It was believed that at one time there were cavemen. How did human evolve to not have hair all over their body

Answer 1

By Cavemen, I presume that you are refering to Cro-Magnon or Neanderthal. Cro-Magnon are ourselves and the extent of Body Hair would be approximately the same except for Climate conditions which probably enduced hair follicles to be slightly more robust and prevalent. Neaderthal were probably more hairier than homo sapians, but not grossly more. If you are speaking about Homo Habilis - 'The Handy Man' - then this species had much more hair than either Cro-Magnon or Neaderthal since they were the species between Australipithicus and ourselves. Homo Habilis spread around the Earth and survived over 1 million years. At one time, it is believed, that Homo Habilis, Neanderthal and Archaic Cro-Magnon all co-existed about 80,000 years ago with first Homo Habilis becoming extinct around 80,000 years ago, followed by Neanderthal about 30,000 years ago. The amount of time between the rise and decline of Homo Habilis and the rise of Homo Sapian as I mentioned was about 1 million years; during this time another species, Homo Ergaster? is probably the immediate ancestor to Archaic Cro-Magnon and the immediate descendent of Homo habilis. Ergaster had much less hair than Homo Habilis and looked more similar to Modren Humans. All of this transitional period between Habilis, Ergaster and Sapian took hundreds of thousands of years and during that period of time as Ergaster and Cro Magnon learned to hunt with tools and to clean skins, they developed the ability to manufacture clothing. Remember that around 80,000 years ago there was a major ice age that begun and by that time Archaic Homo Sapian would have developed a need for less hair due to the warmer climate between 80,000 and 125,000 years ago. When the ice age began around 80,000 years ago (due to a massive volcanic eruption not seen since, and greated a nuclear winter scenario), archaic homo sapians would have had to develop methods of clothing themselves since they had evolved out of the need for hair over the entire body due to the previous era of much warmer temperatures. Hope this helps.

Answer 2

Here is the scientific fact. The "cavemen" didn't wear clothing for a long time. Then they began to wear a small skirt so that they could sit on objects without being painful. These skirts also cut down on the thrash burn while running after prey in tall grasslands.. Then they began to wear the full furs of animals to hurt with, with a buffalo fur (yuck with head) hung across their shoulders it was easier to get closer to the prey. It was at this time that they discovered that the coverings were warmer than without them. So they began to wear those animal furs as jackets, pants, etc. As the cavemen started wearing clothing of different type there was no further need for so much hair.
Hair is an insulator. That is why when you get cold you get "goose bums" and your hair stands up. In the age of the caveman when their hair stood up it when it was cold, it created a bllanket, and warmth air would trap between the hair follicle's and kept them warm. Once everyone started wearing clothing there was less need for so much body hair.
This is one of the reasons some races have more hair than others. Those that were developed in colder climates had more hair on face and body, those in warmer climates, like the Hawaiian islands, hardly have any hair at all!

Answer 3

Homo sapiens sapiens originated in South Africa a very warm climatic region, as such fur would not be a beneficial adaptation as it is too warm a climate to support it especially if you are a warm blodded primate such that humans are. The warm climate made it more beneficial to select individuals who did not have hair on their bodies to help them expose more surface area to the cooling effects of air, making them more primed for hotter climates. The same holds true as we began a diaspora from africa and came to populate the rest of the planet beginning with the hotter regions below the equator and then spreading to the cold ones as the glaciers retreated at the end of the last Ice-Age. Some ethnic groups did develop some hair on their bodies i.e. why some men have body hair (an adaptation to colder climates and to long hours out hunting being exposed to cold weather, plus it was sexually selected because ancient females thought it was sexy!). However humans are a hot adapted species because we have spent much of our time in warmer clients.

Answer 4

"It was believed that at one time there were cavemen."

I believe that we still believe that there was a time when a lot of people were taking shelter in caves --where there were a lot of them. I don't know if that means that we were especially hairy at that time.

According to one hypothesis, less fur, less hair on your skin makes it more sensitive to touch, to heat, and thus, a 'naked' skin makes you more aware of your immediate environnement. Good for humans when they started cooking!

Another try, another explaination might be found somewhere in the so-called 'Aquatic Ape Hypothesis'. Check the link below. You'll find a lot of interesting speculation in there!

Answer 5

I think when we learned to use clothing like hides etc. to keep us warm and protect us, that maybe somewhere along the line we found that we didn't need the fur anymore. Maybe the hide wore the fur off.

Answer 6

Girls like men who have less hair to pick scrapes of food out of? Perhaps, but haven't you experienced them telling you that your beard stubble scratches? Evolution may not be real to some, but we have evolved.

Answer 7

Clothing probably made all the hair unnecessary and then hairy ape-people probably became undesirable and thus mated less and therefore hairiness died out of the gene pool.

Answer 8

me personally, i don't believe in evolution. simply because if we envolved from something, how come we are not evolving today. Our babies are still looking like humans and not evolving into other creatures

Answer 9

Who needs hair when your wife lifes it at 85 degrees? Adaptation changes everything.

Answer 10

we learned to make shelters and make fire, I guess.

from a Darwinian natural selection point-of-view and anecdotally I woud say that chicks just don't dig really hirstute guys. so the less hairy duides got all the action, made more babies, and the rest, as they say, is history...