While fossil evidence suggests we could be somewhat older than at first suspected – the
generally accepted theory for evolution says we began in Ethiopia roughly 200,000 years
ago.
From then we evolved into what we are now… but the modern day human of the early 21st
Century looks VEEEERY different to our early ancestors.
But of course without Instagram, or even a humble oil painting, do we really know HOW
different we looked?
Hello and welcome back to Life’s Biggest Questions – a channel now sitting pretty
with over a million subscribers – hip hip hurrah - I am your host Rebecca Felgate and
today I am asking What Did Humans Really Look Like 200,000 years ago?
Before we get into this video I want you guys to let me know what you look like using emojis
in the comments section down below….
You can’t see my face … but it is somewhere between the ginger and black haired emoji,
the frog face and the lipstic pic.
Ha.
Good.
Great.
Also while you are down there, why don’t you leave a thumbs up on this video and share
it with a friend.
These days humans come with lots of variants – light skin, dark skin, lightish skin,
darkish skin, blonde, ginger, brunette, black haired, green eyes, blue eyes, brown, in some
rare cases violet!
That was not always the case.
So 200,000 years ago as humans were beginning to take form, there were three species of
us – Homosapiens, Homo Erectus and Neanderthals.
While we bread amongst one another, the three species looked somewhat different.
Thanks to found fossils, scientific knowledge and modern reconstruction technology, we have
a rough idea of what our early ancestors looked like.
Homo Erectus, who were still around 200,000 years ago, looked least like we do today.
They looked far more apelike, and were by all intent and purpose much more primitive
and animalistic.
The Homo errectus had large bodies and bigger brains than us - around 60 percent the volukme
we do today – but of course it isn’t the size, it is how we use it.
The Homo Errectus could be taller too – reaching near to 6ft – although the variants in the
species were wider – there were a lot of shorties too.
They had strong dexterous hands, corse hair and veeeerrrrry big noses plus ape like brow
ridges.
The Homo Errectus were very very dark skinned.
The Homo Errectus became extinct 70,000 years ago.
Neanderthals has much lighter skin and were hairy and had bigger looking faces with wider
facial features than humans today.
Their noses were broad and projecting, their chins were small.
It is thought they had a prominent brow ridge.
Their skulls were elongated, they had big jaws and space behind their wisdom teeth.
It is thought that Neanderthals had straight and thick hair, it is though that their faces
were rosy, their eyes big and their hands wide.
Neanderthals are thought to have been the origin bearers of red hair – having the
same distribution of hair colour as modern Eurasians.
It is thought that Neanderthals were shorter than Homosapiens – averaging 1.6 metres.
Neanderthals were homosapiens main competition, but they died out 28,000 years ago.
While Homosapiens did mix with the other two early ancestors, they can be defined as being
dark skinned, leaner and more muscular and taller than us.
The early homosapiens were the bringers of the more rounded skull.
Our jaws were pretty wide, and our noses were bigger, but nowhere near as big as Neanderthals
and Homo Erectus.
We know Homosapiens were the beginnings of intelligence, which is what helped our early
ancestors survive and outlive the competition – with that intelligence I imagine our early
ancestors had a look of understanding in their eyes that the Homo Erectus and Neanderthals
didn’t.
As time went on, humans got smaller – 9,000 years ago we ditched hunter gatherer lives
and started agricultural farming which shifted the way our bodies looked – around 7,000
years ago the first truly lighter skinned humans were emerging.
One of the biggest visual differences would be hair and dress.
200,000 years ago humans didn’t worry about hairstyles, makeup and flattering outfits….
Hair was fully grown out on both males and females ad everything they wore was fit for
purpose.
Animal skins would have been worn to protect areas that need protecting and we probably
would have looked pretty dirty seeing as we spent much of our lives outdoors and in rudimentary
shelters.
There weren’t dentists or doctors to fix teeth and bones when they broke, so likely
we would have looked pretty rugged.
Humans would have looked more homogenized too - there wouldn’t be fat and thin….just
alive and functional.
Genetically we would be a lot closer to one another.
Evolution has allowed variation to flourish, although that being said the establishment
of countries and boarder later re-encouraged less selective gene pools… but that is a
whole other discussion.
Well there we have it.
That is what we know so far.
Perhaps as reconstruction technology develops and our understanding and interpretation of
fossils grows, we may have a better idea of what we looled lile in the future.
Until then though, this is what we have to go on.
What do you guys think to our early ancestors?
Think they look more intriguing than we do?
Let me know all your thoughts in the comments section down below.
LIKE SHARE.
I am your host Rebecca Felgate, I’ll catch you in the next video.
Until then, stay curious, stay alert and never ever stop questioning.