Essay on Human Ancestors

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Requirement

Write an essay on human ancestors

Solution

Human evolution

Human evolution is not simple as it is a lengthy process or phenomenon of change by which people originated from apelike ancestors (Boyd et al., 2014). Various scientific evidence shows that the physical and behavioral traits shared by all people originated from apelike ancestors and evolved over a period of approximately six million years.

Evolution by the development of human traits. 

Traits that physically anthropologists have found are important to human evolution. One of the earliest defining human traits, bipedalism that is the ability to walk on two legs evolved over 4 million years ago (Mckee et al., 2015). Other important human characteristics or traits such as a large and complex brain, the ability to make and use tools, and the capacity for language developed more recently. Some advanced traits including complex symbolic expression, art, and elaborate culture diversity have emerged mainly during the past 100000 years. It is now clear and understood that while there were considerable anatomical differences between the early hominins, they also shared a number of important traits. By 3  million years ago, most of them probably were nearly as efficient at bipedal locomotion as humans.like people but unlike apes, the bones of their pelvis or hip region were shortened from top to bottom and bowl-shaped this made the pelvis more stable for weight support when standing upright or moving on two legs that are bipedally (Langdon et al., 2016). Early hominins leg and foot bones were also much more similar to ours than to those of apes.this is consistent with the likelihood of early hominin bipedalism.

The two important traits are bipedal that is the ability to walk and balance on to legs (Stearns et al., 2015). And other is that the species had small canine teeth (next to the four front teeth) other traits are hair on the body and eating habits and so on. 
Species that had the first traits were chimpanzee or gorilla as they are found more similar to the human as they made them walk on two legs and eating style is also somewhat similar. The hominids whose members are known as great apes or hominids, they are the first who very much resembles, to human activities and its meaning is now very broad it mean family of the primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: Pongo, the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan; Gorilla, the eastern and and western gorilla Pan, the common chimpanzee and the bonobo; and Homo, which includes modern humans and its extinct relatives (e.g., the Neanderthal), and ancestors, such as Homo erectus.
Gorillas live in a wide variety of habitats and they exhibit variability in morphology, diet, behavior, and social structure. In both ways, they distinct and match also on some ground.
Advantages and disadvantage these traits provide is that easy eating manner and to protect or defend by other by using brain because one trait is complex brain also which helps in defending the one to protect our-self from danger. Disadvantages is that body hair got disappeared which make problem in sensing of cold. The advantage is that now the development of traits they are now able to walk on two legs but the distance covered is reduced as it was found in research that when they are walking on four legs they can jump over a long distance but due to the adoption of bipedal now they can’t jump over long distance.
This trait such as bipedal and teeth structure/ eating habit change across the time as due to environmental change. A change in environment leads them to change their traits.
The period of human evolution has coined with environmental change, including cooling, drying, wider climate fluctuations over time.
Microevolution as short period of time. Whereas macroevolution has evolved over a huge period of time so this trait that is bipedal and teeth structure illustrate both micro and macroevolution as due to change in environment traits also change and it put long-lasting effect till now.

Conclusion

At last to conclude this assignment it can be said that Scientists who study human evolution have proposed a variety of ideas about how environmental condition may have stimulated important development in human origins. Diverse species have emerged over the course of human evolution, and a suite of adaptation have accumulated over time, including upright walking, the capacity to make tools, enlargement of the brain, prolonged maturation, the emergence of complex mental and social behavior.
The period of human evolution has coined with environmental change. This change in environmental condition changes the shape the evolution of new adaptations, the origin, and extinction of early hominin species which represent bipedally that is capable to walk on two legs which is closely related to humans.

Reference

• Boyd, R., & Silk, J. B. (2014). How humans evolved. WW Norton & Company.

• McKee, J. K., Poirier, F. E., & Mcgraw, W. S. (2015). Understanding human evolution. Routledge.

• Langdon, J. H. (2016). Case Study 6. Quantifying Evolution: Morris Goodman and Molecular Phylogeny. In The Science of Human Evolution (pp. 43-49). Springer, Cham.

• Stearns, S. C. (2015). The concept of phenotypic plasticity and the evolution of phenotypic plasticity in life history traits. In Conceptual Change in Biology (pp. 131-146). Springer, Dordrecht.