During week five I learned about the hominin traits that can inform us about modern human biology. I really liked this unit because I did not know how similar and different we are to hominins. There were also traits that I was unaware that these hominids have adapted over many years. A hominid is a primate of a family that includes humans, their ancestors fossils and even the great apes! Chimpanzees are the closest species to humans as well. We share ninety- nine percent of our DNA with them. I think this is absolutely crazy and amazing and they really can help us learn about our species. Studying these traits will help educate humans on how we came to be who we are. The traits will also show us closely related relatives and even why humans had to adapt to their environment as well. 

One trait is brain size.Brain size is how big the brain is compared to the skull. Humans have brains that fit perfectly in their head compared to hominins who have a small brain and a large skull. So when looking at the remains of a species they can use this information to figure out what species of bone they found. They also use this information to find out why humans needed a bigger brain than hominids . 

Another trait is being bipedal.Being bipedal means standing up on two feet and walking. As humans we only walk on our two feet because that is most comfortable to us. But if we wanted to we could walk on our hands for a few minutes or crawl around forever but our bodies aren’t made to do that and it would be extremely uncomfortable.  Just like humans apes can walk on two feet upright but that isn’t their main form of walking their body is made to crawl more than walk upright. This trait helps us learn about modern day biology by looking at the past. I learned that overtime the earth is constantly changing and when that occurs species must adapt or die.

Next, Hominin diversity has effect human evolution helps show anthropologists how similar or different we are to other species. A very big similarity is eating and walking. We both use teeth to help us chew our food. Then we started seeing canine teeth which we thought were for species that strictly eat meat. But later on we found out that humans don’t have big caine teeth compared to primates and we typically eat more meat than most primates.

Lastly I believe fossilized skeletal remains of early human ancestors can help anthropologists reconstruct and learn from the past by giving us information on how the human body has changed over time. But it also shows when humans were created and how we started branch off from homins. Without studying fossilized remains of early ancestors anthropologist would not be able to see when other species started to die out and humans started walking on our earth.