Last Humans Standing

"Last Human Standing." Becoming Human. PBS NOVA. 31 Aug. 2011. Television.

You might be asking,"Why are we the only humans left what about Homo erectus, Neanderthals, or Homo hidelberg?". Well this question has many different answers, all of them might not be correct because, we cannot just go back into the past and see why they died out, we have to make inferences on what evidence we have. As far as we know, two major factors that helps us survive are; our changed diet and climate change. During an ice age Homo Sapiens moved to the water. That helped them improve intelligence. That is because, they got food from the ocean. To do that they had to know when the tide would be low so it was safe for them to catch food. For that they studied the pattern of the moon, so we started to get more intelligent. The way that diet changed us was that; when we moved to the water we started eat sea food because that was the food there. We had to start making new tools to survive, and they were for fishing and other ways of getting food. This also increased their intelligence into what we are now. Why we are the only human that survived, there are so many ideas we might never know why....

From Grunts to Grammar

Miller, Jeanne. "From Grunts to Grammar: The Evolution of Language." Odyssey: Adventures in Science

Oct. 2009: 34-36. Print.

Language, how, and why? Well, around 2.5 million years ago language was just getting started it was not like how we communicate now. We might have started to speak as steps to making tools got more complex and they needed a wider explanation to make it. Also it is easier to warn if something is coming. 35 to 40 years ago we started to communicate with a complex language which is part of the reason we are thriving now. We started to speak because our larynes started to go down our throat a bit so we could talk.

Taming Fire: The First Scientist

Cox, Mary Beth. "'Taming Fire: The First Scientist?'" Odyssey: Adventures in Science Oct. 2009:

29-30. Print.

Fire, fire, fire... Why! It is so dangerous and in some ways scary. Why did we start to make them? A long time ago they hated fires, fires destroyed their lives. It destroyed what they lived in and what they had to eat. We started to make fires around 250,000 years ago. The first use of fire was about one million years ago. The evidence of use of fire are; hearths which are basic fireplaces and burnt rocks and bones. It is believed that fire is what brought us all together. We used to gather around the camp fire. One of the reasons that we believe we started to make fires was to cook food, also fires kept them warm when it got cold.

On Our Own Two feet

Whitt, Stephen. "On Our Own Two Feet." Odyssey: Adventures in Science Oct. 2009: 26-28. Print. 

Walking is a strange and rare way of moving between animals. It is weird how we can even balance our big skulls. Walking on two feet started millions of years before brains got this large. Also this might be a surprise to you but really we are not related to chimpanzees. Sure we had a common ancestor but then we went our separate ways, so we are not related to them. Another interesting fact that I learned is that between humans and chimps the was a species called Afarensis, it was more chimp like than to humans. A scientist named Lovejoy made a famous theory about why we walk. That is so, we could free up our hands to carry things, work, and to bring food to their mate while they raised their child. Of coarse there are other theories such as, so we could get across a hot savanna to get to a forset, and to get across streams by swimming. Why we really started to walk, we might never know.

This is a skull of the Afarensis

As the author says,"A.Afarensis lived around three million years ago, about halfway between modern humans and chimps and our last common ancestor." The interesting part of this passage is that all of these things that have happened are pretty recent. We cannot say for sure what will happen next.