BIOL-Q 201 Lecture Notes - Lecture 21: Archaic Humans, Paranthropus, Homo Habilis
Document Summary
Hominin evolution: age of humans, depends on the definition of humans: Anatomically modern humans (homo sapiens sapiens) are about 195,000 years old. All fossils in our species homo sapiens, both old (archaic) and modern-looking, puts the age back at about 500,000 years old. All members of our genus homo, then we go back to about. Mostly tropical forests and grasslands: australopithecines, the earliest confirmed well-known hominins, confined to africa, definitely bipedal, multiple species, some living simultaneously, relatively small brains (400 - 500 cc, or about half a quart, or 15- 25% the size of modern human brains: name means southern ape-man", bipedal (def. ): walking on two legs: australopithecus afarensis, lived in east africa 3. 6-3 mya, donald johanson discovered lucy (40% complete skeleton) at. Hadar, ethiopia in the 1970s, specimens from this region date from 3. 5-2. 9 mya: many more a. afarensis fossils have been found in east africa since then, ape-like cranial features.
