Do you know what species Ardi was?
Evidence for Human Evolution Quiz
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***This quiz is only relevant to Edexcel Combined Science and Edexcel Biology students.***
We do however recommend taking the quiz if you are on another course as it can help to provide context for the rest of the Evolution and Natural Selection Topic, as well as classification systems.
Good Luck!
Read about evidence for human evolution - 3 min read
Evidence for human evolution comes mainly from fossils of similar species to our own - Homo sapiens. Additional evidence comes from the development of stone tools over time.
There are two points in the specification for combined science (Edexcel) about evidence for human evolution:
| 4.4 Describe the evidence for human evolution, based on fossils, including: a) Ardi from 4.4 million years ago b) Lucy from 3.2 million years ago c) Leakey’s discovery of fossils from 1.6 million years ago |
| 4.5 Describe the evidence for human evolution based on stone tools, including: a) the development of stone tools over time b) how these can be dated from their environment |
Who was Ardi?
Ardi was a female of the species Ardipithecus ramidus who lived 4.4 million years ago.
Ardi was around 1.2 metres tall and approximately 50kg.
The shape and structure of her leg bones suggest she could have walked upright.
She had long arms and long big toes - both of these allowed her to climb trees better than modern humans (Homo sapiens).
Who was Lucy?
Lucy was a female of the species Australopithecus afarensis who lived 3.2 million years ago.
She was approximately 1.07 metres tall and had legs that should have allowed upright walking.
Her toe bones were straight like modern humans but more curved, again probably to help with climbing trees.
What are the Leakey Fossils?
Two paleoanthropologists (The Leakeys) found fossils of a more recent species than Ardi or Lucy.
First they found fossils of the species Homo habilis who lived 2.4 - 1.4 million years ago, walked upright but had longer arms than Homo sapiens.
Next they found fossils of Homo erectus, who lived up to 500,000 years ago. This fossil provided strong evidence that humans evolved in Africa.
Development of stone tools
Stone tools as old as 3.3 million years have been found from early human species.
We can tell how old stone tools are by how deep they are found, deeper tools are older.
Over time, tools became more sophisticated - sharper and more specialised.
Tools started out as rocks found on the ground and developed into a complex set of different tools for different purposes, e.g., axes, hammers, and knives.
Main points
Human species evolved over time from chimpanzee-like species to modern humans.
Over that time, human species' bodies changed to walk upright and spend less time in the trees.
Cranial capacity (brain size) increased dramatically throughout the process.
Stone tools tell us that as brain size increased, our stone tools became more complex.