Becoming Human

Recent years have seen the decoding of the human genome, then that of our closest human relative, now extinct, Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis). The Chimpanzee genome has been analyzed and now is the turn of the often overlooked sister species to Chimpanzees, the Bonobos.

“It’s a lovely little foot” declared Don Johanson, upon learning of a  new fossil find in Ethiopia. Johannes Haile-Selassie and others announced in the March 28 issue of the journal Nature the recovery of a partial foot from the Burtele area of  Ethiopia. Eight of the normally 17 bones of the hominin foot were found eroding from sandstone dated to 3.4 million years ago.

Adaptations, large and small, are occurring at a regular rate in all species and demonstrate how evolution by natural selection works.    The changing shape and strength of the beaks of finches in the Galapagos; the darkening color of moth wings in England as the Industrial Revolution took hold; and the recent loss of sound produced by crickets rubbing their wings together in Hawaii are compelling examples of adaptations.

The award winning website BecomingHuman.org now has a Facebook page - check it out. Not much now but watch it grow!

The phenomenon of sociability in primates, including our own species, is examined in a paper published in Nature last month and discussed in the science section of the New York Times this week.The social brain hypothesis - “... that intelligence and brain volume increase with group size because individuals must manage more social relationships” (quoted from the New York Times) - is challenged in this new paper.

Reports from South Africa in recent months have shed new light on the activities of members of our species at critical junctures in human evolution.  The first of these was a series of papers elaborating upon the initial announcement of the discovery of a new species(Au. sediba) which is said to be possibly an example of early Homo; this was followed by further evidence of the use of ochre as decoration; and in the past two weeks evidence of using tree boughs as bedding material.

The  re-dating of the tooth of an infant found in Italy in the Sixties, and the more recent find of a mandible with three teeth in England, have pushed back the time it is thought our species, Homo sapiens, migrating out of Africa arrived in Europe.

The fossil evidence has long indicated there were two great migrations out of Africa.

Early Craftsmanship, to the right of this column, is a new feature on BecomingHuman. This 18-minute video is an introduction to humankind's first surviving technology, demonstrates how stone tools were made and looks at how this technology became more complex.

Stone tools played an important role in human evolution and one of the most significant stone technologies was the Acheulean, distinguished by the tools' characteristic tear drop and oval shaped handaxes. This technology, named for the place in France where some of the first examples were found in the 19th century, was thought to have originated around 1.4 million years ago (ma).