Table 1 Summary of salient facts about human evolution
From: Fossils that Change Everything We Know About Human Evolution (...Or Not)
Fact | Known since | Based on |
|---|---|---|
Humans existed in the geological past, long before the oldest historical records | before 1860 | Archeological sites and artifacts associated with extinct animal species and ancient geological deposits |
Fossils of ancient humans exist, some of which are distinctly different in anatomy from living people | 1856 | Discovery and recognition of Neanderthals from European sites |
Some fossil/extinct humans were bipedal, but with brain sizes two-thirds that of living people | 1890s | Discovery of Homo erectus in Java |
Some fossil species had ape-sized brains with large faces and teeth unlike those of living humans but were nonetheless bipedal | 1920s–1940s | Discovery of australopithecines in South Africa |
Multiple lineages of fossil hominids have coexisted in time and space, some closer to the ancestry of living people and some wholly extinct | 1940s–1950s | Fossil sites in southern and eastern Africa |
Evidence of frequent stone tool manufacture appears in the fossil record long after bipedalism but before major increase in brain size | 1960s–1970s | Fossil sites in eastern Africa |