There have been several opinions on the origin of man. Some derived from religious beliefs, cultural beliefs and some from scientific findings. However we would like to elaborate on the scientific theory of evolution.
The theory of evolution was propounded by a man named Charles Darwin. In his book “The origin of Species”. In the theory he proposed that evolution occurred as a result of a phenomenon called natural selection.
Natural selection could be summed up to “survival of the fittest” because the strongest organisms _(those that most suit the environment) are the ones that reproduce and are mostly likely to pass on their traits to the next generation. It means that the environment changes the traits that enhance survival in that environment. Although there was a lot of disagreement about how these changes had taken place during Darwin’s era. Almost all the naturalist agreed that these had been alteration in biological species. This made Charles Darwin tried to differentiate his evolution theories from these by arguing that the changes in evolution were centered on naturally occurring processes, that is, processes that are still occurring around us now.
The oldest member of the genus Homo is an extinct species of human called Homo habilis (Latin for “able man” or “handy man”). In sub-Saharan Africa, Homo habilis lived between 2.4 and 1.5 million years ago (mya). The first fossils were found in northern Tanzania’s Olduvia Gorge in 1959 and 1960. Because the earliest previously identified human fossils were Asian species of Homo erectus, this discovery marked a significant turning point in the field of paleoanthropology. Homo Habilis has a number of traits that suggest it evolved in a stage between the more developed Homo species and considerably more rudimentary Australopithecus.
Homo erectus, (Latin: “upright man”) extinct species of the human genus (Homo), perhaps an ancestor of modern humans (Homo sapiens).
Although Eurasia cannot be completely ruled out, Africa is where H. erectus most likely originated.
It doesn’t matter where the species originated from; it appears to have spread very swiftly. Starting around 1.9 million years ago (mya), in the midst of the Pleistocene Epoch, the species moved through the tropics of Africa, Europe, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.
Many locations that have produced H. erectus fossil remains have directly, if imprecisely, recorded this history.
Although there are no signs of the people themselves in other locations, broken animal bones and stone tools have confirmed the presence of the species.
H. erectus was a medium-sized human who walked.
The First Human
Long before the modern humans known as Homo sapiens originated on the same continent, the first humans initially appeared in Africa about two million years ago.
Anthropologists still have a lot to learn about how various human populations interacted and interbred during this extensive prehistoric period. They’re beginning to fill in some of the gaps now that additional archaeological and genealogical research has been conducted.
Priorities first
Any member of the Homo (Latin for “man”) genus is referred to as a “human.”
Although they have found some of the first humans, scientists are still unsure of when or how the first ones evolved.
Homo habilis, sometimes known as the “handy man,” was one of the first known humans and lived in Eastern and Southern Africa between 2.4 million and 1.4 million years ago.
Others include Homo rudolfensis, who lived in Eastern Africa between 1.9 and 1.8 million years ago (its name comes from its discovery in East Rudolph, Kenya), and Homo erectus, the “upright man,” who lived between 1.89 million and 110,000 years ago and spread from Southern Africa to modern-day China and Indonesia.
