Free The Next Species: The Future of Evolution in the Aftermath of Man by Michael Tennesen Page B

under a star-filled sky playing the Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” Lucy walked upright with a humanlike pelvis but had a small brain and primitive teeth. She had a powerful jaw, probably used more for stripping plant materialthan eating meat.
    Then meat eaters started to appear. Homo habilis , the scavenger, was the earliest of the genus Homo to which we belong. Homo habilis (2.33 million to 1.6 million years ago), the “handyman,” was so named from early tools found by the Leakey family at Olduvai. The males stood about 4 feet 3 inches (1.3 meters); the female stood about 3 feet 3 inches (1 meter). Homo habilis was short but had a significantly larger brain than Lucy’s family. Its carnivore diet provided the calories that enabled that growth.
    Homo erectus (1.8 million to 140,000 years ago) is thought to have evolved from Homo habilis in Africa. Its fossils follow H. habilis in the stratigraphy. The first findings were made at Trinil, Java, Indonesia. German evolutionist Ernst Haeckel had predicted that the origins of man would most likely be found in Southeast Asia. It was largely through the work of the Leakey family that scientists began to recognize Africa as the more likely birthplace of both H. habilis and H. erectus .
    Still, if Homo erectus did evolve from Homo habilis , he did so in one amazing growth spurt. If you look at the life-size replicas of Homo habilis at the Smithsonian’s Hall of Human Origins, habilis is a little guy with not much heft. Erectus appears as if he’s ready for some early hominid basketball. Standing at 6 feet 1 inch (1.8 meters), he’s looking down, I must confess, at me. Fossil remains of Homo erectus are found predominantly from 1.8 million to 140,000 years ago. He was the first of the hominids to migrate to the Far East and to Europe.
    Homo sapiens evolved in Africa about 200,000 years ago from Homo erectus via one or two intermediate species. Homo neanderthalensis evolved via its own intermediaries in Europe. About 120,000 years ago, early Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa to the southeastern Mediterranean coast, infringing for a while on Neanderthal territory before a cold phase ensued and Homo sapiens pulled back into Africa. The next time they appeared they were better equipped and morenumerous.

    Back at Olduvai, Tomos Proffitt, a graduate student at University College London’s Institute of Archaeology, sat on a bench outside the field house trying to simulate what it must have been like for early man to make stone tools. He held a single round rock, or “hammerstone,” in his right hand and a larger piece of rock cradled in his left hand resting on his knee. He took careful aim with his hammerstone before bringing it down at an angle on the larger rock with sufficient force to break off chips and extend the sharp edge around the larger stone. A pile of rounded rock chips surrounded his feet.
    Proffitt’s hammerstone was made of quartzite and the large stone, the eventual hand ax, was made of phonolite, a fine-grained lava rock. Homo erectus , the tall guy, used similar tools to butcher meat and possibly to sharpen wooden spears.
    Simple flakes, small pieces of sharp rocks used for cutting, are thought to be a part of the Homo habilis tool kit. Bifacial tools, like the hand axes Proffitt spent hours each day crafting, are part of the Homo erectus tool kit. It was in the 1970s that the first tools were recognized in Olduvai Gorge, dating back to 2.5 million years ago. Their creation shows that early man had the mental capacity, the dexterity, and the fine motor skills to craft tools as well as use them.
    Thetool technology of early man plays a determining role in why Neanderthals ended up on the losing end of their mortal competition with Homo sapiens . Neanderthals, our closest relatives, dominated Eurasia for the better part of 500,000 years, spreading over Europe, Britain, Greece, Russia, and Mongolia. Despite the broad reach, their population is