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Alen Huremovic
Human Biology 1090
Instructor: Kathryn Randazzo
12/03/2014
Reflection: “Becoming Human, First Step” by NOVA
Humans are the smartest animals on the earth, but the question is how did we get here?
Millions of years ago we were apes, living apes lives in Africa. So, the question is how did we
evolve from apes to today modern humans? What happened and what made that change possible?
There are a lot of questions, and with modern technology we are able to find the answers. More
than six millions years ago we took first step toward the separation from the apes. About 3
million years ago we see the beginning of the development of the bigger brain. At the same time
there were multiple human species coexisting on this planet until one day there was only Homo
sapiens. The Homo sapiens (modern human) are most adaptable and complex animals on the
Earth. So let’s see how all the change happened.
Researches and scientist came up with the new theory of how and why changes happened.
They found the bones and the fossils in Africa dating back from 3 to 6 million years ago. After
researching and examine those bones they put pieces together in order to understand our earlier
ancestors. They all agreed that do to the climate change in Africa, apes had to start to walk from
four to two legs, and this change in posture also influenced the change in their brain. This Nova
episode shows how fossil of “Lucy” and “Selam” (also known as “Lucy’s Child”) were found.
Fossil of “Selam” is over 3 million year old and is almost complete child fossil; it has helped
scientist to figure out how brains begun to change from our ancestors. Big climate change was a
key factor for human evolution. This has been proven through layers of rock and fossils which
Alen Huremovic
Human Biology 1090
Instructor: Kathryn Randazzo
12/03/2014
hold the evidence of the extreme climate change in Africa, from very hot and wet to very cold
and dry. Our ancestors had to adapt and slowly changed in order to survive. “Lucy” and “Selam”
walked upright and looked like us from waist down, but from waist up they looked like apes.
Those creatures lived in the trees during the night and during the day walked on the ground with
two feet in order to use less energy and to find food. With African climate changing (becoming
dryer), our ancestors had to walk more on two feet and started slowly to use more brain in order
to find food and survive. This process took about million years and next change scientist see is in
Homo Habilis. Homo Habilis lived about two million years ago and they started to make tools
and weapons to survive. During this million years, brain size almost doubled and Homo Habilis
started to look more like human than the apes. Soon Africa become very hot and dry place and
our ancestors had to adapt again. This process made them slowly smarter and they had to start to
run and adopt more in order to survive. In next 200,000 years Africa started to change
periodically pulsing with climate change from dry to wet. Scientist now knows that for 3 million
years human brain size did not increase because African climate was stable. When African
climate started to change rapidly from wet to dry (in next 200,000 years) human brain size
doubled and tools started to be made by humans. During this period many human species that
could not adopt died off and better problem solver creature (us) survived. Changes continued for
another Million and half years and our ancestors had to adapt and change even more. Only the
fittest survived and we can say that we are creatures created by the climate change. With that we
become the smartest creature the world has ever known.
Alen Huremovic
Human Biology 1090
Instructor: Kathryn Randazzo
12/03/2014
It was very interesting to watch this episode of “Becoming Human, First Step” by NOVA.
It is amazing how scientist were able to found evidence of human change just by examine fossils
and bones that are millions years old. With this new evidence it is much better explained how we
slowly changed from apes to modern humans. We now know exactly that we started in Africa,
and slowly changed and colonized the rest of the world. We also know that there were many
different human species but only fittest survived and we (Homo sapiens) have this whole planet
for ourselves. This answers our question why we are smartest animals on this planet and
explained how we get there by evolving through climate change.
Source used: http://video.pbs.org/video/1312522241/