Through this week’s lectures, articles, and videos, I have gotten more of an idea on who our true ancestors are besides the concept of apes. Through my lifetime, I have been taught about the history of us going from a primate to homo sapiens but the underlining timeline, traits, and reasons were never explained. The way we evolved over time was all about the balance between necessities and unnecessities to have in order for survival.
One trait that interested me was our teeth. In the lectures, it explained that most apes have big frontal teeth which most people would assume it would be to consume food but that is not the case at all. These large front teeth are used to protect themselves from predators especially since majority of these species do not eat meet. As hominins evolved, these frontal teeth got smaller due to us having new ways to defend ourselves. Having two arms and two legs that are capable to kick and inflict force can do enough harm. The changes of the environment has led to the evolution of the teeth. If you look at the difference between the robust forms and the gracile forms, the teeth go from unusually huge for breaking nuts to just large incisors leading to a more diverse diet. In a way, environmental changes made the species that evolved to be less picky.
Another trait that is interesting is our bipedalism. If you look at the Australopithecines, this is where species started to go fully bipedal. Fossils over many years have been able to determine which species are bipedal and which are not due to the location of the spine. If the spine is located under the head then you know where their body was unlike apes who have spines located on the back of their heads. The push for bipedalism was to increase the amount of distance that could be covered with minimal effort. If we look at Lucy, she was bipedal but she was also a little over three feet tall still making traveling twice as hard. As we continued to evolve and move away from trees, we got longer legs and short arms.
The last and most crucial hominin trait is the brain. Most hominins had an ape sized brain which is small can ranges from 450-500 cc. We know humans today have large complex brains but this took years to develop. It was not until A. Sediba that we saw that even though there was a small brain, the brain had a frontal lobe which represented the slow changes. In the article “The Downside of Upright” it explained that the lack for large brains were due to the way of delivery. Apes need to be able to deliver their offspring with little help where they basically fall out. Since we are complex and are so fragile, we need lots of help in order to give birth.
The way we evolved is so interesting and being able to get so much information just by bones is amazing.
Hey!
I also talked about the large teeth of hominins and how they have changed over time. I was surprised to hear that they actually use their big front teeth more so for defense than eating. I assumed they do not need this type of large and fierce protection. This has been my favorite week becaueI feel that history is so important to realize how far our species as a whole has come and all the places we can take it. I never realized just how closely related we are to this amazing complex species and how much they have also evolved. We are both bipedal species and have both adapted that trait to better survive and complete tasks such as using advanced and complex tools.
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Hello!
I also have learned a lot about our ancestors in this week’s lectures. I also thought that the section talking about our teeth was also very interesting. It’s crazy how the large front teeth are used for protection against predators, but since we don’t use our teeth for that purpose they got smaller over time. I also talked about bipedalism in my post. I think the evolution of that is so complex and cool. You don’t think much about it today, but it plays such an important role in every aspect of life. I also thought the article, “The Downside of Upright” was interesting when it talked about the size of our brains and how they evolved to be what they are today. Thanks!