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Ardipithecus
''Ardipithecus'' is a genus of an extinct hominine that lived during the Late Miocene and Early Pliocene epochs in the Afar Depression, Ethiopia. Originally described as one of the earliest ancestors of humans after they diverged from the chimpanzees, the relation of this genus to human ancestors and whether it is a hominin is now a matter of debate. Two fossil species are described in the literature: '' A. ramidus'', which lived about 4.4 million years ago during the early Pliocene, and '' A. kadabba'', dated to approximately 5.6 million years ago (late Miocene). Initial behavioral analysis indicated that ''Ardipithecus'' could be very similar to chimpanzees, however more recent analysis based on canine size and lack of canine sexual dimorphism indicates that ''Ardipithecus'' was characterised by reduced aggression, and that they more closely resemble bonobos. Some analyses describe ''Australopithecus'' as being sister to ''Ardipithecus ramidus'' specifically. This mea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ardipithecus Ramidus
''Ardipithecus ramidus'' is a species of australopithecine from the Afar region of Early Pliocene Ethiopia 4.4 million years ago (mya). ''A. ramidus'', unlike modern hominids, has adaptations for both walking on two legs (bipedality) and life in the trees (arboreality). However, it would not have been as efficient at bipedality as humans, nor at arboreality as non-human great apes. Its discovery, along with Miocene apes, has reworked academic understanding of the chimpanzee-human last common ancestor from appearing much like modern day chimpanzees, orangutans and gorillas to being a creature without a modern anatomical cognate. The facial anatomy suggests that ''A. ramidus'' males were less aggressive than those of modern chimps, which is correlated to increased parental care and monogamy in primates. It has also been suggested that it was among the earliest of human ancestors to use some proto-language, possibly capable of vocalizing at the same level as a human infant. This is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ardipithecus Kadabba
''Ardipithecus kadabba'' is the scientific classification given to fossil remains "known only from teeth and bits and pieces of skeletal bones", originally estimated to be 5.8 to 5.2 million years old, and later revised to 5.77 to 5.54 million years old. According to the first description, these fossils are close to the common ancestor of chimps and humans. Their development lines are estimated to have parted 6.5–5.5 million years ago. It has been described as a "probable chronospecies" (i.e. ancestor) of '' A. ramidus''. Although originally considered a subspecies of ''A. ramidus'', in 2004 anthropologists Yohannes Haile-Selassie, Gen Suwa, and Tim D. White published an article elevating ''A. kadabba'' to species level on the basis of newly discovered teeth from Ethiopia. These teeth show "primitive morphology and wear pattern" which demonstrate that ''A. kadabba'' is a distinct species from ''A. ramidus''. The specific name comes from the Afar word for "basal family ances ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bipedalism
Bipedalism is a form of terrestrial locomotion where an organism moves by means of its two rear limbs or legs. An animal or machine that usually moves in a bipedal manner is known as a biped , meaning 'two feet' (from Latin ''bis'' 'double' and ''pes'' 'foot'). Types of bipedal movement include walking, running, and hopping. Several groups of modern species are habitual bipeds whose normal method of locomotion is two-legged. In the Triassic period some groups of archosaurs (a group that includes crocodiles and dinosaurs) developed bipedalism; among the dinosaurs, all the early forms and many later groups were habitual or exclusive bipeds; the birds are members of a clade of exclusively bipedal dinosaurs, the theropods. Within mammals, habitual bipedalism has evolved multiple times, with the macropods, kangaroo rats and mice, springhare, hopping mice, pangolins and hominin apes ( australopithecines, including humans) as well as various other extinct groups evolving the tra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hominin
The Hominini form a taxonomic tribe of the subfamily Homininae ("hominines"). Hominini includes the extant genera ''Homo'' (humans) and '' Pan'' (chimpanzees and bonobos) and in standard usage excludes the genus ''Gorilla'' (gorillas). The term was originally introduced by Camille Arambourg (1948). Arambourg combined the categories of ''Hominina'' and ''Simiina'' due to Gray (1825) into his new subtribe. Traditionally, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans were grouped together as pongids. Since Gray's classification, evidence has accumulated from genetic phylogeny confirming that humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas are more closely related to each other than to the orangutan. The former pongids were reassigned to the subfamily Hominidae ("great apes"), which already included humans, but the details of this reassignment remain contested; within Hominini, not every source excludes gorillas, and not every source includes chimpanzees. Humans are the only extant species in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hominine
Homininae (), also called "African hominids" or "African apes", is a subfamily of Hominidae. It includes two tribes, with their extant as well as extinct species: 1) the tribe Hominini (with the genus ''Homo'' including modern humans and numerous extinct species; the subtribe Hominina, comprising at least two extinct genera; and the subtribe Panina, represented only by the genus ''Pan'', which includes chimpanzees and bonobos)―and 2) the tribe Gorillini (gorillas). Alternatively, the genus '' Pan'' is sometimes considered to belong to its own third tribe, Panini. Homininae comprises all hominids that arose after orangutans (subfamily Ponginae) split from the line of great apes. The Homininae cladogram has three main branches, which lead to gorillas (through the tribe Gorillini), and to humans and chimpanzees via the tribe Hominini and subtribes Hominina and Panina (see the evolutionary tree below). There are two living species of Panina (chimpanzees and bonobos) and two living ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middle Awash
The Middle Awash is a paleoanthropological research area in the Afar Region along the Awash River in Ethiopia's Afar Depression. It is a unique natural laboratory for the study of human origins and evolution and a number of fossils of the earliest hominins, particularly of the ''Australopithecines'', as well as some of the oldest known Olduwan stone artifacts, have been found at the site—all of late Miocene, the Pliocene, and the very early Pleistocene times, that is, about 5.6 million years ago (mya) to 2.5 mya. It is broadly thought that the divergence of the lines of the earliest humans (hominins) and of chimpanzees (hominids) was completed near the beginning of that time range, or sometime between seven and five mya. However, the larger community of scientists provide several estimates for periods of divergence that imply a greater range for this event, ''see'' CHLCA: human-chimpanzee split. A recent find of ''Australopithecus anamensis'' is dated to about 4.2 mi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Australopithecus
''Australopithecus'' (, ; ) is a genus of early hominins that existed in Africa during the Late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene. The genus ''Homo'' (which includes modern humans) emerged within ''Australopithecus'', as sister to e.g. ''Australopithecus sediba''. Also the genera ''Paranthropus'' and ''Kenyanthropus'' emerged within ''Australopithecus''. ''Australopithecus'' is a member of the subtribe Australopithecina, which sometimes also includes ''Ardipithecus'', though the term "australopithecine" is sometimes used to refer only to members of ''Australopithecus''. Species include ''Australopithecus garhi, A. garhi'', ''Australopithecus africanus, A. africanus'', ''Australopithecus sediba, A. sediba'', ''Australopithecus afarensis, A. afarensis, Australopithecus anamensis, A. anamensis, Australopithecus bahrelghazali, A. bahrelghazali'' and ''Australopithecus deyiremeda, A. deyiremeda''. Debate exists as to whether some ''Australopithecus'' species should be reclassified into ne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gona, Ethiopia
Gona is an archaeological site in the Afar Triangle of Ethiopia located in the Ethiopian Lowlands. The site, near the Middle Awash and Hadar regions, is primarily known for paleoanthropological study, including excavations of Late Miocene and Early Pliocene fossils, as well as Oldowan and Acheulean stone tools. Evidence of '' Homo erectus'' presence at Gona dates back to as early as 1.8 million years ago, making Gona's stone tools some of the world's oldest stone tool artifacts found to date. Gona is also known as a key site for the study of human evolution, with a rich hominid fossil record that includes evidence of ''Ardipithecus'' remains dating to around 4.5 million years old and '' Homo erectus'' fossils from approximately 1.8 to 1.7 million years ago. Likewise, faunal remains such as cutmarked bones from Gona give insight into early hominid diets and butchery practices, making it an important site for zooarchaeology. Geography The Ethiopian Highlands are divided in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Afar Depression
The Afar Triangle (also called the Afar Depression) is a geological depression caused by the Afar Triple Junction, which is part of the Great Rift Valley in East Africa. The region has disclosed fossil specimens of the very earliest hominins; that is, the earliest of the human clade, and it is thought by some paleontologists to be the cradle of the evolution of humans. The Depression overlaps the borders of Eritrea, Djibouti and the entire Afar Region of Ethiopia; and it contains the lowest point in Africa, Lake Assal, Djibouti, at below sea level. The Awash River is the main waterflow into the region, but it runs dry during the annual dry season, and ends as a chain of saline lakes. The northern part of the Afar Depression is also known as the Danakil Depression. The lowlands are affected by heat, drought, and minimal air circulation, and contain the hottest places (year-round average temperatures) of anywhere on Earth. The Afar Triangle is bordered as follows (see the topogr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Miocene
The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recent" because it has 18% fewer modern marine invertebrates than the Pliocene has. The Miocene is preceded by the Oligocene and is followed by the Pliocene. As Earth went from the Oligocene through the Miocene and into the Pliocene, the climate slowly cooled towards a series of ice ages. The Miocene boundaries are not marked by a single distinct global event but consist rather of regionally defined boundaries between the warmer Oligocene and the cooler Pliocene Epoch. During the Early Miocene, the Arabian Peninsula collided with Eurasia, severing the connection between the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean, and allowing a faunal interchange to occur between Eurasia and Africa, including the dispersal of proboscideans into Eurasia. During the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bonobo
The bonobo (; ''Pan paniscus''), also historically called the pygmy chimpanzee and less often the dwarf chimpanzee or gracile chimpanzee, is an endangered great ape and one of the two species making up the genus '' Pan,'' the other being the common chimpanzee (''Pan troglodytes''). While bonobos are now recognized as a distinct species in their own right, they were initially thought to be a subspecies of chimpanzee (''Pan troglodytes)'' due to the physical similarities between the two species. Taxonomically, the members of the chimpanzee/bonobo subtribe Panina (composed entirely by the genus '' Pan'') are collectively termed ''panins''. The bonobo is distinguished by relatively long legs, pink lips, dark face, tail-tuft through adulthood, and parted long hair on its head. The bonobo is found in a area of the Congo Basin in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central Africa. The species is frugivorous and inhabits primary and secondary forests, including seasonally inundated sw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hallux
Toes are the digits (fingers) of the foot of a tetrapod. Animal species such as cats that walk on their toes are described as being '' digitigrade''. Humans, and other animals that walk on the soles of their feet, are described as being '' plantigrade''; ''unguligrade'' animals are those that walk on hooves at the tips of their toes. Structure There are normally five toes present on each human foot. Each toe consists of three phalanx bones, the proximal, middle, and distal, with the exception of the big toe ( la, hallux). For a minority of people, the little toe also is missing a middle bone. The hallux only contains two phalanx bones, the proximal and distal. The joints between each phalanx are the interphalangeal joints. The proximal phalanx bone of each toe articulates with the metatarsal bone of the foot at the metatarsophalangeal joint. Each toe is surrounded by skin, and present on all five toes is a toenail. The toes are, from medial to lateral: * the first ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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