Human evolution (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, June 17, 2011, 02:32 (4909 days ago)

Homo habilis used tools but recent evidence suggests that they were not very 'homo':-Who Was Homo habilis—And Was It Really Homo?
Ann Gibbons 
In the past decade, Homo habilis's status as the first member of our genus has been undermined. Newer analytical methods suggested that H. habilis matured and moved less like a human and more like an australopithecine, such as the famous partial skeleton of Lucy. Now, a report in press in the Journal of Human Evolution finds that H. habilis's dietary range was also more like Lucy's than that of H. erectus, which many consider the first fully human species to walk the earth. That suggests the handyman had yet to make the key adaptations associated with our genus, such as the ability to exploit a variety of foods in many environments, the authors say.-Full story at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/332/6036/1370?sa_campaign=Email/sntw/17-June...