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Peak of Evolution

8 things you probably didn’t know about human evolution

Posted by Melanie Burns on
8 things you probably didn’t know about human evolution

Evolution refers to changes or growth that occurs in a particular way most especially in biological organisms. This is in recent days referred to as Darwin’s theory of evolution through natural selection. Evolution by natural selection includes three principles: variation of traits that lead to reproduction, competition for the limited available resources and heritability for only the genetic traits being passed from one generation to another. The evolution stretches much back before our early human ancestors and before the evolution of Homo sapiens. Evolution is a tangled tale with most unanswered questions to many people till today. Here are some facts you may not know about human evolution history.

1. Early human beings migrated from Africa over 1 million years ago

Most of us have heard how Homo sapiens migrated to Europe and Asia from about 80000 years ago. The same route was taken by our ancestors, Homo erectus, who was on and off Africa for over million years. After Homo sapiens left they would have encountered other human creatures who looked exactly like them .This would probably be the descendants of Homo erectus or Neanderthal who have been wondering around Eurasia for hundreds of thousands of years. This entire people were the early human.

2. You might be a Neanderthal

Neanderthal is well-known specie in evolution story. Recently a genetic analysis of Neanderthal bones was done to determine if there are some of Neanderthal genes which made way into modern non-African population. It suggested that after Cro-Magnon entered Europe they most likely had children with the local Neanderthals. This reproduction caused the lead to the rise of more Neanderthal traits and species. The fact remains that we are all one happy family despite the trait variations.

3. Indian Ocean navigation by humans in boats over 50,000 years ago.

How did Homo sapiens get to Australia from the shores of Africa? Homo sapiens used small boats lashed together out of reeds. This was equivalent to Paleolithic early Stone Age where they used to fly using tin can. All this worked incredibly and humans were so comfortable to sale to the next region.

4. Low genetic diversity

Humans are considered as the least genetically diverse apes. This is because we all descend from small human groups. Genetic diversity is the full population of reproduction by each individual. When we consider our actual population size is 7billion.Humans number of genetic diversity rotates around 15,000 individuals which is totally less compared to today’s population.

5. Human population crashed about 80,000 years ago

Humanity effective population size reduced mysteriously about 80,000 years ago. There are many theories that explain why like apocalyptic disasters and interbreeding among small species. The eruption of Toba volcano affected the human diversity in a great way something many of us are yet to understand how it happened.

6. Homo sapiens used fire as a tool

As a species Homo sapiens couldn’t exist without one of the most important tool: tamed fire. Homo sapiens evolved after our ancestor’s tamed fire and were making tools. At this stage of evolution Homo sapiens was less apelike. Our species had more interest in the invention of fire and other artificial tools. This is because we were born tool users and fire makers for survival.

7. Homo sapiens had a culture or less than 50000years

Many anthropologists believe that human did not develop a recognized culture until around the time of Homo sapiens which is 50,000years ago. This species hanged around for the longest time before developing various features like symbolic communication and making tools. This is because Homo sapiens evolved around the time of mitochondrial Eve. Anthropologists believe that humans had not developed language until this stage which is very hard to prove.

8. Homo sapiens is still evolving rapidly

The good news is that Homo sapiens is still evolving. One day our posterity will be different from us just like we are from Homo erectus. This has made some biologist to wonder whether we are developing to be most intelligent or disease resistant which is not yet clear.

Conclusion

Human evolution started ways back during our human ancestors and it is still evolving. This makes it hard for many to understand clearly all the facts about human evolution story. The above listed few facts will help in understanding the evolution process a little better. We were all apes once and now we are living as one happy family of humans.