A brief history of mankind | Human evolution | Origin of Human beings

A question that has been bothering me since the very beginning of my open minded learning and exploring career that is:

"What is the history of History itself? "

Imagining this journey is indeed mesmerizing that how things have been earlier and the way they've been evolving with the passage of time till date which eventually shaped the present mankind that we're today. Our way of thinking, culture, tradition, food habits, clothing, way of expression, methods of socializing and everything that we are today is totally dependent on our journey of evolution and exploration. 

Nomenclature:

The word homo is Latin for human. It is the biological genus to which human beings belong. This particular term was chosen and very 1st used by Carl Linnaeus in his very own classification system.

Family Web:

Within the superfamily Hominoidea, the family Hominidae diverged from the family Hylobatidae some 15–20 million (150-200lac) years ago; subfamily Homininae which is basically African apes, diverged from Ponginae (orangutans) about 14 million years ago; the tribe Hominini (including humans, Australopithecus, and chimpanzees) parted from the tribe Gorillini (gorillas) between 8–9 million years ago; and, in turn, the subtribes Hominina (humans and extinct biped ancestors) and Panina (chimpanzees) separated 4–7 million years ago. Here we're going to have a brief look and explore the hominini tribe. 

A beif history of Mankind:

Earliest known ancestor:-

Dating back to the Paleocene epoch (66-56 million years ago) with the arising of an eutherian mammal the Primates from the small terrestrial mammals, traces of the genus homo was found which eventually turned out to be today's homo sapiens as a distinct species of the hominid family after going through centuries and centuries of transformation. 

But the exact human origin story began about 7 million (70lac) years ago when human lineage broke from that of chimpanzees, which evolved from the Primates. Eventually an ensemble cast of more than 20 human species or hominids came to the fore. Most of those hominids became extinct while few others might have been ancestors to today's humans. 

Each species of the hominid family exhibited varying degrees of present day human like physical and behavioral traits such as, large brains, small teeth,  bipedality and usage of various tools. 

Classification of Hominini:-

These Homininis can be divided into three major groups where each somehow contributed for us in being present day human. The three major groups are:

Early homininis, australopithecines and the homo genus.

Early Homininis:-

Our earliest relatives ever, lived between 7 (70lac) to 4.4 (44lac)  million years ago in Africa. Some of the few discovered species of this group of homininis are: sahelanthropus tachadensis, orrorin tugenensis, ardipithecus kadabba,  ardipithecus ramidus, etc. 

Being close to chimpanzee they had many ape like traits in them which includes small cranial capacity.

Though various researches on fossils of these group of homininis show that some ancient homininis were also beginning to show human like characteristics such as small canines which basically indicates that they were likely used for less haunting or fighting and more for eating.

A very rare skull of an early hominini

Australopithecines:-

The next category of hominini evolution involved even more pursuing and sharp primates called the australopithecines. They lived about 4.4 (44lac) to 1.4 (14lac) million years ago that too across the African continent only.  Some species of this particular category of homininis include: australopithecus anamensis, australopithechs afarensis, australopithecus gorhi,  paranthropus aethiopicus, paranthropus robustus, paranthropus boisei,  etc. 

paranthropus boisei

Skull of australopithecines 

Skull of australopithecines 

Just as their ancestors, australopithecines also had some ape-like traits. However, changes observed in their fossil's skull, spine and legs gave them a consistent bipedal locomotion which indicate a notable evolutionary transformation towards a very human like trait.

Genus Homo:-

The third and the most advanced, sharp and intelligent category of human evolution involves members of the genus homo. As per the data provided by the fossils, the earliest homo species date to more than 2 million (20lac) years ago making them a contemporary of some australopithecines. Some species of this particular homo genus are: homo habilis, homo rudolfensis, homo erectus ,  homo heidelbergensis, homo floresiensis, homo neanderthalensis, homo naledi,  and obviously us  homo sapiens, etc. 

Fossil skull of homo erectus 

Unlike earlier homininis who exhibited a mosaic of ape and human like traits the homo species were becoming distinctly more human. Their cranial capacity was growing larger than any other homininis. They

developed sophisticated stone tool technology. And they became the 1st to control fire. These physical and behavioral adaptations along with advanced technology allowed homo species to be the 1st to migrate out of Africa and explore rest of the world. 

We, homo sapiens, are estimated to have evolved somewhere next to 3lac years ago on the ground of present day Africa. According to zoologists we are the only living descendants of the human tribe, Hominini. Till date there have been discoveries of fossils of about more than 20 species of the ancestors of the hominini tribe that has ever walked on Earth which for sure has provided us with data about our own past but rather than solving the chronological issue these discoveries has created even more interrogative points on the sequence of our past form a complex web. If we term our past as an evolution tree that will not be really very accurate just because it is next to impossible to connect a full chronological series of species which will lead to Homo sapiens, that experts can agree upon.