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Man is a product of evolution. Therefore human evolution is intimately related to the origin of life and its development on the face of earth. It is customary to speak of evolution ‘from amoeba to Man’, as if the amoeba is the simplest form of life. But in reality, there are several organisms more primitives than amoeba, say for example viruses. The evolution from a self-replicating organic molecule to a protozoan, like amoeba, is the most complex step in evolution, which might have consumed the same extent of time from protozoan to man.

The term evolution was first applied by the English philosopher Herbert Spencer to mean the historical development of life. Since then evolution denotes a change, although the term may be defined in several ways. In the context of man, the biological evolution started with the ‘Origin of life’. In the beginning, there was nothing. The first successful formation of protoplasm initiated the life and its continuous development proceeded towards complexity to give rise different life forms of evolved type.

About 10 billion years after the formation of Universe, the earth was formed. Life on earth appeared far late, nearly three billion years ago. Of the several evolutionary problems, perhaps the origin of life is the most critical, since there is no record concerning it. Life has been characterized by the capacity of performing certain vital functional activities like metabolism, growth and reproduction. There is no ambiguity regarding this point. But how the first life came on earth is a matter of conjecture.

Ancient thinkers speculated that life originated spontaneously from inorganic components of the environment, just after the formation of earth. A series of physio-chemical processes were perhaps responsible behind this creation. Aristotle (384 BC to 322 BC) was the pioneer in this line of thought and nobody raised any voice against his speculation till seventeenth Century. But in seventeenth Century, an Italian scientist, Francesco Redi (1627 -1697) made an experiment with two pieces of meat.

One of the pieces was kept fully covered and the other piece was kept in an open place. After some days he examined both of the pieces very carefully. He noticed that, flies laid eggs on the uncovered piece of meat and so many new flies had born. But the covered piece of meat had not produced any new fly, as there was absolutely no access of flies.

Redi tried to establish the fact, that living organisms cannot be originated spontaneously from inorganic components. More or less at the same time, Leuwenhock (1632 – 1723) by studying several microorganisms like protozoa, sperm, bacteria etc. under microscope declared that the spontaneous generation was possible for the microorganisms. Later, Louis Pasteur (1822 -1895) also studied much to furnish evidences in support of spontaneous creation.

In fact, scientists of this period were perplexed in finding out how life began spontaneously as a matter of chance. Philosophers, Thinkers and Scientists all had submitted their varied thought and propositions regarding the nature and mechanism of origin of life on earth. Different religions had also put forth different concepts in this connection.

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Essay on Human Evolution

Students are often asked to write an essay on Human Evolution in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Human Evolution

Introduction.

Human evolution is the lengthy process of change by which people originated from apelike ancestors. It’s a fascinating journey that took millions of years.

The Beginning

Our story begins in Africa about 6 million years ago. The first humans were primates, similar to apes.

Walking Upright

Around 4 million years ago, early humans started walking upright. This trait, called bipedalism, set us apart from other apes.

Use of Tools

About 2.6 million years ago, humans started using tools. This was a major step in our evolution.

Development of Language

Language developed about 50,000 years ago. It allowed us to share knowledge and build societies.

Human evolution is a fascinating subject. It helps us understand where we come from and who we are.

250 Words Essay on Human Evolution

Introduction to human evolution.

Human evolution is an intriguing scientific concept that traces the progression of Homo sapiens from our early ancestors. It is a multidimensional process that has been shaped by natural selection, genetic drift, migration, and mutation over millions of years.

The Early Beginnings

The journey of human evolution began approximately 6 million years ago in Africa, with the emergence of the first hominins, our earliest ancestors. These hominins were distinguished from apes by their upright posture and bipedal locomotion.

The Genus Homo

Around 2 million years ago, the genus Homo appeared, characterized by a significant increase in brain size and the advent of tool use. Homo habilis, Homo erectus, and eventually Homo sapiens, our species, were part of this genus. Homo sapiens are unique in their capacity for complex language, abstract thought, and creativity.

The Role of Environment

Environmental changes played a critical role in human evolution. For instance, climate fluctuations led to the development of traits like bipedalism, which allowed early hominins to adapt to diverse habitats.

Modern Humans and Migration

Around 70,000 years ago, modern humans began migrating out of Africa, populating different parts of the world. This migration led to the development of diverse human populations with distinct genetic and cultural variations.

The story of human evolution is a testament to our species’ adaptability and resilience. It underscores the dynamic interplay between biology and environment, shaping our past and influencing our future. As we continue to unravel the mysteries of our evolution, we gain profound insights into what it means to be human.

500 Words Essay on Human Evolution

Human evolution is a fascinating and complex process that has shaped us into the beings we are today. It is a multidisciplinary field of science that encompasses biology, anthropology, archaeology, and genetics. The process of evolution involves a series of natural changes that cause species to arise, adapt to the environment, and eventually become extinct.

The Origins of Homo Sapiens

The journey of human evolution began approximately six million years ago in Africa, when the human lineage diverged from that of chimpanzees, our closest living relatives. The first species in the human lineage, known as hominins, were significantly different from modern humans. They had a combination of human-like traits such as upright walking, and traits we associate with other primates, such as a smaller brain size.

Over time, evolutionary pressures such as environmental changes and competition for resources led to the emergence of new hominin species. Around two million years ago, the genus Homo, which includes modern humans, emerged. The Homo species had larger brains and made sophisticated tools.

The Advent of Homo Sapiens

Approximately 300,000 years ago, Homo sapiens, our own species, appeared. Early Homo sapiens had a combination of physical traits from earlier hominin species and new traits that we still possess today, such as a high forehead and a chin. They also exhibited advanced behaviors, such as creating complex tools and engaging in symbolic behavior like art and burial rituals.

The Homo sapiens were not the only hominin species on Earth at that time. They coexisted, and sometimes interbred, with other species such as the Neanderthals. However, about 40,000 years ago, all other hominin species had become extinct, leaving Homo sapiens as the sole surviving species in the human lineage.

Migration and Modern Evolution

The Homo sapiens began to migrate out of Africa around 70,000 years ago, gradually populating the entire globe. They adapted to a variety of environments and developed diverse cultures. This migration and adaptation are reflected in the genetic diversity we see in modern humans.

Modern human evolution continues today. Humans are still evolving, with natural selection acting on traits such as resistance to diseases and the ability to digest certain foods. Furthermore, our cultural and technological advancements are now a significant driver of our evolution.

The journey of human evolution is a testament to the resilience and adaptability of our species. It is a complex process that has shaped our physical traits, behaviors, and cultures. As we continue to evolve and adapt to our changing world, we carry with us the legacy of millions of years of evolution. Understanding our evolutionary history not only helps us appreciate our place in the natural world but also sheds light on our future as a species.

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The Web of Life

A brief overview of human evolution.

Within the deep-time context of Earth’s geologic history, or even life history, anatomically modern humans have been on the global scene for a relatively tiny amount of time — around 300,000 years . But how exactly did we get here?

About 7 million years ago, the lineages that would eventually produce humans and chimpanzees diverged . This point of divergence is referred to as the most recent common ancestor, a term that describes the individual from which two distinct species originate. This shared ancestor is the theoretical “mother” of both humans and chimpanzees, as the offspring of this individual mark the beginning of speciation down distinct phylogenetic, or evolutionary, pathways. In this case, one of these pathways happened to split once again, resulting in the emergence of chimpanzees and bonobos, our closest living non-human relatives . The other pathway gave birth to a long and circuitous evolutionary journey that would eventually produce us, Homo sapiens sapiens (aptly named for our wise-wiseness). This path was anything but deterministic, comprising a variety of pre-human hominins that very well could never have arisen, or produced humans whatsoever. In this article, we’ll synthesize some of the key developments in this evolutionary picture, providing some broad prehistorical strokes from which to better understand our origins.

According to most experts, the first undisputable hominin species is Australopithecus anamensis , whose fossils can be traced back to 4.2 million years ago (or 4.2 mya for short). Originating in Eastern Africa, A. anamensis was quickly succeeded by a series of other Australopithecus species, such as A. afarensis and A. africanus (famously known for the renowned “Lucy” fossil ) who lived between 3.9 and 2.9 mya. There is strong fossil evidence to support the conclusion that Australopithecus species were full-time bipeds, including a number of human-like footprints from 3.7 million years ago preserved in volcanic ash in northern Tanzania. However, apart from their bipedality, these species bore little resemblance to Homo sapiens . Standing between 3 and 5 feet tall, Australopithecus species were likely fully covered in hair and had a brain only 1/3 the size of that of modern humans.

Things start to look slightly more familiar around 2.5 million years ago with the onset of the genus Homo . While H. habilis , the hypothesized descendant of Australopithecus , is the first widely recognized human species, our true interest lies even one evolutionary step further. Following H. habilis , H. erectus made their first appearance around 1.9 mya, bringing with them a number of key morphological changes. For one, H. erectus began approaching the stature of H. sapiens , standing between 146 and 185 cm tall, or about 5 1/2 feet on average. It’s also hypothesized that they exhibited significant hair loss, highlighting the growing importance of sweating as a form of releasing heat while hunting, foraging, or travelling on the hot savanna. Most importantly, their brain size was substantially larger than that of prior hominins, averaging about 1,000 cubic centimeters compared to Australopithecus Afarensis ’s cranial capacity of 420-550 cubic centimeters.

These morphological adaptations brought with them a number of behavioral changes as well. Most significantly, H. erectus is the first human species that we know was capable of using fire . Additionally, H. erectus is likewise credited with the creation of the Acheulean tool industry . This toolkit is characterized by the hand axe, an implement of greater complexity that required more craftsmanship, and provided a sharper edge, than previous Oldowan tools (a simpler category of tools used by prior Hominins). These developments, along with the fact that many of H. erectus ’s fossil sites are scattered with bones of medium- to large-sized game, imply some exciting trends about H. erectus physiology and psychology . Mainly, these bones and fire usage imply the possibility of: (1) a coordinated group hunting effort to take down large game, demonstrating the development of group sociality, and (2) cooked food.

H. erectus is the first human species that we know was capable of using fire.

Cooking food has two major effects. The first is that it makes food softer and easier to eat, thus encouraging a reduction in tooth size and jaw strength. This also frees humans from having to spend half our day chewing ( as many of our contemporary ape relatives do ). The second is that it increases the caloric content that humans can get from food, as less energy is squandered internally in the breaking down of raw foods into something digestible. This extra energy provides the necessary preconditions for brain growth, a highly costly organ energy-wise, which is evidenced by H. erectus ’s increased brain capacity. With all this in mind, it may not come as a surprise to learn that H. erectus was highly successful, becoming the first hominin species to expand beyond Africa, extending into Asia as early as 2.1 mya and Europe by at least 500,000 years ago , if not sooner.

Over the following centuries, H. erectus eventually speciated into two other forms of Homo : H. heidelbergensis and H. neanderthalensis . These species generally continued with the predominant adaptive trends already set in place by prior hominin evolution, including larger brains, more complex tools, and increasingly gracile (slender) jaws and teeth. They also continued to exhibit increasingly complex social behavior, such as sexual division of labor, group hunting, and, eventually, even art and ornamentation. That being said, one substantial limiting factor to Neanderthals’ success was the fact that they possessed significant vocal limitations and were incapable of articulate speech , greatly limiting their ability for complex social interaction. However, although they are often depicted as grunting brutes, Neanderthals were in fact highly intelligent creatures who enjoyed larger brains on average than modern humans and showed many signs of complex culture. This is perhaps evidenced by the fact that there was significant interbreeding between modern humans and Neanderthal populations for thousands of years. As a result, today, the genome of all non-African human populations contain anywhere from 1-4% of Neanderthal DNA . Talk about a lasting impression!

Speaking of which, we now come to the part of the story that is perhaps of most interest to our (admittedly anthropocentric) mindset: ourselves. Fossil evidence suggests that anatomically modern humans first emerged about 300,000 years ago . After that, following a number of unsuccessful attempts at migration out of Africa, recent evidence suggests that humans first successfully expanded into Eurasia around 65-50,000 years ago in a single migration wave from which all modern non-African populations are descended (though other dispersal theories exist ). H. sapiens then proceeded to spread throughout Eurasia and Oceania, displacing , outcompeting , or exterminating (pick your favorite theory) all other human species they encountered along the way, along with much of the megafauna (large animals). What’s more, H. sapiens had even spread into the Americas potentially as early as 40,000 to 30,000 years ago , thus occupying nearly all the habitable land on the planet. What was it that made these early Homo sapiens so successful?

As with many things, it’s impossible to distill this answer down to one reductionist cause. Humans have been so successful simply because of our, well, human-ness. That being said, although human nature continues to escape definition, it is thankfully not beyond description, and we can nonetheless identify a number of factors that have contributed to our ancestor’s success.

As we’ve been discussing, Homo sapiens had a number of important biological adaptations that began developing in prior hominin lineages. These include bipedality, opposable thumbs, and sweating, among others. However, two vital differences that set H. sapiens apart from prior human and hominin species are (1) a spectrum of physiological developments in the human vocal tract which allow for articulate speech and (2) large brains . Together, these adaptations produced highly intelligent creatures, who now could talk to one another… And the rest of the story practically writes itself. In an eyeblink, humans were suddenly enmeshed in a highly complex world of language, religion, politics, friendships, tradition – human culture itself was suddenly conceived. With culture and intellect on their side, H. sapiens were able to swiftly adapt to new environments, innovate better ways of hunting and gathering, and create and tell new stories to explain the strange world they found themselves in.

Early human lifestyle will be discussed in far more depth in a later article , but I’d like to end here by briefly commenting on one final aspect of the origin of human culture. Another crucial side effect of these changes was that an individual H. sapiens ’s fitness was constrained not by biological factors, but by social factors. For humans, it suddenly became important not just how much food you got, or how many mates you had access to, or if a predator would kill you or not, but how much status you had in your tribe, if people thought you were a nice guy, or if Jessica liked you, or, like, like liked you…or maybe not. It became not just an affectation, but a necessity to keep track of the various complicated and ever-changing relationships in one’s social sphere, as humans exchanged not just physical, but social capital. In the end, the minds that made us so successful in our global conquest also came with a steep tradeoff, as hidden biases adapted to our evolutionary context continue to color our daily experience of reality to this day…but that’s a topic for another article.

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Introductory essay

Written by the educator who created What Makes Us Human?, a brief look at the key facts, tough questions and big ideas in his field. Begin this TED Study with a fascinating read that gives context and clarity to the material.

As a biological anthropologist, I never liked drawing sharp distinctions between human and non-human. Such boundaries make little evolutionary sense, as they ignore or grossly underestimate what we humans have in common with our ancestors and other primates. What's more, it's impossible to make sharp distinctions between human and non-human in the paleoanthropological record. Even with a time machine, we couldn't go back to identify one generation of humans and say that the previous generation contained none: one's biological parents, by definition, must be in the same species as their offspring. This notion of continuity is inherent to most evolutionary perspectives and it's reflected in the similarities (homologies) shared among very different species. As a result, I've always been more interested in what makes us similar to, not different from, non-humans.

Evolutionary research has clearly revealed that we share great biological continuity with others in the animal kingdom. Yet humans are truly unique in ways that have not only shaped our own evolution, but have altered the entire planet. Despite great continuity and similarity with our fellow primates, our biocultural evolution has produced significant, profound discontinuities in how we interact with each other and in our environment, where no precedent exists in other animals. Although we share similar underlying evolved traits with other species, we also display uses of those traits that are so novel and extraordinary that they often make us forget about our commonalities. Preparing a twig to fish for termites may seem comparable to preparing a stone to produce a sharp flake—but landing on the moon and being able to return to tell the story is truly out of this non-human world.

Humans are the sole hominin species in existence today. Thus, it's easier than it would have been in the ancient past to distinguish ourselves from our closest living relatives in the animal kingdom. Primatologists such as Jane Goodall and Frans de Waal, however, continue to clarify why the lines dividing human from non-human aren't as distinct as we might think. Goodall's classic observations of chimpanzee behaviors like tool use, warfare and even cannibalism demolished once-cherished views of what separates us from other primates. de Waal has done exceptional work illustrating some continuity in reciprocity and fairness, and in empathy and compassion, with other species. With evolution, it seems, we are always standing on the shoulders of others, our common ancestors.

Primatology—the study of living primates—is only one of several approaches that biological anthropologists use to understand what makes us human. Two others, paleoanthropology (which studies human origins through the fossil record) and molecular anthropology (which studies human origins through genetic analysis), also yield some surprising insights about our hominin relatives. For example, Zeresenay Alemsegad's painstaking field work and analysis of Selam, a 3.3 million-year old fossil of a 3-year-old australopithecine infant from Ethiopia, exemplifies how paleoanthropologists can blur boundaries between living humans and apes.

Selam, if alive today, would not be confused with a three-year-old human—but neither would we mistake her for a living ape. Selam's chimpanzee-like hyoid bone suggests a more ape-like form of vocal communication, rather than human language capability. Overall, she would look chimp-like in many respects—until she walked past you on two feet. In addition, based on Selam's brain development, Alemseged theorizes that Selam and her contemporaries experienced a human-like extended childhood with a complex social organization.

Fast-forward to the time when Neanderthals lived, about 130,000 – 30,000 years ago, and most paleoanthropologists would agree that language capacity among the Neanderthals was far more human-like than ape-like; in the Neanderthal fossil record, hyoids and other possible evidence of language can be found. Moreover, paleogeneticist Svante Pääbo's groundbreaking research in molecular anthropology strongly suggests that Neanderthals interbred with modern humans. Paabo's work informs our genetic understanding of relationships to ancient hominins in ways that one could hardly imagine not long ago—by extracting and comparing DNA from fossils comprised largely of rock in the shape of bones and teeth—and emphasizes the great biological continuity we see, not only within our own species, but with other hominins sometimes classified as different species.

Though genetics has made truly astounding and vital contributions toward biological anthropology by this work, it's important to acknowledge the equally pivotal role paleoanthropology continues to play in its tandem effort to flesh out humanity's roots. Paleoanthropologists like Alemsegad draw on every available source of information to both physically reconstruct hominin bodies and, perhaps more importantly, develop our understanding of how they may have lived, communicated, sustained themselves, and interacted with their environment and with each other. The work of Pääbo and others in his field offers powerful affirmations of paleoanthropological studies that have long investigated the contributions of Neanderthals and other hominins to the lineage of modern humans. Importantly, without paleoanthropology, the continued discovery and recovery of fossil specimens to later undergo genetic analysis would be greatly diminished.

Molecular anthropology and paleoanthropology, though often at odds with each other in the past regarding modern human evolution, now seem to be working together to chip away at theories that portray Neanderthals as inferior offshoots of humanity. Molecular anthropologists and paleoanthropologists also concur that that human evolution did not occur in ladder-like form, with one species leading to the next. Instead, the fossil evidence clearly reveals an evolutionary bush, with numerous hominin species existing at the same time and interacting through migration, some leading to modern humans and others going extinct.

Molecular anthropologist Spencer Wells uses DNA analysis to understand how our biological diversity correlates with ancient migration patterns from Africa into other continents. The study of our genetic evolution reveals that as humans migrated from Africa to all continents of the globe, they developed biological and cultural adaptations that allowed for survival in a variety of new environments. One example is skin color. Biological anthropologist Nina Jablonski uses satellite data to investigate the evolution of skin color, an aspect of human biological variation carrying tremendous social consequences. Jablonski underscores the importance of trying to understand skin color as a single trait affected by natural selection with its own evolutionary history and pressures, not as a tool to grouping humans into artificial races.

For Pääbo, Wells, Jablonski and others, technology affords the chance to investigate our origins in exciting new ways, adding pieces into the human puzzle at a record pace. At the same time, our technologies may well be changing who we are as a species and propelling us into an era of "neo-evolution."

Increasingly over time, human adaptations have been less related to predators, resources, or natural disasters, and more related to environmental and social pressures produced by other humans. Indeed, biological anthropologists have no choice but to consider the cultural components related to human evolutionary changes over time. Hominins have been constructing their own niches for a very long time, and when we make significant changes (such as agricultural subsistence), we must adapt to those changes. Classic examples of this include increases in sickle-cell anemia in new malarial environments, and greater lactose tolerance in regions with a long history of dairy farming.

Today we can, in some ways, evolve ourselves. We can enact biological change through genetic engineering, which operates at an astonishing pace in comparison to natural selection. Medical ethicist Harvey Fineberg calls this "neo-evolution". Fineberg goes beyond asking who we are as a species, to ask who we want to become and what genes we want our offspring to inherit. Depending on one's point of view, the future he envisions is both tantalizing and frightening: to some, it shows the promise of science to eradicate genetic abnormalities, while for others it raises the specter of eugenics. It's also worth remembering that while we may have the potential to influence certain genetic predispositions, changes in genotypes do not guarantee the desired results. Environmental and social pressures like pollution, nutrition or discrimination can trigger "epigenetic" changes which can turn genes on or off, or make them less or more active. This is important to factor in as we consider possible medical benefits from efforts in self-directed evolution. We must also ask: In an era of human-engineered, rapid-rate neo-evolution, who decides what the new human blueprints should be?

Technology figures in our evolutionary future in other ways as well. According to anthropologist Amber Case, many of our modern technologies are changing us into cyborgs: our smart phones, tablets and other tools are "exogenous components" that afford us astonishing and unsettling capabilities. They allow us to travel instantly through time and space and to create second, "digital selves" that represent our "analog selves" and interact with others in virtual environments. This has psychological implications for our analog selves that worry Case: a loss of mental reflection, the "ambient intimacy" of knowing that we can connect to anyone we want to at any time, and the "panic architecture" of managing endless information across multiple devices in virtual and real-world environments.

Despite her concerns, Case believes that our technological future is essentially positive. She suggests that at a fundamental level, much of this technology is focused on the basic concerns all humans share: who am I, where and how do I fit in, what do others think of me, who can I trust, who should I fear? Indeed, I would argue that we've evolved to be obsessed with what other humans are thinking—to be mind-readers in a sense—in a way that most would agree is uniquely human. For even though a baboon can assess those baboons it fears and those it can dominate, it cannot say something to a second baboon about a third baboon in order to trick that baboon into telling a fourth baboon to gang up on a fifth baboon. I think Facebook is a brilliant example of tapping into our evolved human psychology. We can have friends we've never met and let them know who we think we are—while we hope they like us and we try to assess what they're actually thinking and if they can be trusted. It's as if technology has provided an online supply of an addictive drug for a social mind evolved to crave that specific stimulant!

Yet our heightened concern for fairness in reciprocal relationships, in combination with our elevated sense of empathy and compassion, have led to something far greater than online chats: humanism itself. As Jane Goodall notes, chimps and baboons cannot rally together to save themselves from extinction; instead, they must rely on what she references as the "indomitable human spirit" to lessen harm done to the planet and all the living things that share it. As Goodall and other TED speakers in this course ask: will we use our highly evolved capabilities to secure a better future for ourselves and other species?

I hope those reading this essay, watching the TED Talks, and further exploring evolutionary perspectives on what makes us human, will view the continuities and discontinuities of our species as cause for celebration and less discrimination. Our social dependency and our prosocial need to identify ourselves, our friends, and our foes make us human. As a species, we clearly have major relationship problems, ranging from personal to global scales. Yet whenever we expand our levels of compassion and understanding, whenever we increase our feelings of empathy across cultural and even species boundaries, we benefit individually and as a species.

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Zeresenay Alemseged

The search for humanity's roots, relevant talks.

Spencer Wells

A family tree for humanity.

Svante Pääbo

Dna clues to our inner neanderthal.

Nina Jablonski

Skin color is an illusion.

We are all cyborgs now

Harvey Fineberg

Are we ready for neo-evolution.

Frans de Waal

Moral behavior in animals.

Jane Goodall

What separates us from chimpanzees.

Frontiers for Young Minds

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A Brief Account of Human Evolution for Young Minds

Most of what we know about the origin of humans comes from the research of paleoanthropologists, scientists who study human fossils. Paleoanthropologists identify the sites where fossils can be found. They determine the age of fossils and describe the features of the bones and teeth discovered. Recently, paleoanthropologists have added genetic technology to test their hypotheses. In this article, we will tell you a little about prehistory, a period of time including pre-humans and humans and lasting about 10 million years. During the Prehistoric Period, events were not reported in writing. Most information on prehistory is obtained through studying fossils. Ten to twelve million years ago, primates divided into two branches, one included species leading to modern (current) humans and the other branch to the great apes that include gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, and orangutans. The branch leading to modern humans included several different species. When one of these species—known as the Neanderthals—inhabited Eurasia, they were not alone; Homo sapiens and other Homo species were also present in this region. All the other species of Homo have gone extinct, with the exception of Homo sapiens , our species, which gradually colonized the entire planet. About 12,000 years ago, during the Neolithic Period, some (but not all) populations of H. sapiens passed from a wandering lifestyle of hunting and gathering to one of sedentary farming, building villages and towns. They developed more complex social organizations and invented writing. This was the end of prehistory and the beginning of history.

What Is Evolution?

Evolution is the process by which living organisms evolve from earlier, more simple organisms. According to the scientist Charles Darwin (1809–1882), evolution depends on a process called natural selection. Natural selection results in the increased reproductive capacities of organisms that are best suited for the conditions in which they are living. Darwin’s theory was that organisms evolve as a result of many slight changes over the course of time. In this article, we will discuss evolution during pre-human times and human prehistory. During prehistory, writing was not yet developed. But much important information on prehistory is obtained through studies of the fossil record [ 1 ].

How Did Humans Evolve?

Primates, like humans, are mammals. Around ten to twelve million years ago, the ancestral primate lineage split through speciation from one common ancestor into two major groups. These two lineages evolved separately to become the variety of species we see today. Members of one group were the early version of what we know today as the great apes (gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos in Africa, orangutans in Asia) ( Figures 1 , 2 ); that is, the modern great apes evolved from this ancestral group. They mostly remained in forest with an arboreal lifestyle, meaning they live in trees. Great apes are also quadrupeds which means they move around with four legs on the ground (see Figure 2 ). The other group evolved in a different way. They became terrestrial, meaning they live on land and not in trees. From being quadrupeds they evolved to bipeds, meaning they move around on their two back legs. In addition the size of their brain increased. This is the group that, through evolution, gave rise to the modern current humans. Many fossils found in Africa are from the Australopithecus afarensis, Homo sapiens ."> genus named Australopithecus (which means southern ape). This genus is extinct, but fossil studies revealed interesting features about their adaptation toward a terrestrial lifestyle.

• Figure 1 - Evolutionary scheme, showing that great apes and humans all evolved from a common ancestor.
• The Neanderthal picture is a statue designed from a fossil skeleton.

• Figure 2 - Great Apes in nature.
• (above) Arboreal (in trees) locomotion of orangutans and (under) the quadrupedal (four-foot) locomotion of gorillas and chimpanzees.

Australopithecus afarensis and Lucy

In Ethiopia (East Africa) there is a site called Hadar, where several fossils of different animal species were found. Among those fossils was Australopithecus afarensis . In 1974, paleoanthropologists found an almost complete skeleton of one specimen of this species and named it Lucy, from The Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” The whole world found out about Lucy and she was in every newspaper: she became a global celebrity. This small female—only about 1.1 m tall—lived 3.2 million years ago. Analysis of her femurs (thigh bones) showed that she used terrestrial locomotion. Lucy could have used arboreal and bipedal locomotion as well, as foot bones of another A. afarensis individual had a curve similar to that found in the feet of modern humans [ 2 ]. Authors of this finding suggested accordingly that A. afarensis was exclusively bipedal and could have been a hunter-gatherer.

Homo habilis , Homo erectus , and Homo neanderthalensis

Homo is the genus (group of species) that includes modern humans, like us, and our most closely related extinct ancestors. Organisms that belong to the same species produce viable offspring. The famous paleoanthropologist named Louis Leakey, along with his team, discovered Homo habilis (meaning handy man) in 1964. Homo habilis was the most ancient species of Homo ever found [ 2 ]. Homo habilis appeared in Tanzania (East Africa) over 2.8 million years ago, and 1.5 million years ago became exinct. They were estimated to be about 1.40 meter tall and were terrestrial. They were different from Australopithecus because of the form of the skull. The shape was not piriform (pear-shaped), but spheroid (round), like the head of a modern human. Homo habilis made stone tools, a sign of creativity [ 3 ].

In Asia, in 1891, Eugene Dubois (also a paleoanthropologist) discovered the first fossil of Homo erectus (meaning upright man), which appeared 1.8 million years ago. This fossil received several names. The best known are Pithecanthropus (ape-man) and Sinanthropus (Chinese-man). Homo erectus appeared in East Africa and migrated to Asia, where they carved refined tools from stone [ 4 ]. Dubois also brought some shells of the time of H erectus from Java to Europe. Contemporary scientists studied these shells and found engravings that dated from 430,000 and 540,000 years ago. They concluded that H. erectus individuals were able to express themselves using symbols [ 5 ].

Several Homo species emerged following H. erectus and quite a few coexisted for some time. The best known one is Homo neanderthalensis ( Figure 3 ), usually called Neanderthals and they were known as the European branch originating from two lineages that diverged around 400,000 years ago, with the second branch (lineage) Homo sapiens known as the African branch. The first Neanderthal fossil, dated from around 430,000 years ago, was found in La Sima de los Huesos in Spain and is considered to originate from the common ancestor called Homo heidelbergensis [ 6 ]. Neanderthals used many of the natural resources in their environment: animals, plants, and minerals. Homo neanderthalensis hunted terrestrial and marine (ocean) animals, requiring a variety of weapons. Tens of thousands of stone tools from Neanderthal sites are exhibited in many museums. Neanderthals created paintings in the La Pasiega cave in the South of Spain and decorated their bodies with jewels and colored paint. Graves were found, which meant they held burial ceremonies.

• Figure 3 - A comparison of the skulls of Homo sapiens (Human) (left) vs. Homo neanderthalensis (Neanderthal) (right).
• You can see a shape difference. From Scientific American Vol. 25, No. 4, Autumn 2016 (modified).

Denisovans are a recent addition to the human tree. In 2010, the first specimen was discovered in the Denisova cave in south-western Siberia. Very little information is known on their behavior. They deserve further studies due to their interactions with Neandertals and other Homo species (see below) [ 7 ].

Homo sapiens

Fossils recently discovered in Morocco (North Africa) have added to the intense debate on the spread of H. sapiens after they originated 315,000 years ago [ 8 ]. The location of these fossils could mean that Homo sapiens had visited the whole of Africa. In the same way, the scattering of fossils out of Africa indicated their migrations to various continents [ 9 ]. While intensely debated, hypotheses focus on either a single dispersal or multiple dispersals out of the African continent [ 10 , 11 ]. Nevertheless, even if the origin of the migration to Europe is still a matter of debate [ 12 ], it appears that H. sapiens was present in Israel [ 13 ] 180,000 years ago. Therefore, it could be that migration to Europe was not directly from Africa but indirectly through a stay in Israel-Asia. They arrived about 45,000 years ago into Europe [ 14 ] where the Neanderthals were already present (see above). Studies of ancient DNA show that H. sapiens had babies with Neanderthals and Denisovans. Nowadays people living in Europe and Asia share between 1 and 4% of their DNA with either Neanderthals or Denisovans [ 15 ].

Several thousand years ago H. sapiens already made art, like for example the wall painting in the Chauvet cave (36,000 years ago) ( Figure 4 ) and the Lascaux cave (19,000 years ago), both in France. The quality of the paintings shows great artistic ability and intellectual development. Homo sapiens continued to prospect the Earth. They crossed the Bering Land Bridge, connecting Siberia and Alaska and moved south 12,500 years ago, to what is now called Chile. Homo sapiens gradually colonized our entire planet ( Figure 5 ).

• Figure 4 - The lions in the Chauvet cave (−36,000 years).
• In this period wild lions were present in Eurasia . Photo: Bradshaw foundation.com. Note the lively character of the picture.

• Figure 5 - Homo sapiens traveled in the world at various periods as shown on the map.
• They had only their legs to move!

The Neolithic Revolution

Neolithic Period means New Stone Age, due to the new stone technology that was developed during that time. The Neolithic Period started at the end of the glacial period 11,700 years ago. There was a change in the way humans lived during the Neolithic Period. Ruins found in Mesopotamia tell us early humans lived in populated villages. Due to the start of agriculture, most wandering hunter-gatherers became sedentary farmers. Instead of hunting dogs familiar with hunter-gatherers, farmers preferred sheepdogs [ 16 ]. In the Neolithic age, humans were farming and herding, keeping goats and sheep. Aurochs (extinct wild cattle), shown in the paintings from the Lascaux cave, are early ancestors of the domesticated cows we have today [ 17 ]. The first produce which early humans began to grow in Mesopotamia (a historical region in West Asia, situated between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers) was peas and wheat [ 18 ]. Animals and crops were traded and written records were kept of these trades. Clay tokens were the first money for these transactions. The Neolithic Period saw the creation of commerce, money, mathematics, and writing ( Figure 6 ) in Sumer, a region of Mesopotamia. The birth of writing started the period that we call “history,” in which events are written down and details of big events as well as daily life can easily be passed on. This tremendous change in human lifestyle can be called the Neolithic Revolution .

• Figure 6 - From the beginning to final evolution of cuneiform writing.
• Writing on argil support showed changes from pictograms to abstract design. Picture modified from British Museum. Dates in year BC.

From the time of Homo erectus , Homo species migrated out of Africa. Homo sapiens extended this migration over the whole planet. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Europeans explored the world. On the various continents, explorers met unknown populations. The Europeans were wondering if those beings were humans or not. But actually, those populations were also descendants of the men and women who colonized the earth at the dawn of mankind. In much earlier times, there was a theory that there were several races of humans, based mostly on skin color, but this theory was not supported by science. Current studies of DNA show that more than seven billion people who live on earth today are not of different races. There is only one human species on earth today, named Homo sapiens .

Suggested Reading

Species and Speciation. What defines a species? How new species can arise from existing species. https://www.khanacademy.org/science/biology/her/tree-of-life/a/species-speciation

Speciation : ↑ The formation of new and distinct species in the course of evolution.

Genus : ↑ In the classification of biology, a genus is a subdivision of a family. This subdivision is a grouping of living organisms having one or more related similarities. In the binomial nomenclature, the universally used scientific name of each organism is composed of its genus (capitalized) and a species identifier (lower case), for example Australopithecus afarensis, Homo sapiens.

Eurasia : ↑ A term used to describe the combined continental landmass of Europe and Asia.

Clay : ↑ Fine-grained earth that can be molded when wet and that is dried and baked to make pottery.

Revolution : ↑ Fundamental change occurring relatively quickly in human society.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Emma Clayton (Frontiers) for her advice and careful reading. Photo of Neanderthal statue was from Stephane Louryan, one of the designers of Neanderthal’s statue project [Faculty of Medicine, Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Brussels, Belgium].

[1] ↑ Godfraind, T. 2016. Hominisation et Transhumanisme . Bruxelles: Académie Royale de Belgique.

[2] ↑ Ward, C. V., Kimbel, W. H., and Johanson, D. C. 2011. Complete fourth metatarsal and arches in the foot of Australopithecus afarensis. Science 331:750–3. doi: 10.1126/science.1201463

[3] ↑ Harmand, S., Lewis, J. E., Feibel, C. S., Lepre, C. J., Prat, S., Lenoble, A., et al. 2015. 3.3-million-year-old stone tools from Lomekwi 3, West Turkana, Kenya. Nature 521:310–5. doi: 10.1038/nature14464

[4] ↑ Carotenuto, F., Tsikaridze, N., Rook, L., Lordkipanidze, D., Longo, L., Condemi, S., et al. 2016. Venturing out safely: the biogeography of Homo erectus dispersal out of Africa. J. Hum. Evol. 95:1–12. doi: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2016.02.005

[5] ↑ Joordens, J. C., d’Errico, F., Wesselingh, F. P., Munro, S., de Vos, J., Wallinga, J., et al. 2015. Homo erectus at Trinil on Java used shells for tool production and engraving. Nature 518:228–31. doi: 10.1038/nature13962

[6] ↑ Arsuaga, J. L., Martinez, I., Arnold, L. J., Aranburu, A., Gracia-Tellez, A., Sharp, W. D., et al. 2014. Neandertal roots: cranial and chronological evidence from Sima de los Huesos. Science 344:1358–63. doi: 10.1126/science.1253958

[7] ↑ Vernot, B., Tucci, S., Kelso, J., Schraiber, J. G., Wolf, A. B., Gittelman, R. M., et al. 2016. Excavating Neandertal and Denisovan DNA from the genomes of Melanesian individuals. Science 352:235–9. doi: 10.1126/science.aad9416

[8] ↑ Richter, D., Grun, R., Joannes-Boyau, R., Steele, T. E., Amani, F., Rue, M., et al. 2017. The age of the hominin fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, and the origins of the Middle Stone Age. Nature 546:293–6. doi: 10.1038/nature22335

[9] ↑ Vyas, D. N., Al-Meeri, A., and Mulligan, C. J. 2017. Testing support for the northern and southern dispersal routes out of Africa: an analysis of Levantine and southern Arabian populations. Am. J. Phys. Anthropol . 164:736–49. doi: 10.1002/ajpa.23312

[10] ↑ Reyes-Centeno, H., Hubbe, M., Hanihara, T., Stringer, C., and Harvati, K. 2015. Testing modern human out-of-Africa dispersal models and implications for modern human origins. J. Hum. Evol . 87:95–106. doi: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2015.06.008

[11] ↑ Templeton, A. 2002. Out of Africa again and again. Nature 416:45–51. doi: 10.1038/416045a

[12] ↑ Arnason, U. 2017. A phylogenetic view of the Out of Asia/Eurasia and Out of Africa hypotheses in the light of recent molecular and palaeontological finds. Gene 627:473–6. doi: 10.1016/j.gene.2017.07.006

[13] ↑ Callaway, E. 2018. Israeli fossils are the oldest modern humans ever found outside of Africa. Nature 554:15–6. doi: 10.1038/d41586-018-01261-5

[14] ↑ Benazzi, S., Douka, K., Fornai, C., Bauer, C. C., Kullmer, O., Svoboda, J., et al. 2011. Early dispersal of modern humans in Europe and implications for Neanderthal behaviour. Nature 479:525–8. doi: 10.1038/nature10617

[15] ↑ Vernot, B., and Akey, J. M. 2014. Resurrecting surviving Neandertal lineages from modern human genomes. Science 343:1017–21. doi: 10.1126/science.1245938

[16] ↑ Ollivier, M., Tresset, A., Frantz, L. A. F., Brehard, S., Balasescu, A., Mashkour, M., et al. 2018. Dogs accompanied humans during the Neolithic expansion into Europe. Biol. Lett. 14:20180286. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2018.0286

[17] ↑ Gerling, C., Doppler, T., Heyd, V., Knipper, C., Kuhn, T., Lehmann, M. F., et al. 2017. High-resolution isotopic evidence of specialised cattle herding in the European Neolithic. PLoS ONE 12:e0180164. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0180164

[18] ↑ Revedin, A., Aranguren, B., Becattini, R., Longo, L., Marconi, E., Lippi, M. M., et al. 2010. Thirty thousand-year-old evidence of plant food processing. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A . 107:18815–9. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1006993107

Evolution of Humans: The Human Evolutionary Theory Essay

There are many theories that try and explain how Humans evolved. The Human evolutionary theory is one such formulation that has evolved from its basic form as propounded by Charles Darwin to include many other facets and disciplines. This essay focuses on the concepts of human evolutionary theory.

The earliest best-known theory of evolution was propounded by Charles Darwin, whose main thesis was that life has evolved from simple single-celled organisms to multi-cellular, complex living things through the process of natural selection and the primacy of the ‘survival of the fittest. According to Darwin, the environment forced organisms to adapt and led to incremental and random genetic mutations that equipped certain species to cope up and survive better than the others. These random genetic mutations became reinforced in successful species, and those that could not cope up with the environment suffered extinction. Darwin (1859) states that “Natural selection acts only by taking advantage of slight successive variations; she can never take a great and sudden leap but must advance by short and sure, though slow steps” (p. 244). Man, too has arisen out of this process of natural selection.

In his thesis ‘The Descent of Man’ Darwin holds that man probably evolved from apes. Darwin(1871) theorizes that man’s position as the most dominant species was a result of his “intellectual faculties, to his social habits, which lead him to aid and defend his fellows, and to his corporeal structure” (p. 67). Darwin further adds that “through his powers of intellect, articulate language has been evolved; and on this, his wonderful advancement has mainly depended (p. 68)”. Modern evolutionary theory holds much the same conclusions as Darwin that the four main characteristics that made humans the dominant species were, Bipedalism; his ability to walk erect, thumb opposing the fingers, a cognitive intellect, and the power of the speech, which allowed the social organization of the highest degree.

The evolutionary theory holds that evolution is a product of natural selection, genetic drift, and gene flow. According to the natural selection mechanism, a genetic mutation that leads to the further reproductive success of an organism is reinforced, leading to a stronger organism that will survive over the other organism which does not have the beneficial mutation. These mutations happen gradually, very slowly over time to be beneficial. The evolutionary theory holds that most mutations are deleterious or harmful, and it is only the slow pace of mutation that allows for adaptation and reinforcement of the species.. However, that does not explain how humans have not mutated to more ‘horrible forms’ and have yet retained their beneficial traits. The reason is that since humans carry two sets of genes, one from the father and one from the mother, the ‘bad genes’ inherited from one of the parents get compensated by the genes of the other parent.

The evolutionary theory of humans has many detractors, who point to some significant gaps in information. For example, the evolutionary theory has till to date been unable to explain the ‘missing link’ between the theorized evolution of humans from Neanderthals to Homo sapiens and whether all humans originated ‘out of Africa’ or evolved differently in different parts of the world at the same time. Despite some promising paleontological finds in Ethiopia, the absolute validity of the evolutionary theory is a long way off from universal acceptance.

Works Cited

Darwin, C., & Darwin, F. (1896). On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. NY: D Appleton and Company.

Darwin, C., Desmond, A., & Moore, J. (2004). The Descent of Man (1871). London: Penguin Classics.

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IvyPanda. (2021, December 2). Evolution of Humans: The Human Evolutionary Theory. https://ivypanda.com/essays/evolution-of-humans-the-human-evolutionary-theory/

"Evolution of Humans: The Human Evolutionary Theory." IvyPanda , 2 Dec. 2021, ivypanda.com/essays/evolution-of-humans-the-human-evolutionary-theory/.

IvyPanda . (2021) 'Evolution of Humans: The Human Evolutionary Theory'. 2 December.

IvyPanda . 2021. "Evolution of Humans: The Human Evolutionary Theory." December 2, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/evolution-of-humans-the-human-evolutionary-theory/.

1. IvyPanda . "Evolution of Humans: The Human Evolutionary Theory." December 2, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/evolution-of-humans-the-human-evolutionary-theory/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Evolution of Humans: The Human Evolutionary Theory." December 2, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/evolution-of-humans-the-human-evolutionary-theory/.

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1 (page 1) p. 1 Introduction

• Published: June 2019
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All living organisms are situated on a Tree of Life that began around three billion years ago. The Introduction explains that this VSI focuses on the last stage of the human evolutionary journey, the stage between the most recent common ancestor shared by chimpanzees/bonobos and modern humans (around six to eight million years ago) and present-day modern humans. The three objectives of this VSI are to try and explain how palaeoanthropologists go about the task of improving our understanding of human evolutionary history; to convey a sense of what we think we know about human evolutionary history; and to show where the major gaps in our knowledge are.

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Everyday life and its variability influenced human evolution at least as much as rare activities like big-game  hunting

Professor and Chair of Biology at Seattle Pacific University and Affiliate Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Washington

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Cara Wall-Scheffler does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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Think about taking a walk: where you need to go, how fast you need to move to get there, and whether you need to bring something along to carry the results of your errand.

Are you going on this walk with someone else? Does walking with a friend change your preparation? If you’re walking with a child, do you remember to bring an extra sweater or a snack? You probably did – because people intuitively vary their plan depending on their current needs and situations.

In my research as an anthropologist , I’ve focused on the evolution of human walking and running because I love the flexibility people bring to these behaviors. Humans in all kinds of environments across space and time vary how far they go, when they go and what they go for – whether food, water or friends – based on a multitude of factors, including season, daylight, rituals and family.

Anthropologists split their studies of human activity into two broad categories: what people need to do – including eat, keep their kids alive and so on – and what solutions they come up with to accomplish these needs.

How people keep their children alive is a key issue in my research because it has a direct impact on whether a population survives. It turns out that kids stay alive if they’re with adults. To this end, it is a human universal that women carry heavy loads every day , including kids and their food. This needs-based behavior seems to have been an important part of our evolutionary history and explains quite a few aspects of human physiology and female morphology , such as women’s lower center of mass .

The solutions to other key problems, like specifically which food women will be carrying, vary across time and space. I suggest that these variations are as integral to explaining human biology and culture as the needs themselves.

Impacts of uncommon activities

Evolutionary scientists often focus on how beneficial heritable traits get passed on to offspring when they provide a survival advantage. Eventually a trait can become more common in a population when it provides a useful solution.

For example, researchers have made big claims about how influential persistence hunting via endurance running has been on the way the human body evolved. This theory suggests that taking down prey by running them to exhaustion has led to humans’ own abilities to run long distances – by increasing humans’ ability to sweat, strengthening our head support and making sure our lower limbs are light and elastic.

But persistence hunting occurs in fewer than 2% of the recorded instances of hunting in one major ethnographic database , making it an extremely rare solution to the need to find food. Could such a rare and unusual form of locomotion have had a strong enough impact to select for the suite of adaptive traits that make humans such excellent endurance athletes today?

Maybe persistence hunting is actually a fallback strategy, providing a solution only at key moments when survivorship is on the edge. Or maybe these capabilities are just side effects of the loaded walking done every day . I think a better argument is that the ability to predict how to move between common and uncommon strategies has been the driver of human endurance capacity.

Everyday life’s influence on evolution

Hunting itself, especially of large mammals, is hardly ubiquitous , despite how frequently it is discussed. For example, anthropologists tend to generalize that people who lived in the Arctic even up to a hundred years ago consumed only animal meat hunted by men. But actually, the original ethnographic work reveals a far more nuanced picture .

Women and children were actively involved in hunting, and it was a strongly seasonal activity. Coastal fishing, berry picking and the use of plant materials were all vital to Arctic people’s day-to-day sustenance. Small family groups used canoes for coastal foraging for part of the year.

During other seasons, the whole community participated in hunting large mammals by herding them into dangerous situations where they were more easily killed. Sometimes family groups were together, and sometimes large communities were together. Sometimes women hunted with rifles, and sometimes children ran after caribou.

The dynamic nature of daily life means that the relatively uncommon activity of hunting large terrestrial vertebrates is unlikely to be the main behavior that helps humans solve the key problems of food, water and keeping children alive.

Anthropologist Rebecca Bliege Bird has investigated how predictable food is throughout the day and the year . She’s noted that for most communities, big game is rarely caught, especially when a person is hunting alone. Even among the Hadza in Tanzania, generally considered a big-game hunting community, a hunter acquires 0.03 prey per day on average – essentially 11 animals a year for that person.

Bird and others clearly argue that the planning and flexible coordination done by females is the crucial aspect of how humans survive on a daily basis. It’s the daily efforts of females that allow people to be spontaneous a few times a year to accomplish high-risk activities such as hunting – persistence or otherwise. Therefore it is female flexibility that allows communities to survive between the rare big-game opportunities.

Changing roles and contributions

Some anthropologists argue that in some parts of the world, behavior varies more for cultural reasons , like what tools you make, than for environmental ones, such as how much daylight there is during winter. The importance of culture means that the solutions vary more than the needs.

One of the aspects of culture that varies is the role assigned to specific genders. Varying gender roles are related to the distribution of labor and when people take on certain solution-based tasks . In most cultures, these roles change across a female’s life span. In American culture, this would be like a grandparent going back to college to hone a childhood passion in order to take on a new job to send their grandchildren to college.

In many places, females go from youth when they might carry their siblings and firewood, to early parenthood where they might go hunting with a baby on their back , to older parenthood where they might carry water on their head, a baby on their back and tools in their hands, to postmenopausal periods when they might carry giant loads of mangoes and firewood to and from camp.

Even though always load carrying , our capacity to plan and change our behavior for diverse environments is part of what drives Homo sapiens ’ success, which means that the behavior of females across their different life stages has been a major driver of this capability.

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Biology library

Course: biology library   >   unit 25.

• Introduction to evolution and natural selection
• Ape clarification
• Natural selection and the owl butterfly
• Darwin, evolution, & natural selection
• Variation in a species
• Natural selection and Darwin

Evidence for evolution

Key points:.

• Anatomy. Species may share similar physical features because the feature was present in a common ancestor ( homologous structures ).
• Molecular biology. DNA and the genetic code reflect the shared ancestry of life. DNA comparisons can show how related species are.
• Biogeography. The global distribution of organisms and the unique features of island species reflect evolution and geological change.
• Fossils. Fossils document the existence of now-extinct past species that are related to present-day species.
• Direct observation. We can directly observe small-scale evolution in organisms with short lifecycles (e.g., pesticide-resistant insects).

Introduction

Evolution happens on large and small scales.

• Macroevolution , which refers to large-scale changes that occur over extended time periods, such as the formation of new species and groups.
• Microevolution , which refers to small-scale changes that affect just one or a few genes and happen in populations over shorter timescales.

The evidence for evolution

Anatomy and embryology, homologous features, analogous features, determining relationships from similar features, molecular biology.

• The same genetic material (DNA)
• The same, or highly similar, genetic codes
• The same basic process of gene expression (transcription and translation)
• The same molecular building blocks, such as amino acids

Homologous genes

Biogeography, fossil record, direct observation of microevolution.

• Before DDT was applied, a tiny fraction of mosquitos in the population would have had naturally occurring gene versions ( alleles ) that made them resistant to DDT. These versions would have appeared through random mutation , or changes in DNA sequence. Without DDT around, the resistant alleles would not have helped mosquitoes survive or reproduce (and might even have been harmful), so they would have remained rare.
• When DDT spraying began, most of the mosquitos would have been killed by the pesticide. Which mosquitos would have survived? For the most part, only the rare individuals that happened to have DDT resistance alleles (and thus survived being sprayed with DDT). These surviving mosquitoes would have been able to reproduce and leave offspring.
• Over generations, more and more DDT-resistant mosquitoes would have been born into the population. That's because resistant parents would have been consistently more likely to survive and reproduce than non-resistant parents, and would have passed their DDT resistance alleles (and thus, the capacity to survive DDT) on to their offspring. Eventually, the mosquito populations would have bounced back to high numbers, but would have been composed largely of DDT-resistant individuals.
• Homologous structures provide evidence for common ancestry, while analogous structures show that similar selective pressures can produce similar adaptations (beneficial features).
• Similarities and differences among biological molecules (e.g., in the DNA sequence of genes) can be used to determine species' relatedness.
• Biogeographical patterns provide clues about how species are related to each other.
• The fossil record, though incomplete, provides information about what species existed at particular times of Earth’s history.
• Some populations, like those of microbes and some insects, evolve over relatively short time periods and can observed directly.

Attribution:

Works cited:.

• Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution. (2016, April 6). Retrieved May 15, 2016 from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_in_Biology_Makes_Sense_Except_in_the_Light_of_Evolution .
• Wilkin, D. and Akre, B. (2016, March 23). Comparative anatomy and embryology - Advanced. In CK-12 biology advanced concepts . Retrieved from http://www.ck12.org/book/CK-12-Biology-Advanced-Concepts/section/10.22/ .
• Reece, J. B., Urry, L. A., Cain, M. L., Wasserman, S. A., Minorsky, P. V., and Jackson, R. B. (2011). Anatomical and molecular homologies. In Campbell biology (10th ed., p. 474). San Francisco, CA: Pearson.
• Chapman, B. R. and Bolen, E. G. (2015). Convergent evolution [Glossary entry]. In Ecology of North America (2nd ed., p. 311). West Sussex, UK: John Wiley & Sons.
• Insulin. (2014, June 6). In UCSD signaling gateway . Retrieved from http://www.signaling-gateway.org/molecule/query?afcsid=A004315&type=orthologs&adv=latest .
• Wilkin, D. and Akre, B. (2016, March 23). Evolution and the fossil record - Advanced. In CK-12 biology advanced concepts . Retrieved from http://www.ck12.org/book/CK-12-Biology-Advanced-Concepts/section/10.21/ .
• Reece, J. B., Taylor, M. R., Simon, E. J., and Dickey, J. L. (2011). Scientists can observe natural selection in action. In Campbell biology: Concepts & connections (7th ed., p. 259). Boston, MA: Benjamin Cummings.

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• Books Received
• Published: 08 June 1946

Essays on Human Evolution

• A. D. RITCHIE  

Nature volume  157 ,  pages 749–750 ( 1946 ) Cite this article

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IN these forty short essays, written during 1942-44, Sir Arthur Keith develops a thesis that would be vitally important if true, and in any event raises issues it would be folly to ignore. He claims (1) that men have always lived and always will live with a mixed allegiance to two incompatible codes of conduct ; one of friendliness, gentleness and cooperation within the community, the other of competition, hatred and warfare without (for example, pp. 5ff., lOOff.). (2) A community becomes a unit by isolation from its neighbours, whereby it preserves its genetic character, and it evolves as a unit (pp. 105, 130, 142). (3) The primitive unit is the tribe ; the advanced one the nation-state. Increase in size is brought about by warfare, which is part of the evolutionary process (pp. 48, 173). (4) Behaviour according to the code of 'amity' is morally approved, but 'enmity' between tribes or states is the necessary condition for human evolution ; therefore a universal community or state, even if possible, is undesirable, since it would stop the evolutionary process (pp. 45, 53).

By Sir Arthur Keith. Pp. x + 224. (London: Watts and Co. Ltd., 1946.) 15 s . net.

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New research shows microevolution can be used to predict how evolution works on much longer timescales

by Nancy Bazilchuk, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Ever since Charles Darwin published his landmark theory of how species evolve, biologists have been fascinated with the intricate mechanisms that make evolution possible.

Can mechanisms responsible for the evolution of a species over a few generations, called microevolution, also explain how species evolve over periods of time extending to thousands or millions of generations, also called macroevolution?

A new paper, just published in Science , shows that the ability of populations to evolve and adapt over a few generations, called evolvability, effectively helps us understand how evolution works on much longer timescales.

By compiling and analyzing huge datasets from existing species as well as from fossils, the researchers were able to show that the evolvability responsible for microevolution of many different traits predicts the amount of change observed between populations and species separated by up to one million years.

"Darwin suggested that species gradually evolve, but what we found is that even though populations rapidly evolve over the short term, this (short-term) evolution doesn't accumulate over time. However, how divergent populations and species are, on average, over long periods of time still depends on their ability to evolve on the short term," said Christophe Pélabon, a professor at NTNU's Department of Biology and senior author of the paper.

Big datasets from living creatures and fossils

The ability to respond to selection and to adapt, the evolvability, depends on the amount of heritable (genetic) variation. The researchers conducted their analysis by first compiling a massive dataset with measures of evolvability for living populations and species from publicly available information. They then plotted evolvablity against population and species divergence for different traits such as [bird] beak size, number of offspring, [plant] flower size and more.

They also examined information from 150 different lineages of fossils, where other researchers had measured differences in morphological traits in the fossils over time periods as short as 10 years and as long as 7.6 million years.

What they saw was that traits with higher evolvability were more divergent among existing populations and species, and that traits with higher evolvability were more likely to be different from each other between two consecutive fossil samples.

Conversely, traits with little evolvability or little variability didn't change very much between populations or between successive fossil samples

Environmental fluctuation is the key

Traits with higher evolvability change rapidly because they are able to respond to environmental changes more quickly, Pélabon said.

The environment—things such as temperature, the type of food available, or any other characteristic important for the survival and the reproduction of the individual—is the driving force of evolutionary changes because populations try to adapt to their own environment. Typically, environments are changing from year to year or decade to decade, fluctuating around stable means. This generates fluctuation in the direction of selection.

Highly evolvable traits can rapidly respond to these fluctuations in selection and will fluctuate over time with high amplitude. Traits with little evolvability will also fluctuate but more slowly and thus with lower amplitude.

"Populations or species that are geographically distant from each other are exposed to environments whose fluctuations are not synchronized. Consequently, these populations will have different trait values, and the size of this difference will depend on the amplitude of the trait's fluctuation, and therefore on the evolvability of the trait," Pélabon said.

Consequences for biodiversity

The researchers' results suggest that selection and therefore the environment has been relatively stable in the past. With climate change , things are rapidly changing, and mostly in one direction. This may strongly affect patterns of selection and how species can adapt to environments that are still fluctuating but around optima that are no longer stable even over periods of time of a few decades.

"How much species will be able to track these optima and adapt is uncertain, but most likely this will have consequences for biodiversity, even on a short timescale," he said.

Journal information: Science

Provided by Norwegian University of Science and Technology

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