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Time & Place:
-  3.85 to 2.95 million years ago
- Lived in Eastern Africa
Key Features:
- Has a small brain
- Long and strong arms
- Flat nose
How they survived:
-Had a plant-based diet, including leaves, fruit, seeds, roots, nuts, and insects and sometimes small vertebrates, like lizards.
- The ability to live on the ground and in the trees as the climate and environment changed
Why are they significant:
- The children grew quickly after birth and reached adulthood earlier than modern humans.
- One of the longest lived and best known to the early human species

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-Between 3.85 and 2.95 million years ago
-Lived in Eastern Africa
-Grew up faster than humans
-Stood on 2 legs and regularly walked upright
-1/3 the size of a normal human brain
-Males were an average height of 4"11
-Females were an average height of 3"5
-Flast nose

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Time & Place

3.3 to 2.1 million years ago

Southern Africa

Key Features (max 3)

·        sApe-like features, longer arms, pronounced jaw

·       Larger brain

·       Smaller teeth

How They Survived

They gathered fruits and all that good stuff.

No stone tools, diet similar to modern chimpanzees (fruits, plants, nuts, seeds, roots, insects, eggs).

Why Are They Significant

Although they could walk bipedally, they still had shoulders/arms adapted to climbing.

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-          First discovered in 1960; one of the earliest members of the genus Homo.

-          Given the name of “handyman” because they were thought to represent the first maker of stone tools.

-          Place: Lived in eastern and southern Africa.

-          Time: Lived 2.4 -1.4 million years ago.

-          Key Features:

o   slightly larger braincase, smaller face and teeth

o   weighed an average of 70 pounds

-          How they survived:

o   They were able to chew some hard foods because their tooth enamel was thick and their jaws were strong (they ate tough foods, but they didn’t specialize in eating hard foods).

o   They made and used stone tools.

-          Why they are significant:

o   Because they were the first to make and use stone tools.

o   They realized that they could use the things in their environment to survive.

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The Smithsonian Institution's Human Origins Program

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Homo habilis

Where Lived: Eastern and Southern Africa

When Lived: 2.4 million to 1.4 million years ago

This species, one of the earliest members of the genus Homo, has a slightly larger braincase and smaller face and teeth than in Australopithecus or older hominin species. But it still retains some ape-like features, including long arms and a moderately- prognathic face.

Its name, which means 'handy man', was given in 1964 because this species was thought to represent the first maker of stone tools. Currently, the oldest stone tools are dated slightly older than the oldest evidence of the genus Homo.

History of Discovery:

A team led by scientists Louis and Mary Leakey uncovered the fossilized remains of a unique early human between 1960 and 1963 at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. The type speciman, OH 7, was found by Jonathan Leakey, so was nicknamed "Jonny's child". Because this early human had a combination of features different from those seen in Australopithecus, Louis Leakey, South African scientist Philip Tobias, and British scientist John Napier declared these fossils a new species, and called them Homo habilis (meaning 'handy man'), because they suspected that it was this slightly larger-brained early human that made the thousands of stone tools also found at Olduvai Gorge.

Height: average 3 ft 4 in - 4 ft 5 in (100 - 135 cm)

Weight: average 70 lbs (32 kg)

We don't know everything aboutour early ancestors-but we keep learning more! Paleoanthropologists are constantly in the field, excavating new areas, using groundbreaking technology, and continually filling in some of the gaps about our understanding of human evolution.

Below are some of the still unanswered questions about Homo habilis that may be answered with future discoveries:

1. Was H. habilis on the evolutionary lineage that evolved into later species of Homo and even perhaps our species, Homo sapiens?

2. Are H. habilis and Homo rudolfensis indeed different species, or are they part of a single, variable species? Or was one the ancestor of the other?

3. If H. habilis is not the ancestor of Homo erectus, how does it fit into our evolutionary tree?

4. H. habilis is one of the earliest members of the genus Homo. Was there a relationship between the origin of this genus and climate change - either with an increased period of climatic fluctuations, or major episodes of global cooling and drying leading to the spread of C4 grasslands?

First paper:

Leakey, L.S.B., Tobias, P.V., Napier, J.R., 1964. A new species of the genus Homo from Olduvai Gorge. Nature 202, 7-9.

Other recommended readings:

Bobe, R., Behrensmeyer, A.K., 2004. The expansion of grassland systems in Africa in relation to mammalian evolution and the origin of the genus Homo. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 207, 399-420.

Domínguez-Rodrigo, M., Pickering, T.R., Semaw, S., Rogers, M.J., 2005. Cutmarked bones from Pliocene archaeological sites at Gona, Afar, Ethiopia: Implications for the functions of the world's oldest stone tools. Journal of Human Evolution 48, 109-121.

Haeusler, M., McHenry, H., 2004. Body proportions of Homo habilis reviewed. Journal of Human Evolution 46, 433-465.

Spoor, F., Leakey, M.G., Gathogo, P.N., Brown, F.H., Antón, S.C., McDougall, I., Kiarie, C. Manthi, F.K, Leakey, L.N., 2007. Implications of new early Homo fossils from Ileret, east of Lake Turkana, Kenya. Nature 448, 688-691.

Ungar, P.S., Grine, F.E., Teaford, M.F., El-Zaatari, S., 2006. Dental microwear and diets of African early Homo. Journal of Human Evoution 50, 78-95

Ungar, P.S., Grine, F.E., Teaford, M.F., 2006. Diet in early Homo: a review of the evidence and a new model of adaptive versatility. Annual Review of Anthropology 35, 209-228.

How They Survived:

Early Homo had smaller teeth than Australopithecus,but their tooth enamel was still thick and their jaws were still strong, indicating their teeth were still adapted chewing some hard foods (possibly only seasonally when their preferred foods became less available). Dental microwear studies suggest that the diet of H. habili s was flexible and versatile and that they were capable of eating a broad range of foods, including some tougher foods like leaves, woody plants, and some animal tissues, but that they did not routinely consume or specialize in eating hard foods like brittle nuts or seeds, dried meat, or very hard tubers.

Another line of evidence for the diet of H. habilis comes from some of the earliest cut- and percussion-marked bones, found back to 2.6 million years ago. Scientists usually associate these traces of butchery of large animals, direct evidence of meat and marrow eating, with the earliest appearance of the genus Homo, including H. habilis.

Many scientists think early Homo, including H. habilis,made and used the first stone tools found in the archaeological record-these also date back to about 2.6 million years ago; however, this hypothesis is difficult to test because several other species of early human lived at the same time, and in the same geographic area, as where traces of the earliest tool use have been found.

Evolutionary Tree Information:

This species, along with H. rudolfensis, is one of the earliest members of the genus Homo. Many scientists think it is an ancestor of later species of Homo, possibly on our own branch of the family tree. Naming this species required a redefining of the genus Homo (e.g., reducing the lower limit of brain size), sparking an enormous debate about the validity of this species.

While scientists used to think that H. habilis was the ancestor of Homo erectus, recent discoveries in 2000 of a relatively late 1.44 million-year-old Homo habilis (KNM-ER 42703) and a relatively early 1.55 million-year-old H. erectus ( KNM-ER 42700) from the same area of northern Kenya (Ileret, Lake Turkana) challenged the conventional view that these species evolved one after the other. Instead, this evidence - along with other fossils - demonstrate that they co-existed in Eastern Africa for almost half a million years.

Read more about this fossil.

Read more about this fossil.

Read more about this fossil.

This fossil is one of the most complete skulls of this species, best known from the Turkana Basin and Olduvai Gorge in East Africa. It is likely from a female, and had a small brain size for H. habilis.

Read more about this fossil.

OH 24 is the oldest fossil skull found at Olduvai Gorge; besides OH 5, it is the most complete. Its third molars had erupted, so we know it was an adult at death, yet the molars show no sign of wear, indicating that this individual probably died soon after their eruption.

Read more about this fossil.

By this time, the feet of early humans had a modern-type arch. Want to read about the evidence that this individual was attacked by a crocodile?

Read more about this fossil.

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Your browser does not support the audio element. Homo habilis Where Lived: Eastern and Southern Africa When Lived: 2.4 million to 1.4 million years ago This species, one of the earliest members of the genus Homo, has a slightly larger braincase and smaller face and teeth than in Australopithecus or older hominin species.

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- Between 1.89 million years and 143,000 years ago
-Northern, Eastern, Southern Africa; Western and East Asia
-Elongated legs and shorter arms
-Heights ranged from 4 ft 9 and 6 ft 1
-First major innovation in stone tool technology (hand axe, cleavers, etc.)
-First to use fire

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PLACE and TIME

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When They Lived:
From about 400,000 to 40,000 years ago.
Area They Lived:
Generally in and around Europe, Southwest to Central Asia.
Physical Features:
The middle of their faces would protrude, large. They had angled cheekbones. They were also on the shorter end of the scale, and relatively stocky.
Methods of Survival:
They hunted large animals, but studies of their teeth also prove they probably consumed plants as well; however, their diets were still mostly meat-based, and were lacking in nutrients.
Significance:
As well as being one of the first primates to discover fire, they also created tools, weapons, and even "symbolic" or "ornamental" objects; one particular detail is that they buried their dead in a respectful manner, occasionally leaving flowers on top of the graves. This demonstrates a presence of complexity in thought that previous ancestors did not.
*One thing of note is that some studies may suggest they had been able to speak like us homo sapiens sapiens do, because of the placement, shape, and interaction of the hyoid bone in the throat (which is what supports the roots of our tongues, giving us the capacity to utter sounds to make language. www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-25465102
(yes, I'm aware we're only supposed to use one source, but this seems beneficial.)

A picture below of the species:

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Time and Place:

200,000 years ago

Evolved in Africa

Key Features:

Brain size was approx 1300 cm3

Thin-walled, high vaulted skull, flat and almost vertical forehead

Had a lighter skeleton build than previous generations

How they Survived:

Specialized stone tools, more complex, refined, smaller (had a variety)

Gathered plants and hunted

Created towns, cities, and villages

Produced food to change their surroundings because they found they can change their surroundings

Why are they Significant:

Modern humans have spread to every continent and vastly expanded their numbers

They have altered the world in ways that benefit them greatly such as they could control the growth and breeding of certain plants and animals.

The complex brains of modern humans enabled them to interact with each other and with their surroundings in new and different ways. As the environment became more unpredictable, bigger brains helped our ancestors survive.

First to develop intellectual properties

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- Could run long distances because they lived on the ground
- their teeth grew at the same rate as the Great Ape
-Main source of food was meat and other protein for energy
- Able to walk completely upright, hence the name Erectu