Biology 1B Evolution Lecture 13 transitional forms Evolution of Homo and related hominins Subfamily Homininae monophyletic group consisting of humans chimpanzees gorillas and species now extinct within each of these lineages The fossil record provides evidence of the evolution of the Hominin lineage leading to Homo sapiens There were two main schools of thought regarding the origin of Homo sapiens Darwin thought humanity arose from Africa due to presence of chimpanzees and gorillas while other prominent scientists thought that humans arose out of Asia due to presence of orangutans and early fossil Homo Early applications of the molecular clock by Sarich and Wilson at UC Berkeley suggest the split between the lineages leading to living chimpanzees on one branch and humans on the other occurred about 7 million years mya ago the last common ancestor between chimpanzees and humans existed around 7mya Therefore humans are not descended from chimpanzees the chimpanzee lineage has been evolving independently as long as our lineage has Our common ancestor did not look like either chimpanzees or humans for example consider Ardepithecus ramidis from 4mya discovered by Tim White and visible in the display outside the Marian Koshland Biosciences Library It is our ancestor yet it does not look like us It is neither a chimpanzee nor a human The Australopithecines are probably paraphyletic with the Homo line When looking at the graph below note that it is not a phylogeny or even a cladogram there is still much debate on the phylogeny and even the taxonomy of these different species Biology 1B Evolution Lecture 13 transitional forms Figure 1 Plot of different hominins and their temporal location Campbell Fig 34 40 Copyright 2008 Pearson Education Inc publishing as Pearson Benjamin Cummings Key features shared by the lineage leading to humans include bipedalism walking upright on two limbs and smaller canines There was a large increase in diversity about 4 2mya in Africa Evolution of Homo Key Homo features include an increasing cranial case that allowed for a larger brain decreased sexual dimorphism relative to their ancestors and to Australopithecines and more terrestrial behavior walking on the ground rather than swinging through trees Note that larger braincases came about later although there is a debate in anthropological circles regarding whether our ancestors developed walking or larger brains first Homo erectus was first discovered in Indonesia Java and Peking you may have heard of the specimen known as Java man However the Leakeys an archeologist family discovered Homo erectus at a site called Olduvai Gorge in Africa They also found Homo habilis older and Paranthropus boisei even older at that site Homo erectus had a larger brain size than preceding species on this lineage The most recent fossils of Homo erectus date back 27 000 years ago though the identity of these is still debated otherwise clear evidence for persistence to 200Kya Homo floriensis was discovered in 2003 on the isle of Flores in southeast Indonesia This was a small hominin about a meter tall with a lower braincase size than expected just from extrapolating from a brain body ratio Dating indicates the first discovered specimen is 12 000 years old which is very recent and overlaps Homo sapiens For context consider that humans may have been practicing agriculture as early as 10 000 years ago and spread througn Indonesia 45Kya Other putative skeletal fossils date back to 75Kya and there are possible tools back to 1M but again the latter are hard to interpret One hypothesis is the first individuals found was a diseased microcephalic Homo sapiens With additional fossils this hypothesis is rejected if you examine other aspects of anatomy that have noticeably different characteristics than Homo sapiens Another possibility is that Homo floriensis is indeed separate species perhaps related to the much larger Homo erectus that has undergone island dwarfism aka insular dwarfism a process where a community of large animals on an island experience a reduction in size The reverse can also occur where small animals experience an increase in size Biology 1B Evolution Lecture 13 transitional forms Figure 2 Giant lizards tiny elephants Stegodons and Homo florensis New York Times Another example of insular dwarfism would be the elephants on the isle of Flores as dwarf elephants stegodons were found in the fossil record on that isle Giant lizards similar to komodo dragons were also found on the island This exemplifies that species of Homo were subject to the same evolutionary pressures as other vertebrates living on islands Migration of Homo sapiens Figure 3 Map of Homo sapiens migration across the continents Lecture 12 Craig Moritz Biology 1B Evolution Lecture 13 transitional forms Following is a timeline based on fossil evidence but it is supported by molecular data as well 160 kya Homo sapiens in Ethiopia 100 kya migrates out of Africa into the Middle East and across South Asia 80 40 kya migration from India to Australia possibly interacting with Homo erectus in Indonesia 40 kya migration into West Europe and across the range of Homo neanderthalensis note further north is covered by a glacial sheet 35 11 kya 1 or 2 migrations across the Bering land bridge 3 5 1 kya Polynesian migrations to remote pacific isles e g New Zealand about 1Kya Hawaii even more recent There are two theories the multiregional and the out of Africa theories The second theory is the one more supported by molecular data The multiregional theory states that Homo sapiens arose independently in several locations from distinct populations of Homo erectus Figure 4 Multiregional and out of Africa theory Scientific American 2007 2008 The out of Africa theory states that Homo sapiens arose in Africa and migrated out across the continent Evidence for this includes high genetic diversity in African populations relative to nonAfrican populations Think back to founder effects and population bottlenecks as to why this evidence supports the out of Africa theory Interactions of Homo sapiens with Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis Homo sapiens eastward colonization took them through the range of Homo erectus which still existed in the Indonesian archipelago and Homo floriensis as well Their northern colonization brought them into the range of Neanderthals Did Homo sapiens eradicate those other species Or did they interbreed and thus absorb them into our population Anatomical
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