Australopithecus Afarensis lived about 3 to 4 millions of years ago. Donald Johanson found the remains of this species. When Donald Johanson found the bones, he realized that the bones belonged to a girl. The girl’s species was Australopithecus Afarensis. He decided to name her Lucy. Lucy was about 3 feet tall. She had a mix of ape and human features. Her arms were long, but her hands and feet were similar to a modern human’s. She had a large head, and her forehead and jaw stuck out from her face. Lucy was also a biped means she walked on two feet.  Since their hands were free, they had many advantages like carrying food, defending themselves and their children from predators. Being biped is one important way Lucy resembled us. Lucy was quite different from us. Lucy’s brain was only about one third the size of ours. Scientists have not found any tools from Lucy’s time. They also don’t think Lucy knew how to talk.

The  Second group of Hominids was discovered by the Leakeys. The Leakeys discovered some Hominid bones while searching for evidence of early hominids in Africa. The bones looked like tools. Homo Habilis were called Handyman because they had ability to make tools. Handy Man lived 1.5 to 2 million years ago.  Handyman group had a combination of ape and human features. They walked on two feet but they were taller than Australopithecus.  Their features were slightly more humanlike and their brains were twice the size of Australopithecus. Homo Habilis worked together to protect themselves from animal attacks and get food from larger areas. Handy Men were more advanced because they had a larger brain and had ability to use tools. The Hominids used rocks as a chopping tool pieces of stone for cutting animals. The ability to make tools helped Handy Man live better and longer than Australopithecus Afarensis.

Homo Erectus is the longest living hominid group out of the 5 main groups.  They lived almost for 2 million years.  they lived from about 1.9 million years ago to about 140 thousand years ago.  This hominid group lived in most parts of present day Africa and present day Europe.  These hominid group was also known as the upright man.  They were the first of hominid group to stand upright to that they could see farther and from the neck down, they looked like modern humans, but their face was still very ape like.  They also had the discovery of fire so that they could cook their meat and so that it wouldn’t be raw.  They used tools but they were smaller than the tools that Homo Habilis made.  They were useful tools so that they could cut meat.  They still didn’t have the invention of bows and arrow, but they were more sophisticated than the tools that the earlier hominid groups made.  They stood upright so that gave them the advantage for them so that they could see farther in the grassfields.  This gave the the capability to see things that are farther away and so that they could see if there were some leftovers that other animals left behind.  They didn’t have as long of arms that Homo Habilis had or Australopithecus Afarensis had.  They had fairly short arms compared to the rest of the hominid groups before them.

Homo Sapiens Sapiens are the closest to the modern humans of today.  Homo Sapiens Sapiens lived from 100 thousand years ago  to present day.  They are also known as Cro Magnon.  We are related back to Homo Sapiens Sapiens today.  This hominid group had the biggest brain which results in being the smartest out of the 5 main groups of early hominids.  There have been many fossil finds in many different countries.  The countries are Spain, Germany, France, Israel, and in South Africa.  People haven’t found where they lived, but all they know is where they found the fossils and where they found them, they assume that they lived there because of the fossils.  They developed very high tech tools of the time and the tools that they created and they were small and sharp tools like the bow and arrow that they created.  They set up traps to capture animals.  Also, they used the discovery of fire to cook their meat so that it wouldn’t be raw, but it would be cooked meat.  They were the fastest runners of the hominid groups and they had good hands to use and were very smart.  They had so many tools that they could use and they had many capabilities.