Sep 11, 2010

Pre-history: homo habilis

So, as humans took a different path of evolution from chimpanzees and entered into Old Stone Age (or Paleolithic Era), they were…well…using first stone tools. These were our ancestors of homo habilis (handy person = person with tools of little over 4 feet tall) species about 2.5 to 2.6 million years ago. They were among many other human species. The social experimentation of humans have already begun by this time and they started living in groups. They relied on gathering plants and hunting wild animals to feed themselves. Apart from stone as the primary material for tools, they also used animal bones, wood, leather and vegetable fibers. At this stage, though, large portion of their meat diet came from scavenging from other animal's kills rather than actual hunting.

At this point of evolution, our ancestors were very similar chimpanzees, but subtly different in two defining ways - walking on two legs and depending on tools and other members of their "herd" in addition to their own abilities.

No comments:

Post a Comment