Homo handprint

Human Evolution   Chart of Human Evolution Tour of the Human Fossil Record The Hominid Brain Hominid Tools Hominid Fossil Sites and Patterns of Hominid Dispersal   email me		Linked from this page are documents summarizing the hominid fossil record and hypothesized lines of human evolution from 5 million years ago to the present.Under the current taxonomy (based on genetic rather than behavioral criteria), the term "hominid" refers to members of the biological human family Hominidae: living humans, all human ancestors, the many extinct members ofAustralopithecus, and our closest primate relatives, the chimpanzee and gorilla. According to The Tree of Life by Guillaume Lecointre and Hervé Le Guyader (Harvard University Press: 2006), the similarly named and easily confused categories of humans and near human apes, in order of increasing inclusiveness, are: • Hominini - modern humans and all previous human, australopithecine, paranthropine and ardipithecine ancestors • Homininae - all of the above, plus chimpanzees (Panini), our closest living biological kin (a genetic kinship so close that some scientists have suggested their genus name should be changed from Pan to Homo). • Hominidae - all of the above, plus gorillas (Gorillinae) • Hominoidae - all of the above, plus orangutans (Pongidae) • Hominoidea - all of the above, plus gibbons (Hylobatoidae). The chart (at right) shows the evolutionary chronology inputed to these biological branches. Ardipithecus, the common primate ancestor to paranthropines, australopithecines and humans, went extinct about 4 million years ago. Human evolution is a puzzle made up of thousands of fossil pieces. The Chart of Human Evolution (below) shows the major pieces of that puzzle arranged in a likely solution.The tentative connections between species or time of extinction, indicated by a "?", are open to clarification as new DNA and fossil evidence is reviewed in the scientific literature; see comments below the chart.
Data principally from (1) Donald Johanson & Blake Edgar, From Lucy to Language (Simon & Schuster, 1996), an elegant and judicious survey of human evolution with scintillating, large format photographs of the major fossils by David Brill; and (2) The Last Human by G.J. Sawyer, Viktor Deak, Esteban Sarmiento and others (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007). See also "The Dawn of Humans." National Geographic, February 1997; and Goran Burenhuldt (ed.), The First Humans: Human Origins and History to 10,000 BC. New York: HarperCollins, 1993.