What are the major trends in hominid evolution?

Question

Please help, i need to write an essay based on this question for physical anthropology.

Answer 1

No one is going to like this answer because if you look at it females have been the agent for evolution.  Female hips had to widen for enlarged skull size, her increasing desire to care for infants longer in order for slow maturity that allows for increase brain size.  The mother/child relationship created bonds that spread to include the whole society.  The mother's need to know the location of child increased communications.  Even the upright stand may have been the need/desire of a mother to carry and run with her child.

See the thumbs down, I knew it, closed eyes will never see .

Answer 2

A few trends shared by evolving hominids was gradual cranial expansion and the usage of stone tools. You could also talk about the earliest origins of language/communication and of course, change in the overall morphology (change in structure, uprightness) of successive hominids.

I can't write the essay for you, but do more research on all those factors and you'll have lots of material to work on.

Good luck.

Answer 3

1. Bipedal gait

2. free to use hands for tools or carring capacity

3. increase in cranial capacity

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Evidence points to bipedalism evolving before the expansion in human brain size. The different hypotheses are not necessarily mutually exclusive and a number of selective forces may have acted together to lead to human bipedalism.

Humans evolved from a chimpanzee-like, knuckle-walking ancestor. Various reasons have been proposed for the evolution of human bipedalism, including freeing the hands for tool use and carrying, sexual dimorphism in food gathering, changes in climate and habitat (from jungle to savanna) and to reduce the amount of skin exposed to the tropical sun. The first two explanations have been criticized for projecting modern social concerns and prejudices onto ancestral species. The latter two have been criticized for not making sense in the context of the forest and woodland biomes occupied by human ancestors. An alternative explanation is the mixture of savanna and scattered woods forced proto-humans to travel between clusters of trees and bipedalism offered greater efficiency for slow, long-distance travel between these clusters than knuckle-walking quadrupedism

Answer 4

Brain size, use of tools and technology, moving from 4 to 2 legs, social interactions, language development and self consciousness for a start.

Re the brainsize, also check out the hominid skull size and thickness as time has gone by.

Check out:

http://www.utexas.edu/courses/wilson/ant...

http://www.nature.com/nature/focus/homin...