Evolving Toward Humans

General links

• Browse here for Prominent hominid fossils
• African localities. Figure 20.1.
• East African hominid localities
• The East African rift

Australopithecines

Orrorin

• Orrorin bones.
• Orrorin femur

The new skull from Chad: Sahelanthropus

• The skull. National Geographic News.
• Better picture. National Geographic News.
• Chad Basin, showing localities. National Geographic News.
• Bernard Wood's idea of hominid species, from his comment on the paper. WARNING: from Nature, may not be universally available.

Later australopithecines

Ardipithecus, Australopithecus anamensis

• Skull of anamensis.

Footprints at Laetoli

• A footprint at Laetoli.
• Line of footprints
• Line of footprints

Australopithecus afarensis

• Skull of afarensis
• The best-preserved Hadar skeleton is the famous Lucy.
• Lucy's pelvis. Better than Figure 20.4b.
• The relatively massive jaw and teeth of A. afarensis

Australopithecus in South Africa

Australopithecus africanus

• Mrs Ples, STS5, front view
• africanus, oblique view
• africanus, side view
• Jaw of africanus. Figure 20.3.

• Australopithecus robustus skull from Sterkfontein.
• Three views of an Australopithecus boisei skull from East Africa:
  • A. boisei 1.
  • A. boisei 2.
  • A boisei 3
• A. boisei, skull OH5 from Olduvai Gorge.
• The Black Skull, called A. aethiopicus by some experts, and A. boisei by others. Compare Figure 20.7.
• New Australopithecus robustus skull from South Africa. BBC News OnLine, 2002.
• Kenyanthropus may simply be a damaged robustus.

Australopithecus garhi

Stone Tools

BROWSE the SARC (Stone Age Reference Collection)

The Appearance of Homo

Early species of Homo

• The skull KNM-ER-1470. Better than Figure 20.8. It is sometimes called Homo rudolfensis, and is on this Web site, but many people put it together with Homo habilis. (If so, it may be a large male skull.) The skull could have been reconstructed in a subtly different way that would have made a difference in both appearance and interpretation. This is a common, perhaps underestimated problem in reconstructing and understanding all fossil vertebrate skulls.
• This skull is KNM-ER-1813 from East Turkana, usually called Homo habilis. It has a small skull for Homo, (possibly it is female?), but Homo teeth. This is another example of a problem that recurs in paleontology. Although the fossil does not change, ideas may change or errors may creep in.

Homo from Dmanisi, Georgia

• Dmanisi skull. Homo habilis? erectus? National Geographic News
• Dmanisi skull
• New small Dmanisi skull

Homo erectus

• Skull OH9 from Olduvai Gorge. This early form from Africa is often called Homo ergaster, as here.
• Skull KNM-ER-3733 from Turkana, East Africa, an early Homo erectus (or Homo ergaster).
• The Nariokotome boy, KNM-WT 15000. Better than Figure 20.10.
• Nariokotome boy, skull
• Reconstruction of Peking Man, Homo erectus from Asia, looking cheerful.
• Older reconstruction of Peking man
• Homo erectus as a hunter by Jay Matternes.

Homo erectus and fire:

Tools of Homo erectus

• Acheulean tools
• Acheulean tools from Asia
• Sketch of Acheulean tools. Figure 20.11.

The little people from Flores

• Skull
• Flores skull and modern human

Homo antecessor

• Homo antecessor boy: skull pieces
• Homo antecessor boy
• Human arm bone with butchering marks on it

Homo heidelbergensis

• A skull from Broken Hill in Zambia, usually called "archaic Homo sapiens". At perhaps 300,000 years old, it is (according to some people at least, too old to call Homo sapiens, even "archaic", so should be placed within Homo heidelbergensis.
• The Bodo cranium from Ethiopia, around 600,000 BP.
• A skull of Homo heidelbergensis from Steinheim, Germany
• Arago skull, from Spain
• Homo heidelbergensis skull from Sima de los Huesos, Spain, around 400,000 BP.
• An exquisite pink quartzite hand axe from Sima de los Huesos.

Beautifully crafted hunting spears were made by H. heidelbergensis in Germany around 400,000 BP. They are throwing spears, up to 3.2 m long (10 feet), carved to angle through the air like modern javelins, and they are associated with butchered horses and other bones from elephant, rhino, deer and bear.

• Homo heidelbergensis hunting . From what the BBC fancifully calls "Factfiles"!

Neanderthals

• Neanderthal skull
• Old reconstruction of a Neanderthal
• Neanderthal: St. Césaire.
• The "Old Man" from La Chapelle, France
• Specimen from La Ferrassie, France
• The Gibraltar Neanderthal
• Neanderthal from Amud, in the Near East.
• Shanidar skull
• Neanderthal and modern human finger
• Neanderthal and modern human femur
• Human and Neanderthal children
• Neanderthal in a suit
• Neanderthal tooth wear
• Neanderthal tools: Mousterian tools. Better than Figure 20.13.
• Set of awls made by Neanderthals