Understanding the environmental conditions under which early humans dispersed out of Africa is important for understanding the factors that affected human evolution. This is a topical question that remains debated. A recent ...
Archaeology
Sep 08, 2021
0
107
Eggs and sperm are special cells for many reasons, but one of the characteristics that sets them apart is that unlike other human cells, which have two copies of 23 chromosomes, one from the mother and one from the father, ...
Cell & Microbiology
Aug 24, 2021
0
604
65,000 years ago Neanderthal from the Swabian Jura hunted horses and reindeer with hafted leaf-shaped stone points. A newly discovered leaf point from the UNESCO World Heritage site of Hohle Fels Cave documents the evolution ...
Archaeology
Jul 22, 2021
0
855
A massive volcanic eruption in Indonesia about 74,000 years ago likely caused severe climate disruption in many areas of the globe, but early human populations were sheltered from the worst effects, suggests a new study published ...
Earth Sciences
Jul 06, 2021
3
419
The period preceding the emergence of behaviourally modern humans was characterized by dramatic climatic and environmental variability—it is these pressures, occurring over hundreds of thousands of years that shaped human ...
Evolution
Jun 15, 2021
3
337
Environmental change is happening so quickly that wild organisms can't keep up, and face substantial challenges. But some organisms may be able to adapt surprisingly rapidly to new circumstances. Predicting which species ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 04, 2021
0
14
In a new study, University of Maine researchers found that culture helps humans adapt to their environment and overcome challenges better and faster than genetics.
Evolution
Jun 03, 2021
12
1262
New research has questioned theories that a mysterious group of hunter-gatherers from Indonesia interacted with Aboriginal Australians thousands of years ago and provides a basis for future understanding of the people who ...
Archaeology
May 27, 2021
0
128
When Charles Darwin published "Descent of Man" 150 years ago, he launched scientific investigations on human origins and evolution. This week, three leading scientists in different, but related disciplines published "Modern ...
Evolution
May 21, 2021
7
2087
Living in and on our bodies are trillions of microbial cells belonging to thousands of bacterial species, known as the microbiome. These microbes play key roles in human health, but little is known about their evolution. ...
Cell & Microbiology
May 10, 2021
0
270
Human evolution, or anthropogenesis, is the part of biological evolution concerning the emergence of Homo sapiens as a distinct species from other hominins, great apes and placental mammals. It is the subject of a broad scientific inquiry that seeks to understand and describe how this change occurred. The study of human evolution encompasses many scientific disciplines, most notably physical anthropology, primatology, archaeology, linguistics and genetics.
The term "human", in the context of human evolution, refers to the genus Homo, but studies of human evolution usually include other hominins, such as the Australopithecines. The Homo genus diverged from the Australopithecines about 2 million years ago in Africa. Scientists have estimated that humans branched off from their common ancestor with chimpanzees—the only other living homininis—about 5–7 million years ago. Several species of Homo evolved that are now extinct. These include Homo erectus, which inhabited Asia, and Homo neanderthalensis, which inhabited Europe.
Archaic Homo sapiens evolved between 400,000 and 250,000 years ago. The dominant view among scientists is the recent African origin of modern humans (RAO) that H. sapiens evolved in Africa and spread across the globe, replacing populations of H. erectus and H. neanderthalensis. Scientists supporting the alternative hypothesis on the multiregional evolution (ME) view modern humans as having evolved as a single, widespread population from existing Homo species, particularly H. erectus. The fossil evidence is insufficient to resolve this vigorous debate,. Studies of haplogroups in Y-chromosomal DNA and mitochondrial DNA have largely supported a recent African origin, while some researchers argue that evidence from nuclear genes supports a multiregional origin.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
