Essay on Human Characteristics in the Fossil Record

The last ten years have seen an amazing augment in the amount of fossil human samples discovered in China. A better acknowledgement of the tempo and mode of human evolution in Asia during the Pleistocene may be obtained as a huge result. This new proof has significant implications for realizing the course of human evolution not merely in Asia but throughout the globe. The main issues in human evolutionary researches such as timing of the first hominid spreading event and factors behind main changes in the fossil record are dealt with in the light of these findings. And present paper is meant to answer the question when humanity initially appears in the fossil record. The paper will also select characteristics that differentiate human beings from other animals, and find the origin of the characteristics in the fossil record.

Human Beings

The word “Animal” as depicted in a dictionary means an existing organism other than human being that feeds and usually possesses sense organs and a nervous system and possesses the ability to move. Animals comprise a huge majority of different species. Human beings belong to Homo Sapiens and are bipedal species. It means the human beings walk around utilizing their 2 rear limbs. In biological words, a human being is any associate of the mammalian species Homo sapiens, the group of tailless, ground-dwelling primates, which are spread internationally and are exemplified by bipedalism and the ability for speech, with a vertical body carriage, which frees hands for manipulating objects. Human beings share with the other primates the characteristics of omnivorous diet, opposing thumbs, 5 fingers with fingernails, and binocular, color vision. Human beings are put in a family Hominidae that comprises some apes, for instance gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutans, as well as counting such extinct relatives of people as Australopithecus, Homo erectus and Homo habilis. Nevertheless, human beings not merely define themselves anatomically and biologically, but in spiritual, psychological and social terms as well.

The Oldest Human Fossils

Human fossils discovered 45 years ago in Africa turned to be 65,000 years older than previously thought. That pushes the dawn of “modern” humans back to 35,000 years. Advanced techniques specify the fossils are 195,000 years old. The 2 skulls and several bones were uncovered on opposite banks of Ethiopia’s Omo River in 1967 by scientists led by Richard Leakey.

And what is asserted to be the most astounding fossil findings comprising human beginnings was made by Tim D. White, Gem Suwa, and Berhane Asfaw. The fossils of Ardipithecus ramidus were discovered in northern Ethiopia between 1992 and 1993. Scientists have been generous in the admire of the finding of Australopithecus ramidus. Nevertheless, there is a ground to confront their statements and to offer that the fossils really signify a type of pygmy chimpanzee. It’s extremely important that, according to scientists, no fossils of chimpanzee species have ever been discovered. Some people asserted that fossil chimpanzees and some primates, in fact, have been discovered but they all were treated as human beings precedents rather than as merely fossil primates.

Human Fossils Characteristics

Today when a human fossil is excavated, the initial thing that the scientist does is making a taxonomic appraisal of where it fits in a series of recognized fossils (Wolpoff, 401). Qualities that are shared with some other species are called primitive traits. Instances of this in human beings are 5 fingers and the existence of 3 arm bones. People share this with mammals. Traits which are novel or are not shared with other species are called derived traits. Instances of this in human beings are the skeletal alteration in the pelvis and a foot to let for walking upright. People don’t share these traits with other primates.

Transitional fossils in the human beings’ fossil record are distinguished at the species and genus level. The group comprises the extinct Ardipithecus and Australopithecus and the present genus Homo. The recent investigations of early human beings concentrate on the evolution from Ardipithecus to Australopithecus and analogous fossils and from Australopithecus to Homo, the type that led finally to current people. While every of the australopithecine species recognized in the fossil record has derived traits which distinguish them from the ancestors and from one another, only one led to the Homo (Prothero, Buell, 156-200).

Two Wide Gaps in a Human Fossil Record

Following the supposed evolution of human beings from primates, scientists have been disappointed by the presence of 2 wide gaps in a fossil record. The initial one, recognized as hominoid gap, goes from 32 to 22 million years ago on a time-scale. The time period is significant since it’s during this time evolutionists believe the ancestors of ape and human beings were dividing from the point leading to monkeys. Yet, with one potential exception, this time period is devoid of hominoid fossil proof to certificate this supposed deviation.

Another gap, recognized as a hominid gap, expands from 14 to 4.5 million years ago. The period is evenly crucial for evolutionary approach since it’s the time period when the relatives of the australopithecine and humans were supposedly deviating from the precedents of African apes, in particular chimpanzees. This time frame is also devoid of relevant fossil proof, except for several fossil oddments too small to make any analysis. Therefore, the fresh news the “missing link” has been found was met with amazing enthusiasm by the evolutionist society.

However, unlike the way it was usually thought, modern human beings didn’t evolve in a direct evolutionary line from a transitional “missing link” being. Rather, a hominid family tree is actually a branching tree, on which Homo sapiens is the single surviving member. Current human beings, associates of well-known Homo group, have just existed for approximately 200,000 years. The 3 other hominid groups are the Australopithecines, the Ardipithecines and Paranthropus (Kappelman, Beagle, 558-559).

The Big Picture

Up to present time, people have been painting with a broad brush. We’ve been anxious about the big picture. And the facts of this picture are:

• fossils, which are impossible to differentiate from modern human beings may be followed back to 4.5 m.y.a. this fact offers true human beings were existing long before the australopithecines appear in the fossil record;
• Homo erectus shows a morphological steadiness all through the two-million-year history. The fossil record doesn’t demonstrate erectus developing from something else or becoming something else;
• anatomically current Homo sapiens, Neandertal, Homo erectus and archaic Homo sapiens existed as contemporaries at one time period or another. None of them developed from a more vigorous to a more gracile condition. Actually, in some cases the more robust fossils are the more modern fossils in the respective categories;
• all of the fossils qualified to the Homo habilis are current with Homo erectus. Therefore, Homo habilis not only didn’t develop into Homo erectus, it could not have possibly done this;
• there are no existing fossils of Australopithecus or of any other ape stock in the appropriate time to serve as ancestors to human beings. As far as it is possible to tell from the fossil record available, when human beings initially occurred in the fossil record they were already humans. It’s this sudden appearance of human beings’ ancestors in morphologically human being’s form that makes the human fossil record well-matched with the notion of Special Creation (Lubenow, 78-205).

This fact is obvious even when fossils are set according to the evolutionist’s dates for the fossils, though many scientists think the dating to be mainly in mistake. In other words, even when people accept the evolutionist’s dates for the fossils, the results don’t sustain human evolution. The results, actually, are so opposing to human evolution that they successfully fake this theory.

Today scientists possess one more approach to a human fossil record (Lubenow, 78-205). Though it’s independent of the dates for the fossils, it confirms the big picture. It comprises the situations where various kinds of fossils are discovered at one place geographically and at the same degree stratigraphically. According to the shape they should be put in 2 various evolution categories. Due to the fact that the approach is absolutely independent of the dates, it operates as a control. It verifies the results of the lack of evidence for evolution in a human fossil record. If 2 various kinds of fossil humans are discovered at one and at one degree, it’s an evolution abnormality. The date of the geologic stratum, where they are discovered doesn’t actually matter. The date is unrelated, and the approach is time-independent.

So, fossils belonging in 2 various evolutionary categories are discovered in one place and at one level. Local contemporaneousness takes place all through the whole alleged history of evolution of the human beings. It’s an independent verification of all said above (Lubenow, 78-205).

Conclusion

So, many times people hear about hypothetical “missing links,” in particular the links between apes and humans. Usually we hear statements that different fossils are of ancient human beings, which existed millions of years ago. What proof do people have of these statements?

There are still different points of view. Previously founded fossils may actually signify a kind of pygmy chimpanzee due to the fact that no fossils of chimpanzee species have ever been discovered. Some people asserted that fossil chimpanzees have been discovered but they all were treated as human beings precedents rather than as merely fossil primates.

That is why today when a human fossil is excavated, the initial thing that the scientist does is making a taxonomic appraisal of where it fits in a series of recognized fossils. Qualities that are shared with some other species are called primitive traits. Instances of this in human beings are 5 fingers and the existence of 3 arm bones. People share this with mammals. Traits which are novel or are not shared with other species are called derived traits. Instances of this in human beings are the skeletal alteration in the pelvis and a foot to let for walking upright. Humans don’t share these characteristics with other primates.

The oldest human fossils discovered for today 45 years ago in Africa turned to be 65,000 years older than previously thought. That pushes the dawn of “modern” humans back to 35,000 years.