1.
Pleistocene
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The Pleistocene is the geological epoch which lasted from about 2,588,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the worlds most recent period of repeated glaciations. The end of the Pleistocene corresponds with the end of the last glacial period, the Pleistocene is the first epoch of the Quaternary Period or sixth epoch of the Cenozoic Era. In the ICS timescale, the Pleistocene is divided into four stages or ages, all of these stages were defined in southern Europe. In addition to this subdivision, various regional subdivisions are often used. Charles Lyell introduced the term pleistocene in 1839 to describe strata in Sicily that had at least 70% of their molluscan fauna still living today and this distinguished it from the older Pliocene Epoch, which Lyell had originally thought to be the youngest fossil rock layer. The Pleistocene has been dated from 2.588 million to 11,700 years before present and it covers most of the latest period of repeated glaciation, up to and including the Younger Dryas cold spell. The end of the Younger Dryas has been dated to about 9640 BC, the IUGS has yet to approve a type section, Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point, for the upper Pleistocene/Holocene boundary. The proposed section is the North Greenland Ice Core Project ice core 75°06 N 42°18 W, the lower boundary of the Pleistocene Series is formally defined magnetostratigraphically as the base of the Matuyama chronozone, isotopic stage 103. Above this point there are notable extinctions of the calcareous nanofossils, Discoaster pentaradiatus, the Pleistocene covers the recent period of repeated glaciations. The name Plio-Pleistocene has, in the past, been used to mean the last ice age. The revised definition of the Quaternary, by pushing back the date of the Pleistocene to 2.58 Ma. Pleistocene climate was marked by repeated glacial cycles in which continental glaciers pushed to the 40th parallel in some places and it is estimated that, at maximum glacial extent, 30% of the Earths surface was covered by ice. In addition, a zone of permafrost stretched southward from the edge of the sheet, a few hundred kilometres in North America. The mean annual temperature at the edge of the ice was −6 °C, during interglacial times, such as at present, drowned coastlines were common, mitigated by isostatic or other emergent motion of some regions. The effects of glaciation were global, antarctica was ice-bound throughout the Pleistocene as well as the preceding Pliocene. The Andes were covered in the south by the Patagonian ice cap, there were glaciers in New Zealand and Tasmania. The current decaying glaciers of Mount Kenya, Mount Kilimanjaro, glaciers existed in the mountains of Ethiopia and to the west in the Atlas mountains. In the northern hemisphere, many glaciers fused into one, the Cordilleran ice sheet covered the North American northwest, the east was covered by the Laurentide
2.
Megaannum
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A year is the orbital period of the Earth moving in its orbit around the Sun. Due to the Earths axial tilt, the course of a year sees the passing of the seasons, marked by changes in weather, the hours of daylight, and, consequently, vegetation and soil fertility. In temperate and subpolar regions around the globe, four seasons are recognized, spring, summer, autumn. In tropical and subtropical regions several geographical sectors do not present defined seasons, but in the seasonal tropics, a calendar year is an approximation of the number of days of the Earths orbital period as counted in a given calendar. The Gregorian, or modern, calendar, presents its calendar year to be either a common year of 365 days or a year of 366 days, as do the Julian calendars. For the Gregorian calendar the average length of the year across the complete leap cycle of 400 years is 365.2425 days. The ISO standard ISO 80000-3, Annex C, supports the symbol a to represent a year of either 365 or 366 days, in English, the abbreviations y and yr are commonly used. In astronomy, the Julian year is a unit of time, it is defined as 365.25 days of exactly 86400 seconds, totalling exactly 31557600 seconds in the Julian astronomical year. The word year is used for periods loosely associated with, but not identical to, the calendar or astronomical year, such as the seasonal year, the fiscal year. Similarly, year can mean the period of any planet, for example. The term can also be used in reference to any long period or cycle, west Saxon ġēar, Anglian ġēr continues Proto-Germanic *jǣran. Cognates are German Jahr, Old High German jār, Old Norse ár and Gothic jer, all the descendants of the Proto-Indo-European noun *yeh₁rom year, season. Cognates also descended from the same Proto-Indo-European noun are Avestan yārǝ year, Greek ὥρα year, season, period of time, Old Church Slavonic jarŭ, Latin annus is from a PIE noun *h₂et-no-, which also yielded Gothic aþn year. Both *yeh₁-ro- and *h₂et-no- are based on verbal roots expressing movement, *h₁ey- and *h₂et- respectively, the Greek word for year, ἔτος, is cognate with Latin vetus old, from the PIE word *wetos- year, also preserved in this meaning in Sanskrit vat-sa- yearling and vat-sa-ras year. Derived from Latin annus are a number of English words, such as annual, annuity, anniversary, etc. per annum means each year, anno Domini means in the year of the Lord. No astronomical year has an number of days or lunar months. Financial and scientific calculations often use a 365-day calendar to simplify daily rates, in the Julian calendar, the average length of a year is 365.25 days. In a non-leap year, there are 365 days, in a year there are 366 days
3.
Precambrian
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The Precambrian is the earliest period of Earths history, set before the current Phanerozoic Eon. The Precambrian is a supereon that is subdivided into three eons of the time scale. It spans from the formation of Earth about 4.6 billion years ago to the beginning of the Cambrian Period, about 541 million years ago, the Precambrian accounts for 89% of geologic time. Relatively little is known about the Precambrian, despite it making up roughly seven-eighths of the Earths history, the Precambrian fossil record is poorer than that of the succeeding Phanerozoic, and fossils from that time are of limited biostratigraphic use. This is because many Precambrian rocks have been metamorphosed, obscuring their origins, while others have been destroyed by erosion. A stable crust was apparently in place by 4,412 Ma, the term Precambrian is recognized by the International Commission on Stratigraphy as a general term including the Archean and Proterozoic eons. It is still used by geologists and paleontologists for general discussions not requiring the more specific eon names and it was briefly called the Cryptozoic eon. A specific date for the origin of life has not been determined, carbon found in 3.8 billion year old rocks from islands off western Greenland may be of organic origin. Well-preserved microscopic fossils of bacteria older than 3.46 billion years have found in Western Australia. Probable fossils 100 million years older have been found in the same area, there is a fairly solid record of bacterial life throughout the remainder of the Precambrian. The oldest fossil evidence from that era of such complex life comes from the Lantian formation of the Ediacarian period, a very diverse collection of soft-bodied forms is found in a variety of locations worldwide and date to between 635 and 542 Ma. These are referred to as Ediacaran or Vendian biota, hard-shelled creatures appeared toward the end of that time span, marking the beginning of the Phanerozoic era. By the middle of the following Cambrian period, a diverse fauna is recorded in the Burgess Shale. The explosion in diversity of lifeforms during the early Cambrian is called the Cambrian explosion of life, while land seems to have been devoid of plants and animals, cyanobacteria and other microbes formed prokaryotic mats that covered terrestrial areas. Evidence of the details of plate motions and other activity in the Precambrian has been poorly preserved. It is generally believed that small proto-continents existed prior to 4280 Ma, the supercontinent, known as Rodinia, broke up around 750 Ma. A number of glacial periods have been identified going as far back as the Huronian epoch, one of the best studied is the Sturtian-Varangian glaciation, around 850–635 Ma, which may have brought glacial conditions all the way to the equator, resulting in a Snowball Earth. The atmosphere of the early Earth is not well understood, most geologists believe it was composed primarily of nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and other relatively inert gases, and was lacking in free oxygen
4.
Cambrian
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The Cambrian Period was the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, of the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 55.6 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran Period 541 million years ago to the beginning of the Ordovician Period 485.4 mya and its subdivisions, and its base, are somewhat in flux. The period was established by Adam Sedgwick, who named it after Cambria, the Latinised form of Cymru, the Welsh name for Wales, as a result, our understanding of the Cambrian biology surpasses that of some later periods. The rapid diversification of lifeforms in the Cambrian, known as the Cambrian explosion, most of the continents were probably dry and rocky due to a lack of vegetation. Shallow seas flanked the margins of several continents created during the breakup of the supercontinent Pannotia, the seas were relatively warm, and polar ice was absent for much of the period. The United States Federal Geographic Data Committee uses a barred capital C ⟨Є⟩ character similar to the capital letter Ukrainian Ye ⟨Є⟩ to represent the Cambrian Period, the proper Unicode character is U+A792 Ꞓ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C WITH BAR. Despite the long recognition of its distinction from younger Ordovician Period rocks and older Supereon Precambrian rocks, the base of the Cambrian lies atop a complex assemblage of trace fossils known as the Treptichnus pedum assemblage. Pedum in Namibia, Spain and Newfoundland, and possibly, in the western USA, the stratigraphic range of T. pedum overlaps the range of the Ediacaran fossils in Namibia, and probably in Spain. The Cambrian Period followed the Ediacaran Period and was followed by the Ordovician Period, the Cambrian is divided into four epochs and ten ages. Currently only two series and five stages are named and have a GSSP, because the international stratigraphic subdivision is not yet complete, many local subdivisions are still widely used. In some of these subdivisions the Cambrian is divided into three epochs with locally differing names – the Early Cambrian, Middle Cambrian and Furongian, rocks of these epochs are referred to as belonging to the Lower, Middle, or Upper Cambrian. Trilobite zones allow biostratigraphic correlation in the Cambrian, each of the local epochs is divided into several stages. The International Commission on Stratigraphy list the Cambrian period as beginning at 541 million years ago, the lower boundary of the Cambrian was originally held to represent the first appearance of complex life, represented by trilobites. The recognition of small shelly fossils before the first trilobites, and Ediacara biota substantially earlier and this formal designation allowed radiometric dates to be obtained from samples across the globe that corresponded to the base of the Cambrian. Early dates of 570 million years ago quickly gained favour, though the used to obtain this number are now considered to be unsuitable. A more precise date using modern radiometric dating yield a date of 541 ±0.3 million years ago, most continental land was clustered in the Southern Hemisphere at this time, but was drifting north. Large, high-velocity rotational movement of Gondwana appears to have occurred in the Early Cambrian, the sea levels fluctuated somewhat, suggesting there were ice ages, associated with pulses of expansion and contraction of a south polar ice cap. In Baltoscandia a Lower Cambrian transgression transformed large swathes of the Sub-Cambrian peneplain into a epicontinental sea, the Earth was generally cold during the early Cambrian, probably due to the ancient continent of Gondwana covering the South Pole and cutting off polar ocean currents
5.
Ordovician
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The Ordovician is a geologic period and system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era. The Ordovician spans 41.2 million years from the end of the Cambrian Period 485.4 million years ago to the start of the Silurian Period 443.8 Mya. Lapworth recognized that the fauna in the disputed strata were different from those of either the Cambrian or the Silurian periods. It received international sanction in 1960, when it was adopted as a period of the Paleozoic Era by the International Geological Congress. Life continued to flourish during the Ordovician as it did in the earlier Cambrian period, invertebrates, namely molluscs and arthropods, dominated the oceans. The Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event considerably increased the diversity of life, fish, the worlds first true vertebrates, continued to evolve, and those with jaws may have first appeared late in the period. Life had yet to diversify on land, about 100 times as many meteorites struck the Earth during the Ordovician compared with today. The Ordovician Period began with a major extinction called the Cambrian–Ordovician extinction event and it lasted for about 42 million years and ended with the Ordovician–Silurian extinction event, about 443.8 Mya which wiped out 60% of marine genera. The dates given are recent radiometric dates and vary slightly from those found in other sources and this second period of the Paleozoic era created abundant fossils that became major petroleum and gas reservoirs. The boundary chosen for the beginning of both the Ordovician Period and the Tremadocian stage is highly significant and it correlates well with the occurrence of widespread graptolite, conodont, and trilobite species. The base of the Tremadocian allows scientists to relate these species not only to each other and this makes it easier to place many more species in time relative to the beginning of the Ordovician Period. A number of terms have been used to subdivide the Ordovician Period. In 2008, the ICS erected an international system of subdivisions. There exist Baltoscandic, British, Siberian, North American, Australian, the Ordovician Period in Britain was traditionally broken into Early, Middle and Late epochs. The corresponding rocks of the Ordovician System are referred to as coming from the Lower, Middle, the Floian corresponds to the lower Arenig, the Arenig continues until the early Darriwilian, subsuming the Dapingian. The Llanvirn occupies the rest of the Darriwilian, and terminates with it at the base of the Late Ordovician. The Sandbian represents the first half of the Caradoc, the Caradoc ends in the mid-Katian, during the Ordovician, the southern continents were collected into Gondwana. Gondwana started the period in equatorial latitudes and, as the period progressed, drifted toward the South Pole, the small continent Avalonia separated from Gondwana and began to move north towards Baltica and Laurentia, opening the Rheic Ocean between Gondwana and Avalonia
6.
Silurian
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The Silurian is a geologic period and system spanning 24.6 million years from the end of the Ordovician Period, at 443.8 million years ago, to the beginning of the Devonian Period,419.2 Mya. As with other periods, the rock beds that define the periods start and end are well identified. The base of the Silurian is set at a major Ordovician-Silurian extinction event when 60% of marine species were wiped out, a significant evolutionary milestone during the Silurian was the diversification of jawed and bony fish. However, terrestrial life would not greatly diversify and affect the landscape until the Devonian, the Silurian system was first identified by British geologist Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, who was examining fossil-bearing sedimentary rock strata in south Wales in the early 1830s. He named the sequences for a Celtic tribe of Wales, the Silures, inspired by his friend Adam Sedgwick and this naming does not indicate any correlation between the occurrence of the Silurian rocks and the land inhabited by the Silures. As it was first identified, the Silurian series when traced farther afield quickly came to overlap Sedgwicks Cambrian sequence, however, charles Lapworth resolved the conflict by defining a new Ordovician system including the contested beds. An early alternative name for the Silurian was Gotlandian after the strata of the Baltic island of Gotland, the French geologist Joachim Barrande, building on Murchisons work, used the term Silurian in a more comprehensive sense than was justified by subsequent knowledge. He divided the Silurian rocks of Bohemia into eight stages and his interpretation was questioned in 1854 by Edward Forbes, and the later stages of Barrande, F, G and H, have since been shown to be Devonian. Despite these modifications in the groupings of the strata, it is recognized that Barrande established Bohemia as a classic ground for the study of the earliest fossils. The epoch is named for the town of Llandovery in Carmarthenshire, the Wenlock, which lasted from 433.4 ±1.5 to 427.4 ±2.8 mya, is subdivided into the Sheinwoodian and Homerian ages. It is named after Wenlock Edge in Shropshire, England, during the Wenlock, the oldest known tracheophytes of the genus Cooksonia, appear. The first terrestrial animals also appear in the Wenlock, represented by air-breathing millipedes from Scotland. The Ludlow, lasting from 427.4 ±1.5 to 423 ±2.8 mya, comprises the Gorstian stage, lasting until 425.6 million years ago, and it is named for the town of Ludlow in Shropshire, England. The Pridoli, lasting from 423 ±1.5 to 419.2 ±2.8 mya, is the final and it is named after one locality at the Homolka a Přídolí nature reserve near the Prague suburb Slivenec in the Czech Republic. Přídolí is the old name of a field area. The high sea levels of the Silurian and the flat land resulted in a number of island chains. The southern continents remained united during this period, the melting of icecaps and glaciers contributed to a rise in sea level, recognizable from the fact that Silurian sediments overlie eroded Ordovician sediments, forming an unconformity. The continents of Avalonia, Baltica, and Laurentia drifted together near the equator and this event is the Caledonian orogeny, a spate of mountain building that stretched from New York State through conjoined Europe and Greenland to Norway
7.
Devonian
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The Devonian is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic, spanning 60 million years from the end of the Silurian,419.2 million years ago, to the beginning of the Carboniferous,358.9 Mya. It is named after Devon, England, where rocks from this period were first studied, the first significant adaptive radiation of life on dry land occurred during the Devonian. Free-sporing vascular plants began to spread across dry land, forming extensive forests which covered the continents, by the middle of the Devonian, several groups of plants had evolved leaves and true roots, and by the end of the period the first seed-bearing plants appeared. Various terrestrial arthropods also became well-established, Fish reached substantial diversity during this time, leading the Devonian to often be dubbed the Age of Fish. The first ray-finned and lobe-finned bony fish appeared, while the placodermi began dominating almost every aquatic environment. The ancestors of all four-limbed vertebrates began adapting to walking on land, as their strong pectoral, in the oceans, primitive sharks became more numerous than in the Silurian and Late Ordovician. The first ammonites, species of molluscs, appeared, trilobites, the mollusk-like brachiopods and the great coral reefs, were still common. The Late Devonian extinction which started about 375 million years ago severely affected marine life, killing off all placodermi, and all trilobites, save for a few species of the order Proetida. The palaeogeography was dominated by the supercontinent of Gondwana to the south, the continent of Siberia to the north, while the rock beds that define the start and end of the Devonian period are well identified, the exact dates are uncertain. According to the International Commission on Stratigraphy, the Devonian extends from the end of the Silurian 419.2 Mya, another common term is Age of the Fishes, referring to the evolution of several major groups of fish that took place during the period. Older literature on the Anglo-Welsh basin divides it into the Downtonian, Dittonian, Breconian and Farlovian stages, in the Late Devonian, by contrast, arid conditions were less prevalent across the world and temperate climates were more common. The Devonian Period is formally broken into Early, Middle and Late subdivisions, the rocks corresponding to those epochs are referred to as belonging to the Lower, Middle and Upper parts of the Devonian System. Early Devonian The Early Devonian lasted from 419.2 ±2.8 to 393.3 ±2.5 and began with the Lochkovian stage, which lasted until the Pragian. It spanned from 410.8 ±2.8 to 407.6 ±2.5, and was followed by the Emsian, which lasted until the Middle Devonian began,393. 3±2.7 million years ago. Middle Devonian The Middle Devonian comprised two subdivisions, first the Eifelian, which gave way to the Givetian 387. 7±2.7 million years ago. Late Devonian Finally, the Late Devonian started with the Frasnian,382.7 ±2.8 to 372.2 ±2.5, during which the first forests took shape on land. The first tetrapods appeared in the record in the ensuing Famennian subdivision. This lasted until the end of the Devonian,358. 9±2.5 million years ago, the Devonian was a relatively warm period, and probably lacked any glaciers
8.
Carboniferous
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The Carboniferous is a geologic period and system that spans 60 million years from the end of the Devonian Period 358.9 million years ago, to the beginning of the Permian Period,298.9 Mya. The name Carboniferous means coal-bearing and derives from the Latin words carbō and ferō, and was coined by geologists William Conybeare and William Phillips in 1822. Based on a study of the British rock succession, it was the first of the system names to be employed. The Carboniferous is often treated in North America as two periods, the earlier Mississippian and the later Pennsylvanian. Terrestrial life was established by the Carboniferous period. Amphibians were the dominant land vertebrates, of one branch would eventually evolve into amniotes. Arthropods were also common, and many were much larger than those of today. Vast swaths of forest covered the land, which would eventually be laid down, the atmospheric content of oxygen also reached their highest levels in geological history during the period, 35% compared with 21% today, allowing terrestrial invertebrates to evolve to great size. A major marine and terrestrial extinction event, the Carboniferous rainforest collapse, occurred in the middle of the period, the later half of the period experienced glaciations, low sea level, and mountain building as the continents collided to form Pangaea. In the United States the Carboniferous is usually broken into Mississippian and Pennsylvanian subperiods, the Silesian is roughly contemporaneous with the late Mississippian Serpukhovian plus the Pennsylvanian. In Britain the Dinantian is traditionally known as the Carboniferous Limestone, the Namurian as the Millstone Grit, and the Westphalian as the Coal Measures and Pennant Sandstone. There was also a drop in south polar temperatures, southern Gondwanaland was glaciated throughout the period and these conditions apparently had little effect in the deep tropics, where lush swamps, later to become coal, flourished to within 30 degrees of the northernmost glaciers. Mid-Carboniferous, a drop in sea level precipitated a major extinction, one that hit crinoids. This sea level drop and the unconformity in North America separate the Mississippian subperiod from the Pennsylvanian subperiod. This happened about 323 million years ago, at the onset of the Permo-Carboniferous Glaciation, the Carboniferous was a time of active mountain-building, as the supercontinent Pangaea came together. The southern continents remained tied together in the supercontinent Gondwana, which collided with North America–Europe along the present line of eastern North America, in the same time frame, much of present eastern Eurasian plate welded itself to Europe along the line of the Ural mountains. Most of the Mesozoic supercontinent of Pangea was now assembled, although North China, the Late Carboniferous Pangaea was shaped like an O. There were two major oceans in the Carboniferous—Panthalassa and Paleo-Tethys, which was inside the O in the Carboniferous Pangaea, other minor oceans were shrinking and eventually closed - Rheic Ocean, the small, shallow Ural Ocean and Proto-Tethys Ocean
9.
Permian
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The Permian is a geologic period and system which spans 46.7 million years from the end of the Carboniferous Period 298.9 million years ago, to the beginning of the Triassic Period 252.2 Mya. It is the last period of the Paleozoic Era, the following Triassic Period belongs to the Mesozoic Era, the concept of the Permian was introduced in 1841 by geologist Sir Roderick Murchison, who named it after the city of Perm. The Permian witnessed the diversification of the early amniotes into the groups of the mammals, turtles, lepidosaurs. The world at the time was dominated by two known as Pangaea and Siberia, surrounded by a global ocean called Panthalassa. The Carboniferous rainforest collapse left behind vast regions of desert within the continental interior, amniotes, who could better cope with these drier conditions, rose to dominance in place of their amphibian ancestors. The Permian ended with the Permian–Triassic extinction event, the largest mass extinction in Earths history, in which nearly 90% of marine species and it would take well into the Triassic for life to recover from this catastrophe. Recovery from the Permian-Triassic extinction event was protracted, on land, the term Permian was introduced into geology in 1841 by Sir R. I. Murchison, president of the Geological Society of London, who identified typical strata in extensive Russian explorations undertaken with Edouard de Verneuil, the region now lies in the Perm Krai of Russia. This could have in part caused the extinctions of marine species at the end of the period by severely reducing shallow coastal areas preferred by many marine organisms. During the Permian, all the Earths major landmasses were collected into a supercontinent known as Pangaea. The Cimmeria continent rifted away from Gondwana and drifted north to Laurasia, a new ocean was growing on its southern end, the Tethys Ocean, an ocean that would dominate much of the Mesozoic Era. Large continental landmass interiors experience climates with extreme variations of heat and cold, deserts seem to have been widespread on Pangaea. Such dry conditions favored gymnosperms, plants with seeds enclosed in a cover, over plants such as ferns that disperse spores in a wetter environment. The first modern trees appeared in the Permian, the climate in the Permian was quite varied. At the start of the Permian, the Earth was still in an Ice Age, glaciers receded around the mid-Permian period as the climate gradually warmed, drying the continents interiors. In the late Permian period, the drying continued although the temperature cycled between warm and cool cycles, Permian marine deposits are rich in fossil mollusks, echinoderms, and brachiopods. By the close of the Permian, trilobites and a host of other groups became extinct. Terrestrial life in the Permian included diverse plants, fungi, arthropods, the period saw a massive desert covering the interior of Pangaea
10.
Triassic
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The Triassic is a geologic period and system which spans 50.9 million years from the end of the Permian Period 252.17 million years ago, to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.3 Mya. The Triassic is the first period of the Mesozoic Era, both the start and end of the period are marked by major extinction events. Therapsids and archosaurs were the terrestrial vertebrates during this time. A specialized subgroup of archosaurs, called dinosaurs, first appeared in the Late Triassic, the vast supercontinent of Pangaea existed until the mid-Triassic, after which it began to gradually rift into two separate landmasses, Laurasia to the north and Gondwana to the south. The global climate during the Triassic was mostly hot and dry, however, the climate shifted and became more humid as Pangaea began to drift apart. The end of the period was marked by yet another mass extinction, the Triassic-Jurassic extinction event. The Triassic is usually separated into Early, Middle, and Late Triassic Epochs, from the east, along the equator, the Tethys sea penetrated Pangaea, causing the Paleo-Tethys Ocean to be closed. Later in the mid-Triassic a similar sea penetrated along the equator from the west, the remaining shores were surrounded by the world-ocean known as Panthalassa. All the deep-ocean sediments laid down during the Triassic have disappeared through subduction of oceanic plates, thus, the supercontinent Pangaea was rifting during the Triassic—especially late in that period—but had not yet separated. In North America, for example, marine deposits are limited to a few exposures in the west, thus Triassic stratigraphy is mostly based on organisms that lived in lagoons and hypersaline environments, such as Estheria crustaceans. At the beginning of the Mesozoic Era, Africa was joined with Earths other continents in Pangaea, Africa shared the supercontinents relatively uniform fauna which was dominated by theropods, prosauropods and primitive ornithischians by the close of the Triassic period. Late Triassic fossils are found throughout Africa, but are common in the south than north. The time boundary separating the Permian and Triassic marks the advent of an event with global impact. At Paleorrota geopark, located in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, in these formations, one of the earliest dinosaurs, Staurikosaurus, as well as the mammal ancestors Brasilitherium and Brasilodon have been discovered. The Triassic continental interior climate was hot and dry, so that typical deposits are red bed sandstones and evaporites. Pangaeas large size limited the effect of the global ocean, its continental climate was highly seasonal, with very hot summers. The strong contrast between the Pangea supercontinent and the global ocean triggered intense cross-equatorial monsoons, the best studied of such episodes of humid climate, and probably the most intense and widespread, was the Carnian Pluvial Event. On land, the vascular plants included the lycophytes, the dominant cycadophytes, ginkgophyta, ferns, horsetails
11.
Jurassic
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The Jurassic is a geologic period and system that spans 56.3 million years from the end of the Triassic Period 201.3 million years ago to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period 145 Mya. The Jurassic constitutes the middle period of the Mesozoic Era, also known as the Age of Reptiles, the start of the period is marked by the major Triassic–Jurassic extinction event. The Jurassic is named after the Jura Mountains within the European Alps, by the beginning of the Jurassic, the supercontinent Pangaea had begun rifting into two landmasses, Laurasia to the north and Gondwana to the south. This created more coastlines and shifted the continental climate from dry to humid, on land, the fauna transitioned from the Triassic fauna, dominated by both dinosauromorph and crocodylomorph archosaurs, to one dominated by dinosaurs alone. The first birds also appeared during the Jurassic, having evolved from a branch of theropod dinosaurs, other major events include the appearance of the earliest lizards, and the evolution of therian mammals, including primitive placentals. Crocodilians made the transition from a terrestrial to a mode of life. The oceans were inhabited by marine reptiles such as ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs, the chronostratigraphic term Jurassic is directly linked to the Jura Mountains. The name Jura is derived from the Celtic root jor, which was Latinised into juria, the Jurassic period is divided into the Early Jurassic, Middle, and Late Jurassic epochs. The Jurassic System, in stratigraphy, is divided into the Lower Jurassic, Middle, the separation of the term Jurassic into three sections goes back to Leopold von Buch. The Jurassic North Atlantic Ocean was relatively narrow, while the South Atlantic did not open until the following Cretaceous period, the Tethys Sea closed, and the Neotethys basin appeared. Climates were warm, with no evidence of glaciation, as in the Triassic, there was apparently no land over either pole, and no extensive ice caps existed. In contrast, the North American Jurassic record is the poorest of the Mesozoic, the Jurassic was a time of calcite sea geochemistry in which low-magnesium calcite was the primary inorganic marine precipitate of calcium carbonate. Carbonate hardgrounds were thus very common, along with calcitic ooids, calcitic cements, the first of several massive batholiths were emplaced in the northern American cordillera beginning in the mid-Jurassic, marking the Nevadan orogeny. Important Jurassic exposures are found in Russia, India, South America, Japan, Australasia. As the Jurassic proceeded, larger and more groups of dinosaurs like sauropods and ornithopods proliferated in Africa. Middle Jurassic strata are well represented nor well studied in Africa. Late Jurassic strata are also poorly represented apart from the spectacular Tendaguru fauna in Tanzania, the Late Jurassic life of Tendaguru is very similar to that found in western North Americas Morrison Formation. During the Jurassic period, the primary living in the sea were fish
12.
Cretaceous
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The Cretaceous is a geologic period and system that spans 79 million years from the end of the Jurassic Period 145 million years ago to the beginning of the Paleogene Period 66 Mya. It is the last period of the Mesozoic Era, the Cretaceous Period is usually abbreviated K, for its German translation Kreide. The Cretaceous was a period with a warm climate, resulting in high eustatic sea levels that created numerous shallow inland seas. These oceans and seas were populated with now-extinct marine reptiles, ammonites and rudists, during this time, new groups of mammals and birds, as well as flowering plants, appeared. The Cretaceous ended with a mass extinction, the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, in which many groups, including non-avian dinosaurs, pterosaurs. The end of the Cretaceous is defined by the abrupt Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary, the name Cretaceous was derived from Latin creta, meaning chalk. The Cretaceous is divided into Early and Late Cretaceous epochs, or Lower and Upper Cretaceous series, in older literature the Cretaceous is sometimes divided into three series, Neocomian, Gallic and Senonian. A subdivision in eleven stages, all originating from European stratigraphy, is now used worldwide, in many parts of the world, alternative local subdivisions are still in use. As with other geologic periods, the rock beds of the Cretaceous are well identified. No great extinction or burst of diversity separates the Cretaceous from the Jurassic and this layer has been dated at 66.043 Ma. A140 Ma age for the Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary instead of the usually accepted 145 Ma was proposed in 2014 based on a study of Vaca Muerta Formation in Neuquén Basin. Víctor Ramos, one of the authors of the study proposing the 140 Ma boundary age sees the study as a first step toward formally changing the age in the International Union of Geological Sciences, due to the high sea level there was extensive space for such sedimentation. Because of the young age and great thickness of the system. Chalk is a type characteristic for the Cretaceous. It consists of coccoliths, microscopically small calcite skeletons of coccolithophores, the group is found in England, northern France, the low countries, northern Germany, Denmark and in the subsurface of the southern part of the North Sea. Chalk is not easily consolidated and the Chalk Group still consists of sediments in many places. The group also has other limestones and arenites, among the fossils it contains are sea urchins, belemnites, ammonites and sea reptiles such as Mosasaurus. In southern Europe, the Cretaceous is usually a marine system consisting of competent limestone beds or incompetent marls
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Paleogene
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The Paleogene is a geologic period and system that spans 43 million years from the end of the Cretaceous Period 66 million years ago to the beginning of the Neogene Period 23.03 Mya. It is the beginning of the Cenozoic Era of the present Phanerozoic Eon and this period consists of the Paleocene, Eocene and Oligocene epochs. The terms Paleogene System and lower Tertiary System are applied to the rocks deposited during the Paleogene Period. By dividing the Tertiary Period into two periods instead of directly into five epochs, the periods are more comparable to the duration of periods of the preceding Mesozoic and Paleozoic Eras. The trend was caused by the formation of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. During the Paleogene, the continued to drift closer to their current positions. India was in the process of colliding with Asia, subsequently forming the Himalayas, the Atlantic Ocean continued to widen by a few centimeters each year. Africa was moving north to meet with Europe and form the Mediterranean, inland seas retreated from North America early in the period. Australia had also separated from Antarctica and was drifting towards Southeast Asia, mammals began a rapid diversification during this period. Some of these mammals would evolve into forms that would dominate the land, while others would become capable of living in marine, specialized terrestrial. Those that took to the oceans became modern cetaceans, while those that took to the trees became primates, the group to which humans belong. Birds, which were well established by the end of the Cretaceous. In comparison to birds and mammals, most other branches of life remained unchanged during this period. As the Earth cooled, tropical plants became less numerous and were now restricted to equatorial regions, deciduous plants, which could survive through the seasonal climates the world was now experiencing, became more common. The Paleogene is notable in the context of offshore oil drilling, and especially in Gulf of Mexico oil exploration and these rock formations represent the current cutting edge of deep-water oil discovery. Lower Tertiary explorations to date include, Kaskida Oil Field Tiber Oil Field Jack 2 Paleogene Microfossils, 180+ images of Foraminifera
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Neogene
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The Neogene is a geologic period and system that spans 20.45 million years from the end of the Paleogene Period 23.03 million years ago to the beginning of the present Quaternary Period 2.58 Mya. The Neogene is sub-divided into two epochs, the earlier Miocene and the later Pliocene, some geologists assert that the Neogene cannot be clearly delineated from the modern geological period, the Quaternary. During this period, mammals and birds continued to evolve into modern forms. Early hominids, the ancestors of humans, appeared in Africa near the end of the period, some continental movement took place, the most significant event being the connection of North and South America at the Isthmus of Panama, late in the Pliocene. This cut off the ocean currents from the Pacific to the Atlantic ocean. The global climate cooled considerably over the course of the Neogene, the terms Neogene System and upper Tertiary System describe the rocks deposited during the Neogene Period. The continents in the Neogene were very close to their current positions, the Isthmus of Panama formed, connecting North and South America. The Indian subcontinent continued to collide with Asia, forming the Himalayas, sea levels fell, creating land bridges between Africa and Eurasia and between Eurasia and North America. The global climate became seasonal and continued an overall drying and cooling trend which began at the start of the Paleogene. The ice caps on both poles began to grow and thicken, and by the end of the period the first of a series of glaciations of the current Ice Age began, marine and continental flora and fauna have a modern appearance. The reptile group Choristodera became extinct in the part of the period. Mammals and birds continued to be the dominant terrestrial vertebrates, the first hominids, the ancestors of humans, appeared in Africa and spread into Eurasia. In response to the cooler, seasonal climate, tropical plant species gave way to deciduous ones, grasses therefore greatly diversified, and herbivorous mammals evolved alongside it, creating the many grazing animals of today such as horses, antelope, and bison. The Neogene traditionally ended at the end of the Pliocene Epoch, just before the definition of the beginning of the Quaternary Period. However, there was a movement amongst geologists to also include ongoing geological time in the Neogene, by dividing the Cenozoic Era into three periods instead of seven epochs, the periods are more closely comparable to the duration of periods in the Mesozoic and Paleozoic eras. The International Commission on Stratigraphy once proposed that the Quaternary be considered a sub-era of the Neogene, with a date of 2.58 Ma. In the 2004 proposal of the ICS, the Neogene would have consisted of the Miocene and Pliocene epochs, thus the Neogene Period ends bounding the succeeding Quaternary Period at 2.58 Mya. Digital Atlas of Neogene Life for the Southeastern United States — by San Jose State University via Web Archive
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Taxonomy (biology)
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Taxonomy is the science of defining groups of biological organisms on the basis of shared characteristics and giving names to those groups. The exact definition of taxonomy varies from source to source, but the core of the remains, the conception, naming. There is some disagreement as to whether biological nomenclature is considered a part of taxonomy, the broadest meaning of taxonomy is used here. The word taxonomy was introduced in 1813 by Candolle, in his Théorie élémentaire de la botanique, the term alpha taxonomy is primarily used today to refer to the discipline of finding, describing, and naming taxa, particularly species. In earlier literature, the term had a different meaning, referring to morphological taxonomy, ideals can, it may be said, never be completely realized. They have, however, a value of acting as permanent stimulants. Some of us please ourselves by thinking we are now groping in a beta taxonomy, turrill thus explicitly excludes from alpha taxonomy various areas of study that he includes within taxonomy as a whole, such as ecology, physiology, genetics, and cytology. He further excludes phylogenetic reconstruction from alpha taxonomy, thus, Ernst Mayr in 1968 defined beta taxonomy as the classification of ranks higher than species. This activity is what the term denotes, it is also referred to as beta taxonomy. How species should be defined in a group of organisms gives rise to practical and theoretical problems that are referred to as the species problem. The scientific work of deciding how to define species has been called microtaxonomy, by extension, macrotaxonomy is the study of groups at higher taxonomic ranks, from subgenus and above only, than species. While some descriptions of taxonomic history attempt to date taxonomy to ancient civilizations, earlier works were primarily descriptive, and focused on plants that were useful in agriculture or medicine. There are a number of stages in scientific thinking. Early taxonomy was based on criteria, the so-called artificial systems. Later came systems based on a complete consideration of the characteristics of taxa, referred to as natural systems, such as those of de Jussieu, de Candolle and Bentham. The publication of Charles Darwins Origin of Species led to new ways of thinking about classification based on evolutionary relationships and this was the concept of phyletic systems, from 1883 onwards. This approach was typified by those of Eichler and Engler, the advent of molecular genetics and statistical methodology allowed the creation of the modern era of phylogenetic systems based on cladistics, rather than morphology alone. Taxonomy has been called the worlds oldest profession, and naming and classifying our surroundings has likely been taking place as long as mankind has been able to communicate
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Animal
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Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia. The animal kingdom emerged as a clade within Apoikozoa as the group to the choanoflagellates. Animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and independently at some point in their lives and their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later in their lives. All animals are heterotrophs, they must ingest other organisms or their products for sustenance, most known animal phyla appeared in the fossil record as marine species during the Cambrian explosion, about 542 million years ago. Animals can be divided broadly into vertebrates and invertebrates, vertebrates have a backbone or spine, and amount to less than five percent of all described animal species. They include fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals, the remaining animals are the invertebrates, which lack a backbone. These include molluscs, arthropods, annelids, nematodes, flatworms, cnidarians, ctenophores, the study of animals is called zoology. The word animal comes from the Latin animalis, meaning having breath, the biological definition of the word refers to all members of the kingdom Animalia, encompassing creatures as diverse as sponges, jellyfish, insects, and humans. Aristotle divided the world between animals and plants, and this was followed by Carl Linnaeus, in the first hierarchical classification. In Linnaeuss original scheme, the animals were one of three kingdoms, divided into the classes of Vermes, Insecta, Pisces, Amphibia, Aves, and Mammalia. Since then the last four have all been subsumed into a single phylum, in 1874, Ernst Haeckel divided the animal kingdom into two subkingdoms, Metazoa and Protozoa. The protozoa were later moved to the kingdom Protista, leaving only the metazoa, thus Metazoa is now considered a synonym of Animalia. Animals have several characteristics that set apart from other living things. Animals are eukaryotic and multicellular, which separates them from bacteria and they are heterotrophic, generally digesting food in an internal chamber, which separates them from plants and algae. They are also distinguished from plants, algae, and fungi by lacking cell walls. All animals are motile, if only at life stages. In most animals, embryos pass through a stage, which is a characteristic exclusive to animals. With a few exceptions, most notably the sponges and Placozoa and these include muscles, which are able to contract and control locomotion, and nerve tissues, which send and process signals
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Chordate
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Chordates are deuterostomes, as during the embryo development stage the anus forms before the mouth. They are also bilaterally symmetric coelomates, in the case of vertebrate chordates, the notochord is usually replaced by a vertebral column during development, and they may have body plans organized via segmentation. There are also additional extinct taxa, the Vertebrata are sometimes considered as a subgroup of the clade Craniata, consisting of chordates with a skull, the Craniata and Tunicata compose the clade Olfactores. Of the more than 65,000 living species of chordates, the worlds largest and fastest animals, the blue whale and peregrine falcon respectively, are chordates, as are humans. Fossil chordates are known from at least as early as the Cambrian explosion, Hemichordata, which includes the acorn worms, has been presented as a fourth chordate subphylum, but it now is usually treated as a separate phylum. The Hemichordata, along with the Echinodermata, form the Ambulacraria, the Chordata and Ambulacraria form the superphylum Deuterostomia, composed of the deuterostomes. Attempts to work out the relationships of the chordates have produced several hypotheses. All of the earliest chordate fossils have found in the Early Cambrian Chengjiang fauna. Because the fossil record of early chordates is poor, only molecular phylogenetics offers a prospect of dating their emergence. However, the use of molecular phylogenetics for dating evolutionary transitions is controversial and it has also proved difficult to produce a detailed classification within the living chordates. Attempts to produce family trees shows that many of the traditional classes are paraphyletic. While this has been known since the 19th century, an insistence on only monophyletic taxa has resulted in vertebrate classification being in a state of flux. Although the name Chordata is attributed to William Bateson, it was already in prevalent use by 1880, ernst Haeckel described a taxon comprising tunicates, cephalochordates, and vertebrates in 1866. Though he used the German vernacular form, it is allowed under the ICZN code because of its subsequent latinization, among the vertebrate sub-group of chordates the notochord develops into the spine, and in wholly aquatic species this helps the animal to swim by flexing its tail. In fish and other vertebrates, this develops into the spinal cord, the pharynx is the part of the throat immediately behind the mouth. In fish, the slits are modified to form gills, a muscular tail that extends backwards behind the anus. This is a groove in the wall of the pharynx. In filter-feeding species it produces mucus to gather food particles, which helps in transporting food to the esophagus and it also stores iodine, and may be a precursor of the vertebrate thyroid gland
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Mammal
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Mammals are any vertebrates within the class Mammalia, a clade of endothermic amniotes distinguished from reptiles by the possession of a neocortex, hair, three middle ear bones and mammary glands. All female mammals nurse their young with milk, secreted from the mammary glands, Mammals include the largest animals on the planet, the great whales. The basic body type is a quadruped, but some mammals are adapted for life at sea, in the air, in trees. The largest group of mammals, the placentals, have a placenta, Mammals range in size from the 30–40 mm bumblebee bat to the 30-meter blue whale. With the exception of the five species of monotreme, all modern mammals give birth to live young, most mammals, including the six most species-rich orders, belong to the placental group. The largest orders are the rodents, bats and Soricomorpha, the next three biggest orders, depending on the biological classification scheme used, are the Primates, the Cetartiodactyla, and the Carnivora. Living mammals are divided into the Yinotheria and Theriiformes There are around 5450 species of mammal, in some classifications, extant mammals are divided into two subclasses, the Prototheria, that is, the order Monotremata, and the Theria, or the infraclasses Metatheria and Eutheria. The marsupials constitute the group of the Metatheria, and include all living metatherians as well as many extinct ones. Much of the changes reflect the advances of cladistic analysis and molecular genetics, findings from molecular genetics, for example, have prompted adopting new groups, such as the Afrotheria, and abandoning traditional groups, such as the Insectivora. The mammals represent the only living Synapsida, which together with the Sauropsida form the Amniota clade, the early synapsid mammalian ancestors were sphenacodont pelycosaurs, a group that produced the non-mammalian Dimetrodon. At the end of the Carboniferous period, this group diverged from the line that led to todays reptiles. Some mammals are intelligent, with some possessing large brains, self-awareness, Mammals can communicate and vocalize in several different ways, including the production of ultrasound, scent-marking, alarm signals, singing, and echolocation. Mammals can organize themselves into fission-fusion societies, harems, and hierarchies, most mammals are polygynous, but some can be monogamous or polyandrous. They provided, and continue to provide, power for transport and agriculture, as well as commodities such as meat, dairy products, wool. Mammals are hunted or raced for sport, and are used as model organisms in science, Mammals have been depicted in art since Palaeolithic times, and appear in literature, film, mythology, and religion. Defaunation of mammals is primarily driven by anthropogenic factors, such as poaching and habitat destruction, Mammal classification has been through several iterations since Carl Linnaeus initially defined the class. No classification system is accepted, McKenna & Bell and Wilson & Reader provide useful recent compendiums. Though field work gradually made Simpsons classification outdated, it remains the closest thing to a classification of mammals
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Primate
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A primate is a mammal of the order Primates. In taxonomy, primates include two distinct lineages, strepsirrhines and haplorhines, Primates arose from ancestors that lived in the trees of tropical forests, many primate characteristics represent adaptations to life in this challenging three-dimensional environment. Most primate species remain at least partly arboreal, with the exception of humans, who inhabit every continent except for Antarctica, most primates live in tropical or subtropical regions of the Americas, Africa and Asia. Based on fossil evidence, the earliest known true primates, represented by the genus Teilhardina, an early close primate relative known from abundant remains is the Late Paleocene Plesiadapis, c. Molecular clock studies suggest that the branch may be even older. The order Primates was traditionally divided into two groupings, prosimians and anthropoids. Prosimians have characteristics more like those of the earliest primates, and include the lemurs of Madagascar, lorisoids, simians include monkeys, apes and hominins. Simians are divided into two groups, catarrhine monkeys and apes of Africa and Southeast Asia and platyrrhine or New World monkeys of South, catarrhines consist of Old World monkeys, gibbons and great apes, New World monkeys include the capuchin, howler and squirrel monkeys. Humans are the only extant catarrhines to have spread successfully outside of Africa, South Asia, New primate species are still being discovered. More than 25 species were described in the decade of the 2000s. Considered generalist mammals, primates exhibit a range of characteristics. Some primates are primarily terrestrial rather than arboreal, but all species possess adaptations for climbing trees, locomotion techniques used include leaping from tree to tree, walking on two or four limbs, knuckle-walking, and swinging between branches of trees. Primates are characterized by large brains relative to other mammals, as well as a reliance on stereoscopic vision at the expense of smell. These features are developed in monkeys and apes and noticeably less so in lorises. Three-color vision has developed in some primates, most also have opposable thumbs and some have prehensile tails. Many species are dimorphic, differences include body mass, canine tooth size. Primates have slower rates of development than other similarly sized mammals and reach maturity later, depending on the species, adults may live in solitude, in mated pairs, or in groups of up to hundreds of members. The relationships among the different groups of primates were not clearly understood until relatively recently, for example, ape has been used either as an alternative for monkey or for any tailless, relatively human-like primate
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Hominidae
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Several revisions in classifying the great apes have caused the use of the term hominid to vary over time. Its original meaning referred only to humans and their closest non-extant relatives and that restrictive meaning has now been largely assumed by the term hominin, which comprises all members of the human clade after the split from the chimpanzees. The current, 21st-century meaning of hominid includes all the great apes including humans, the most recent common ancestor of all Hominidae lived roughly 14 million years ago, when the ancestors of the orangutans speciated from the ancestral line of the other three genera. Those ancestors of the family Hominidae had already speciated from the family Hylobatidae, in the early Miocene, about 22 million years ago, there were many species of arboreally adapted primitive catarrhines from East Africa, the variety suggests a long history of prior diversification. Fossils at 20 million years ago include fragments attributed to Victoriapithecus, the most recent of these far-flung Miocene apes is Oreopithecus, from the fossil-rich coal beds in northern Italy and dated to 9 million years ago. Species close to the last common ancestor of gorillas, chimpanzees and humans may be represented by Nakalipithecus fossils found in Kenya and Ouranopithecus found in Greece. Molecular evidence suggests that between 8 and 4 million years ago, first the gorillas, and then the split off from the line leading to the humans. Human DNA is approximately 98. 4% identical to that of chimpanzees when comparing single nucleotide polymorphisms, the earliest fossils argued by some to belong to the human lineage are Sahelanthropus tchadensis and Orrorin tugenensis, followed by Ardipithecus, with species Ar. kadabba and Ar. ramidus. The classification of the apes has been revised several times in the last few decades. The original meaning of the referred to only humans and their closest relatives—what is now the modern meaning of the term hominin. And the meaning of the taxon Hominidae changed gradually, leading to a different usage of hominid that today all the great apes including humans. A hominid is a member of the family Hominidae, the apes, orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees. A hominine is a member of the subfamily Homininae, gorillas, chimpanzees, a hominin is a member of the tribe Hominini, Chimpanzees and humans. A homininan is a member of the subtribe Hominina of the tribe Hominini, a human is a member of the genus Homo, of which Homo sapiens is the only extant species, and within that Homo sapiens sapiens is the only surviving subspecies. For each clade it is indicated approximately when newer extant clades emerged, some texts will refer to Homonini as the Hominina branch. Many scientists, including paleoanthropologists, continue to use the term hominid to mean humans, as mentioned, Hominidae was originally the name given to the family of humans and their close relatives, with the other great apes all being placed in a separate family, the Pongidae. However, that eventually made Pongidae paraphyletic because at least one great ape species proved to be more closely related to humans than to other great apes. Most taxonomists today encourage monophyletic groups—this would require, in this case, thus, many biologists now assign Pongo to the family Hominidae
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Homo
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The genus is between 2 and 3 million years old, taken to emerge with the appearance of Homo habilis. It is derived from the genus Australopithecus, which itself had previously split from the lineage of Pan, taxonomically, Homo is the only genus assigned to the subtribe Hominina which, with the subtribes Australopithecina and Panina, comprise the tribe Hominini. All species of the genus Homo plus those species of the australopithecines that arose after the split from Pan are called hominins, Homo erectus appeared about two million years ago in East Africa and, in several early migrations, it spread throughout Africa and Eurasia. It was likely the first hominin to live in a hunter-gatherer society, the subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens or anatomically modern humans emerged about 200,000 years ago in East Africa. DNA analysis provides evidence of interbreeding between archaic and modern humans. See Hominidae for an overview of taxonomy, the Latin noun homō means human being or man in the generic sense of human being, mankind. The binomial name Homo sapiens was coined by Carl Linnaeus, names for other species of the genus were introduced beginning in the second half of the 19th century. Even today, the genus Homo has not been properly defined, since the early human fossil record began to slowly emerge from the earth, the boundaries and definitions of the genus Homo have been poorly defined and constantly in flux. Because there was no reason to think it would ever have any additional members, the discovery of Neanderthal brought the first addition. The genus Homo was given its name to suggest that its member species can be classified as human. Many such names are now dubbed as synonyms with Homo, including Pithecanthropus, Protanthropus, Sinanthropus, Cyphanthropus, Africanthropus, Telanthropus, Atlanthropus, classifying the genus Homo into species and subspecies is subject to incomplete information and remains poorly done. Some recently extinct species in the genus Homo are only recently discovered, john Edward Gray was an early advocate of classifying taxa by designating tribes and families. Several species, including Australopithecus garhi, Australopithecus sediba, Australopithecus africanus and these species have morphological features that align them with Homo, but there is no consensus as to which gave rise to Homo. The advent of Homo was traditionally taken to coincide with the first use of stone tools, the emergence of Homo also coincides roughly with the onset of Quaternary glaciation, the beginning of the current ice age. A fossil mandible fragment dated to 2.8 million years ago which may represent a stage between Australopithecus and Homo was discovered in 2015 in Afar, Ethiopia. Some authors would push the development of Homo past 3 Mya, the most salient physiological development between the earlier australopithecine species and Homo is the increase in cranial capacity, from about 450 cm3 in A. garhi to 600 cm3 in H. habilis. Within the genus Homo, cranial capacity again doubled from H. habilis through Homo ergaster or H. erectus to Homo heidelbergensis by 0.6 million years ago, the cranial capacity of H. heidelbergensis overlaps with the range found in modern humans. Homo erectus has often been assumed to have developed anagenetically from Homo habilis from about 2 million years ago
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Binomial nomenclature
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Such a name is called a binomial name, a binomen, binominal name or a scientific name, more informally it is also called a Latin name. The first part of the name identifies the genus to which the species belongs, for example, humans belong to the genus Homo and within this genus to the species Homo sapiens. The formal introduction of system of naming species is credited to Carl Linnaeus. But Gaspard Bauhin, in as early as 1623, had introduced in his book Pinax theatri botanici many names of genera that were adopted by Linnaeus. Although the general principles underlying binomial nomenclature are common to these two codes, there are differences, both in the terminology they use and in their precise rules. Similarly, both parts are italicized when a binomial name occurs in normal text, thus the binomial name of the annual phlox is now written as Phlox drummondii. In scientific works, the authority for a name is usually given, at least when it is first mentioned. In zoology Patella vulgata Linnaeus,1758, the original name given by Linnaeus was Fringilla domestica, the parentheses indicate that the species is now considered to belong in a different genus. The ICZN does not require that the name of the person who changed the genus be given, nor the date on which the change was made, in botany Amaranthus retroflexus L. – L. is the standard abbreviation used in botany for Linnaeus. – Linnaeus first named this bluebell species Scilla italica, Rothmaler transferred it to the genus Hyacinthoides, the ICN does not require that the dates of either publication be specified. Prior to the adoption of the binomial system of naming species. Together they formed a system of polynomial nomenclature and these names had two separate functions. First, to designate or label the species, and second, to be a diagnosis or description, such polynomial names may sometimes look like binomials, but are significantly different. For example, Gerards herbal describes various kinds of spiderwort, The first is called Phalangium ramosum, Branched Spiderwort, is aptly termed Phalangium Ephemerum Virginianum, Soon-Fading Spiderwort of Virginia. The Latin phrases are short descriptions, rather than identifying labels, the Bauhins, in particular Caspar Bauhin, took some important steps towards the binomial system, by pruning the Latin descriptions, in many cases to two words. The adoption by biologists of a system of binomial nomenclature is due to Swedish botanist and physician Carl von Linné. It was in his 1753 Species Plantarum that he first began using a one-word trivial name together with a generic name in a system of binomial nomenclature. This trivial name is what is now known as an epithet or specific name
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Hominini
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Members of the human clade, that is, the Hominina, including Homo and those species of the australopithecines that arose after the split from the chimpanzees, are called homininans. Not all homininans are directly related to the emergence of early Homo and this is a modern cladogram, For each clade, the cladogram above shows approximately when newer extant clades emerged. Some texts refer to Homonini as the Hominina branch, the subtribe Hominina is the human branch, that is, it contains only the genus Homo. Researchers proposed the taxon Hominini on the basis that the least similar species of a trichotomy should be separated from the other two. The common chimpanzee and the bonobo of the genus Pan are the closest living relatives to humans. All the extinct genera listed to the right are ancestral to, or offshoots of, however, both Orrorin and Sahelanthropus existed around the time of the split, and so may be ancestral to both Pan and Homo. In the proposal of Mann and Weiss, the tribe Hominini includes Pan as well as Homo, Homo and all bipedal apes are referred to the subtribe Hominina, while Pan is assigned to the subtribe Panina. Wood discusses the different views of this taxonomy, the assumption of late hybridization was in particular based on the similarity of the X chromosome in humans and chimpanzees, suggesting a divergence as late as some 4 million years ago. Sahelanthropus tchadensis is an extinct species that lived seven million years ago. Human Timeline – Smithsonian, National Museum of Natural History
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Fossil
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Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals, plants, and other organisms from the remote past. The totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in fossiliferous rock formations and sedimentary layers is known as the fossil record. The study of fossils across geological time, how they were formed, such a preserved specimen is called a fossil if it is older than some minimum age, most often the arbitrary date of 10,000 years. The observation that fossils were associated with certain rock strata led early geologists to recognize a geological timescale in the 19th century. The development of dating techniques in the early 20th century allowed geologists to determine the numerical or absolute age of the various strata. Like extant organisms, fossils vary in size from microscopic, even single bacterial cells one micrometer in diameter, to gigantic, such as dinosaurs, Fossils may also consist of the marks left behind by the organism while it was alive, such as animal tracks or feces. These types of fossil are called trace fossils, as opposed to body fossils, finally, past life leaves some markers that cannot be seen but can be detected in the form of biochemical signals, these are known as chemofossils or biosignatures. The process of fossilization varies according to type and external conditions. Permineralization is a process of fossilization that occurs when an organism is buried, the empty spaces within an organism become filled with mineral-rich groundwater. Minerals precipitate from the groundwater, occupying the empty spaces and this process can occur in very small spaces, such as within the cell wall of a plant cell. Small scale permineralization can produce very detailed fossils, for permineralization to occur, the organism must become covered by sediment soon after death or soon after the initial decay process. The degree to which the remains are decayed when covered determines the later details of the fossil, some fossils consist only of skeletal remains or teeth, other fossils contain traces of skin, feathers or even soft tissues. This is a form of diagenesis, in some cases the original remains of the organism completely dissolve or are otherwise destroyed. The remaining organism-shaped hole in the rock is called an external mold, if this hole is later filled with other minerals, it is a cast. An endocast or internal mold is formed when sediments or minerals fill the cavity of an organism. This is a form of cast and mold formation. If the chemistry is right, the organism can act as a nucleus for the precipitation of minerals such as siderite, if this happens rapidly before significant decay to the organic tissue, very fine three-dimensional morphological detail can be preserved. Nodules from the Carboniferous Mazon Creek fossil beds of Illinois, USA, are among the best documented examples of such mineralization, replacement occurs when the shell, bone or other tissue is replaced with another mineral
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Richard Leakey
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Richard Erskine Frere Leakey is a Kenyan paleoanthropologist, conservationist, and politician. He is second of the three sons of the archaeologists Louis Leakey and Mary Leakey, and is the younger half-brother of Colin Leakey, the Leakey brothers had a very active childhood. All the boys had ponies and belonged to the Langata Pony Club and they participated in jumping and steeplechase competitions but often rode for fun across the plains to the Ngong Hills, chasing and playing games with the animals. Sometimes the whole club were guests at the Leakeys for holidays, Leakeys parents founded the Dalmatian Club of East Africa and won a prize in 1957. Dogs and many other pets shared the Leakey home, the Leakey boys participated in games conducted by both adults and children, in which they tried to imitate early humans, catching springhares and small antelope by hand on the Serengeti. They drove lions and jackals from the kill to see if they could do it, when Leakey was 11, he fell from his horse, fractured his skull and lay near death. Incidentally, it was this incident that saved his parents marriage, Louis was seriously considering leaving Mary for his secretary, Rosalie Osborn. As the battle with Mary raged in the household, Leakey begged his father from his sickbed not to leave, Louis broke up with Rosalie and the family lived in happy harmony for a few years more. The Leakey boys had several nannies like their father before them, at age 11 Leakey entered the Duke of York Secondary School. On his first day Leakey called for equality, like his father. Calling him a lover of niggers, the students locked him in a cage, spat and urinated on him. After he was caned for missing chapel, Leakey resolved never to be a Christian and he skipped class frequently in favour of a business he started, selling small animals to be photographed by Des Bartlett. In December 1960, Leakey reached his 16th birthday and promptly quit the Duke of York and his parents gave him a choice, return to school or support himself. Richard chose to support himself, borrowed 500 pounds from his parents for a Land Rover, the bone business turned into a safari business in 1961. In 1962 he obtained a private pilot license and took tours to Olduvai. It was from an aerial survey that he noted the potential of Lake Natrons shores for palaeontology. He went looking for fossils in a Land Rover, but could find none, Louis was so impressed with their finds that he gave them National Geographic money for a months expedition. They explored in the vicinity of Peninj near the lake, where Leakey was in charge of the administrative details, bored, he returned to Nairobi temporarily, but at that moment, Kamoya Kimeu discovered a fossil of Australopithecus boisei
26.
Meave Leakey
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Meave G. Leakey is a British paleoanthropologist. She works at Stony Brook University and is co-ordinator of Plio-Pleistocene research at the Turkana Basin Institute and she studies early hominid evolution and has done extensive field research in the Turkana Basin. She has Doctor of Philosophy and Doctor of Science degrees, dr. Leakeys research team at Lake Turkana, Kenya made a discovery in 1999. They found a 3. 5-million-year-old skull and partial jaw thought to belong to a new branch of the human family. She named the find Kenyanthropus platyops, or flat-faced man of Kenya, Meave Leakey is married to Richard Leakey, a paleontologist. They have two children, Louise and Samira, Louise Leakey continues family traditions by conducting palaeontological research. Leakey initially studied Zoology and Marine zoology at the University of North Wales and her first contact with the Leakey family was working for the Tigoni Primate Research Centre while taking her Ph. D. At this time, the centre was being administered by Louis Leakey and she received her Ph. D. in Zoology in 1968. In 2004, she was awarded an honorary D. Sc. from University College, London, Leakey is currently a Research Professor for the Turkana Basin Institute (affiliated with Stony Brook University. On 30 April 2013, Leakey was elected as a Foreign Associate of the U. S. National Academy of Sciences, with specialties of Geology and Anthropology. This made Leakey the first Kenyan citizen and also the first woman citizen of an African country to be elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences, Leakey, J. M. Meave Leakey Discusses Kenyanthropus platyops Turkana Basin Institute
27.
Koobi Fora
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Koobi Fora /ˈkuːbi ˈfɔːrə/ refers primarily to a region around Koobi Fora Ridge, located on the eastern shore of Lake Turkana in the territory of the nomadic Gabbra people. The ridge itself is an outcrop of mainly Pliocene/Pleistocene sediments and it is composed of claystones, siltstones, and sandstones that preserve numerous fossils of terrestrial mammals, including early hominin species. Presently, the ridge is being eroded into a badlands terrain by a series of rivers that drain into the northeast portion of modern Lake Turkana. In 1968 Richard Leakey established the Koobi Fora Base Camp on a large sandspit projecting into the lake near the ridge, which he called the Koobi Fora Spit. A subsequent survey and numerous excavations at multiple sites established the region as a source of hominin fossils shedding light on the evolution of man over the previous 4.2 million years. Far exceeding the number of fossils are the non-hominin fossils which give a detailed view of the fauna. Consequently the government of Kenya in 1973 reserved the region as Sibiloi National Park, the reserve is well-maintained and is well-guarded by friendly but armed park police. Protection of sites and especially of wildlife are of prime concern, exploration and excavation continue under the auspices of the Koobi Fora Research Project, which collaborates with a number of interested universities and individuals across the world. Formerly the term Koobi Fora has been used to one or two initial sites, or the sand spit. Today it can mean any or all points in Sibiloi National Park, the term East Turkana also has come into use with the larger meaning. For example, in Area 131 hominin skull KNM-ER1470 was found, the fossils found here, including all the non-human ones, are assigned to the 1470 locality. Locating and referencing the hundreds of sites in the Koobi Fora region has been an ongoing process, the entire reservation was divided into somewhat over 100 numbered areas. When there were only a few sites it sufficed to locate them with pinpricks on aerial photos. The archaeologists, such as Glynn Isaac, developed a co-ordinate system, in the year 2000 the KFRP went over to a GPS system and has been trying to correlate the pinpricks to its data. Fossils are labelled with a KNM accession number, assigned on no other basis than the order in which it was assigned. The number may be preceded in scholarly literature by KNM, KNM ET or KNM ER, some notable areas are as follows. Area 105 The first archaeological site, i. e. FxJj 1, was found in Area 105 and it is nicknamed the KBS site for Kay Behrensmeyer Site, after Kay Behrensmeyer, the researcher who first found stone tools there. This site is also the place where the first tuff was found, then Homo rudolfensis was found by Richard Leakey below the 1.89 million year old KBS tuff, thus, it is older than that date, but is conventionally dated to it
28.
Lake Turkana
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Lake Turkana, formerly known as Lake Rudolf, is a lake in the Kenyan Rift Valley, in northern Kenya, with its far northy end crossing into Ethiopia. It is the worlds largest permanent desert lake and the worlds largest alkaline lake, by volume it is the worlds fourth-largest salt lake after the Caspian Sea, Issyk-Kul, and Lake Van, and among all lakes it ranks 24th. The water is potable, but not palatable and it supports a rich lacustrine wildlife. The climate is hot and very dry, the rocks of the surrounding area are predominantly volcanic. Central Island is a volcano, emitting vapour. Outcrops and rocky shores are found on the east and south shores of the lake, while dunes, spits and flats are on the west and north, on-shore and off-shore winds can be extremely strong, as the lake warms and cools more slowly than the land. Three rivers flow into the lake, but lacking outflow, its water loss is by evaporation. Lake volume and dimensions are variable, for example, its level fell by 10 metres between 1975 and 1993. Due to temperature, aridity and geographic inaccessibility, the lake retains its wild character, Nile crocodiles are found in great abundance on the flats. The rocky shores are home to scorpions and carpet vipers, Lake Turkana National Parks are now listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Sibiloi National Park lies on the eastern shore, while Central Island National Park. Both are known for their Nile crocodiles, an abundance of hominid fossils have been discovered in the area surrounding Lake Turkana. The lake was named Lake Rudolf by Count Sámuel Teleki de Szék and his second-in-command Lieutenant Ludwig Ritter Von Höhnel, a Hungarian and they were the first Europeans to have recorded visiting the lake after a long safari across East Africa. Natives who live around Lake Turkana include the Turkana, Rendille, Gabbra, Daasanach, Hamar Koke, Karo, Nyagatom, Mursi, Surma, for the location of many of these peoples, refer to the dialect map in the article. J. W. Gregory reported in The Geographical Journal of 1894 that it was called Basso Narok, likewise, nearby Lake Chew Bahir is Basso Naibor in Samburu, meaning White Lake. The Samburu are among the dominant tribes in the lake Turkana region when the explorers came, what the native form of this phrase was, what it might mean, and in which language is not clear. The lake kept its European name during the period of British East Africa. After the independence of Kenya, the president, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, renamed it in 1975 after the Turkana, at some unknown time, the lake acquired an alternate name as the Jade Sea from its turquoise colour seen approaching from a distance
29.
Kenya
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Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country in Africa and a founding member of the East African Community. Its capital and largest city is Nairobi and it is bordered by Tanzania to the south and southwest, Uganda to the west, South Sudan to the north-west, Ethiopia to the north and Somalia to the north-east. Kenya covers 581,309 km2, and had a population of approximately 48 million people in January 2017, Kenya has a warm and humid tropical climate on its Indian Ocean coastline. The climate is cooler in the grasslands around the capital city, Nairobi, and especially closer to Mount Kenya. Further inland are highlands in Central and Rift Valley regions where tea, in the West are Nyanza and Western regions, there is an equatorial, hot and dry climate which becomes humid around Lake Victoria, the largest tropical fresh-water lake in the world. This gives way to temperate and forested areas in the neighbouring western region. The north-eastern regions along the border with Somalia and Ethiopia are arid and semi-arid areas with near-desert landscapes, Kenya is known for its world class athletes in track and field and rugby. The African Great Lakes region, which Kenya is a part of, has been inhabited by humans since the Lower Paleolithic period, by the first millennium AD, the Bantu expansion had reached the area from West-Central Africa. Bantu and Nilotic populations together constitute around 97% of the nations residents, European and Arab presence in coastal Mombasa dates to the Early Modern period, European exploration of the interior began in the 19th century. The British Empire established the East Africa Protectorate in 1895, which starting in 1920 gave way to the Kenya Colony, Kenya obtained independence in December 1963. Following a referendum in August 2010 and adoption of a new constitution, Kenya is now divided into 47 semi-autonomous counties, the capital, Nairobi, is a regional commercial hub. The economy of Kenya is the largest by GDP in East, agriculture is a major employer, the country traditionally exports tea and coffee and has more recently begun to export fresh flowers to Europe. The service industry is also an economic driver. Additionally, Kenya is a member of the East African Community trading bloc, the Republic of Kenya is named after Mount Kenya. The origin of the name Kenya is not clear, but perhaps linked to the Kikuyu, Embu and Kamba words Kirinyaga, Kirenyaa, if so, then the British may not so much have mispronounced it, as misspelled it. In the 19th century, the German explorer Johann Ludwig Krapf was staying with the Bantu Kamba people when he first spotted the mountain. On asking for the name of the mountain, he was told Kĩ-Nyaa or Kĩĩma- Kĩĩnyaa probably because the pattern of black rock, the Agikuyu, who inhabit the slopes of Mt. Kenya, call it Kĩrĩma Kĩrĩnyaga in Kikuyu, which is quite similar to the Kamba name. Ludwig Krapf recorded the name as both Kenia and Kegnia believed by most to be a corruption of the Kamba version, others say that this was—on the contrary—a very precise notation of a correct African pronunciation /ˈkɛnjə/
30.
Australopithecus
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Australopithecus is an extinct genus of hominins. During that time, a number of australopithecine species emerged, including Australopithecus afarensis, A. africanus, A. anamensis, A. bahrelghazali, A. deyiremeda, A. garhi, and A. sediba. For some hominid species of time, such as A. robustus and A. boisei. If so, they would be considered robust australopiths, while the others would be gracile australopiths, however, if these species do constitute their own genus, they may be given their own name, Paranthropus. Australopithecus species played a significant part in human evolution, the genus Homo being derived from Australopithecus at some time after three years ago. Among other things, they were the first hominids to show the presence of a gene that causes increased length and ability of neurons in the brain, the duplicated SRGAP2 gene. One of the species eventually became the Homo genus in Africa around two million years ago, and eventually modern humans, H. sapiens sapiens. Gracile australopiths shared several traits with modern apes and humans, and were widespread throughout Eastern and Northern Africa around 3.5 million years ago, the earliest evidence of fundamentally bipedal hominids can be observed at the site of Laetoli in Tanzania. This site contains hominid footprints that are similar to those of modern humans and have been dated to as old as 3.6 million years. The footprints have generally classified as australopith because that is the only form of prehuman known to have existed in that region at that time. Australopithecus anamensis, A. afarensis, and A. africanus are among the most famous of the extinct hominins, a. africanus was once considered to be ancestral to the genus Homo. However, fossils assigned to the genus Homo have been found that are older than A. africanus, thus, the genus Homo either split off from the genus Australopithecus at an earlier date, or both developed from a yet possibly unknown common ancestor independently. According to the Chimpanzee Genome Project, the human and chimpanzee lineages diverged from a common ancestor about five to six years ago. Sahelanthropus tchadensis, commonly called Toumai, is seven million years old. One theory suggests that the human and chimpanzee lineages diverged somewhat at first, the brains of most species of Australopithecus were roughly 35% of the size of a modern human brain. Most species of Australopithecus were diminutive and gracile, usually standing 1.2 to 1.4 m tall, in several variations is a considerable degree of sexual dimorphism, males being larger than females. According to one scholar, A. Furthermore, thermoregulatory models suggest that Australopithecus species were fully covered, more like chimpanzees and bonobos. Modern humans do not appear to display the same degree of sexual dimorphism as Australopithecus did, in modern populations, males are on average a mere 15% larger than females, while in Australopithecus, males could be up to 50% larger than females
31.
Timeline of human evolution
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The timeline of human evolution outlines the major events in the development of the human species, Homo sapiens, and the evolution of our ancestors. It includes brief explanations of some of the species, genera, and this timeline is based on studies from anthropology, paleontology, developmental biology, morphology, and from anatomical and genetic data. It does not address the origin of life, which discussion is provided by abiogenesis, a caution, Other than Mr Haeckels historic and emblematic tree, this article provides no phylogenetics analysis to help portray the complex, nonlinear facts of human evolution. One of several lines of descent, or taxonomic ranking
32.
Ouranopithecus
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Based on O. macedoniensiss dental and facial anatomy, it has been suggested that the Ouranopithecus were actually dryopithecines. However, Ouranopithecines are probably closely related to the Ponginae. It is true that O. macedoniensis shares derived features with some early hominins and it has been suggested that it may be a synonym of Graecopithecus freybergi, although this is widely disputed in the literature. Media related to Ouranopithecus at Wikimedia Commons Human Timeline – Smithsonian, National Museum of Natural History
33.
Sahelanthropus
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Sahelanthropus tchadensis is an extinct homininae species that is dated to about 7 million years ago, during the Miocene epoch, possibly very close to the time of the chimpanzee–human divergence. Few specimens are known, other than the partial skull nicknamed Toumaï, existing fossils include a relatively small cranium named Toumaï, five pieces of jaw, and some teeth, making up a head that has a mixture of derived and primitive features. The braincase, being only 320 cm³ to 380 cm³ in volume, is similar to that of extant chimpanzees and is less than the approximate human volume of 1350 cm³. The teeth, brow ridges, and facial structure differ markedly from those found in Homo sapiens, cranial features show a flatter face, u-shaped dental arcade, small canines, an anterior foramen magnum, and heavy brow ridges. No postcranial remains have been recovered, the only known skull suffered a large amount of distortion during the time of fossilisation and discovery, as the cranium is dorsoventrally flattened, and the right side is depressed. Sahelanthropus tchadensis may have walked on two legs, upon examination of the foramen magnum in the primary study, the lead author speculated that a bipedal gait would not be unreasonable based on basicranial morphology similar to more recent hominins. Further, according to recent information, what might be a femur of a hominid was also discovered near the cranium—but which has not been published nor accounted for. All known material of Sahelanthropus was found between July 2001 and March 2002 at three sites, TM247, TM266, which yielded most of the material, including a cranium and a femur, and TM292. The discoverers claimed that S. tchadensis is the oldest known human ancestor after the split of the line from that of chimpanzees. The bones were found far from most previous hominin fossil finds, however, an Australopithecus bahrelghazali mandible was found in Chad by Mamelbaye Tomalta, Najia and Alain Beauvilain, Michel Brunet and Aladji H. E. With the sexual dimorphism known to have existed in early hominins, Sahelanthropus may represent a common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees, though no consensus has been reached yet by the scientific community. The original placement of species as a human ancestor but not a chimpanzee ancestor would complicate the picture of human phylogeny. Another possibility is that Toumaï is related to humans and chimpanzees, but is the ancestor of neither. Brigitte Senut and Martin Pickford, the discoverers of Orrorin tugenensis, even if this claim is upheld the find would lose none of its significance, because at present, very few chimpanzee or gorilla ancestors have been found anywhere in Africa. Thus if S. tchadensis is a relative of the chimpanzees or gorillas. And S. tchadensis does indicate that the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees is unlikely to closely resemble extant chimpanzees, indeed, some researchers consider suggestions that Sahelanthropus is too early to be a human ancestor to have evaporated. Sediment isotope analysis of atoms in the fossil yielded an age of about 7 million years. In fact, Toumaï may have been reburied in the recent past, taphonomic analysis reveals the likelihood of one, perhaps two, burial
34.
Orrorin
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Orrorin tugenensis is a postulated early species of Homininae, estimated at 6.1 to 5.7 million years and discovered in 2000. It is not confirmed how Orrorin is related to modern humans and its discovery was an argument against the hypothesis that australopithecines are human ancestors, as much as it still remains the most prevalent hypothesis of human evolution as of 2012. The name of genus Orrorin means original man in Tugen, and the name of the only classified species, O. tugenensis, derives from Tugen Hills in Kenya, as of 2007,20 fossils of the species have been found. Orrorin had small teeth relative to its body size and its dentition differs from that found in Australopithecus in that its cheek teeth are smaller and less elongated mesiodistally and from Ardipithecus in that its enamel is thicker. The dentition differs from both species in the presence of a mesial groove on the upper canines. The canines are ape-like but reduced, like those found in Miocene apes, Orrorin had small post-canines and was microdont, like modern humans, whereas robust australopithecines were megadont. In the femur, the head is spherical and rotated anteriorly, the neck is elongated and oval in section, while these suggest that Orrorin was bipedal, the rest of the postcranium indicates it climbed trees. After the fossils were found in 2000, they were held at the Kipsaraman village community museum, since then, according to the Community Museums of Kenya chairman Eustace Kitonga, the fossils are stored at a secret bank vault in Nairobi. The main similarity is that the Orrorin femur is morphologically closer to that of H. sapiens than is Lucys, there is, however, some debate over this point. Other fossils found in the Lukeino Formation show that Orrorin lived in a dry evergreen forest environment, the team that found these fossils in 2000 was led by Brigitte Senut and Martin Pickford from the Muséum national dhistoire naturelle. This date is markedly different from those using the molecular clock approach. Life timeline List of human evolution fossils Martin Pickford Orrorin tugenensis - The Smithsonian Institutions Human Origins Program Human Timeline – Smithsonian, National Museum of Natural History
35.
Ardipithecus
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Ardipithecus is a genus of an extinct hominine that lived during Late Miocene and Early Pliocene in Afar Depression, Ethiopia. Two fossil species are described in the literature, A. ramidus, which lived about 4.4 million years ago during the early Pliocene, behavioral analysis showed that Ardipithecus could be very similar to chimpanzees, indicating that the early human ancestors were very chimpanzee-like in behaviour. A. ramidus was named in September 1994, the first fossil found was dated to 4.4 million years ago on the basis of its stratigraphic position between two volcanic strata, the basal Gaala Tuff Complex and the Daam Aatu Basaltic Tuff. The name Ardipithecus ramidus stems mostly from the Afar language, in which Ardi means ground/floor, the pithecus portion of the name is from the Greek word for ape. Like most hominids, but unlike all previously recognized hominins, it had a grasping hallux or big toe adapted for locomotion in the trees and it is not confirmed how much other features of its skeleton reflect adaptation to bipedalism on the ground as well. Like later hominins, Ardipithecus had reduced canine teeth, more fragments were recovered in 1994, amounting to 45% of the total skeleton. This fossil was described as a species of Australopithecus, but White. Between 1999 and 2003, a team led by Sileshi Semaw discovered bones. The fossils were dated to between 4.35 and 4.45 million years old, Ardipithecus ramidus had a small brain, measuring between 300 and 350 cm3. Like common chimpanzees, A. ramidus was much more prognathic than modern humans, the size of the upper canine tooth in A. ramidus males was not distinctly different from that of females. The features of the canine in A. ramidus contrast with the sexual dimorphism observed in common chimpanzees. The less pronounced nature of the canine teeth in A. ramidus has been used to infer aspects of the social behavior of the species. In particular, it has used to suggest that the last common ancestor of hominids. This is markedly different from social patterns in common chimpanzees, among which intermale, researchers in a 2009 study said that this condition compromises the living chimpanzee as a behavioral model for the ancestral hominid condition. A. ramidus existed more recently than the most recent common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees, nevertheless, it is in some ways unlike chimpanzees, suggesting that the common ancestor differs from the modern chimpanzee. After the chimpanzee and human lineages diverged, both underwent substantial evolutionary change, chimp feet are specialized for grasping trees, A. ramidus feet are better suited for walking. The canine teeth of A. ramidus are smaller, and equal in size between males and females, which suggests reduced male-to-male conflict, increased pair-bonding, and increased parental investment. Thus, fundamental reproductive and social behavioral changes probably occurred in long before they had enlarged brains and began to use stone tools
36.
Homo habilis
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Homo habilis is a species of the tribe Hominini, during the Gelasian and early Calabrian stages of the Pleistocene period, which lived between roughly 2.1 and 1.5 million years ago. LD 350-1 is a fossil jawbone fragment discovered in 2013 which has dated to 2.8 million years ago. There has been debate regarding its placement in the genus Homo rather than the genus Australopithecus. The small size and rather primitive attributes have led experts to propose excluding H. habilis from the genus Homo. These were later classified as milk teeth, and therefore considered difficult to link to taxa unlike permanent teeth, however, in 1959, Mary Leakey recovered the cranium of a young adult which had a small brain, large face, tiny canines and massive chewing teeth. H. habilis was short and had long arms compared to modern humans, however. H. habilis had a capacity slightly less than half of the size of modern humans. Despite the ape-like morphology of the bodies, H. habilis remains are accompanied by primitive stone tools. Homo habilis has often thought to be the ancestor of the more gracile and sophisticated Homo ergaster. New findings in 2007 seemed to confirm the view that H. habilis and H. erectus coexisted, an alternative explanation would be that any ancestral relationship from H. habilis to H. erectus would have to have been cladogenetic rather than anagenetic. Its brain size has been shown to range from 550 cm3 to 687 cm3, a virtual reconstruction published in 2015 estimated the endocranial volume at between 729 and 824 ml, larger than any previously published value. H. habilis brain capacity of around 640 cm³ was on average 50% larger than australopithecines and these hominins were smaller than modern humans, on average standing no more than 1.3 m tall. A fragment of fossilized jawbone, dated to around 2.8 million years ago, was discovered in the Ledi-Geraru research area in Afar Regional State in 2013. The fossil is considered the earliest evidence of the Homo genus known to date, the individual in question lived just after a major climate shift in the region, when forests and waterways were rapidly replaced by arid savannah. One set of remains, discovered by Donald Johanson and Tim White in Olduvai Gorge in 1986, included the important upper and lower limbs, specifically the humerus. Their finding stimulated some debate at the time, locomotor affinities of OH62 have been assessed primarily on the basis of its forelimb to hind limb proportions, which are known to be associated with locomotor behavior among living primates. Initial analyses concentrated on comparisons to the Australopithecus afarensis A. L. 288-1, in most dimensions—measured or estimated—the OH62 upper limb remains equaled or exceeded those of A. L. 288-1, while its lower limb remains appeared to be smaller. In this sense, it was more ‘‘primitive than A. L. 288-1, KNM ER1813 is a relatively complete cranium which dates to 1.9 million years old, discovered at Koobi Fora, Kenya by Kamoya Kimeu in 1973
37.
Homo erectus
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Homo erectus is an extinct species of hominid that lived throughout most of the Pleistocene geological epoch. Its earliest fossil evidence dates to 1.9 million years ago and extends to 70,000 years ago, or, possibly, as recently as 35,000 years ago. It is generally thought that H. erectus originated in Africa and spread from there, migrating throughout Eurasia as far as Georgia, India, Sri Lanka, China, a new debate appeared in 2013, with the documentation of the Dmanisi skulls.58 million years ago. From there it migrated, in part, by 2, the fossil record shows that its development from about 1.8 mya to one mya was widely distributed, in Africa, the Transcaucasus, Indonesia, and in Vietnam, China, and India. The second hypothesis is that H. erectus evolved in Eurasia and they occupied the Dmanisi site from 1.85 million to 1.77 million years ago, which was about the same time or slightly before their earliest evidence in Africa. There are several proposed explanations of the dispersal of H. erectus georgicus—including whether or not Africa is the source), the Dutch anatomist Eugène Dubois was fascinated by Darwins theory of evolution especially as it applied to humankind. In 1886, he set out for Asia—which then was the region accepted as the cradle of evolution despite Darwins theory of African origin. In 1891, his team discovered a human fossil on the island of Java, the Java fossil from Indonesia aroused much public interest. It was dubbed by the press as Java Man, but few scientists accepted Dubois argument that his fossil was the transitional form—the so-called missing link—between apes. Java Man is now classified as Homo erectus, most of the spectacular discoveries of H. erectus next took place at the Zhoukoudian Project, now known as the Peking Man Site, in Zhoukoudian, China. This site was first discovered by Johan Gunnar Andersson in 1921 and was first excavated in 1921, canadian anatomist Davidson Blacks initial description of a lower molar as belonging to a previously unknown species prompted widely publicized interest. Extensive excavations followed, which altogether uncovered 200 human fossils from more than 40 individuals including five nearly complete skullcaps, german anatomist Franz Weidenreich provided much of the detailed description of this material in several monographs published in the journal Palaeontologica Sinica. Throughout much of the 20th century, anthropologists debated the role of H. erectus in human evolution, early in the century, due in part to the discoveries at Java and Zhoukoudian, it was widely accepted that modern humans first evolved in Asia. From the 1950s forward, numerous finds in East Africa confirmed the hypothesis of an African genesis and it is now generally accepted that H. erectus descended from either, 1) the earliest hominin genera, or 2) the earliest Homo-species. East Africa provided sympatric coexistence for H. erectus and H, in the 1950s, archaeologists John T. Robinson and Robert Broom named Telanthropus capensis, Robinson had discovered a jaw fragment in 1949 in Swartkrans, South Africa. Later, Simonetta proposed to re-designate it to Homo erectus, in 1961, Yves Coppens discovered a skull of Tchadanthropus uxoris, then the earliest fossil human discovered in north Africa. It was reported that the fossil had been so eroded by sand that it mimicked the appearance of an australopith. Although at first considered to be a specimen of H. habilis, T. uxoris is no longer considered a valid taxon, and has been subsumed into H. erectus
38.
Homo heidelbergensis
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Homo heidelbergensis – also Homo rhodesiensis – is an extinct species of the genus Homo that lived in Africa, Europe and western Asia between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago. The skulls of this species share features with both Homo erectus and anatomically modern Homo sapiens, its brain was nearly as large as that of Homo sapiens. The Sima de los Huesos cave at Atapuerca in northern Spain holds particularly rich layers of deposits that represent an exceptional reserve of data where excavations are still in progress. Neanderthals, Denisovans, and modern humans are all considered to have descended from Homo heidelbergensis that appeared around 700,000 years ago in Africa, fossils have been recovered in Ethiopia, Namibia and South Africa. Between 300,000 and 400,000 years ago a group of Homo heidelbergensis migrated into Europe and West Asia via yet unknown routes, archaeological sites exist in Spain, Italy, France, England, Germany, Hungary and Greece. Another Homo heidelbergensis group ventured eastwards into continental Asia, eventually developing into Denisovans, some researchers suggest that the finds associated to Homo heidelbergensis are mere variants of Homo erectus. Both Homo antecessor and Homo heidelbergensis are likely to have descended from the very similar Homo ergaster from Africa. The anatomy is more primitive than that of Neanderthal, but the harmoniously rounded dental arch. Heidelbergensis from other known human species, the species name heidelbergensis only experienced a renaissance with the many discoveries of the past 30 years and appears now to be recognized by an increasing number of researchers. Any form of segregation is considered arbitrary, which is why these researchers forgo the name H. heidelbergensis altogether. Paleoanthropologists often refer to the surrounding the specimens, their dating and morphology, as “the muddle in the middle. ”The fact that there seem to be no clear transitions makes it difficult to draw up a list of unique characteristics of H. heidelbergensis that distinguishes it from H. erectus. In general, the show a continuation of evolutionary trends that are emerging from around the Lower into Middle Pleistocene. Along with changes in the robustness of cranial and dental features, male H. heidelbergensis averaged about 1.75 m tall and 62 kg. Females averaged 1.57 m and 51 kg, the available space would allow for a far greater flexibility of development and It shows a combination of features, which has been previously found neither on a recent nor a fossil human mandible. The actual proof that we are dealing with human parts here only lies within the nature of the dentition, the completely preserved teeth bear the stamp human as evidence, The canines show no trace of a stronger expression in relation to the other groups of teeth. They suggest a moderate and harmonious co-evolution, as it is the case in recent humans, recent findings in a pit in Atapuerca of 28 human skeletons suggest that H. heidelbergensis might have been the first species of the Homo genus to bury its dead. Steven Mithen believes that H. heidelbergensis, like its descendant H. neanderthalensis, acquired a pre-linguistic system of communication. No forms of art have been uncovered, although red ochre, the morphology of the outer and middle ear suggests they had an auditory sensitivity similar to modern humans and very different from chimpanzees
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Anatomically modern human
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Anatomically modern humans evolved from archaic humans in the Middle Paleolithic, about 200,000 years ago. The emergence of modern human marks the dawn of the species Homo sapiens. Other fossils include the proposed Homo sapiens idaltu from Herto in Ethiopia that are almost 160,000 years old and the Skhul hominids from Israel, which are 90,000 years old. The oldest human remains from which an entire genome has been extracted belongs to Ust-Ishim man, however, it can and has been argued that Homo sapiens have been fully capable of modern behavior from the time they first evolved. The binomial name for the species of the human population is Homo sapiens. The species is taken to have emerged from a predecessor within the Homo genus around 200,000 years ago. Generally, modern humans are more lightly built than archaic humans from which they have evolved, Humans are a highly variable species, modern humans can show remarkably robust traits, and early modern humans even more so. Despite this, modern humans differ from archaic people in a range of anatomical details, the cranium lacks a pronounced occipital bun in the neck, a bulge that anchored considerable neck muscles in Neanderthals. Modern humans, even the ones, generally have a larger fore-brain than the archaic people. This will usually give a higher forehead, and reduced brow ridge and this splits the ridge into a central part and two distal parts. In current humans, often only the section of the ridge is preserved. This contrasts with archaic humans, where the ridge is pronounced. Modern humans commonly have a steep, even vertical forehead whereas their predecessors had foreheads that sloped strongly backwards, according to Desmond Morris, the vertical forehead in humans not only houses larger brains, but plays an important role in human communication through eyebrow movements and forehead skin wrinkling. Compared to archaic people, anatomically modern humans have smaller, differently shaped teeth and this results in a smaller, more receded dentary, making the rest of the jaw-line stand out, giving an often quite prominent chin. The central part of the forming the chin carries a triangularly shaped area forming the apex of the chin called the mental trigon. Particularly in living population, the use of fire and tools require fewer jaw muscles, giving slender, compared to archaic people, modern humans have smaller, lower faces. The body skeletons of even the earliest and most robustly built modern humans were less robust than those of Neanderthals, particularly regarding the long bones of the limbs, the distal bones are nearly the same size or slightly shorter than the proximal bones. In ancient people, particularly Neanderthals, the bones were shorter
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Neanderthal
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Neanderthals, or more rarely Neandertals, were a species or subspecies of archaic humans in the genus Homo that became extinct about 40,000 years ago. Neanderthals and modern humans share 99. 7% of their DNA and are closely related. Neanderthals left bones and stone tools in Eurasia, from Western Europe to Central, from the 1950s to the early 1980s, however, Neanderthals were widely considered a subspecies of Homo sapiens and a minority of scholars still hold this view. Several cultural assemblages have been linked to the Neanderthals in Europe, the earliest, the Mousterian stone tool culture, dates to about 160,000 years ago. Late Mousterian artifacts were found in Gorhams Cave on the south-facing coast of Gibraltar, male Neanderthals had cranial capacities averaging 1600 cm3, females 1300 cm3, extending to 1736 cm3 in Amud 1. This is notably larger than the 1250–1400 cm3 typical of modern humans, males stood 164–168 cm and females 152–156 cm tall. Recent studies also show that a few Neanderthals began mating with ancestors of modern humans long before the out of Africa migration of present day non-Africans. Claims that Neanderthals deliberately buried their dead, and if they did, the debate on deliberate Neanderthal burials has been active since the 1908 discovery of the well-preserved Chapelle-aux-Saints 1 skeleton in a small hole in a cave in southwestern France. In 2013, scientists sequenced the genome of a Neanderthal for the first time. The genome was extracted from the bone of a 50. In 2016, elaborate constructions of rings of broken stalagmites made by early Neanderthals around 176,000 years ago were discovered 336 m inside Bruniquel Cave in southwestern France and this would have required a more advanced social structure than previously known for Neanderthals. Thal is a spelling of the German word Tal, which means valley. Nevertheless, Kings name had priority over the proposal put forward in 1866 by Ernst Haeckel, the practice of referring to the Neanderthals and a Neanderthal emerged in the popular literature of the 1920s. The German pronunciation of Neanderthaler or Neandertaler is in the International Phonetic Alphabet, in British English, Neanderthal is pronounced with the /t/ as in German, but different vowels. In laymans American English, Neanderthal is pronounced with a /θ/ and /ɔ/ instead of the longer British /aː/, during the early 20th century the prevailing view was heavily influenced by Arthur Keith and Marcellin Boule, who wrote the first scientific description of a nearly complete Neanderthal skeleton. During the 1930s scholars Ernst Mayr, George Gaylord Simpson and Theodosius Dobzhansky reinterpreted the existing fossil record, Neanderthal man was classified as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis - an early subspecies contrasted with what was now called Homo sapiens sapiens. The obviously unbroken succession of fossil sites of both subspecies in Europe was considered evidence that there was a slow and gradual evolutionary transition from Neanderthals to modern humans, contextual interpretations of similar excavation sites in Asia lead to the hypothesis of multiregional origin of modern man in the 1980s. Current scientific ideas hold that both evolved from a common African ancestor, Homo erectus
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Stone Age
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The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make implements with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted roughly 3.4 million years, and ended between 8700 BCE and 2000 BCE with the advent of metalworking, bone tools were used during this period as well but are rarely preserved in the archaeological record. The Stone Age is further subdivided by the types of tools in use. According to the age and location of the current evidence, the cradle of the genus is the East African Rift System, especially toward the north in Ethiopia, where it is bordered by grasslands. The closest relative among the living primates, the genus Pan, represents a branch that continued on in the deep forest. The rift served as a conduit for movement into southern Africa and also north down the Nile into North Africa and through the continuation of the rift in the Levant to the vast grasslands of Asia. The oldest indirect evidence found of stone tool use is fossilised animal bones with tool marks, the oldest stone tools were excavated from the site of Lomekwi 3 in West Turkana, northwestern Kenya, and date to 3.3 million years old. Prior to the discovery of these Lomekwian tools, the oldest known stone tools had been found at sites at Gona, Ethiopia, on the sediments of the paleo-Awash River. All the tools come from the Busidama Formation, which lies above a disconformity, or missing layer, the oldest sites containing tools are dated to 2. 6–2.55 mya. One of the most striking circumstances about these sites is that they are from the Late Pliocene, excavators at the locality point out that. the earliest stone tool makers were skilled flintknappers. The possible reasons behind this seeming abrupt transition from the absence of tools to the presence thereof include. The species who made the Pliocene tools remains unknown, fragments of Australopithecus garhi, Australopithecus aethiopicus and Homo, possibly Homo habilis, have been found in sites near the age of the Gona tools. Innovation of the technique of smelting ore ended the Stone Age, the first most significant metal manufactured was bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, each of which was smelted separately. The Chalcolithic by convention is the period of the Bronze Age. The Bronze Age was followed by the Iron Age, the transition out of the Stone Age occurred between 6000 BCE and 2500 BCE for much of humanity living in North Africa and Eurasia. Note the Rudna Glava mine in Serbia, Ötzi the Iceman, a mummy from about 3300 BCE carried with him a copper axe and a flint knife. In regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa, the Stone Age was followed directly by the Iron Age, the Middle East and southeastern Asian regions progressed past Stone Age technology around 6000 BCE. Europe, and the rest of Asia became post–Stone Age societies by about 4000 BCE, the proto-Inca cultures of South America continued at a Stone Age level until around 2000 BCE, when gold, copper and silver made their entrance
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Early hominin expansions out of Africa
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In palaeoanthropology, Out of Africa I is the first series of hominin expansions into Eurasia, which took place from 1.8 to 0.8 million years ago. Shortly before in Africa, Homo erectus had descended from the woodland-restricted Homo habilis, H. erectus, diverging from H. habilis, adapted to the open grounds of the savannahs and arid landscapes, and later managed to expand out of East Africa, eventually into Eurasia. According to the recent African origin of modern humans hypothesis, anatomically modern humans started moving into Eurasia, the phrase Out of Africa used alone generally means Out of Africa II, the expansion of modern humans into Eurasia. Early hominins moved out of Africa in at least three waves, primitive chopper producers were first out by c.1.8 Ma, followed by early Acheulean industries c.1.4 Ma, and various cleaver-producing Acheulean groups around 0.8 Ma. Further, hominin migrations out of East Africa were probably rare in the Early Pleistocene, leaving a record of events broken in space, in general, archeological evidence does not fit simple theories of where the migrations took place and is insufficient to support elaborate conjectures. The oldest hominin sites are in East Africa, the earliest known retouched tools were found in Lomekwi, Kenya, and date back to 3.3 Ma, in the late Pliocene. They might be the product of Australopithecus garhi or Paranthropus aethiopicus, Homo habilis is the first member of the Homo line and could have descended from the Australopithecus as early as 2.3 Ma, it is first attested in Lake Turkana, Kenya. Homo erectus seems to have appeared later, its earliest remains dating back to c.1.9 –1.6 Ma at Koobi Fora, the two species would have lived face to face in East Africa for nearly half a million years. Well before Homo habilis disappeared, Homo erectus had made it into Eurasia, the earliest well-dated Eurasian site is Dmanisi in Georgia, securely dated to 1.81 Ma. A skull found at Dmanisi is evidence for caring for the old, the skull shows that this Homo erectus was advanced in age and had lost all but one tooth years before death, and it is perhaps unlikely that this hominid would have survived alone. It is not certain, however, that this is sufficient proof for caring – a partially paralysed chimpanzee at the Gombe reserve survived for years without help, Early Pleistocene sites in North Africa, the geographical intermediate of East Africa and Georgia, are in poor stratigraphic context. The earliest of the dated is Ain Hanech in northern Algeria and these sites attest that early hominins have crossed the North African tracts, which are usually hot and dry. Hominins were part of the East African biome, and a flux in climate could have expanded their environment. There is little time between Homo erectus’ apparent arrival in South Caucasus around 1.81 Ma, and its arrival in East and Southeast Asia. There is evidence of hominins in Yuanmou, China, dating to 1.7 Ma and in Sangiran, on Java, Indonesia, in any case, by 1 Ma, hominins had settled in most of the Old World. It is hard to say, however, whether settlement was continuous in Western Europe, the Sinai Peninsula is the simplest African exit route, being since the Pliocene the only land bridge between the two continents of the Old World. Unless one argues for boats on behalf of Homo erectus, it is surely the only way out, however, it was hard to access until the Middle Pleistocene. The Nile was a smaller river and followed a different course
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Control of fire by early humans
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The control of fire by early humans was a turning point in the cultural aspect of human evolution. Fire provided a source of warmth, protection, and a method for cooking food and these cultural advancements allowed for human geographic dispersal, cultural innovations, and changes to diet and behavior. Additionally, creating fire allowed the expansion of activity to proceed into the dark. Claims for the earliest definitive evidence of control of fire by a member of Homo range from 0.2 to 1.7 million years ago, evidence for the controlled use of fire by Homo erectus, beginning some 600,000 years ago, has wide scholarly support. Evidence of widespread control of fire by anatomically modern humans dates to approximately 125,000 years ago, most of the evidence of controlled use of fire during the Lower Paleolithic is uncertain and has limited scholarly support. The inconclusiveness of some of the lies behind the fact that there exist other plausible explanations, such as natural processes. Recent findings strongly support that the earliest known controlled use of fire took place in Wonderwerk Cave, over time, early humans figured out how to create fire. Archaeological evidence, suggests that happened between 700,000 years ago and 120,000 years ago. Findings from the Wonderwerk Cave site, in the Northern Cape province of South Africa, east African sites, such as Chesowanja near Lake Baringo, Koobi Fora, and Olorgesailie in Kenya, show some possible evidence that fire was controlled by early humans. In Chesowanja archaeologists found red clay clasts dated to be from 1.4 Mya and these clasts must have been heated to 400 °C to harden. However, deliberate use of fire in Chesowanja is still debatable because there are reasons to believe that the burning of clay might have happened by chance. In Koobi Fora, sites FxJjzoE and FxJj50 show evidence of control of fire by Homo erectus at 1.5 Mya with findings of reddened sediment that could come from heating at 200–400 °C. A hearth-like depression that could have used to burn bones was found at a site in Olorgesailie. However, it did not contain any charcoal and no signs of fire have been observed, some microscopic charcoal was found, but it could have resulted from a natural brush fire. In Gadeb, Ethiopia, fragments of welded tuff that appeared to have been burned were found in Locality 8E, in the Middle Awash River Valley, cone-shaped depressions of reddish clay were found that could have been formed by temperatures of 200 °C. These features are thought to be burned tree stumps such that the early hominids could have fire away from their habitation site, burned stones are also found in Awash Valley, but volcanic welded tuff is also found in the area which could explain the burned stones. In Xihoudu in Shanxi Province, China, the black, blue, in 1985, a parallel site in China, Yuanmou in the Yunnan Province, archaeologists found blackened mammal bones which date back to 1.7 Mya BP. A site at Bnot Yaakov Bridge, Israel, has claimed to show that H. erectus or H. ergaster controlled fires between 790,000 and 690,000 BP
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Cooking
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Cooking or cookery is the art, technology and craft of preparing food for consumption with the use of heat. The ways or types of cooking also depend on the skill, cooking is done both by people in their own dwellings and by professional cooks and chefs in restaurants and other food establishments. Cooking can also occur through chemical reactions without the presence of heat, such as in ceviche, preparing food with heat or fire is an activity unique to humans. It may have started around 2 million years ago, though evidence for it reaches no more than 1 million years ago. The expansion of agriculture, commerce, trade and transportation between civilizations in different regions offered cooks many new ingredients, New inventions and technologies, such as the invention of pottery for holding and boiling water, expanded cooking techniques. Some modern cooks apply advanced scientific techniques to food preparation to further enhance the flavor of the dish served, phylogenetic analysis suggests that human ancestors may have invented cooking as far back as 1.8 million to 2.3 million years ago. Re-analysis of burnt bone fragments and plant ashes from the Wonderwerk Cave, there is evidence that Homo erectus was cooking their food as early as 500,000 years ago. Evidence for the use of fire by Homo erectus beginning some 400,000 years ago has wide scholarly support. Archeological evidence, from 300,000 years ago, in the form of ancient hearths, earth ovens, burnt animal bones, and flint, are found across Europe, anthropologists think that widespread cooking fires began about 250,000 years ago, when hearths started appearing. More recently, the earliest hearths have been reported to be at least 790,000 years old, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, food was a classic marker of identity in Europe. In the nineteenth-century Age of Nationalism cuisine became a symbol of national identity. Communication between the Old World and the New World in the Colombian exchange influenced the history of cooking, the Industrial Revolution brought mass-production, mass-marketing and standardization of food. Factories processed, preserved, canned, and packaged a wide variety of foods, in the 1920s, freezing methods, cafeterias and fast-food establishments emerged. Along with changes in food, starting early in the 20th century, governments have issued nutrition guidelines, the 1916 Food For Young Children became the first USDA guide to give specific dietary guidelines. Updated in the 1920s, these guides gave shopping suggestions for different-sized families along with a Depression Era revision which included four cost levels, in 1943, the USDA created the Basic Seven chart to make sure that people got the recommended nutrients. It included the first-ever Recommended Daily Allowances from the National Academy of Sciences, in 1956, the Essentials of an Adequate Diet brought recommendations which cut the number of groups that American school children would learn about down to four. In 1979, a guide called Food addressed the link between too much of certain foods and chronic diseases, but added fats, oils, most ingredients in cooking are derived from living organisms. Vegetables, fruits, grains and nuts as well as herbs and spices come from plants, while meat, eggs, mushrooms and the yeast used in baking are kinds of fungi
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Clothing
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Clothing is fiber and textile material worn on the body. The wearing of clothing is mostly restricted to human beings and is a feature of all human societies. The amount and type of clothing worn depends on type, social. Some clothing types can be gender-specific, physically, clothing serves many purposes, it can serve as protection from the elements, and can enhance safety during hazardous activities such as hiking and cooking. It protects the wearer from rough surfaces, rash-causing plants, insect bites, splinters, thorns, Clothes can insulate against cold or hot conditions. Further, they can provide a barrier, keeping infectious. Clothing also provides protection from ultraviolet radiation, there is no easy way to determine when clothing was first developed, but some information has been inferred by studying lice. The body louse specifically lives in clothing, and diverge from head lice about 170 millennia ago, another theory is that modern humans are the only survivors of several species of primates who may have worn clothes and that clothing may have been used as long ago as 650 millennia. Other louse-based estimates put the introduction of clothing at around 42, the most obvious function of clothing is to improve the comfort of the wearer, by protecting the wearer from the elements. In hot climates, clothing provides protection from sunburn or wind damage, shelter usually reduces the functional need for clothing. For example, coats, hats, gloves, and other layers are normally removed when entering a warm home. Similarly, clothing has seasonal and regional aspects, so that thinner materials, Clothing performs a range of social and cultural functions, such as individual, occupational and gender differentiation, and social status. In many societies, norms about clothing reflect standards of modesty, religion, gender, Clothing may also function as a form of adornment and an expression of personal taste or style. Clothing can and has in history been made from a wide variety of materials. Materials have ranged from leather and furs, to materials, to elaborate and exotic natural. Not all body coverings are regarded as clothing, Clothing protects against many things that might injure the uncovered human body. Clothes protect people from the elements, including rain, snow, wind, however, clothing that is too sheer, thin, small, tight, etc. offers less protection. Clothes also reduce risk during activities such as work or sport, some clothing protects from specific environmental hazards, such as insects, noxious chemicals, weather, weapons, and contact with abrasive substances
. PMID 24101504.
