Human Creation

ORIGINS OF MANKIND

Human and apes have so many similarities -

such as long arms and finger and big brain -

that most experts think they must have

evolved from the same creature.

Our common ancestor may be four-legged

orang-utan-like creature called

dryopithecines that lived in tress from 22

to 10 million years ago, like "procusul"

from East Africa.

The break came when 'hominids' (human-

like apes) began to live on the ground and

walk on two legs.

Footprints of three bipedal (two-legged)

creatures from 4 million year ago were

found preserved in ash at Laetoli,

Tanzania.

The Oldest hominid is called Ardipithecus

ramidus, known from 4.4-million-years-old

bone fragments found in Aramis, Ethiopia.

Many very early hominids are australopits

('southern apes'); for example,

Australopithecus anamensis from 4.2 million

years ago.

Australopith were one meter tall and their

brain was about the same size as an ape's,

but they were bipedal.

The best known australopith is "Lucy",

a skeleton of Australopithecus afarensis of

3 million years ago, found in Kenya in 1974.

Lucy's discoverers- Don Johanson and

Maurice Tieb- called her Lucy because they

were listening to the The Beatles's song

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' at the time.

Many early hominid remains are just skulls.

Lucy was an almost complete skeleton. She

showed that hominids learned to walk

upright before their brains got bigger.