One of the most important traits of hominins is the evolution of their teeth, specifically their front teeth versus their back teeth. In lecture, as we were learning about the ever-expanding tree of evolution that eventually made modern humans, it was explained that eventually certain species developed smaller front teeth (like the gracile Australopithicus) and larger back teeth. This explains how from early times we did not behave in ways that four-legged predators did. We don’t need big front canine teeth to stab and bite, we need larger back teeth to chew and grind down harder plant materials. I think this helps us understand ourselves as animal predators and also helps us understand the develop of our hands and thumbs. These are our primary tools with which we hunted, crafted, and survived. In one of the lecture videos it is even said that we don’t even really use our canines properly anymore, and for some people they’ve actually lost part of the pointy end of those specific teeth. I think this is a really excellent way of tracking evolution, specifically being able to see the ways in which certain species branched away from human ancestors.

Of course, probably the defining trait of hominins is bipedal-ism, even if it is only partial or exceedingly primitive. We see that we are the bipeds that survived until present day, though lots of primates will sometimes hop up on their back legs. But this isn’t their mode of transportation. Earlier species and cousins to our ancestors died out earlier, and it think it would be fascinating to study the similarities and differences when compare with a human. It is interesting to think about what would have happened if other biped species from millions of years ago also evolved alongside us to the present day. There’s a fair amount of diversity in the bipeds/semi-bipeds that we learned about that otherwise had a whole list of differences which really plays to our extraordinary journey of evolution.

As another note, I thought it was really interesting to learn about the downfalls of bipeds, specifically our tendency towards intense back pain and knee pain. In the podcast that we had to listen to a few weeks ago they also mentioned humans chronic pain and how every evolutionary trait always had a con. Adult back pain is infamous and it is interesting to sort of see the evolutionary processes before becoming full bipeds that led to this. Despite this obvious flaw, humans still became the dominant species on Earth.

What I think these skeletal remains can help us with is understanding the intense similarity that we still have with our ancestors and other primates. Evolution doesn’t happen overnight, and have not lost our connections to our ancestors or our living relatives. I think that’s useful for human perspective and can help us understand the intricacies and complexities of human evolution. Before this week, I don’t think I had fully grasped the great amount of species that had all combined or tapered off to lead into humans and different animals that we see today.