Question

Human vs. Hominin

There is no concrete evidence as to which early hominin was our direct ancestor as fossils do not contain genetics. On a whole, the Australopithecines are the "missing link" bridging our ape to human transition. Each species and there are a few, contains a combination of traits considered more ape-like or more human-like.

In own words, pls share/discuss your views/ideas/feelings about early human evolution and what the "missing link" should or should not be.

Answer 1

Humans are mammals who diverged from apes which actually may have started about 12 million years ago.

We share nearly 99 percent of our genetic sequence with chimpanzees and bonobos, which strongly suggests we share a common ancestor. And there are thousands of fossils documenting progressively more human-like species in the evolution of our lineage after it split from the other great apes and later from chimps and bonobos.

Biologists have actually observed evolution happening in other species, both in the field and in the lab—the recent emergence of antibiotic-resistant microbes is a form of evolution. And animal breeders make evolution happen all the time—think of the tremendous variety of dog breeds that have been created from wolves.

The term Missing Link refers to the absence of fossils support Darwin's claim, and the lack of such examples. Keep in mind that many still rejected Fuhlrotts claim that Neanderthal examples were indeed examples of more ancient forms of man.

Since that time of course, we have found countless examples of many stages of human evolution.

The earliest undisputed members of our lineage to regularly walk upright were the australopithecines, of which the most famous is Lucy’s species, Australopithecus afarensis. (Lucy is said to dated about 3.2 million years ago.) The oldest known fossil attributed to our genus, Homo, dates to about 2.8 million years ago and was reported in the year 2015. The ability to make stone tools was once thought to be the hallmark of our genus. But the oldest stone tools are now thought to be 3.3 million years old. Either they were made by australopithecines like Lucy—or scientists simply haven’t yet found the early form of Homo that made them. Like australopithecines, early Homo species, such as H. erectus and H. habilis,walked on two legs.

Evidence from both genetic and fossil shows that human evolution actually happened in Africa. Till date we are still not sure or clear whether Homo first emerged in Sourthern or in Eastern Africa.
If we go according to genetic and fossil evidence one can say that modern human migrated out of Africa and then colonize rest of the world. Genetic evidences also suggests that first of all they interbred to some extent with Neanderthals as well with a population in Asia known as Denisovans. Homo sapiens is now the only species of human on Earth. But that’s been true for less than 30,000

Chimpanzees (or other apes) didn’t evolve into humans. Both lineages descended from a common ancestor and went their separate ways. The real question here is, who was that last common ancestor, the missing progenitor of both chimps and humans? We don’t know yet.

Humans are still evolving today but our culture and technology are playing a vital role on the way we are evolving. Other species are also continuing to evolve but with response to environment which we, humans, have changed.