The final ‘evolution’ based blog for now.
Homo sapiens is a real ‘new kid on the block’ in evolutionary timescale. Homo sapiens (a term first coined by Carl Linnaeus, spg, well ahead of Darwin’s research and his Origin of the Species, homo defined as Man and sapiens as wise) is the only surviving member of a evolving family of ‘hominids’ across the last five million years. Homo sapiens earliest bipedal (standing erect on hind legs) ancestor was Australopithecus, a species that became extinct about three million years ago. Sub-species Homo habilis (3 – 1.5 million years ago) and Homo erectus (1.5 – .5 million years ago) also became extinct. Neanderthals (see above reconstruction), Homo sapiens’ nearest ancestor, adapted stoically to conditions experienced during the final historic glaciation, the Devensian, and there may have been some inter-breeding between residual populations and migrating Homo sapiens groups heading ‘out of Africa’ as the last Ice Age retreated. In fact Homo sapiens was anatomically far less able to cope with extreme cold than the Neaderthals, however Homo sapiens was far more adaptable and able to out compete their evolutionary ancestors in the post-glacial environment. Rather as the grey squirrel has ‘out-competed’ the native red, so Homo sapiens ‘out-competed’ the Neanderthals.
The rapid rise and fall of these evolutionary ancestors of modern Man is remarkable, but examples evolution in action.
Although some other creatures have/had larger brains than Homo sapiens in proportion to their body size (including Neanderthals) Man’s brain is said to be the ‘most complex organism in the Universe’. So was Man a super-being implanted into the evolutionary process by some intervening force?, or are we, like the other billions of life-forms that have existed on the planet, a current evolved species?
Early on in the post-glacial changes to the environment Man had the ingenuity to adapt the environment to provide for his immediate needs, much of this ‘achieved’ in Mezolithic and Neolithic times.
Today Man is the least endangered species on planet Earth.