APE TO MAN
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TT3aRU-VnQ

Scientists from the mid-nineteenth century have searched for the fossil remains of the "missing link" in evolution - the half-man, half-ape that would explain where mankind came from. But over the last century and a half, it has been the idea of what a missing link is that has evolved. The history of this scientific quest - peopled with fanatics, frauds, amateurs, professionals, the lucky, the unlucky, the unfairly neglected and the undeservedly praised - is the subject of this documentary. 
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Human evolution

 

Skull reconstructions of 3 human species: Homo erectus, Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens

 We humans have been so successful in spreading across the world and changing our habitat to suit ourselves that it is sometimes easy to forget that we are animals too. But how did we separate from the other great apes, and where did modern humans first evolve?
Find out the answers to these intriguing questions and much more.... in this link:
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/life/human-origins/index.html

Video Guide: “Walking with Cavemen”

Directions:  Answer the questions below using information found in the video.

http://watchdocumentary.org/watch/walking-with-cavemen-episode-1-first-ancestors-video_3fb53a73a.html 

1. To what group of primates do humans belong to? ___________________

2. How long have humans and their ancestors been present on Earth? ____________________

3. When did Homo sapiens first evolve? _______________________

4. When did the early hominid called “Lucy” live? ___________________

5. What was different about A. afarensis from other earlier primates? _________________________

6. What does Australopithecus mean? ______________________________

7. What caused the change from jungle to grasslands to occur in Africa? ______________________________

8. What helped to drive the evolution of larger brain size in Australopithecines? _____________________________________________

9. What changes in Lucy allowed her to walk more like a human than an ape? _________________________________________________________

10. Fossils tell us about physical changes – how can we determine how Lucy and other Australopithecines behaved? ______________________________

11. What are the advantages of bipedalism (walking upright)? __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

12. When did P. boisei live? ____________________

13. What do teeth fossils tell us about the diet of P. boisei? _____________________________________________________________

14. Why were P. boisei considered specialists? _____________________________________________________________

15. What was the probable cause of the extinction of the P. boisei?

16. What was the first hominid to carry the genus name Homo? ________________________

17. How much bigger was Homo habilis brains than P. boisei? ___________________ What does Homo habilis mean? _________________________________

18. What did H. habilis make that earlier hominids did not? _____________

19. What does Homo ergaster mean? When did they first evolve? ____________________________________________________________

20. What changes can be seen in the bones of this hominid? __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

21. What adaptations to the hot environment have appeared in Homo ergaster? _____________________________________________________

22. What new tool has H. ergaster created that helped them modify their environment? _____________________________

23. What does Homo erectus mean? When did they first evolve? ____________________________________________________________

24. What may have allowed H. erectus to be able to move around and travel so far? _______________________________________________________

25. What did H. erectus learn to make tools from? _____________________

26. When did Homo erectus go extinct? _________________________

27. Did modern humans evolve from H. erectus or H. ergaster? __________________________

28. Why did Homo ergaster go extinct? (Alec Baldwin talks about this…) _____________________________________________________________

29. Why was the use of fire by hominids so important to human brain evolution? ___________________________________________________

30. What hominid had a brain almost as big as ours? _______________________________________

31. What was a difference in behavior between H. heidelbergensis and modern humans? _______________________________________________

32. What climate changes occurred in Africa and Europe that affected the evolution of Homo heidelbergensis? __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

33. What hominid evolved from H. heidelbergensis in Europe? _______________________________________

34. What adaptations to the cold climate do H. neanderthalensis have? __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

35. When did H. neanderthalensis go extinct? ______________________

36. What does Homo sapiens mean? ________________________________

37. When did the first H. sapiens evolve? ____________________________

38. What adaptations to heat did H. sapiens have? _____________________________________________________________

39. When did Homo sapiens move out of Africa and begin to spread across Asia and Europe? ___________________________

40. What does the narrator say is the most important aspect to human brain evolution (and allowed modern humans to evolve and survive)? _________________________________