Synonyms
Definition
The evolution of Homo sapiens, its ancestors, and closely related species from the last common ancestor with chimpanzees onward (~7 million years ago to present).
Introduction
Early evolutionary biologists answered the question of human origins by searching for the precise location of “man’s place in nature,” in T.H. Huxley’s phrasing, based on comparative anatomy between living species. Research has moved from viewing humanity at the top of the scala naturae to seeing it as “just” a big-brained, bipedal primate, and the focus shifted to explaining how we arrived at “our” place. The post-nineteenth-century focus has been on understanding the evolutionary circumstances that produced Homo sapiens, based on the idea that human-specific traits are the product of the same evolutionary processes that led to all other species. This effort is notably multidisciplinary: human origins fall within the remit of anthropology,...
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van Holstein, L., Foley, R.A. (2017). Hominin Evolution. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3416-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3416-1
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