Who's Who Among the Early Hominins?

Susman, Randall. "Who's Who Among the Early Hominids?" Odyssey Oct. 2009: 22-25.
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Have you ever wondered, " When, where and how did we originate". According to Randall Susman, " The fossil record of early hominid evolution shows primitive (ape-like) and advanced (human-like) features. This supports DNA evidence of our close relationship to the African apes. The earliest hominids include Sabelanthropus, Orrorin and Ardipithecus." This shows that we originated and started to get bigger brains and start to walk about 6-8 million years ago or even earlier. Randall and other scientists put us in a group called "Homo-Sapiens". As of Dictionary.com, Homo-Sapiens is the meaning of "the species of bipedal primates to which modern humans belong, characterized by a brain capacity averaging 1400 cc (85 cubic in.) and by dependence upon language and the creation and utilization of complex tools." There are other species that are Human-like that are not in the homo-sapien group, these species are more ape like and they survived unlike some Homo-Sapien species that did not survive unlike the apes and us. The Homo-Habilis is the first known species to make tools out of different materials and manipulate the tool in a way the would make it better, for example taking a rock and breaking the edge to make it jagged and sharp for cutting use.

These other Human-Like species mean that we today are smarter and able to walk, we surely are descendents from them in some way and for the better.

Why We Study Human Origins?

Why We Study Human Origins
By Randall Susman
Calliope:Exploring World History

"Anatomically, African apes and humans were similar, more similar in fact than apes were to monkeys"- Thomas Henry Huxley.

Article Summary: Reading the magazine copy we got I saw that a lot of scientists have different perspectives to one another, this would give other ideas to the question of where we came from, when we began and why or how we began. Thomas Huxley has given us a clue from his quote from above that we broke off from some kind of ape branch as well as others did. But why are we the only ones here now and others died out? Charles Darwin comes into play when he makes a theory of evolution.Evolution means "The gradual development of something" -Google. This states that we somehow adapted and developed to the surroundings to make our lives easier, an example of this is that we would live close to food and water resources. But the main thing that still boggles scientists minds today is that how we started to walk. These people have made multiple theories but a few of them are known and make sense; the first idea is the theory that we started to walk because we wanted to take fruits from trees and to see over tall grass, but after debates the other group of scientists stated we started to make tools with our hands and that it is more energy efficient to walk on 2 legs (bipedal). But the last question remains, " How are we different from apes?" The question is answered by the skeleton of us and the apes, our pelvis is shaped of bipedal walking but the apes is for more 4 legged walking. The other difference is the skull of the head, our skull is made to look forward when on 2 legs but an apes has eyes higher because of the walking of 4 legs.
As long as the people that are eager to learn our humanity investigate we will get closer to the final answer.

3 Theories of Stone-Henge

Historians have different views and understandings of things. That's why we have multiple theories of certain historical artifacts. Stonehenge is an example of that, many theories backed up with other evidence. One of the many theories of stone-henge was that it was a healing place, it would have rituals with music and the stones would intensify the sound when bouncing off the the stones.This was supported by a few scientists coming to stone-henge and playing different frequencies of sound in the middle and out-side of stone-henge. The results show if you play in the middle the sound will be higher there. The second theory, kind of same to the first is that stone-henge marked an ancient burial site, this theory was supported by the evidence found around stone-henge that was human remains. These remains had mini stones around them.And the third absurd theory was that this was a landing site for aliens, there is no hard evidence but there is a theory also in Egypt with the hieroglyphs. There is no sign of writing so the theory revolves around how would a human move 5 tone stones hundreds of miles? So as you can see we have different perspectives which gives the power to find multiple theories to something to give us a better chance of finding the true answer.