The First Europeans

Abstract

The story of our human ancestors is a fascinating, but fragmentary, tale. There are lots of missing pages in the book. The further back we go in time, the less evidence is available and the more conjecture is required to fill in the gaps. Our oldest arguably human ancestors are found mostly in East and South Africa, resemble our ape family relatives, and date to more than 6 mya (million years ago). These individuals walked on two feet, the first step on the path to becoming human. Fossils of our ancient ancestors are diagnosed as to genus and species, a dual scientific designation in Latin; a wide range of names have been applied. We modern humans are Homo sapiens. Some of our earliest relatives have species names such as Ardipithecus ramidus, Australopithecus afarensis, and many others. These names are often more confusing than enlightening for anyone but the experts. To make a long story short, there appear to have been several early humanlike ancestors and the exact relationships among them are not clear. These individuals walked on two legs, had relatively small brains, did not use tools, and were largely vegetarian. Sometime around 2.5 mya, however, a clearer line of human evolution emerged with the appearance of the first members of our own genus, Homo, again in East Africa. This area is the center for most of the current research on early human ancestors. There are fossil-containing geological deposits from the appropriate time periods. Many of the earliest human remains have been found in this region. The first Homo is subtitled habilis, or tool-using human. At about this same time, the first evidence for the manufacture of simple stone tools comes to light. These so-called pebble tools provided a cutting edge for a creature that lacked sharp teeth and claws. Stone tools may have afforded better access to meat for these individuals, whose brains began to grow from ape toward human in size. Shortly after 2 mya a new species, Homo ergaster, emerged in Africa and our evolutionary story started to change dramatically.