if modern apes and modern humans share a common anchient ancestor what would you expect to find...?

Question

in hominid ancestors of modern humans regarding:
1) brow ridges
2) shape of face
3) size of canine teeth
4) chin
5) position of skull attachement

Answer 1

everything from 1 to 5 would be more-gorilla like. even the canines, because our ancestors were meat-eaters or omnivores.

Answer 2

I find your question odd: without prior knowledge, science does not have expectations. The point of science is that it describes what is observed, and then - after observing! - attempts to explain the observations.

Thus, without knowing about the lifestyle of the common ancestor of the great apes - i.e. Did it live in a forest or on the plains? Omnivore or vegitarian? Bipedal or not? - and without knowledge about how the other great apes' skulls are different from Homo sapiens' and whether those differences arose in the our lineage or the other great ape lineages, I don't see how one could predict what that common ancestor might have looked like.

I think the only scientific answer you could give to the question as it is posed is that the 'hominid ancestors of modern humans' would have looked similar to their own ancestors.

I suppose the question is actually from your teacher and that they are asking whether you paid attention in class when the common ancestor was described. And I can't really help with you with that.

And to JetAlone, gorillas are vegitarians, so guessing that our common ancestor was a carnivore that looked like a gorilla doesn't seem to work.

Answer 3

The "common ancestor " didnt necessarily look like an ape maybe it looked like us. We dont know. We have not found bones but they may have used cremation for thier burials. My personal belief is that we simply have not found the real thing yet and that eventually we will find one. The skeleton of a common ancestor may show many things we didnt think of. I guess I dont see why Christians dont beleive in evolution since if their God made everything then he made evolution work too. We know it exists we see it in our lives in the longer life spans, generally better health, taller children, teeth lasting lifetimes and thats not even talking about evolution with regards to animals.

We need to remember that the majority of humans are omnivores also.