We, humans, are part of animal super-family called hominoidea. Within this super-family there are other members such as chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and gibbons. Gray (or Hanuman) langur, a commonly found "monkey" in most parts of India (including my balcony) with black face gray hair is NOT part of this hominoidea family. But, they are part cercopithecoidea family, just like baboons. If you had seen a chimpanzee in a zoo, it won’t take you long to realize that they are our closest relatives. By this I mean no offense to humans…or chimps who are reading this. Chimpanzees in fact belong to the same tribe as humans. This tribe of hominids may have first came down from trees around 10 million years ago in the region of modern day Ethiopia. Fortunately, or unfortunately, humans developed into separate homo genus from chimpanzees of Pan genus about 6 million years ago in African savanna. With this, began a 3 million years of evolution of modern homo sapiens or what we call present day “humans”.
You have to bear with me as I try to grind through some of the pre-historic human development and its impact on India. Lot of this material may be dry and full of terminology straight out of museums filled with cavemen. I promise that once we are out of Bronze Age and well into Iron Age, things will be lot less dry and more personal.
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