Contemporary humans are the prime creations of numerous adaptations that took place over the course of millions of years. In the 19th century, archeologist and historians began to uncover the remains of ape like creatures which was found to be the beginning humans. These creatures lived tens of thousands of years before the first humans. Nevertheless, this finding triggered eminent controversy over religion and beliefs as the stories of Adam and Eve in the Hebrew Bible occurred only a few thousand years ago while the fossils were dated extremely further back. Naturalist like Charles Darwin and Raymond Dart was able to show that the time frame for all biological life was vastly longer than what people and religions believed to be. According to Darwin and Dart, the first human like creatures were the Hominids which were warm-blooded, 4 limbed primates that lived over 7 million years ago. However, what really established the basis of humans was the ability of bipedalism walking upright on 2 legs, having opposable thumbs to manipulate objects, and a voice box larynx that was much lower in the neck for communicating. Walking on two legs gave the perks of using less energy while being able to carry items typically food over large distances.
Humans evolved from the groups of “homo” meaning the same. About 2-3 million years ago Homo Habilis adapted from the original Australopithecines with a 50% larger brain. The Homo Habilis chipped flakes off the ends of volcanic rock to be used as tools. Thus, they were able to eat a greater variety of nutritious food increasing their mental capacity. About a million years ago the Homo Erectus adapted with a 1/3 larger brain than the Habilis. They were scavengers and used tools such as the hand ax; better equipped for survival. The last adaption occurred 400-130,000 years ago and these people were the skillful hunter Homo Sapiens who also had a 1/3 larger brain