this week’s content, was how much we can learn from fossils. Fossils provide so much information about how animals lived. For example, measuring the size and shape of the head can provide information about the brain and the length of arm and leg bones can show how the animal carried themselves.
I liked reading about all of the hominin traits, but one that was more interesting, in particular, was bipedalism. Bipedalism is defined as a form of terrestrial locomotion moves by means of its rear hind legs. Bipedalism allowed hominins to use their arms to do other things such as reach into trees, using tools, or carrying something while still moving or walking. In addition, this gave hominins more height. Proof of hominins evolving to be bipedal is shown in fossils. After considering this topic, I realized that a lot of organisms are not bipedal. In addition, I can’t image how our lives would be if we weren’t bipedal. One idea I considered is would we use our feet more often than just to move? Would we potentially use them to eat or do other tasks?
In addition to bipedalism, I thought that the evolution of the shape and size of the brain and teeth was very interesting. In general, compared to most of the other primates we covered in this week’s content, homo sapiens had relatively larger brains other than the modern chimpanzee. The evolutionary ties and advancement of the brain are essential to us today and is an extremely intriguing topic. The way that our teeth have evolved to diets high in meat is something I hadn’t given much thought prior to this week. After thinking about it, it makes sense that larger, sharper teeth are necessary for diets high in meat. In addition, having different sized teeth with different functions also makes a lot of sense. Canine teeth on the sides of our mouth are necessary for tearing, while the larger and more flat back teeth are important for chewing foods into small pieces. An interesting thought I had is how in our culture today, the maintenance and look of our teeth is so important. In addition, it’s interesting how larger teeth are more favored. For example, when comparing pictures of someone who has small teeth that are barely visible when smiling and someone who has larger, more visible teeth, I think that most people would favor the person who’s smile shows more teeth. Of course, white color and straight teeth are also favored.
Hey! I think you made a great post about the different traits of primates that helped lead to the development of the modern human. I talked about bipedalism as well. I think this was the most interesting trait because we don’t think of animals as being bipedal. I also, talked about their teeth as well and how that evolved. Some primates had larger molars and as they evolved their molars became smaller. I like how you talked about the evolution of our brains since I didn’t discuss that one. As we evolved our brains became larger to fit us better today.
Hi Georgia!
I really liked your post because it seemed to have a genuinely interesting and liking towards the material this week, which I completely understand because I also found it immensely interesting! I too had never fully considered that there is a great deal of slight changes made over an inconceivable amount of time which led us to be how we currently are today. Phenotypically, this is something which I never before have divulged deeply into, as I had an image in my head of the classic evolution of humans, with there being only a few large, obvious changes in each stage before getting to where we are today. However, this section allowed me to fully comprehend just how wrong this image is, and how there is a multutide of smaller, less obvious changes that were necessary to make modern day humans.
Hey Georgia! Thought you did a great job on your blog post this week and I agree that the content this week was informative and interesting. I agree that the most important trait that we discussed this week was bipedalism and I also agree that I’m not sure how the world would work if this trait never developed in humans. Your second trait was the variance in the size and structure of the teeth and brains of these species. I didn’t mention the size and structure of the brain in my blog post but you did a great job filling me in. I agree that the way our teeth evolved is fascinating and cant help to think how different things would be had our diets been changed drastically. Great job keep up the good work!
Hello, Georgia! I really liked your post and how detailed you were about what you learned! I relate to your comments bit, because I also never really put much thought into why we look the way we do. It was fascinating to see how many of our physical traits stem from non-human primates. Also, you questioned how it would be if humans didn’t have bipedal locomotion. I wonder how our life would be, would it be more difficult or more convenient? I can see both sides, considering we would take up more room being on all fours- but we would also have 4 limbs to utilize! Would we be able to use both feet for daily tasks that we use our hands for, to eat, etc.?
Hey Georgia, your post was well written. I enjoyed learning about the preserved biological remains or organisms. I found the different methods interesting because for most of my life I thought there was only one method. The method in which you can look at the layers and determine whether it the specimen existed millions of years ago or existed in the present day. I also enjoyed learning about the different types of hominins and what made them hominins. I found that their characteristics the ones that shined through the most were the unique characteristics we had as humans and I feel like that is why it is very important to study these creatures and be able to relate them to the present in order to understand where we came from.