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What creature did humans evolve from?

There are Homo Sapiens, and there are the earlier types of homo, but what came immediately before the homos? Where is the biggest 'missing link' in our species' presumed evolutionary journey? Can we say that immediately before the earliest homo there was something that is more monkey than human?

Also, why didn't other types of human evolve? We have the evoution of different races, but why didn't some humans split off earlier and make another species? Weren't they dispersed enough? Or is that what Neanderthals were about?

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Reply 1

Oswy

Google much?

http://anthropology.si.edu/humanorigins/ha/a_tree.html

Reply 2

she

a.afarensis came before "homo", and we did have other species of humans, neanderthals (!) are a pretty obvious example!

Hitmonchan. Blates.

Neanderthals evolved from a common ancestor to us, but they were an evolutionary dead-end and are now extinct.

Reply 5

Captain Crash

jacketpotato

Neanderthals evolved from a common ancestor to us, but they were an evolutionary dead-end and are now extinct.

That's actually quite a disputed fact.

Reply 6

she

Captain Crash

That's actually quite a disputed fact.

The sources in that wikipedia article are relatively old in scientific research terms... Last I heard was that there is no genetic proof that neanderthals and homo sapiens interbred.

Reply 7

rushhour72

i tell you this thread is really gonna piss some religious minorities off..

Reply 8

Veil of Maya

she

The sources in that wikipedia article are relatively old in scientific research terms... Last I heard was that there is no genetic proof that neanderthals and homo sapiens interbred.

This is the last I heard as well, I think there was some research in '07/ early '08. I'll try and dig it up.

EDIT: Dug, got my dates wrong though (typical).
http://biology.plosjournals.org/archive/1545-7885/2/12/pdf/10.1371_journal.pbio.0020421-L.pdf

Reply 9

she

Now they think that we evolved ginger hair seperately :smile:

(edited 4 years ago)

Reply 10

Erebus

We all know the truth is; the Ginger gene is a mutation that occured in Scotland and spread throughout the world.

Reply 11

she

Erebus

We all know the truth is; the Ginger gene is a mutation that occured in Scotland and spread throughout the world.

homo gingerensis :ninja:

Reply 12

Erebus

she

homo gingerensis :ninja:

Indeed. They are an early breed of fire human.

Reply 13

Veil of Maya

And the best answer to the first of the OP's questions is probably the Australopithecines.

Also, there have been many branches of different humans species that 'split off'. Neanderthalis is just one.

Reply 14

abridgewater

a shrew-like creature, according to my bio teacher

Reply 15

Jerry Meandering

We all come from monkeys.

Some races still retain more visible traces of their evolutionary ancestors. I was watching "The Last King of Scotland" on TV last night. It's a great movie but the guy who played Idi Amin reminded me of a big black gorilla.

Reply 16

The West Wing

she

The sources in that wikipedia article are relatively old in scientific research terms... Last I heard was that there is no genetic proof that neanderthals and homo sapiens interbred.

This is true. Recent genetic evidence from the Neanderthal genome project suggests there was very little interbreeding.

Anyway in a nutshell, the last common ancestor with the chimpanzee was probably Sahelanthropus Tschadensis, then came the Australopithecines (Lucy et al. ), which branched off into an extinct robust branch of Paranthropuses, and an extant branch of Homos (woop), which gradually expanded in brain size which in turn helped tool use and meat acquisition with all the erectuses (whatever you want to call them) and eventually the moderns.

Reply 17

Pocket Calculator

something that would have been put in the australopithecus genus. and before that, maybe ardipithecus. but maybe ardipithecines were australopithecines. it's like finding the first shade of red in the rainbow.

as for other types of human evolving, they did. there have been several other species within the homo genus.

Reply 18

rajandkwameali

Captain Crash

That's actually quite a disputed fact.

this is hardly conclusive though. it's possible that the neanderthals died out from over-competition, or there was even a genocide/war between them. We don't know, obviously.