I know long ago, humans were apes. But how did the apes become humans??

Question

They are two different animals. I don't understand this whole ape and human story.

Answer 1

Two different stories to this. Oscar explained the first; I'll explain the second: evolution.

Apes didn't evolve straight away to humans. They evolved into the Afarenis (the only similarity was that both they and humans stood on two legs).

The Afarenis evolved due to the ever-changing world into the Homo Habilis (meaning handy man).

They evolved into Homo Ergaster (meaning working man), who evolved into Homo Erectus (meaning upright man). They eventually evolved into Homo heidelbergensis (apart from imagination, they were like us).

They split into two species after a drought on one side of the world, and an Ice Age on another side. The heidelbergensis who were at the drought had to use imagination to survive, and they evolved into whats thought of as a modern-day-human.

(Sorry if that was long.)

Answer 2

Evolution. OK let's see if i can describe it in a simpler way to understand. Bacteria for instance has evolved over many years because we are now treating it with drugs so now it is eveolving into stronger more deadly viruses to survive. Human's have been through the ice age, stone age iron age etc. We have evolved and are now intelligent creatures based on the sheer will to survive. So as time has gone on at each era we have needed to react differently. We needed to have to intelligence to find food, rear our young, protect ourself from danger, recreate, hunt and become a family unit. Changes in the environment have meant that we have had to evolve into what we are today. The question is will we evolve into something different in the next 2000 years? The chances are yes, the changes in the world will inevitably lead to another evolution right??

Answer 3

Humans weren't apes long ago; both humans and modern apes evolved from a common ape-like ancestor. Humans have evolved, but ape species have evolved as well; it's not as if the hominid line broke off from apes millions of years ago and apes just remained the same. Modern ape lines and the human line both diverged from that of a common ape-like ancestor that lived in Africa millions of years ago and is now extinct. Other apes have not remained the same either. They have changed and speciated as well, and many species of ape and hominid (bipedal human ancestor species) have gone extinct.

Answer 4

To add to jasonahmed's answer.

Here's a list of some of our relatives:

Australopithecus ramidus - 5 to 4 million years ago
Australopithecus afarensis - 4 to 2.7 million years ago
Australopithecus africanus - 3.0 to 2.0 million years ago
Australopithecus robustus - 2.2 to 1.0 million years ago
Homo habilis - 2.2 to 1.6 million years ago
Homo erectus - 2 to 0.4 million years ago
Homo sapiens - 400,000 to 200,000 years ago
Homo sapiens neandertalensis - 200,000 to 30,000 years ago
Homo sapiens sapiens - 130,000 years ago to present

The common ancestor of Man and other apes was around about 6-10 million years ago. At that time, there was a division in the population, possibly geographic, and different survival pressures were applied to the different groups. Several of these groups evolved into different species over time, probably hundreds of thousands of years. Many of these different groups died off, as most species do. One of them evolved into Man, another into Chimps, and so on, to get other types of modern apes. You need to understand the enormous amount of time required to achieve these different species. But we are too similar, in appearance and genetically, to the chimpanzees not to be related to them.

To answer your second question : "How did the apes become human?" - they needed to become more intelligent. What pressure could be applied to a group that would result in intelligence being selectively advantaged? In a small group, say of fifty apes, there will be a range of intelligences, just as there are in a group of people. If two apes are attacked by a lion, the not-so-smart one will try to run, may get caught and killed. The smarter one might look around for a stick to protect himself, then try to run away. This increased intelligence, while slight, has given him an increased chance of survival, but, importantly, has diminished the chance of the less intelligent ape from passing on genes to offspring. In this way, the average intellect of the group will increase over time. Clearly the pressure to survive favoured the more intelligent members within the groups over many years.
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Answer 5

Humans and apes had a common ancestor several million years ago, then our paths diverged. Go to http://talkorigins.org/ Read a selection of recent books on human evolution in your library as well.

Answer 6

first off, humans were NOT apes. theoretically, humans and primates (monkeys, apes, chimpanzees, etc,) descended from a common ancestor. according to darwin, certain mutations in the offspring of this common ancestor led to early humans on one side of the dichotomy and primates on the other side. over time, the early humans (homo erectus, homo habilus, etc.) evolved in homo sapiens.

Answer 7

i believe the ape and human ancestor were lemurs

Answer 8

Humans and apes are a member of the primate family.
Look at all the different felines there are (lions, tigers, house cats, etc.) they are all from the same family, and no one questions that at all.
Why the big deal about us being a member of the primates? Chimps share 99% of our DNA for heavens sake.

Answer 9

I'd rather believe the Bible, the Qu'ran and other Holy books and common sense that prove this theory wrong than a mere human scientist who could've got it wrong. That's why I dont understand how genes changed and how humans evolved or whatever. And if it was true then how come we still have apes today? How come they didnt evolve like the rest did millions of years ago?!?!

Makes no sense to me.

Answer 10

Homo erectus started in San Francisco.....and stayed there.