this species is best known from a
partial female skeleton that got a lot
of buzz in 2009.
welcome to watch mojo and today we're
counting down our picks for the top 10
human ancestors lucy became an almost
instant celebrity in anthropological
circles
it was instantly controversial and it's
still controversial to some people today
it's a bit of a mess he said erectus
you're you're kidding right no you
really said it
for this list we're looking at our
relatives in the evolutionary tree
whom we may have descended from or
interbred with
so an isolated branch like
homoflorenciensis for example
the so-called hobbit people of indonesia
is out
no matter how great their nickname we'll
be ranking roughly in chronological
order
although we will also take genetic
admixture into account
which of these would you most like to
travel back in time to meet let us know
in the comments
number 10. nacalipithecus nakayama
about 14 million years ago the ancestral
lines of the great apes began to split
off from our own
the great grand folks of orangutans then
gorillas and later chimpanzees
all struck out on different evolutionary
paths nakali pithecus nakayama is the
last known
common ancestor of gorillas chimps and
humans living 10 million years ago in
east africa
it was a large ape somewhere around the
size of a female gorilla
the discovery in 2005 of its jawbone and
teeth
in kenya supports the view that our
evolution took place wholly in
africa rather than moving to europe and
back as had been speculated before
we're not descended from them we're
cousins of them
so we and they go back to a common
ancestor they're the chimpanzees
there's us we go back to a common
ancestor
number nine the philanthropist chadensis
this is my story
and the beginning of yours experts
aren't sure when
exactly chimpanzee and human ancestors
diverged
but the discoverers of sahalanthropus
chadensis a species that lived seven
million years ago in central africa
believe it to be a transitional species
from around the time the chimpanzee
lineage branched off
and yeah the name is kind of a mouthful
um
but this is a really important species
it was first discovered in 2001
um in the central african country of
chad
and so far in the last 19 years
we haven't discovered anything older
that is likely to be classified as a
moment
so far the fossil evidence consists
mainly of one small distorted cranium
and the details are debated
may be close to the reality but we don't
know
because we don't know about his hair his
eyes or his nose
was it arboreal or bipedal did it come
before or after the split
or was it an offshoot of another line
entirely experts disagree
but the skull does seem to combine both
ape-like and human-like characteristics
number eight artipicus ramidus some four
million years ago
our curious great grandfolks climbed
down from the trees to poke about on the
ground
this species is best known from a
partial female skeleton that got a lot
of buzz in 2009
she was nicknamed artie marty was small
just under 1.2 meters tall
and based on the fossils of animals
found around her she lived in a wooded
environment
and her skeleton told a surprising story
their forests were dwindling as the
climate became cooler and drier
a few scientists think that supernovae
also played a role
with radiation triggering lightning
storms and forest fires that created
more grasslands
fossil remains of artipicus ramidus
unearthed in ethiopia and dated to 4.4
million years ago
seemed to show the transition towards
bipedalism in action cardiopythicus
takes us pretty far back toward that
branch and informs us
that the node point the junction the
last common ancestor
was neither human nor a chimpanzee it
was something entirely different
the species had a big toe ideal for
grasping branches
but also a pelvic structure that may
have allowed them to walk on two legs
we go down to the pelvis we see the same
thing adaptations to two-legged walking
but also some primitive characteristics
that seem to indicate climbing
and we can see that best in the nearly
intact foot
according to some researchers its
smaller canine teeth might suggest a
reduction in aggression
foundational for cooperative social
behavior number seven
australopithecus afarensis meet lucy
one of the most famous fossils in
history when you look at it as a whole
there's an amalgam of more primitive and
more derived features that had not been
seen before
in 1974 researchers found her 3
million-year-old partial skeleton in the
awash valley in ethiopia
to celebrate they played the beatles
song lucy in the sky with diamonds
inspiring her name lucy became an almost
instant celebrity in anthropological
circles
she didn't look like anything we had
ever found before she was something very
different
and because of that she opened up for us
an entire new chapter
on human origins lucy had long arms a
small brain
and a protruding jaw but her pelvis was
remarkably human
showing she could walk upright lucy's
legs formed an
angle her knees were close together just
like our own knees
this positions the feet directly
underneath the body
making walking easier and more efficient
it's thought that
others of her species left remarkably
well-preserved footprints at laitoli
tanzania
as they trekked through the muddy ash
left by volcanic eruptions
number six australopithecus africanus
lucy's younger cousin australopithecus
africanus holds a special place in
archaeological history
in 1924 quarrymen stumbled over its
fossilized remains in south africa
catching the attention of australian
anthropologist raymond dart
darts claim that the fossil was the
so-called missing link between men
and apes set him against many of his
peers who thought
modern man must have jolly well come
from europe and not africa
it took decades but dart was eventually
vindicated
modern analysis reveals that the fossil
which became known as the tong child
may have been killed by a hungry eagle
ancient times were rough
today millions of years after the small
hominid child met his end
its amazing fossil continues to play a
crucial role
in our understanding of human evolution
number five homo habilis as the climate
continued to cool and dry out two and a
half million years ago
our ancestors faced new challenges
grasslands replaced forests
and old food sources became scarce
around this time
homo habilis the earliest known archaic
human began strolling around the
savannah
meaning handyman its name refers to the
use of stone tools
possibly to butcher animals the
increased meat consumption may have
driven
other changes in our evolution it'll
take more research to figure out what
exactly is going on here but that's part
of what makes paleo anthropology so
interesting
new discoveries are made all the time
homo habilis had a flatter face
and larger brain than australopithecus
although some scholars argue the line
between them gets pretty blurry
it was argued very strongly to be a
contender for for early homo
and it was instantly controversial and
it's still controversial to some people
today it's a bit of a mess
but its emergence marked a huge step
towards the evolution of modern humans
number four homo erectus he said erectus
you're you're kidding right no you
really said it
soon a taller and more slender species
was also strolling the savannah
homo erectus also known as upright man
homo erectus is the earliest hominin
believed to have mastered fire
and to have cooked food allowing a
dramatic improvement in our ancestors
diets
it's commonly thought that homo erectus
originated in africa two million years
ago
then spread out through eurasia although
homo erectus
has also been found in africa and europe
anthropologists have fiercely debated
for almost a century where these early
asians came from
and whether they belong on our modern
family tree
however an origin in asia has also been
argued
another point of contention is its
relationship to homo ergaster
which some consider a separate species
and others
african homo erectus regardless it's
pretty humbling to think that homo
erectus survived for over 2
million years making our own 300
thousand year history seem like the
blink of an eye
high fire number 3. homo heidelbergensis
we owe a lot to homo heidelbergensis if
homo erectus is our slightly eccentric
grandfather
homo heidelbergensis is closer to a
familiar father figure
they lived roughly 500 000 years ago
in the middle of the pleistocene they
are found
all over um in on three different
continents there's examples of them
in europe and that's primarily where
they're found while it's thought that
homo heidelbergensis descended from
african homo erectus
their time on earth overlapped for
several millennia arriving on the scene
six to seven hundred thousand years ago
homo heidelbergensis looked a lot like
us
with a large brain and similar stature
they also built permanent shelters
some fanned out throughout europe and
eventually evolved into neanderthals
a few ready travelers branched out into
asia evolving into denisovans
meanwhile back in africa there emerged a
new species
possibly from homo heidelbergensis homo
sapiens
have you ever seen a homo sapien you
don't know wanna know yeah i saw one
once
at the zoo describe it furry
yep big gorilla looking
he was picking his watcha dilly he was
yeah
number two denis evans we don't know
much about the denisovans
neanderthals eastern cousins the only
fossils we have are a few bones and
teeth
this was the first time that we
identified a new form of extinct human
just from a genome sequence and hardly
any information at all from bones or
stone tools
but thanks to dna analysis we do know
this
our ancestors had a pretty crazy sex
life and we don't mean with each other
we mean with other species of humans
denisovans branched off from
neanderthals
but also did the dirty with them with us
and at least one other species
possibly homo erectus their dna tells
scientists that the denisovans
may have roamed all across asia and
based on genetic differences between the
different fossils from denisova caves
scientists think that two of the
individuals live roughly 65
000 years apart in fact today's
melanesians and australian aboriginals
still carry traces of their dna and
tibetans might owe a gene that allows
them to live at high altitudes to the
same source
this indicates that denisovans and their
descendants may have had
a greater geographic area than
previously thought before we continue
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number one neanderthals neanderthal
a species of human in many ways so
similar to us
yet also very different life for our
ancestors could certainly be
nasty brutish and short how did they
cope in a world where nature was
unpredictable and death
sudden archaeological evidence suggests
that neanderthals might
have been the first humans to bury their
dead and may have even held funerals
it's hard to say if this means
neanderthals had spiritual beliefs
but we do know they were much more
sophisticated than once thought
using fire advanced stone tools and
possibly
language neanderthals may have even
painted cave art in spain
stockier stronger and bigger brained
than us they
nonetheless vanished about 40 000 years
ago soon after modern humans reached
europe
some scientists believed the
neanderthals were killed or out-competed
by modern humans
or homo sapiens who arrived in europe at
around the same time as the neanderthals
extinction
but thanks to interbreeding neanderthal
dna lives
on carried in the genomes of homo
sapiens today
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