Early Man

• Early humans were hunter-gatherers. They relied on animals and plants for food.
• They moved constantly in search of their food.
• Early farmers used slash and burn techniques.
• The coming of the Ice Ages caused people to adapt, including developing new clothing.
• After the Ice Ages, people began to domesticate plants and animals and build mud-brick houses, eventually leading to permanent settlements.
• Agriculture is the planting of seeds to raise crops. Prehistoric man switched from hunters and gatherers to agrarian societies.
• Societies started where water was in supply and the people learned irrigation (how to best use or transport water for crops and personal use).
• They also began to specialize in different activities, including weaving cloth for clothes.



The evolution of our earliest human ancestors was driven by wild swings in eastern Africa’s ancient climate, scientists claim this month.
The rapidly changing climate reshaped the landscape, leaving once plentiful food and water resources in scarce supply and placing enormous pressure on early humans to adapt.
The sustained upheaval drove some species to the brink of extinction, while other better-suited relatives emerged and flourished, the scientists believe.
Researchers identified several extreme shifts in climate dating back millions of years to when humans were first emerging on the continent. Three of the greatest periods of climatic change took place around 2.5m, 1.5m and 1m years ago. These roughly coincide with the appearance of Homo habilis, the first human species; Australopithecus afarensis, a sturdy primitive ape, and the later human species, Homo erectus, which became adept at stone tool use and hunting.
Researchers led by Mark Maslin, director of the Environment Institute at University College London, conducted geological surveys of ancient lakes throughout eastern Africa. They found evidence that over the past 3m years, giant lakes up to 300 metres deep formed and then vanished with the changing climate. The disappearances of the lakes were followed by periods of extreme drought.
“At one extreme, the landscape would have been a true Garden of Eden, with beautiful freshwater lakes, beautiful shorelines and forests along the rivers. There would have been open spaces allowing early humans to exist easily, with water and lots of resources,” said Maslin. “But occasionally, these quickly flipped into bone dry periods, where it’s 45C in the middle of the day and no natural water resources.”
Early humans and other primate species, collectively known as hominids, were forced to adapt to the new environment. Humans developed larger brains, evident in Homo habilis and Homo erectus, enabling them to fashion simple stone cutting tools and form effective hunting groups. Other ancient primates, such as the squat Australopithecus afarensis, emerged with powerful jaws that allowed them to chew and get nutrition from tough roots and vegetables.
“If you look at the new species of hominid that evolved, 80% of those, or 13 out of 15, appeared during these pulsed climate periods. It suggests new human species evolved when the climate was highly variable. We don’t know if it’s the wet period, the dry period or the transition that triggers this, but we can say that when the climate is highly variable, you get a big change in species.”




What Did Early Humans Eat?


A new method of analyzing fossil teeth allowed scientists to see that early humans had 1.8 million years ago a more varied diet than previously thought.

"The new study shows that Paranthropus robustus,(image) (who lived side by side with Homo species, direct ancestors of modern humans) once thought to be a "chewing machine" specializing in tough, low-quality vegetation, instead had a diverse diet ranging from fruits and nuts to sedges, grasses, seeds and perhaps even animals", said CU-Boulder anthropology Assistant Professor Matt Sponheimer.

Paranthropus was believed to have vanished when the climate dried because of its strict diet. This species was an australopithecine, an evolutionary line close to human that includes the famous Lucy that lived over 3 million years ago, belonging to Australopithecus afarensis species. "One line of Lucy's children ultimately led to modern humans while the other (Paranthropus) was an evolutionary dead end," he said.

"Since we have now shown Paranthropus was flexible in its eating habits over both short and long intervals, we probably need to look to other biological, cultural or social differences to explain its ultimate fate."

"Roughly 2.5 million years ago, the australopithecines are thought to have split into the genus Homo -- which produced modern Homo sapiens -- and the genus Paranthropus," Sponheimer said.

Paranthropus was bipedal, 1.2 m (4 feet) tall and weighed less than 100 pounds (40 kg). Its brain was a little larger than a chimp's, but "Paranthropus was not a mental giant," Sponheimer said. Using laser ablation, the team examined carbon isotopes ratios in the teeth from four individuals from the Swartkrans site in South Africa. "By analyzing tooth enamel, we found that they ate lots of different things, and what they ate changed during the year," says University of Utah geology doctoral student Ben Passey.






First Humans Ate Seafood, Lived On Southern African Tip

Boston (dbTechno) - Scientists have revealed that the earliest humans lived very complex lives as they have been found to have lived in sea caves on the coast of South Africa and apparenty enjoyed seafood.
The research has been published in the journal Nature and stated that these early humans had some intricate lifestyles. The scientists spent four years working on the sea caves to uncover these details about early humans. They found that homo sapiens of 164,000 years ago used come complicated fixtures such as pigment ochre for body decoration, early signs of make-up use.
Dr. Andy Herries from the University of New South Wales stated “If you look at Aborigines and … bushmen and things like this, the sorts of things that they do with ochre is to do with symbolic activities, rituals, coming of age ceremonies. This is the earliest evidence we have of people thinking symbolically, thinking a bit more than what am I going to eat next.”
One of the scientists, Dr. Zenobia Jacobs, believes that the body art was actually used as a form of communication. They also found that people used a stone tool called a bladelet. This technology was originally believed to be apparent over 100,000 years later.
Humans would also hunt and eat off of the sea with a seafood diet instead of hunting animals.
The theory that humans left Africa and spread 100,000 years ago is getting a lot of backing now with this latest discovery.



Modern Humans Outcompeted Early Humans Because They Reproduced Like Rabbits




Modern human families are pleased with having one, maybe two children at a time and per total, but for early humans success was determined by their capacity to produce many, as many as possible, offspring.

Low reproductive ability combined with competition might have led to the extinction of early human species. "The lineages of primates have some traits that make it hard for them to respond to rapid perturbations in the environment," says Dr. Nina G. Jablonski, professor of anthropology and department head at Penn State. "Through time we see a lot of lineages become extinct when environments where the species are found become highly seasonal or unpredictable."

Primates emerged in the Paleocene and Eocene when the global climate was less seasonal, fact that allowed them low reproductive rates. But in Pliocene, 5 million years ago, the climate changed, turning seasonal, and large patches of forest were replaced by savanna, bringing many primate species to extinction. "While past primate populations moved with the forest, early hominid cultures
2.5 million years ago show signs of the ability to live in marginal areas and live on more dynamic, seasonal landscapes," said Jablonski.

Human lineage evolved, occupying a wide variety of biotopes, but those too specialized could not resist to climate changes. Paranthropus boisei, a hominid that reached its peak 2.5 million years ago, disappeared one million years ago due to competition with other mammals. P. boisei would have been too specialized on tough food items like seeds, tubers and bones.

For this kind of food, it competed with pigs and hyenas, but Paranthropus produced one offspring yearly at most, while its competitors had large litters, growing their populations at a much faster rate. "We find that the early members of the genus Homo who succeeded were super ecological opportunists," says Jablonski. "They would eat vegetation and scavenge, kill small animals and forage."