True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing

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Human Evolution

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Linked from this page are documents summarizing the hominid fossil record and hypothesized lines of human evolution from 5 million years ago to the present.

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Under the current taxonomy (based on genetic rather than behavioral criteria), the term "hominid" refers to members of the biological human family Hominidae: living humans, all human ancestors, the many extinct members of Australopithecus, and our closest primate relatives, the chimpanzee and gorilla. According to The Tree of Life by Guillaume Lecointre and Herv Le Guyader (Harvard University Press: 2006), the similarly named and easily confused categories of humans and near human apes, in order of increasing inclusiveness, are:

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• Hominini - modern humans and all previous human, australopithecine, paranthropine and ardipithecine ancestors
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• Homininae - all of the above, plus chimpanzees (Panini), our closest living biological kin (a genetic kinship so close that some scientists have suggested their genus name should be changed from Pan to Homo).
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• Hominidae - all of the above, plus gorillas (Gorillinae)
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• Hominoidae - all of the above, plus orangutans (Pongidae)
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• Hominoidea - all of the above, plus gibbons (Hylobatoidae).

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The chart (at right) shows the evolutionary chronology inputed to these biological branches. Ardipithecus, the common primate ancestor to paranthropines, australopithecines and humans, went extinct about 4 million years ago.

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Human evolution is a puzzle made up of thousands of fossil pieces. The Chart of Human Evolution (below) shows the major pieces of that puzzle arranged in a likely solution.

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The tentative connections between species or time of extinction, indicated by a "?", are open to clarification as new DNA and fossil evidence is reviewed in the scientific literature; see comments below the chart.

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The Hominina

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Editor's note: the following is copied verbatum, from Wikipedia, for no other reason than that the current editor has so much work to do in Palaeos that it was felt easiest to just copy n paste. At some point this material will be upgraded, updates, and elaborated upon (hopefully) - MAK111128

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The more anthropomorphic primates of the Hominini tribe are placed in the Hominina subtribe. Referred to as hominans, they are characterized by the evolution of an increasingly erect bipedal locomotion. The only extant species is Homo sapiens. Fossil records indicate this subtribe branched from the common ancestor with the chimpanzee lineage about 3 to 5 million years ago.

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Current evidence[citation needed] suggests that, about 2.6 million years ago, Australopithecus began to diverge into two paths. One path produced Paranthropus, more robust, specialized in a plant food that required a stronger jaw and molars and powerful facial muscles that required a cranial crest, much like a modern gorilla has, to unite them. The other track led to Homo, with a relatively larger brain, more delicate teeth and jaw. Both genera existed at the same time for about 1 and a half million years.

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This subtribe is usually considered to include Australopithecus, Paranthropus, Sahelanthropus, Orrorin, Ardipithecus, Kenyanthropus, and Homo. However, the exact makeup is still under debate, as scientists continue to determine the order of descent in human evolution. - Wikipedia

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Note on taxonomy

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By rights, this should be a short section. Even in the hands of the more avid splitters currently working on it, the Hominini has never been an overly large clade, and only a single species is still extant. And yet, because of the minor detail that this species happens to be our own, the Hominini continues to receive a great deal of attention.

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One side-effect of this high level of interest is that the Hominini have suffered to an extraordinary degree from bad and/or sloppy taxonomy. Almost every species known from more than one fossil individual has accrued a sizeable synonymy, with many available specimens being assigned their own names (both species and genus) at some point, and some single specimens even being assigned multiple names. The tree below attempts some order from the chaos. It presents more of a splitter's perspective on hominin evolution - many species would not be recognised by more conservative workers, some of whom would reduce the genus Homo, for instance, to only three species - Homo habilis, H. erectus and H. sapiens. There is also a considerable degree of debate of how best to treat the paraphyletic series of taxa generally included in the genus Australopithecus (the species between 'Australopithecus' anamensis and Paranthropus robustus in the tree below), with none of the suggested alternatives being really satisfactory.

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                      └─┬─Ponginae
│ ╞═Sivapithecus X
│ ├─Gigantopithecus X
│ └─Pongo
└─Homininae 

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                        └─Homininae
├─Samburupithecus X
├─Nakalipithecus X
└─┬─Gorillini
│ ├─Chororapithecus X
│ └─Gorilla
└─┬─Sahelanthropus X 

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                            └─┬─Sahelanthropus X
└─┬─Pan
└─Hominini
├─Ardipithecus X
└─┬─Australopithecus afarensis X
├?─Paranthropus aethiopicus (if descended from A afarensis) X
└─┬─Australopithecus africanus X
└─┬─Paranthropus X
│ ├?─Paranthropus aethiopicus X
│ └─┬─Paranthropus robustus X
│   └─Paranthropus boisei X
└─┬─Kenyanthropus X
└─Homo
├─Homo habilis X
╘═╤═Homo erectus X
│ └─Homo floresiensis X
╘═╤═Homo heidelbergensis X
└─┬─Homo neanderthalensis X
└─Homo sapiens

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└─┬─Pan
│ └─┬─Pan troglodytes (chimpanzee)
│   └─Pan paniscus (bonobos)
└─Hominini 

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Therefore I say: "Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril.

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When you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal.

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If ignorant both of your enemy and of yourself, you are certain in every battle to be in peril."

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• At Mother Jones: One Man’s Crusade Against Fundamentalist Claptrap
  

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  This spring, poor health and scarce funds forced Bennetta to shutter the Textbook League. Yet he’s content to hole up in his clapboard house, far beyond the fray. You have [Glenn] Beck and all those guys saying whatever they’re saying this week. If you look in the textbooks, you see something very similar, he says. What these people do is create a past that never existed and relate it to a present that doesn’t exist. That’s why this erudite, lifelong science buff spent 22 years watchdogging religious groupseven though he was powerless to keep them from hijacking his work. Nature doesn’t lie, he says. Men do.

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• The Textbook League Closes Its Books, Stays Online
  

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When I was 18, I thought my father was the stupidest man who had ever lived. But when I was 21, I was amazed at how much the old boy had learned in only three years.

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• Are you questioning claims for a young earth and are asking us how to counter those claims?
• Or despite all your belly-aching about being called a creationist, does it turn out that you are indeed a young-earth creationist (YEC)?

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         /  \
        /    \
       /      \
  Hominini    Pan

└─┬─
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Human Evolution

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• Hominini - modern humans and all previous human, australopithecine, paranthropine and ardipithecine ancestors
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• Homininae - all of the above, plus chimpanzees (Panini), our closest living biological kin (a genetic kinship so close that some scientists have suggested their genus name should be changed from Pan to Homo).
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• Hominidae - all of the above, plus gorillas (Gorillinae)
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• Hominoidae - all of the above, plus orangutans (Pongidae)
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• Hominoidea - all of the above, plus gibbons (Hylobatoidae).

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The chart (at right) shows the evolutionary chronology inputed to these biological branches. Ardipithecus, the common primate ancestor to paranthropines, australopithecines and humans, went extinct about 4 million years ago.

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Primates: Dendrogram

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Archonta
│
└─Primates MH
├─Strepsirhini MH
│ ├─Lorisiformes
│ └─Lemuriformes
│   ├─Indrioidea MH
│   └─Lemuroidea
└─┬─Adapiformes X
└─┬─Darwinius X
└─Haplorhini
├─Tarsiiformes MH
└─Anthropoidea MH
├─Platyrrhini ToL
└─Catarrhini
├─Cercopithecidae (baboon)
└─Hominoidea MH
├─Proconsul X
└─┬─Kenyapithecus X
└─┬─Hylobatidae (gibbons)
└─Hominidae Hominoidae
├─Dryopithecus X
└─┬─Pierolapithecus X
└─┬─Ponginae
│ ╞═Sivapithecus X
│ ├─Gigantopithecus X
│ └─Pongo (orangutans)
└─Homininae Hominidae
├─Samburupithecus X
├─Nakalipithecus X
└─┬─Gorillini
│ ├─Chororapithecus X
│ └─Gorilla (gorillas)
└─┬─Sahelanthropus X 
└─Homininae
└─┬─Panini
│ └─┬─Pan troglodytes (chimpanzee)
│   └─Pan paniscus (bonobos)
└─Hominini 
├─Ardipithecus X
└─┬─Australopithecus afarensis X
├?─Paranthropus aethiopicus (if descended from A afarensis) X
└─┬─Australopithecus africanus X
└─┬─Paranthropus X
│ ├?─Paranthropus aethiopicus X
│ └─┬─Paranthropus robustus X
│   └─Paranthropus boisei X
└─┬─Kenyanthropus X
└─Homo
├─Homo habilis X
╘═╤═Homo erectus X
│ └─Homo floresiensis X
╘═╤═Homo heidelbergensis X
└─┬─Homo neanderthalensis X
└─Homo sapiens

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