There are a few traits that allow us to see human biology but the main two being teeth and grasping big toes. Humans use their canine teeth to eat food but it is especially important when biting and tearing into meat. The grasping big toes allowed hominins to be able to grab things and climb. Research found from studying Ardipithecus, led researchers to believe Ardipithecus’s toes which were meant for grasping and stabilization instead of quick change in direction. This allowed researchers see where and how early hominins lived. These traits are evidence that the hominins lived in forests instead of open spaces. For example, looking at Ardipithecus we know they had long arms and hands but because there were no prints in the soil of knuckles, scientists believed that they walked upright and lacked adaptations that chimps and apes had. Now the theory is created that the commonality between chimps and gorillas wasn’t a creature that walked on their knuckles. A grasping big toe allowed early hominins to grab things with their toes such as branches or food. This trait is what evolved into humans hands and the ability to move our fingers independently.
Another trait is foramen magnum being located under the skull. This is the hole in the skull where the spinal nerves pass to connect to the brain. By having this hole at the base of the skull it allows us to stand up with our body directly beneath us and we are able to walk and run. In my opinion, this is one of the most important traits that humans have.
Fossilized skeletal remains of early human ancestors help anthropologists learn from the past and they serve as ideas on the physical make up of these creatures. When we talk about our human ancestors millions of years ago it is hard to conceptualize what they really look like so these fossils help us put an image in our heads of what they may look like. They can also tell us where they lived and the type of life they lived. They are also helpful in helping us disprove some of our previous hypotheses. If we have an idea of how we think our human ancestors lived, we can see if that is true or not simply by looking at the fossils. Finding these fossils is extremely difficult. If anthropologist would find a complete fossilized skeleton that will us to learn about so much more about these creatures including what the individual looked like, how it lived, and what it ate and more. However, finding a complete skeleton is hard because of many environmental and human factors. But as you can see finding just partial skeletons is also beneficial. So far we have been able to learn so much much from these individuals including how we evolved from them. I find it fascinating that we have learned so much from these fossils especially because these individuals were alive so long ago. I think it would be amazing if there was a point when anthropologists could find a complete skeleton because so much information can come from it.
Hello, Kress I really enjoyed reading your post and felt that it was very informative. It’s interesting to see the differences like how the humans use their canine teeth to eat food but it is especially important when biting and tearing into the meat while the Ardipithecus actually have larger teeth as they may use it to even fight although there’s are larger than ours they are actually smaller than chimpanzees, which is why they are in between humans and chimps.. The grasping big toes allowed hominins to be able to grab things and climb versus us humans which have our big toe aligned with our other four toes. I think it’s great that anthropologists can learn so much from studying fossils and feel that its important for them to continue to do so.
Hi! I like that you mentioned the foramen magnum as a key characteristic that hominins possessed. I found that to be probably one of the coolest and most convincing pieces of information learned in the lecture. I think that the placement of that hole in the base of our skull really does a great job of indicating how the body was situated, which leads us learn about our evolution. I like that you noted how finding fossils is extremely difficult and I agree! I think as technology advances, we will find many more since I think we have just scratched the surface as to what is out there. I think it is worthy noting even though it is hard to find and extremely rare to find complete or even close to complete, thing like mirror imaging, like they did in the case of Lucy, has helped us quiet a bit!
Hello Kress! I was greatly informed by your supportive reasonings of which hominin traits speaks about modern human biology. I like how you elaborated with the teeth and canine size to inform readers how early primates used to grind their food. However, when you mentioned their chewing skills, I enjoyed how you infer that they might have been living in terrestrial wildlife. Similarly, when you explained how the foramen magnum connected tot the spinal cord of the brain helps the ability for humans to stand up on our two legs. This makes me think deeply about what gave the idea of humans to began walking and is it because over time our arms became shorter in size than our legs. However, I agree when you stated that it’s very difficult to find skeletal fossils. And in order to further our studies, it would be helpful for anthropologists to obtain more information about fossils.
Joshua K. Belcher
Good evening Kress! I really enjoyed reading your posting. The idea of getting information after millions of years from skeletal remains is so cool. There is obviously the easy stuff like gender, age, and weight but to in a sense make these remains come alive again in order to figure out how they lived takes the mix of scientific data and inferencing. When you talked about the early hominins and how they had grasping hands and how that could determine the environment they were in was a good point. In the lectures from this week it explained that in Africa there was a drop in the temperatures that took the woodlands and turned it into open grasslands, which is how majority of us think of Africa today. When these woodland areas disappeared, changes to the species had to be made because instead of living their lives in the trees they were not on the ground which had a main push for travel. I f the environment never changed I dont think we would have either because there would have been no demand for it. I also mentioned the teeth as an example of a good trait. I used to think teeth told us just about what food is being eaten but it turns out it tells us about then need of protection.