BIOL SCI 150 Chapter Notes - Chapter 16.1: Homo Sapiens, Drainage Basin, Hominini
14 Mar 2018
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Document Summary
Fossils aren"t the only way to look at the origins of our species. We can also get clues in the dna of modern organisms since sequences of dna change over time due to mutations. Premise of this method = the more closely related two species are, the more similar their dna sequences will be. Look at two sequences and count the amount of differences. If a sequence doesn"t have a lot of differences, it means that the organisms probably have a recent common ancestor. Evolution is not a linear morphing of one type of organism into another, rather similar organisms diverged from a common ancestor , but one didn"t directly form from the other. Like a tree with a bunch of branches and bushes. Homo sapiens (humans) probably first appeared around 200,000 years. Years ago, we split from an ancestor that we share w/ african apes ago (gorillas, chimps etc. ) into a tribe called the hominini.
