Synonyms
Definition
The evolution of Homo sapiens, its ancestors, and closely related species from the last common ancestor with chimpanzees onward (~7 million years ago to present).
Introduction
Early evolutionary biologists answered the question of human origins by searching for the precise location of “man’s place in nature,” in T.H. Huxley’s phrasing, based on comparative anatomy between living species. Research has moved from viewing humanity at the top of the scala naturae to seeing it as “just” a big-brained, bipedal primate, and the focus shifted to explaining how we arrived at “our” place. The post-nineteenth-century focus has been on understanding the evolutionary circumstances that produced Homo sapiens, based on the idea that human-specific traits are the product of the same evolutionary processes that led to all other species.This effort is notably multidisciplinary: human origins fall within the remit of anthropology,...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Aiello, L. C., & Wheeler, P. (1995). The expensive-tissue hypothesis: The brain and the digestive system in human and primate evolution. Current Anthropology, 36(2), 199–221. https://doi.org/10.1086/204350.
Barton, R. A., & Venditti, C. (2014). Rapid evolution of the cerebellum in humans and other great apes. Current Biology, 24(20), 2440–2444. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2014.08.056.
Boyle, E. K., & Wood, B. (2017). Evolution of nervous systems. In J. Kaas (Ed.), (2nd ed., pp. 19–36). Elsevier. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/referenceworks/9780128040966#ancv04.
Clarke, D. L. (1968). Analytical archaeology. Routledge. Schulkin: Front. Evol. Neurosci. Methuen & Co Limited (11 New Fetter Lane London EC4P 4EE). Retrieved from https://books.google.nl/books?hl=en&lr=&id=8BQcBQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=clarke+1968+analytical+archaeology&ots=h0ioEfALf8&sig=XbXE1HNdlEXa_rBxHuaY0zjq7oI#v=onepage&q=clarke 1968 analytical archaeology&f=false.
Clutton-Brock, T. H., & Harvey, P. H. (1980). Primates, brains and ecology. Journal of Zoology, 190(3), 309–323. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7998.1980.tb01430.x.
Dennell, R. W., Rendell, H., & Hailwood, E. (1988). Early tool-making in Asia: Two-million-year-old artefacts in Pakistan. Antiquity, 62(234), 98–106. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00073555.
Dunbar, R. I. M. (1992). Neocortex size as a constraint on group size in primates. Journal of Human Evolution, 22(6), 469–493. https://doi.org/10.1016/0047-2484(92)90081-J.
Falk, D. (1995). Comment on: The expensive-tissue hypothesis: The brain and the digestive system in human and primate evolution. Current Anthropology, 36, 199–221. https://doi.org/10.2307/2744104.
Fleagle, J. G. (1995). Too many species? Evolutionary Anthropology, 4(2), 37–38. https://doi.org/10.1002/evan.1360040202.
Foley, R. (1987). Another unique species: Patterns in human evolutionary ecology. Longman Scientific & Technical. London: England Mithen
Foley, R. (2003). Adaptive radiations and dispersals in hominin evolutionary ecology. Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews, 11(S1), 32–37. https://doi.org/10.1002/evan.10051.
Foley, R. A. (2016). Mosaic evolution and the pattern of transitions in the hominin lineage. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 371(1698). pp 1–14. http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/371/1698/20150244.long.
Foley, R. A., Lee, P. C., Widdowson, E. M., Knight, C. D., & Jonxis, J. H. P. (1991). Ecology and energetics of encephalization in hominid evolution [and discussion]. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 334(1270), pp 223–232. Retrieved from http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/334/1270/223.
Harmand, S., Lewis, J. E., Feibel, C. S., Lepre, C. J., Prat, S., Lenoble, A., … Roche, H. (2015). 3.3-million-year-old stone tools from Lomekwi 3, West Turkana, Kenya. Nature, 521(7552), 310–315. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14464.
Hawkes, K., O’Connell, J. F., Jones, N. G. B., Alvarez, H., & Charnov, E. L. (1998). Grandmothering, menopause, and the evolution of human life histories. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 95(3), 1336–1339. Retrieved from http://www.pnas.org/content/95/3/1336.abstract.
Higham, T., Jacobi, R., Julien, M., David, F., Basell, L., Wood, R., … Ramsey, C. B. (2010). Chronology of the Grotte du Renne (France) and implications for the context of ornaments and human remains within the Châtelperronian. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 107(47), 20234–9. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1007963107.
Jobling, M., Hollox, E., Hurles, M., Kivisild, T., & Tyler-Smith, C. (2014). Human evolutionary genetics (2nd ed.). New York: Garland Science.
Klein, R. G. (1999). The human career: Human biological and cultural origins (3rd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Krause, J., Lalueza-Fox, C., Orlando, L., Enard, W., Green, R. E., Burbano, H. A., … Pääbo, S. (2007). The derived FOXP2 variant of modern humans was shared with Neandertals. Current Biology, 17(21), 1908–1912. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2007.10.008.
Lordkipanidze, D., Ponce de León, M. S., Margvelashvili, A., Rak, Y., Rightmire, G. P., Vekua, A., & Zollikofer, C. P. E. (2013). A complete skull from Dmanisi, Georgia, and the evolutionary biology of early & homo. Science, 342(6156), 326–331. Retrieved from http://science.sciencemag.org/content/342/6156/326.abstract.
Mcbrearty, S., & Brooks, A. S. (2000). The revolution that wasn’t: A new interpretation of the origin of modern human behavior. Journal of Human Evolution, 39(5), 453–563. https://doi.org/10.1006/jhev.2000.0435.
Mithen, S. J. (1998). The prehistory of the mind: A search for the origins of art, religion, and science. Phoenix.
Posth, C., Wißing, C., Kitagawa, K., Pagani, L., van Holstein, L., Racimo, F., … Krause, J. (2017). Deeply divergent archaic mitochondrial genome provides lower time boundary for African gene flow into Neanderthals. Nature Communications, 8, 16046. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms16046.
Prüfer, K., Racimo, F., Patterson, N., Jay, F., Sankararaman, S., Sawyer, S., … Pääbo, S. (2014). The complete genome sequence of a Neanderthal from the Altai Mountains. Nature, 505(7481), 43–49. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12886.
Raichlen, D. A., Gordon, A. D., Harcourt-Smith, W. E. H., Foster, A. D., & Haas, W. R. (2010). Laetoli footprints preserve earliest direct evidence of human-like bipedal biomechanics. PloS One, 5(3), e9769. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0009769.
Reich, D., Green, R. E., Kircher, M., Krause, J., Patterson, N., Durand, E. Y., … Pääbo, S. (2010). Genetic history of an archaic hominin group from Denisova Cave in Siberia. Nature, 468(7327), 1053–1060. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature09710.
Richmond, B. G., & Jungers, W. L. (2008). Orrorin tugenensis femoral morphology and the evolution of hominin bipedalism. Science, 319(5870), 1662–1665. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1154197.
Schulkin, J. (2011). Social allostasis: Anticipatory regulation of the internal milieu. Frontiers in Evolutionary Neuroscience. Retrieved from http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnevo.2010.00111.
Smith, B. H. (1994). Patterns of dental development in homo, Australopithecus, pan, and gorilla. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 94(3), 307–325. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.1330940303.
Whiten, A. (2011). The scope of culture in chimpanzees, humans and ancestral apes. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 366(1567), 997–1007. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2010.0334.
Wood, B., & Collard, M. (1999). The human genus. Science, 284(5411), 65–71. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.284.5411.65.
Zipfel, B., DeSilva, J. M., Kidd, R. S., Carlson, K. J., Churchill, S. E., & Berger, L. R. (2011). The foot and ankle of Australopithecus sediba. Science, 333(6048), 1417–1420. Retrieved from http://science.sciencemag.org/content/333/6048/1417.abstract.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
van Holstein, L., Foley, R.A. (2021). Hominin Evolution. In: Shackelford, T.K., Weekes-Shackelford, V.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19650-3_3416
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19650-3_3416
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-19649-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-19650-3
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences