I learned a lot from this week’s lectures and readings about where our human traits were derived from and how they have evolved over time. A lot of the different species we studied told a lot about why humans look and behave the way we do now. A couple of hominin traits really stood out to me and informed me a lot about modern human biology. A few of the hominin species we studied were bipedal. As we know, humans don’t walk around on their hands and feet, but we probably used to. Learning about the bipedal hominins taught me a lot about why humans walk on two legs the way we do now. We are one of the few species that does this, and you really need to take a look back in history to figure out why. Another trait that stood out to me occurred when I was reading about the Ardipithecus (sometimes referred to as “Ardi”). This week I learned that the shape of their teeth look a lot like the hominins of the future. The Paranthropus may give some insight to why human teeth are the way they are. The Paranthropus had massive molars and small front teeth. While humans don’t necessarily have massive molars, they are definitely bigger than our front teeth and are what we use the most when chewing. You don’t see people chewing food with their front teeth. It’s just weird. Hominin diversity has clearly affected human evolution. They had many different characteristics and traits such as teeth, limb length, skull alignment, and more, but these traits combined in some way all eventually produced the modern human skeleton. Humans have all evolved from somewhere, but that’s not to say that we derive all, or most, of our traits from one specific hominin species. Their diversity is what is so important and what eventually led to our current form today. I imagine if there had not been diversity in the hominin population, humans would look very different than they do today. Fossilized skeletal remains of early human ancestors help anthropologists reconstruct and learn from the past immensely. Fossils have taught us a great deal about not only what we know about humans, but species across the whole world. Some examples are A. Sediba’s features. It had long upper limbs and a specific tooth shape and the combination of these derived features suggests a possible link to Homo including dental anatomy, brain structure, pelvic shape and feature sof the hands and feet. Another example is “Lucy.” You can learn a lot from this skeleton even though it is incomplete. For example, we know she was female because of her wide, more rounded pelvis opening. The pelvic bones and femur also indicate bipedalism. So, by looking at Lucy’s bone structure, we can figure out some stuff about a modern woman’s body. In conclusion, fossils are clearly one of the strongest indicators of why humans turned out the way we did. Studying these fossils and different species is the best way to learn about human evolution.