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.
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
3.
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
4.
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
5.
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
6.
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
7.
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
8.
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
9.
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
10.
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
11.
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
12.
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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National Museum of Natural History
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The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D. C. Opened in 1910, the museum on the National Mall was one of the first Smithsonian buildings constructed exclusively to hold the national collections and research facilities. The main building has an area of 1,500,000 square feet with 325,000 square feet of exhibition and public space. The museums collections contain over 126 million specimens of plants, animals, fossils, minerals, rocks, meteorites, human remains, the United States National Museum was founded in 1846 as part of the Smithsonian Institution. The museum was housed in the Smithsonian Institution Building, which is better known today as the Smithsonian Castle. A formal exhibit hall opened in 1858, the growing collection led to the construction of a new building, the National Museum Building. Covering a then-enormous 2.25 acres, it was built in just 15 months at a cost of $310,000, congress authorized construction of a new building on June 28,1902. The regents began considering sites for the new building in March, the D. C. architectural firm of Hornblower & Marshall was chosen to design the structure. Testing of the soil for the foundations was set for July 1903, the Natural History Building opened its doors to the public on March 17,1910, in order to provide the Smithsonian Institution with more space for collections and research. The building was not fully completed until June 1911, the structure cost $3.5 million dollars. The Neoclassical style building was the first structure constructed on the side of the National Mall as part of the 1901 McMillan Commission plan. In addition to the Smithsonians natural history collection, it housed the American history, art. Between 1981 and 2003, the National Museum of Natural History had 11 permanent, there were six directors alone between 1990 and 2002. Turnover was high as the directors were disenchanted by low levels of funding. Robert W. Fri was named the director in 1996. One of the largest donations in Smithsonian history was made during Fris tenure, kenneth E. Behring donated $20 million in 1997 to modernize the museum. Fri resigned in 2001 after disagreeing with Smithsonian leadership over the reorganization of the scientific research programs. J. Dennis OConnor, Provost of the Smithsonian Institution was named acting director of the museum on July 25,2001, eight months later, OConner resigned to become the vice president of research and dean of the graduate school at the University of Maryland
15.
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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Haplorhini
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Haplorrhini is a clade containing the tarsiers and the simians. The name is also spelt Haplorrhini, the simians include catarrhines, and the platyrrhines. The extinct omomyids, which are considered to be the most basal haplorhines, are believed to be closely related to the tarsiers than to other haplorhines. Haplorhines share a number of derived features that distinguish them from the strepsirrhine wet-nosed primates, the haplorhine upper lip, which has replaced the ancestral rhinarium found in strepsirrhines, is not directly connected to their nose or gum, allowing a large range of facial expressions. Their brain-to-body mass ratio is greater than the strepsirrhines. Haplorhines have a plate, unlike the postorbital bar found in strepsirrhines. All anthropoids have a uterus, tarsiers have a bicornate uterus like the strepsirrhines. Most species typically have single births, although twins and triplets are common for marmosets, despite similar gestation periods, haplorhine newborns are relatively much larger than strepsirrhine newborns, but have a longer dependence period on their mother. This difference in size and dependence is credited to the complexity of their behavior. The taxonomic name Haplorhini derives from the Ancient Greek haploûs and rhinos and it refers to the lack of a rhinarium or wet nose, which is found in many mammals, including strepsirrhine primates. Haplorhini and its sister clade, Strepsirrhini, diverged about 65 million years ago, the fossil Archicebus may be similar to the most recent common ancestor at this time. The other major clade within Haplorhini, the simians, is divided into two parvorders, Platyrrhini and Catarrhini, the New World monkeys split from catarrhines about 40 mya, while the apes diverged from Old World monkeys about 25 mya. The available fossil evidence indicates both the hominoid and cercopithecoid clades originated in Africa. The following is the listing of the living families, and their placement in the Order Primates, ORDER PRIMATES Suborder Strepsirrhini, lemurs, lorises
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Simian
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The simians are the monkeys, cladistically including the apes, the New World monkeys or platyrrhines, and the catarrhine clade consisting of the Old World monkeys and apes. The simian line and the line diverged about 60 million years ago. Forty million years ago, simians from Africa colonized South America, the remaining simians split 25 million years ago into apes and Old World monkeys. Under modern classification, the tarsiers and simians are grouped under the suborder Haplorhini while the strepsirrhines are placed in suborder Strepsirrhini, in anthropoidea, evidences indicate that the Old and the New World primates went through parallel evolution. Primatology, paleoanthropology, and other related fields are split on their usage of the synonymous infraorder names, Simiiformes and Anthropoidea. According to Robert Hoffstetter, the term Simiiformes has priority over Anthropoidea because of the taxonomic term Simii by van der Hoeven, from which it is constructed, dates to 1833. In contrast, Anthropoidea by Mivart dates to 1864, while Simiiformes by Haeckel dates to 1866, Hoffstetter also argued that Simiiformes is also constructed like a proper infraorder name, whereas Anthropoidea ends in -oidea, which is reserved for superfamilies. He also noted that Anthropoidea is too easily confused with anthropoïdes, the simians are split into three distinct groups. The New World monkeys in parvorder Platyrrhini split from the rest of the line about 40 mya. This group split about 25 mya between the Old World monkeys and the apes
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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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Homininae
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Homininae is a subfamily of Hominidae. It includes two tribes, with their extant as well as species, the Hominini tribe. It comprises all hominids that arose after orangutans split from the line of great apes, the Homininae cladogram has three main branches, which lead to gorillas, and to humans and chimpanzees via the tribe Hominini and subtribes Hominina and Panina. There are two living species of Panina and two living species of gorillas, but only one extant human species, traces of hypothetical Homo species, including Homo floresiensis and Homo denisova, have been found with dates as recent as 12,000 years ago. Organisms in this class are described as hominine or hominines, until 1980, the family Hominidae meant humans only, the non-human great apes were assigned to the family Pongidae. The subfamily Homininae can be subdivided into three branches, the tribe Gorillini, and the tribe Hominini with subtribes Panina and Hominina. Their existence suggests that the Homininae tribes diverged not earlier than about 8 million years ago, today, chimpanzees and gorillas live in tropical forests with acid soils that rarely preserve fossils. This shows that some chimpanzees lived close to Homo at the time, australopithecus and early Paranthropus may have been bipedal. Very early hominins such as Ardipithecus ramidus may have possessed a type of bipedalism. It is proposed that they evolved from H. erectus as a case of insular dwarfism, in spite of their smaller brain, there is evidence that H. floresiensis used fire and made stone tools at least as sophisticated as those of their proposed ancestors H. erectus. In this case, it seems that for intelligence, the structure of the brain is more important than its size, sexuality is related to family structure and partly shapes it. The involvement of fathers in education is unique to humans. Concealed ovulation and menopause in women both also occur in a few other primates however, but are uncommon in other species, testis and penis size seems to be related to family structure, monogamy or promiscuity, or harem, in humans, chimpanzees or gorillas, respectively. The levels of sexual dimorphism are seen as a marker of sexual selection. Concealed ovulation means that the phase of fertility is not detectable in women, women can be partly aware of their ovulation along the menstrual phases, but men are essentially unable to detect ovulation in women. Menopause also occurs in rhesus monkeys, and possibly in chimpanzees, chimpanzee-human last common ancestor List of human evolution fossils Human Timeline – Smithsonian, National Museum of Natural History
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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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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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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
27.
Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald
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Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald was a German-Dutch paleontologist and geologist who conducted research on hominins, including Homo erectus. Von Koenigswald was born in Berlin in a period of intense interest and he began his fossil vertebrate collection when he was fifteen with the acquisition of a rhinoceros molar during an excursion to Mauer, Germany. He subsequently studied geology and paleontology at Berlin, Tübingen, Cologne, Von Koenigswalds teacher Ferdinand Broili had good contacts with the Dutch geologists Karl Martin and Reinout Willem van Bemmelen. Through these contacts Von Koenigswald could join the Geological Survey of Java as paleontologist in late 1930, financed in part through the Carnegie Foundation, he began a systematic survey of the country. Von Koenigswald made his most significant finds in this area of Asia between January 1931 and 1941, at age 33, he announced the discovery of a juvenile calvarium from Mojokerto and assigned it to Pithecanthropus erectus. This identification was criticized by the respected paleontologist Eugène Dubois, between 1937 and 1941, a number of important hominid specimens emerged from Java. One of von Koenigswalds assistants brought him a piece of a Pithecanthropus skull in 1937, unfortunately, an offer to pay for additional fossils by the piece led to specimens being broken into splinters by native helpers. One skull cap, the first Sangiran calvarium, was a duplicate of Dubois Pithecanthropus calvarium. His work on the fossils of Central Java, particularly from Sangiran, the Java fossils are currently housed in the Senckenberg Museum with the financial support of the Werner Reimers Foundation of Bad Homburg. In 1937, von Koenigswald hosted paleontologist Franz Weidenreichs visit to Java to examine recent discovery sites, also in 1937, von Koenigswald became a Dutch citizen. In 1938 von Koenigswald and Weidenreich together announced the discovery of a new skull of Pithecanthropus, early in 1939, von Koenigswald took several Javanese hominin specimens to Weidenreich in Peking, China. Comparing the Sangiran and Choukoutien hominids led the two scientists to conclude that the specimens were closely allied and they decided to abandon the genus Sinanthropus, combining all the specimens into the earlier-named genus Pithecanthropus. Later, Pithecanthropus was incorporated into the genus Homo as Homo erectus, world War II brought difficulty and danger to von Koenigswald in Java. It was presented to Emperor Hirohito but was recovered after the war, during the war years, Weidenreichs description of Sinanthropus was published. He published descriptions and assigned names to some of von Koenigswalds discoveries, as he. After the war, von Koenigswald worked with Weidenreich at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City for eighteen months, for the next twenty years, von Koenigswald filled a Chair of Palaeontology created for him at the Rijksuniversiteit at Utrecht, Netherlands. During his academic career, he visited sites in North and South Africa, the Philippines, Thailand and Borneo, and Pakistan. In Pakistan, von Koenigswald and his students found specimens which included a palate assigned to a new species of the hominoid genus Sivapithecus, in 1950 he became member, and in 1968 foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
28.
Solo River
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Solo River is the longest river in the Indonesian island of Java, it is approximately 600 km in length. Apart from its importance as a watercourse to the inhabitants and farmlands of the eastern and northern parts of the island, Bengawan Solo was the crash site of Garuda Indonesia Flight 421. Solo River has two sources, from the volcano of Mount Lawu, on the border between Central Java and East Java and from Kidul Mountain, in ancient time, the rise of Indo-Australian Plate redirected its stream northward. Sadeng Beach, located in Special Region of Yogyakarta, has known as mouth of ancient Solo River. It passes through the city of Surakarta. An important early tributary to the Solo river is the Dengkeng River, after passing through Solo, the river flows northward around Mount Lawu, and then turn eastward into East Java in the Ngawi regency. After Ngawi the river turns again, forming the boundary between Blora Regency of Central Java and Bojonegoro regency of East Java. From the town of Cepu in Blora, the river turns eastward, from there, it continues eastward through the Lamongan and Gresik Regencies. The last part of the basin is mostly flat land. Bengawan Solos delta is located near the town of Sidayu in Gresik regency, the present delta is redirected by a human made canal. The original delta flowed into the Madura Strait, but in 1890 a 12 km canal was made by the Dutch East Indies authority to redirect the Solo River into Java Sea. This was done to prevent sedimentation of mud from filling the Madura Strait, the Solo river delta has a huge mud sedimentation flow that deposited 17 million tonnes of mud per year. This sedimentation in the form a cape, which has average longitudinal growth of 70 m per year. This delta is known as Ujung Pangkah, Solo river was part of massive river system that once existed in Sundaland. This drainage of the system consisted of major river in present-day Sumatra and Borneo, such as Asahan river, Musi river. The river system disappeared when Sundaland was submerged after sea level rise following the last Ice Age, the river played important part in Javanese history. Its drainage basin is an important agricultural area, dominated by rice farming, the river transported fertile volcanic soil downstream, replenishing the soil. It also provided link between Javanese port cities in the northern coast and the hinterlands, with shallow vessels transporting rice to the ports to be sold
29.
Indonesia
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Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a unitary sovereign state and transcontinental country located mainly in Southeast Asia with some territories in Oceania. Situated between the Indian and Pacific oceans, it is the worlds largest island country, with more than seventeen thousand islands. At 1,904,569 square kilometres, Indonesia is the worlds 14th-largest country in terms of area and worlds 7th-largest country in terms of combined sea. It has an population of over 260 million people and is the worlds fourth most populous country. The worlds most populous island, Java, contains more than half of the countrys population, Indonesias republican form of government includes an elected legislature and president. Indonesia has 34 provinces, of which five have Special Administrative status and its capital and countrys most populous city is Jakarta, which is also the most populous city in Southeast Asia and the second in Asia. The country shares land borders with Papua New Guinea, East Timor, other neighbouring countries include Singapore, Vietnam, the Philippines, Australia, Palau, and the Indian territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Despite its large population and densely populated regions, Indonesia has vast areas of wilderness that support the second highest level of biodiversity. The country has abundant natural resources like oil and natural gas, tin, copper, agriculture mainly produces rice, palm oil, tea, coffee, cacao, medicinal plants, spices and rubber. Indonesias major trading partners are Japan, United States, China, the Indonesian archipelago has been an important region for trade since at least the 7th century, when Srivijaya and then later Majapahit traded with China and India. Local rulers gradually absorbed foreign cultural, religious and political models from the early centuries CE, Indonesian history has been influenced by foreign powers drawn to its natural resources. Indonesia consists of hundreds of native ethnic and linguistic groups. The largest – and politically dominant – ethnic group are the Javanese, a shared identity has developed, defined by a national language, ethnic diversity, religious pluralism within a Muslim-majority population, and a history of colonialism and rebellion against it. Indonesias national motto, Bhinneka Tunggal Ika, articulates the diversity that shapes the country, Indonesias economy is the worlds 16th largest by nominal GDP and the 8th largest by GDP at PPP, the largest in Southeast Asia, and is considered an emerging market and newly industrialised country. Indonesia has been a member of the United Nations since 1950, Indonesia is a member of the G20 major economies and World Trade Organization. The name Indonesia derives from the Greek name of the Indós, the name dates to the 18th century, far predating the formation of independent Indonesia. In 1850, George Windsor Earl, an English ethnologist, proposed the terms Indunesians—and, his preference, in the same publication, one of his students, James Richardson Logan, used Indonesia as a synonym for Indian Archipelago. However, Dutch academics writing in East Indies publications were reluctant to use Indonesia, they preferred Malay Archipelago, the Netherlands East Indies, popularly Indië, the East, and Insulinde
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Java
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Java is an island of Indonesia. With a population of over 141 million or 145 million as of 2015 Census released in December 2015, the Indonesian capital city, Jakarta, is located on western Java. Much of Indonesian history took place on Java and it was the center of powerful Hindu-Buddhist empires, the Islamic sultanates, and the core of the colonial Dutch East Indies. Java was also the center of the Indonesian struggle for independence during the 1930s and 1940s, Java dominates Indonesia politically, economically and culturally. Formed mostly as the result of eruptions, Java is the 13th largest island in the world. A chain of mountains forms an east–west spine along the island. Three main languages are spoken on the island, Javanese, Sundanese, of these, Javanese is the dominant, it is the native language of about 60 million people in Indonesia, most of whom live on Java. Furthermore, most residents are bilingual, speaking Indonesian as their first or second language, while the majority of the people of Java are Muslim, Java has a diverse mixture of religious beliefs, ethnicities, and cultures. Java is divided into four provinces, West Java, Central Java, East Java, and Banten, the origins of the name Java are not clear. One possibility is that the island was named after the plant, which was said to be common in the island during the time. There are other sources, the word jaú and its variations mean beyond or distant. And, in Sanskrit yava means barley, a plant for which the island was famous, Yawadvipa is mentioned in Indias earliest epic, the Ramayana. Sugriva, the chief of Ramas army dispatched his men to Yawadvipa and it was hence referred to in India by the Sanskrit name yāvaka dvīpa. Java is mentioned in the ancient Tamil text Manimekalai by Chithalai Chathanar that states that Java had a kingdom with a capital called Nagapuram, another source states that the Java word is derived from a Proto-Austronesian root word, Iawa that meaning home. The great island of Iabadiu or Jabadiu was mentioned in Ptolemys Geographia composed around 150 CE Roman Empire, Iabadiu is said to mean barley island, to be rich in gold, and have a silver town called Argyra at the west end. The name indicate Java, and seems to be derived from Hindu name Java-dvipa, Java lies between Sumatra to the west and Bali to the east. Borneo lies to the north and Christmas Island is to the south and it is the worlds 13th largest island. Java is surrounded by the Java Sea to the north, Sunda Strait to the west, Java is almost entirely of volcanic origin, it contains thirty-eight mountains forming an east–west spine that have at one time or another been active volcanoes
31.
Blora Regency
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Blora Regency is a regency in the northeastern part of Central Java province in Indonesia. This regency is located at the easternmost of Central Java province, a mystical religious sect, Saminism, rose from Blora, and gained prominence in the early 20th century. Headed by a Javanese peasant, Surontiko Samin, it followed the teachings of the Islamic prophet Adam, the movements survived until the 1960s. Blora regency consists of low land and hill area between 20–280 meters high above sea level. In the north part of regency is dominated by hilly area that forms the series of Northern Limestone Mountain as well as in the area that stretches from east of Semarang to Lamongan. The capital of Blora regency is located right on the slope of Northern Limestone Mountain, half of Blora regency area are forests, especially on the north, east and south region while the central low land is mainly used for agricultural purposes. During the dry season, most of the area of Blora regency is short of water supply and its actually the 2nd class road, because most of peoples preferred to choose Semarang-Surabaya via Rembang. Blora also situated on a railway connection that linked to most big cities in Java. Ngloram Domestic Airport at Ngloram, Cepu District with 900 meter long runway located at 7°11′41″S 111°32′51″E which built in 1978, in 2013, expansion land acquisition is still in the progress inline with reactivated airport plan. Kantor Pelaynan Pajaka Pratama Cepu Forest Railway or Cepu Loko Tour with some Berliner Maschinenbau steam locomotives from Berlin, Germany, Central Europe at Ngelo, leonardus Benjamin Moerdani as born in Blora, in 1932
32.
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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Homo sapiens
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Homo sapiens is the binomial nomenclature for the only extant human species. Homo is the genus, which also includes Neanderthals and many other extinct species of hominid. Modern humans are the subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens, which differentiates them from what has been argued to be their direct ancestor, the binomial name Homo sapiens was coined by Carl Linnaeus. The Latin noun homō means man, human being, subspecies of H. sapiens include Homo sapiens idaltu and the only extant subspecies, Homo sapiens sapiens. Some sources show Neanderthals as a subspecies, similarly, the discovered specimens of the Homo rhodesiensis species have been classified by some as a subspecies, but these last two subspecies classifications are not widely accepted by scientists. Traditionally, there are two competing views in paleoanthropology about the origin of H. sapiens, the recent African origin, since 2010, genetic research has led to the emergence of an intermediate position, characterised by mostly recent African origin plus limited admixture with archaic humans. The recent African origin of humans is the mainstream model that describes the origin. The theory is called the Out-of-Africa model in the press, and academically the recent single-origin hypothesis, Replacement Hypothesis. The hypothesis that humans have a single origin was published in Charles Darwins Descent of Man, the concept was speculative until the 1980s, when it was corroborated by a study of present-day mitochondrial DNA, combined with evidence based on physical anthropology of archaic specimens. The recent single origin of humans in East Africa is the near-consensus position held within the scientific community. However, recent sequencing of the full Neanderthal genome suggests Neanderthals, the authors of the study suggest that their findings are consistent with Neanderthal admixture of up to 4% in some populations. But the study suggests that there may be other reasons why humans. That study however does not explain why only a fraction of humans have Neanderthal DNA. The multiregional origin model provides an explanation for the pattern of evolution proposed by Milford H. Wolpoff in 1988. Scientific study of evolution is concerned, primarily, with the development of the genus Homo. Modern humans are defined as the Homo sapiens species, of which the extant subspecies is known as Homo sapiens sapiens. Homo sapiens idaltu, the known subspecies, is now extinct. Similarly, the specimens of the Homo rhodesiensis species have been classified by some as a subspecies
34.
Java Man
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Java Man is the popular name given to early human fossils discovered on the island of Java in 1891 and 1892. Led by Eugène Dubois, the team uncovered a tooth, a skullcap. Arguing that the fossils represented the missing link between apes and humans, Dubois gave the species the scientific name Anthropopithecus erectus, then renamed it Pithecanthropus erectus. Less than ten years after 1891, almost eighty books or articles had been published on Duboiss finds, despite Dubois argument, few accepted that Java Man was a transitional form between apes and humans. Some dismissed the fossils as apes and others as modern humans, in the 1930s Dubois made the claim that Pithecanthropus was built like a giant gibbon, a much misinterpreted attempt by Dubois to prove that it was the missing link. Eventually, similarities between Pithecanthropus erectus and Sinanthropus pekinensis led Ernst Mayr to rename both Homo erectus in 1950, placing them directly in the evolutionary tree. To distinguish Java Man from other Homo erectus populations, some began to regard it as a subspecies, Homo erectus erectus. Other fossils found in the first half of the century in Java at Sangiran and Mojokerto. Estimated to be between 700,000 and 1,000,000 years old, at the time of their discovery the fossils of Java Man were the oldest hominin fossils ever found, the fossils of Java Man have been housed at the Naturalis in the Netherlands since 1900. Charles Darwin had argued that humanity evolved in Africa, because this is where great apes like gorillas, though Darwins claims have since been vindicated by the fossil record, they were proposed without any fossil evidence. Other scientific authorities disagreed with him, like Charles Lyell, a geologist, and Alfred Russel Wallace, Dutch anatomist Eugène Dubois favored the latter theory, and sought to confirm it. In October 1887, Dubois abandoned his career and left for the Dutch East Indies to look for the fossilized ancestor of modern man. Because of his duties, it was only in July 1888 that he began to excavate caves in Sumatra. After he failed to find the fossils he was looking for on Sumatra, again assisted by convict laborers and two army sergeants, Dubois began searching along the Solo River near Trinil in August 1891. His team soon excavated a molar and a skullcap and its characteristics were a long cranium with a sagittal keel and heavy browridge. Dubois first gave them the name Anthropopithecus, or man-ape, as the chimpanzee was known at the time, in August 1892, Duboiss team found a long femur shaped like a human one, suggesting that its owner had stood upright. Believing that the three belonged to a single individual, probably a very aged female, Dubois renamed the specimen Anthropopithecus erectus. Only in late 1892, when he determined that the cranium measured about 900 cubic centimetres and this specimen has also been known as Pithecanthropus 1
35.
Australoid race
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The Australoid race is a broad racial classification used to refer to people indigenous to Southeast Asia, South Asia, Australia, Melanesia, Polynesia, Micronesia and historically parts of East Asia. The concept originated with a method of racial classification. In the Out of Africa theory, the ancestors of the Australoids and this migration is hypothesized to have taken place along the now submerged continental shelf of the northern shore of the Indian Ocean, reaching Australia about 50,000 BCE. However, the suggested Proto-Australoid–Proto-Capoid link has been contested, huxley also concluded that the Melanochroi are of a mixture of the Xanthochroi and Australioids. Later writers dropped the first i in Australioid, establishing Australoid as the standard spelling, according to the Archaeologist Peter Bellwood, many of the present Southern Mongoloid populations of Indonesia and Malaysia also have a high degree of Australo-Melanesian genetic heritage. Huxleys original model included the native inhabitants of South Asia under the Australoid category, the American Journal of Physical Anthropology by American Association of Physical Anthropologists. L. L. Cavalli-Sforza, Paolo Menozzi and Alberto Piazza in their text, The History, balgir designates tribes as Australoid or Proto-Australoid according to language family. Forensic anthropologist Caroline Wilkenson wrote in 2004 that Australoids have the second largest brow ridges with moderate to large supraorbital arches, caucasoids have the largest brow ridges similar in size with moderate to large supraorbital ridges. Negroids have the third largest brow ridges with an undulating supraorbital ridge, mongoloids are absent browridges, so they have the smallest brow ridges. In 2015, two studies of the DNA of living and ancient people detect in modern Native Americans a trace of DNA related to that of native people from Australia and Melanesia. Australo-Melanesian DNA in some living Native Americans, including those of the Aleutian Islands, christy Turner notes that cranial analyses of some South American crania have suggested that there might have been some early migration of Australoids. However, Turner argues that cranial morphology suggests sinodonty in all the populations he has studied, one of the earliest skulls discovered in the Americas by archaeologists is an Upper Paleolithic specimen named the Luzia Woman. Some anthropologists have hypothesized that Paleo-Indians migrated along the coast of East Asia and Beringia in small watercraft, early human migrations Two Layer hypothesis Proto-Australoid Melanesians Dravidians
36.
Sangiran
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Sangiran is an archaeological excavation site in Java in Indonesia. The area comprises about 56 km² and it is located in Central Java, about 15 kilometers north of Surakarta in the Solo River valley. Administratively, Sangiran area is divided between 2 regencies, Sragen and Karanganyar, an important feature of the site is the geology of the area. Originally a dome was created millions of years ago through tectonic uplifts, the dome was then eroded exposing beds within the dome which are rich in archeological records. 1883, The Dutch paleoanthropologist Eugène Dubois undertook preliminary fieldwork at Sangiran, however Dubois did not find many fossils of interest so he shifted his attention to Trinil in East Java where he found significant discoveries. 1934, The anthropologist Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald started to examine the area, during excavations in the next years fossils of some of the first known human ancestors, Pithecanthropus erectus, were found here. About 60 more human fossils, among them the enigmatic Meganthropus, have since been found, Sangiran 2, for example, was discovered by von Koenigswald at the site. In addition, there are numbers of remains of the animals that these primitive humans hunted. 1977, The Indonesian Government designated an area of 56 km2 around Sangiran as a Daerah Cagar Budaya,1988, A modest local site museum and conservation laboratory were set up at Sangiran. 1996, UNESCO registered Sangiran as a World Heritage Site in the World Heritage List as the Sangiran Early Man Site,2011, The current museum and visitors centre was opened by the Minister for Education and Culture on 15 December. 2012, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono visited the museum in February accompanied by 11 cabinet ministers, over time, following the initial work by Dubois and von Koenigswald at Sangiran, other scholars including Indonesian archeologists undertook work at the site. Indonesian scholars included Teuku Jacob, Etty Indriati, Sartono, Fachroel Aziz, Harry Widianto, Yahdi Zaim, a modest museum existed at Sangiran for several decades before a modern, well-functioning museum and visitors centre was opened in December 2011. The new building, a museum, contains three main halls with extensive displays and impressive dioramas of the Sangiran area as it was believed to be around 1 million years ago. Several other centres are under construction as well so that by 2014 it is expected there will be four centres at different places within the overall Sangiran site. The four planned centres are, Krikilan, the site with the main visitors centre. Ngebung, to contain a history of the discovery of the Sangiran site, bukuran, to provide information about the discovery of prehistoric human fossils at Sangiran. Dayu, to present information about the latest research, the current museum and visitors centre has three main halls. The first hall contains a number of dioramas which provide information about the early humans, the second hall, which is more extensive, presents much detailed material about the wide variety of fossils found at Sangiran and about the history of exploration at the site
37.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
38.
International Standard Serial Number
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An International Standard Serial Number is an eight-digit serial number used to uniquely identify a serial publication. The ISSN is especially helpful in distinguishing between serials with the same title, ISSN are used in ordering, cataloging, interlibrary loans, and other practices in connection with serial literature. The ISSN system was first drafted as an International Organization for Standardization international standard in 1971, ISO subcommittee TC 46/SC9 is responsible for maintaining the standard. When a serial with the content is published in more than one media type. For example, many serials are published both in print and electronic media, the ISSN system refers to these types as print ISSN and electronic ISSN, respectively. The format of the ISSN is an eight digit code, divided by a hyphen into two four-digit numbers, as an integer number, it can be represented by the first seven digits. The last code digit, which may be 0-9 or an X, is a check digit. Formally, the form of the ISSN code can be expressed as follows, NNNN-NNNC where N is in the set, a digit character. The ISSN of the journal Hearing Research, for example, is 0378-5955, where the final 5 is the check digit, for calculations, an upper case X in the check digit position indicates a check digit of 10. To confirm the check digit, calculate the sum of all eight digits of the ISSN multiplied by its position in the number, the modulus 11 of the sum must be 0. There is an online ISSN checker that can validate an ISSN, ISSN codes are assigned by a network of ISSN National Centres, usually located at national libraries and coordinated by the ISSN International Centre based in Paris. The International Centre is an organization created in 1974 through an agreement between UNESCO and the French government. The International Centre maintains a database of all ISSNs assigned worldwide, at the end of 2016, the ISSN Register contained records for 1,943,572 items. ISSN and ISBN codes are similar in concept, where ISBNs are assigned to individual books, an ISBN might be assigned for particular issues of a serial, in addition to the ISSN code for the serial as a whole. An ISSN, unlike the ISBN code, is an identifier associated with a serial title. For this reason a new ISSN is assigned to a serial each time it undergoes a major title change, separate ISSNs are needed for serials in different media. Thus, the print and electronic versions of a serial need separate ISSNs. Also, a CD-ROM version and a web version of a serial require different ISSNs since two different media are involved, however, the same ISSN can be used for different file formats of the same online serial
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PubMed Identifier
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PubMed is a free search engine accessing primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health maintains the database as part of the Entrez system of information retrieval, from 1971 to 1997, MEDLINE online access to the MEDLARS Online computerized database primarily had been through institutional facilities, such as university libraries. PubMed, first released in January 1996, ushered in the era of private, free, home-, the PubMed system was offered free to the public in June 1997, when MEDLINE searches via the Web were demonstrated, in a ceremony, by Vice President Al Gore. Information about the journals indexed in MEDLINE, and available through PubMed, is found in the NLM Catalog. As of 5 January 2017, PubMed has more than 26.8 million records going back to 1966, selectively to the year 1865, and very selectively to 1809, about 500,000 new records are added each year. As of the date,13.1 million of PubMeds records are listed with their abstracts. In 2016, NLM changed the system so that publishers will be able to directly correct typos. Simple searches on PubMed can be carried out by entering key aspects of a subject into PubMeds search window, when a journal article is indexed, numerous article parameters are extracted and stored as structured information. Such parameters are, Article Type, Secondary identifiers, Language, publication type parameter enables many special features. As these clinical girish can generate small sets of robust studies with considerable precision, since July 2005, the MEDLINE article indexing process extracts important identifiers from the article abstract and puts those in a field called Secondary Identifier. The secondary identifier field is to store numbers to various databases of molecular sequence data, gene expression or chemical compounds. For clinical trials, PubMed extracts trial IDs for the two largest trial registries, ClinicalTrials. gov and the International Standard Randomized Controlled Trial Number Register, a reference which is judged particularly relevant can be marked and related articles can be identified. If relevant, several studies can be selected and related articles to all of them can be generated using the Find related data option, the related articles are then listed in order of relatedness. To create these lists of related articles, PubMed compares words from the title and abstract of each citation, as well as the MeSH headings assigned, using a powerful word-weighted algorithm. The related articles function has been judged to be so precise that some researchers suggest it can be used instead of a full search, a strong feature of PubMed is its ability to automatically link to MeSH terms and subheadings. Examples would be, bad breath links to halitosis, heart attack to myocardial infarction, where appropriate, these MeSH terms are automatically expanded, that is, include more specific terms. Terms like nursing are automatically linked to Nursing or Nursing and this important feature makes PubMed searches automatically more sensitive and avoids false-negative hits by compensating for the diversity of medical terminology. The My NCBI area can be accessed from any computer with web-access, an earlier version of My NCBI was called PubMed Cubby
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Wayback Machine
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The Internet Archive launched the Wayback Machine in October 2001. It was set up by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, and is maintained with content from Alexa Internet, the service enables users to see archived versions of web pages across time, which the archive calls a three dimensional index. Since 1996, the Wayback Machine has been archiving cached pages of websites onto its large cluster of Linux nodes and it revisits sites every few weeks or months and archives a new version. Sites can also be captured on the fly by visitors who enter the sites URL into a search box, the intent is to capture and archive content that otherwise would be lost whenever a site is changed or closed down. The overall vision of the machines creators is to archive the entire Internet, the name Wayback Machine was chosen as a reference to the WABAC machine, a time-traveling device used by the characters Mr. Peabody and Sherman in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, an animated cartoon. These crawlers also respect the robots exclusion standard for websites whose owners opt for them not to appear in search results or be cached, to overcome inconsistencies in partially cached websites, Archive-It. Information had been kept on digital tape for five years, with Kahle occasionally allowing researchers, when the archive reached its fifth anniversary, it was unveiled and opened to the public in a ceremony at the University of California, Berkeley. Snapshots usually become more than six months after they are archived or, in some cases, even later. The frequency of snapshots is variable, so not all tracked website updates are recorded, Sometimes there are intervals of several weeks or years between snapshots. After August 2008 sites had to be listed on the Open Directory in order to be included. As of 2009, the Wayback Machine contained approximately three petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of 100 terabytes each month, the growth rate reported in 2003 was 12 terabytes/month, the data is stored on PetaBox rack systems manufactured by Capricorn Technologies. In 2009, the Internet Archive migrated its customized storage architecture to Sun Open Storage, in 2011 a new, improved version of the Wayback Machine, with an updated interface and fresher index of archived content, was made available for public testing. The index driving the classic Wayback Machine only has a bit of material past 2008. In January 2013, the company announced a ground-breaking milestone of 240 billion URLs, in October 2013, the company announced the Save a Page feature which allows any Internet user to archive the contents of a URL. This became a threat of abuse by the service for hosting malicious binaries, as of December 2014, the Wayback Machine contained almost nine petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of about 20 terabytes each week. Between October 2013 and March 2015 the websites global Alexa rank changed from 162 to 208, in a 2009 case, Netbula, LLC v. Chordiant Software Inc. defendant Chordiant filed a motion to compel Netbula to disable the robots. Netbula objected to the motion on the ground that defendants were asking to alter Netbulas website, in an October 2004 case, Telewizja Polska USA, Inc. v. Echostar Satellite, No.02 C3293,65 Fed. 673, a litigant attempted to use the Wayback Machine archives as a source of admissible evidence, Telewizja Polska is the provider of TVP Polonia and EchoStar operates the Dish Network
41.
Smithsonian Institution
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The Smithsonian Institution, established in 1846 for the increase and diffusion of knowledge, is a group of museums and research centers administered by the Government of the United States. Originally organized as the United States National Museum, that ceased to exist as an administrative entity in 1967. Additional facilities are located in Arizona, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York City, Texas, Virginia, more than 200 institutions and museums in 45 states, Puerto Rico, and Panama are Smithsonian Affiliates. The Institutions thirty million annual visitors are admitted without charge and its annual budget is around $1.2 billion with 2/3 coming from annual federal appropriations. Other funding comes from the Institutions endowment, private and corporate contributions, membership dues, and earned retail, concession, Institution publications include Smithsonian and Air & Space magazines. The British scientist James Smithson left most of his wealth to his nephew Henry James Hungerford, Congress officially accepted the legacy bequeathed to the nation, and pledged the faith of the United States to the charitable trust on July 1,1836. The American diplomat Richard Rush was dispatched to England by President Andrew Jackson to collect the bequest, Rush returned in August 1838 with 105 sacks containing 104,960 gold sovereigns. Once the money was in hand, eight years of Congressional haggling ensued over how to interpret Smithsons rather vague mandate for the increase, unfortunately, the money was invested by the US Treasury in bonds issued by the state of Arkansas which soon defaulted. The United States Exploring Expedition by the U. S. Navy circumnavigated the globe between 1838 and 1842, in 1846, the regents developed a plan for weather observation, in 1847, money was appropriated for meteorological research. The Institution became a magnet for young scientists from 1857 to 1866, the Smithsonian played a critical role as the U. S. partner institution in early bilateral scientific exchanges with the Academy of Sciences of Cuba. The Smithsonian Institution Building began construction in 1849, designed by architect James Renwick Jr. its interiors were completed by general contract Gilbert Cameron and the building opened in 1855. The Smithsonians first expansion came with construction of the Arts and Industries Building in 1881, Congress had promised to build a new structure for the museum if the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition generated enough income. It did, and the building was designed by architects Adolf Cluss and Paul Schulze, meigs of the United States Army Corps of Engineers. The National Zoological Park opened in 1889 to accommodate the Smithsonians Department of Living Animals and this structure was designed by the D. C. architectural firm of Hornblower & Marshall. More than 40 years would pass before the museum, the Museum of History. It was designed by the firm of McKim, Mead & White. That same year, the Smithsonian signed an agreement to take over the Cooper Union Museum for the Arts of Decoration, the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum opened in the Old Patent Office Building on October 7,1968. The first new building to open since the National Museum of Natural History was the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
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Human evolution
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Human evolution from its first separation from the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees is characterized by a number of morphological, developmental, physiological, and behavioral changes. The most significant of these adaptations are bipedalism, increased size, lengthened ontogeny. The relationship between these changes is the subject of ongoing debate, other significant morphological changes included the evolution of a power and precision grip, a change first occurring in H. erectus. Bipedalism is the adaptation of the hominin and is considered the main cause behind a suite of skeletal changes shared by all bipedal hominins. The earliest hominin, of presumably primitive bipedalism, is considered to be either Sahelanthropus or Orrorin, Ardipithecus, a full biped, arose somewhat later. The early bipeds eventually evolved into the australopithecines and still later into the genus Homo, There are several theories of the adaptation value of bipedalism. A new study provides support for the hypothesis that walking on two legs, or bipedalism, evolved because it used less energy than quadrupedal knuckle-walking, however, recent studies suggest that bipedality without the ability to use fire would not have allowed global dispersal. This change in gait saw a lengthening of the legs proportionately when compared to the length of the arms, another change is the shape of the big toe. Recent studies suggest that Australopithecines still lived part of the time in trees as a result of maintaining a big toe. This was progressively lost in Habilines, anatomically, the evolution of bipedalism has been accompanied by a large number of skeletal changes, not just to the legs and pelvis, but also to the vertebral column, feet and ankles, and skull. The femur evolved into a more angular position to move the center of gravity toward the geometric center of the body. The knee and ankle joints became increasingly robust to support increased weight. To support the weight on each vertebra in the upright position, the human vertebral column became S-shaped. In the feet the big toe moved into alignment with the toes to help in forward locomotion. The arms and forearms shortened relative to the making it easier to run. The foramen magnum migrated under the skull and more anterior, during human birth, because of the variation in size of the pelvic region, the fetal head must be in a transverse position during entry into the birth canal and rotate about 90 degrees upon exit. The human species developed a much larger brain than that of other primates—typically 1,330 cm3 in modern humans. This pattern of brain increase happened through the pattern of human postnatal brain growth differs from that of other apes
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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
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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
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Most recent common ancestor
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In biology and genealogy, the most recent common ancestor of any set of organisms is the most recent individual from which all organisms in a group are directly descended. The term is also used reference to the ancestry of groups of genes rather than organisms, the MRCA of a set of individuals can sometimes be determined by referring to an established pedigree. However, in general, it is impossible to identify the exact MRCA of a set of individuals. In organisms using sexual reproduction, the matrilinear MRCA and patrilinear MRCA are the MRCAs of a given population considering only matrilineal and patrilineal descent, the MRCA of a population by definition cannot be older than either its matrilinear or its patrilinear MRCA. In the case of Homo sapiens, the matrilinear and patrilinear MRCA are also known as Mitochondrial Eve, the age of the human MRCA is unknown. It is necessarily younger than the age of both Y-MRCA and mt-MRCA, estimated at around 200,000 years, and it may be as recent as some 3,000 years ago. The Last Universal Common Ancestor is the most recent common ancestor of all current life on Earth, the project of a complete description of the phylogeny of biological species is dubbed the Tree of Life. This involves time estimates of all known speciation events, for example, the concept of the last common ancestor from the perspective of human evolution is described for a popular audience in The Ancestors Tale by Richard Dawkins. Dawkins lists concestors of the lineage in order of increasing age, including hominin, hominine, hominid, hominoid. It is also possible to consider the ancestry of individual genes instead of an organism as a whole, coalescent theory describes a stochastic model of how the ancestry of such genetic markers maps to the history of a population. Unlike organisms, a gene is passed down from a generation of organisms to the next generation either as perfect replicas of itself or as slightly mutated descendant genes. While organisms have ancestry graphs and progeny graphs via sexual reproduction, a gene has a chain of ancestors. An organism produced by sexual cross-fertilization has at least two ancestors, but a gene always has one ancestor per generation, Mitochondrial DNA is nearly immune to sexual mixing, unlike the nuclear DNA whose chromosomes are shuffled and recombined in Mendelian inheritance. Mitochondrial DNA, therefore, can be used to trace matrilineal inheritance and to find the Mitochondrial Eve, likewise, Y chromosome is present as a single sex chromosome in the male individual and is passed on to male descendants without recombination. It can be used to trace patrilineal inheritance and to find the Y-chromosomal Adam, Mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosomal Adam have been established by researchers using genealogical DNA tests. Mitochondrial Eve is estimated to have lived about 200,000 years ago, the MRCA of humans alive today would, therefore, need to have lived more recently than either. It is more complicated to infer human ancestry via autosomal chromosomes, different types of MRCAs are estimated to have lived at different times in the past. These time to MRCA estimates are also computed differently depending on the type of MRCA being considered, patrilineal and matrilineal MRCAs are traced by single gene markers, thus their TMRCA are computed based on DNA test results and established mutation rates as practiced in genetic genealogy
