The Anamensis Skull - Discovering the human past

Human first evolved in Africa, and much human evolution occurred on that continent. The fossil of early humans who lived between 6 and 2 million years ago come entirely from Africa.

Researchers have discovered a “remarkably complete” skull to an early human ancestor that lived 3.8 million years ago in Ethiopia.

This is the first time a skull belonging to Australopithecus anamensis has been found and the discovery shed lights on the evolutionary history of early human ancestors.

The anamensis skull, which likely belonged to a male, was transported a short distance down a rover after death and buried by sediment in a delta. It was likely living along the river, which was surrounded by trees. The larger area away from the river was open shrubland.

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Until now, the only Australopithecus anamensis cranial remains were isolated jaw fragments and teeth, making it difficult to fully understand the species. The skill is critical for learning about species’ diet, brain size, and facial appearance.

What is anamensis?

The researcher found themselves looking at the face they had never seen before.

The features of the skull were catalogs so it could be compared with all other known hominin be related to other species.

According to Stephanie Melilo, Australopiths, on the whole, were known or their massive face, but the evolution toward a more human face began with the origin of our genus homo. That when early humans were using tools and eating food that had been more processed.

As the oldest known member of the Australopithecus genus, anamensis possesses a mix of intriguing features. It has a protruding face and the cheekbones project forward.

It’s the very beginning if the massive face, build for processing really tough diets and chewing hard food. The bones of the face were built to withstand the strain, but they are still comparatively small back to the canines of afarensis.

 picture credits- Aljazeera

Let’s understand human evolution 

Human evolution is the lengthy process of change by which people originated from apelike ancestors scientific evidence shows that the physical and behavioral traits shared by all people originated from apelike ancestors and evolved over a period approximately six million years.

One of the earliest defining human traits, bipedalism – the ability to walk on two legs – evolver over 4 million years ago, other important human characteristics – such as a large and complex brain, the ability to make and use tools, and the capacity for language developed more recently. 

Many advanced traits including complex symbolic expression, art, and elaborate cultural diversity – emerged mainly during the past of 100,000 years.

Humans are primates, physical and genetic similarities show that the modern human species, Homo sapiens, has a very close relationship to another group of primate species, the apes humans and the great apes (large apes) of Africa – chimpanzees (including bonobos, or so-called “pygmy chimpanzees”) and gorillas share a common ancestor that lived between 8 and 6 million years ago.

Every human first migrated out of Africa into Asia probably between 2 million and 1.8 million years ago. They entered Europe somewhat later, between 1.5 million and 1 million years.

Species of modern humans populated many parts of the world much later. For instance, people first came to Australia probably within the past 60,000 years and to the Americas within the past 30,000 years or so. 

The beginning of agriculture and the rise of the first civilizations occurred within the past 12,000 years.

What could be the process of evolution have u ever think?

The process of evolution involves a series of natural changes that cause species (population id different organisms) to arise, adapt to the environment, and become extinct. All species or organisms have originated through the process of biological evolution.

In an animal that reproduces sexually, including humans, the term species refers to a group whose adult members regularly interbreed, resulting in fertile offspring – that is, offspring themselves capable of reproducing. Scientists classify each species with a unique- two-part scientific name. In this system, modern human is classified as Homo sapiens.

                                   
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How genetically we humans have evolved?

Evolution occurs when there is a change in the genetic material – the chemical molecule, DNA – which is inherited from the parents, and especially in the proportions of different genes in a population.

Genes represent the segments of DNA that provide the chemical code for producing proteins. Information contained in the DNA can change by a process known as mutation. 

The way particular genes are expressed – that is, how they influence the body or behavior of an organism – can also change. 

Genes affect how the body and behavior of an organism develop during its life, and this is why genetically inherited characteristics can influence the likelihood of an organism’s survival and reproduction.

Evolution does not change any single individual. Instead, it changed the inherited means of growth and development that typify a population (the group of individuals of the same species living in a particular habitat). 

Parents pass adaptive genetic changes to their offspring inherit those genetic characteristics that enhance their chances of survival and ability to give birth, which may work well until the environment changes.

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Over time, genetic change can alter a species overall way of life, such as what it eats, how it grows, and where it can live. Human evolution took place as new genetic variations in early ancestor populations favored new abilities to adapt to environmental change and so altered the human way of life.

Have you ever imagine how will the human species evolve in the future?

Looking to the future of where human may go next

We, travel the stars probe the Earth, explore the ocean’s depths, and travel every inch of land, all in order to find the best options for human species. But where are we on that, really? What does the future hold in terms of how human will evolve? Here are four possibilities of how humans will look like in the future.

One of the possibilities of human evolution is that we are done evolving.

This theory points that throughout the evolutionary history of life on earth, evolution works better in a controlled population living in a single habitat. Humans just don’t operate within those confines.

Reproduction also plays a role in the theory as anthropologist IAN Tattersall of New York’s American Museum of Natural History is summarized by national geographic, “crossbreeding makes it much less likely for potentially significant mutations to become established in the gene pool – and that’s exactly where we are now.”

Also, medical advances allow for even the weakest of our species to continue passing on their traits. Survival of the fittest can’t operate if the “less fit” are helped to survive.

Another possibility is the exact opposite – we are still changing. According to this theory, environmental factors are no longer the driving force for evolutionary change, sexual selection has become what will define future evolutionary paths.

Since people are now choosing to mare based on wealth and intelligence, traits that facilitate those gains will be maximized. This can be exemplified looking at the children of athletes. 

Sports players tend to be more attractive mates, making it more likely for those traits to be passed down to offspring.

Some are seeing evidence in other ways as well. Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science actually found that females are currently evolving, becoming shorter and plumper with every generation.

More realistically, we may eventually see future generations of humans taking on a variety of shapes and sizes, dependent on their host planet and the conditions that best support the survival of our species.

How evolution works on human appearance?

Now we have a genetic sample of the complete genome from humans around the world, geneticists are getting a better understanding of genetic variation and how it’s structured in a human population.

We can’t exactly predict how genetic variation will change. But scientists in the field of bioinformatics are looking to demographic trends to give us some idea.

Some groups are reproducing at higher or lower rates. Populations in Africa, for example, are rapidly expanding so those genes increase at a higher frequency on a global population level. Areas if light color is reproducing at lower rates. Therefore there is a prediction is that skin color form global perspective will get darker.

It’s almost certain that case that dark skin color is increasing in frequency on a global scale relative to light skin color.

 credits- curiosmos.com

And what about space?

If humans do end up colonizing Mars, what would we evolve to look like?

With the lower gravity, the muscles of our bodies could change the structure. Perhaps we will have longer arms and legs. In a colder, ice-age type climate, could we even become even chubbier, with insulating body hair.

We did know, but certainly, human genetic variation is increasing. Worldwide there are roughly two new mutations forever one of the 3.5 billion base pairs in the human genome every year.

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