A very thoughtful evolution question?

Question

OK, well, the ape very slowly began to evolve into a different species way back millions of years ago. It was evolving along slowly, and eventually there was the neanderthal man. And then suddenly, for no reason, a completely different human showed up- the first homo sapien. The two species were different enough to be incompatable sexually. Thats what the scientists call The Missing Link. Obviously, something must have happened in there. So maybe the ape-men may have ended up smarter and more advances, but they might not look just like we do now, and it ought to have taken millions more years.

The question is, what was it that jumpstarted the homo sapiens? Any ideas?

Answer 1

OK, pretty simple here. About 450,000, Earth was visited by the Annunaki, who were extraterrestrials from Nibiru, a planet in our solar system with a highly eccentric orbit and an orbital period of 3600 years. These Annunaki were closely related to the Nephilim (or "fallen angels") mentioned in the Bible. They came here looking minerals, gold among them, and obtained them mainly from Africa and the Middle East. They were the brawn of the operation, so to speak, and the Nephilim were the brains. In an effort to enlarge their work force, they geneticly altered the native hominid population, gave them science and technology, a lot of which is still beyond what we have today. (If you're curious, the writer Zecharia Sitchen goes into much more detail in his works studying archeological finds--especially written tablets--from ancient Sumeria.) And that's more or less the Evelyn Wood version. Slow evolution of hominids...Annunaki...BINGO...explosively rapid development.

Answer 2

It's a fascinating question and maybe one day we will know for sure. As people have said, neanderthals and us were cousins. Basically it seems that neanderthals and ourselves both evolved from Homo heidelbergensis - Neanderthals in Europe and ourselves in Africa. Just today there was a science article about the sequencing of a chunk of neanderthal genome which showed that the population at the time we had common ancestors was was probably only around 3000 individuals. Hence we can understand why fossils are so rare.

Anyway, some hypotheses as to what caused our species to excel are:

1) the development of language. However a problem with this hypothesis is that endocasts show that areas of the brain associated with language enlarged much earlier, in the Australopithecus and Homo habilis.

2) a strong need for more advanced tools and hunting techniques.

3) a strong need to follow ever more complicated social rules.

4) the shortening of the female pelvis, to allow more efficient long-distance walking. A side effect of this would be that the pelvic channel become smaller and babies had to be born earlier, with less developed brains and hence better learning abilities. This makes sense as, in a way, we are all like baby primates, with big heads and little hair, and of course a strong learning ability through out life.

Answer 3

Firstly, there was a certain discovery recently (about two months back or so) that indicates that the neanderthal man may have cohabited with homo sapien.

What makes you say that the homo sapiens were "more" evolved than the neanderthal man???

The two were evolved to different conditions. The neanderthal man's evolution made him more compatible to the extremely cold climate of northern europe, and he evolved to have a much more robust body structure than the homo sapiens. The brain of the neanderthal man was even bigger than the homo sapiens. There are certain aspects of the neanderthal man that were much superior to the homo sapiens.

Homo sapiens did not get any "jump start" on the evolution. The homo sapiens and the nienderthal man just went down two different roads of evolution, as dictated by the environmental conditions around them.

Answer 4

The current view on this subject is summed up, as follows:-

"The studies of Neandertal mtDNA do not show that Neandertals did not or could not interbreed with modern humans. However, the lack of diversity in Neandertal mtDNA sequences, combined with the large differences between Neandertal and modern human mtDNA, strongly suggest that Neandertals and modern humans developed separately, and did not form part of a single large interbreeding population. The Neandertal mtDNA studies will strengthen the arguments of those scientists who claim that Neandertals should be considered a separate species which did not significantly contribute to the modern gene pool."
(http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/mtDNA.html#more)

When both these species had evolved separately from a common ancestry, where comes the question of a missing link? It is a matter worth pondering over as to whether the Neandertals who evolved separately ultimately got merged into the human stream or got themselves extinguished or evolved into some other species. The idea of missing link is often promoted to discredit the theory of evolution, by the creationists. While studying the fossils of a species of antiquity having similarity to the homosapies, there will naturally be many missing links. These missing links will fall into proper place, once more and more fossils are discovered. Therefore, missing links does not necesarily imply that at some stage the homo sapiens jump started. The creationist would like us to believe that the Creator did that jumpstarting. I am a person with a strong conviction about religion and God. But, my belief does not come in the way of evolution. In my faith, which is basically a Hindu faith, there is enough indication to show that Life evolved into various forms, until the stage of the modern man. Our world view is one of cyclical movement of evolution. We will come back to the place where we started. God, in his dynamic form manifests Himself into many life forms and at the end of creation all the creative forces are withdrawn into God, in the potential form. It will remain so for the same period of time, as it took for the Creation, until the next cycle of creation begins.

Answer 5

Maybe it was the invention of language beyond grunts. I do think some things, like language, could have given evolution a big push. Think about what a difference it is to not have internet access, or not have phones or newspapers, or to not be able to read, or not understand what people say... yeah, I think language must have been a big leap forward and changed things a lot; it probably made intelligence more useful, for example.

One other thing though, there's no way one generation was sexually incompatible with the previous or next generation, that change had to happen slowly, even if we haven't found fossils in between. Maybe Neandrathals and homo sapiens were two branches of apes, and neandrathals just died out.

Answer 6

There is no such thing as evolution. We're not the continuation of our parents we are newly created with different finger prints and character. Examples to prove that evolution theory is wrong are endless, but to make a long story short let's look at fingerprints. Fingerprints are codes that are extremely sophisticated and no human can design so many codes (billions) in such a small area Tip of a thumb). There is a lot of science, creativity and thinking to make fingerprints. And if there is any purpose in anything you see this means that somebody did it. Meaning if you find a dinner table in the middle of the woods you would assume that someone did it. Or shall we say that the trees evolved into a table. You refuse to believe that trees evolved into a dinner table that is very simple with limited functions but at the same time you say that a creation that is much more sophisticated and with multi functions and purpose like humans is a result of mindless evolution. Where is the mind behind the thinking of evolution? Creation is not a concidence it very well thought. Ask yourself: What the first ape evoluted from? Why the remaining apes are still apes? Dinasours? Tigers? Lions? Trees? the Sun? Earth?

Answer 7

There wasn't ape, then Neanderthal, then humans. there are dozens of species which connect humans to our common ancestor to apes. The most accepted thought is that we came from Homo Erectus, not Neanderthals. But there is a theory that neanderthals and erectus interbred. Ans scientists don't call anything a missing link, because all the transitional fossils needed have been found to link humans to apes.

And each species in the species can interbreed with the one directly next to it, but not any twice removed. This can be seen today in animals like salamanders, where Washington salamanders can interbreed with Oregon ones. And the Oregon ones with California ones. But the Washington ones can't interbreed with California ones.

Answer 8

There are a couple incorrect assumptions in your question, to begin with.

About six million years ago so is when humans and apes diverged. Our first ancestors on the "human" branch of the family tree were the australopithecines, and they were probably very similar to chimpanzees as we know them today. (We're still not sure how much they walked upright, or if they lived in the trees.) However, there is enough evidence in the fossil record of significant changes toward human rather than ape to classify them as our ancestors.

But keep in mind, it is hard to classify the various developments and changes, since these very old fossils are so rare. Are traits in a given skull indications of a new species, or just unique to that individual? Excited paleoanthropologists would name every new find as a new species, only later to realize it was just like others.

The first jump forward is Homo Habilis, the first specimen classified as the species Homo. This was because H. Habilis had a larger brain capacity, more upright posture and seems to have used rudimentary stone tools. But there are some who think calling this guy part of the human family is too generous, so you can see that even big steps like this are still debated.

There is no such thing as a "missing link" - evolution is usually a slow and gradual process. H. Habilis and his brain that was less than half the size of ours surived and reproduced and developed for hundreds of thousands of years. That's one big link!

There were subsequent species in the development towards modern humans. Evolution is the process whereby genetic mutations result in new traits which, if they provide an advantage to survival, are then passed on to offspring. (If it works, it survives.)

But each step along this path - H. Habilis, H. Erectus, et alia - was moving closer towards humans as we are today. (In terms of brain size, posture, skeletal structure, tools, capabilities, etc.) There was no day when blammo modern humans just appeared.

Neanderthals are a slight side branch on the human tree. They existed very recently - dying out probably around 25,000 years ago. (Why? Probably because they were better adapted to cold weather, and the Ice Age was fading...and probably because modern humans were edging them out.) Neanderthals had bigger brains but there's no way you'd confuse them with a modern human. Theories differ right now as to whether Neanderthals had or were even physically capable of speech, and whether modern humans ever inter-bred with them. (The genetic record seems to suggest that humans and Neanderthals did, occasionally, get it on.)

So Neanderthals were not our direct ancestors - he's more like a weird cousin that just couldn't make it in the modern world.

As to what constitutes Homo Sapiens - it's a threshold of a certain brain size, and height and posture. It's certainly the acquisition of language, as well as the mastery of tools and fire. Think of the things every human society has today, no matter how primitive: language, fire, clothing, hunting, gathering.

Answer 9

The divergence of the genus homo from hominids (apes) actually occurred much earlier than the appearance of Neanderthals. The divergence occurred something like six million years ago, with the emergence of homo erectus from the hominid line. From homo erectus descended homo habilus, from whom two closely related subspecies, homo sapiens neanderthalensis (Neanderthals), and homo sapiens sapiens (us), emerged around 250,000 years ago. The two subspecies coexisted on this planet until about 30,000 years ago, when Neanderthals disappeared as a distinct subspecies. The evidence for the above lineage is in the fossil record, and it is a fascinating subject about which you can learn more by studying the work of paleoanthropologists.

Answer 10

They don't seem to be asking questions given that they desire solutions, they are asking them to attain facets within the creationist vs. evolution debate. They feel that via asking questions that they believe will make evolution seem dull, they'll win converts and be demonstrated correct. You understand those, just like the "If a twister went by way of a junkyard, what's the likelihood that it might randomly construct a operating 747?" I believe it could look like a resounding argument, if that's the one perspective that you've got ever been given. But some thing, perhaps they quite are all in favour of realizing extra approximately the technology of evolution. And so I will cross forward and deliver the quality reply that I can.

Answer 11

Meat eating, no doubt.

The increase in meat-eating actually began with Neanderthal (they actually had bigger brains than us, ironically enough).

It must be noted that evolution doesn't happen as slowly as one eight think. It usually more like punctuated equilibrium than a slow evolution over millions of years... yes, to change the allele frequency of an entire species takes time but evolution happens in spurts, so the changes from one species to another over time makes a bit more sense when you think of it that way.

It is like when a good idea comes along and then EVERYONE gets on the bandwagon...(think Industrial revolution) that SHOULD have taken much more time than it did, but it offered MANY adaptive advantages (in a sense) so it went CRAZY FAST!

Evolution is more like this than just a gradual change over time.

But I still hold that the differences came from meat-eating. More meat meant bigger brains and bigger rains led to all sorts of advancements and well, we were OFF!