Why We Study Human Origins

by Randall Susman

Calliope: Exploring World History

Everyone always asks questions about our past. When did humanity start? Who are our direct ancestors? Why did they evolve, how did they live? Who were their prey, who were their predators? Our only source of this information is fossils. Fossils are ancient bones or evidence about past life (or death!). With fossils, we can compare our ancestors to ourselves, compare them to each other (counting how many there were in the last blog post!), or just find out about them, asking all the questions mentioned above. Yes, fossils provide what we need to know, they are our unique source of evidence to the lives of past humanity.

From all of these fossil finds, Susman explains that some believed "our ancestors were tree-dwelling apes, or four-legged knuckle-walkers, or even bipeds that lived in water."

Also, fossils prove wrong all the myths about how we started out and give people the real truth. Truth is important, and as wonderful as those stories are, they are just not true. (Though people can believe in them if they want to, no offence meant to religious humans!)

So, in the mis-1800s, Charles Darwin brought out the idea of evolution. He was not accepted at first, but after many years people began to believe that he just might be right... and another scientist, Thomas Henry Huxley, compared humans and apes, saying that we are more similar to them than monkeys are.

Many years later, in 1925, Raymond Dart discovered the first hominid fossil in South Africa. People now really began to believe in what so many scientists were trying to prove. It turned out that Huxley was right, too - the skeleton was both similar to us and to apes.

Since then, many hominid fossils and stone tools have been discovered, and there are yet more to come.

Susman, Randall. "Why We Study Human Origins." Calliope: Exploring World History Sept. 1999: 4-5. Print.