|
  Part 4 | Chapter 21 Tutorial Home Screen 1 of 3

To fully appreciate this tutorial, you should be familiar with the concepts of:
• Evolution
• Adaptive radiation
• Mammals, primates, anthropods, hominoids, and hominids

After this tutorial, you will be able to describe:
• The characteristics, apparent relationships, and placement on the human phylogenetic tree of various hominids:
Ardipithecus
Australopithecus
Homo
21 How have human ancestors and relatives changed over time?
Tutorial Menu
The Phylogenetic Tree
Interactive Diagram
Summary
 

Our understanding of human evolution is in a constant state of flux. Disagreement is common among workers in this area of research. The disagreement concerns not whether humans have evolved from earlier forms of life, but rather the exact pathway this evolution has taken. Because human fossils are rare over time and space, putting the picture together is like assembling a 1000-piece picture puzzle with about 900 pieces missing. We will examine one reasonable interpretation of the evolutionary pathway.

|