Study Tip
Chimpanzees are humans’ closest relatives, which is why they resemble humans so greatly.
Human Evolution
Humans evolved during the later Cenozoic.
- Primate ancestors: Humans evolved from primates, and apes and humans have a primate common ancestor
- About 7 million years ago, chimpanzees and humans shared their last common ancestor
- Hominids
- Animals of the genus Ardipithecus, living roughly 4 to 6 million years ago, had brains roughly the size of a female chimp
- Although they lived in trees, they were bipedal
- Standing on two feet allows an organism to see and also to use its hands and arms for hunting
- Homo: The genus Homo appeared about 2.5 million years ago
- Humans developed the first stone tools
- Fossils of these animals show a much more human-like body structure, which allowed them to travel long distances to hunt
- Cultures begin and evolve
- Homo sapiens: originated about 200,000 years ago in Africa
- The ice ages allowed humans to migrate.
- During the ice ages, water was frozen in glaciers and so land bridges such as the Bering Strait allowed humans to walk from the old world to the new world.