∞ generated and posted on 2020.12.19 ∞
The study of ancient life as inferred from the remains of that life, with emphasis here on those animals leading up to human evolution.
| The goal of the videos presented here is to gain an appreciation of the evolution of the human lineage especially as gathered from fossil evidence. This story begins with the mammal-like reptiles and continues to the common human-chimpanzee ancestor and beyond. Note that 'Hominin', taxonomically making up the tribe Hominini, here is defined mostly as the lineage of upright walking apes in which our own lineage is found – or at least consisting of that lineage that directly gave rise to the evolution of obligate upright walking among apes – but which does not include the chimpanzees. |
The above video isn't the greatest quick overview of the evolutionary history of humans, but truly it is better than nothing.
The story of mammals before dinosaurs. This all was happening during the Permian period (roughly 300 to 250 million years ago), i.e., before the dinosaurs 'ruled the Earth'.
The above video dose a nice job of discussing the early evolutionary diversification of mammals. Remember, Triassic (roughly 250 to 200 mya) then Jurassic (roughly 200 to 145 mya) then Cretaceous (about 145 to 66 mya) . These are all geological periods. The K-T boundary stands for Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary and dates to 66 mya ("mya" stands for millions of years ago). Note that when the video talks about mammals not being especially large until after 65 million years ago, then are talking about true mammals rather than the mammal-like reptiles that came before true mammals.
The above video considers the great Cretaceous extinction, a.k.a., the K-T extinction or K-T boundary, and its consequences.
The above video is an overview of the evolutionary historyof humans.
The above video presents arguments against the idea of evolution as being a linear progression and does so from a perspective of human evolution, including mention of 'Piltdown man'. Introduced as an alternative is a concept of human macroevolution metaphorically described as a consisting of a 'Braided stream'.
The above video goes into human evolution with a fair bit of emphasis on how we infer what (or who) is related to what (or who), and how, including taxonomically. Note that they get a bit inconsistent (4:34 through 4:51) in terms of what genera should be found in tribe Hominini.
The above video goes into human evolution from, a perspective of fossil evidence. The video provides especially a timeline based on the ages of these fossils as well as what the individuals may have looked, acted like (e.g., tree climbing, bipedality, tool use, cooking of food), and where the fossils were found on a map. Altogether, a fairly innovative way to present this history.
The above video focuses especially on fossils of Australopithecus such as 'Lucy' and Ardipithecus such as 'Ardi'.
The above video describes how evolutionary relationships can be traced based on a combination of mitochondrial and Y chromosome DNA sequence.
The above video provides thoughts on what exactly was the earliest fossil hominin, i.e., upright walking ape. Note a number of mentions of the locations of the foramen magnum.
The above video discusses genus Australopithecus, which to some degree were our ancestor hominins. Some emphasis is made on why bipedalism evolved among the hominins. Note mention in the video also of the location of the foramen magnum.
Lots to (try to) know about genus Paranthropus, which most certainly were not our ancestors though nonetheless were pretty closely related hominins.
The discovery of Homo naledi, described in first person, up to the point of the initial viewing. Very exciting.
The discovery of Homo naledi, describing the excitement of initial characterization.
This above video is a first-person characterization of Homo naledi fossils by the team leader. Pretty exciting stuff.
Some thoughts on Homo naledi, a remarkably tiny and primitive but relatively recent hominin.
The above video is a discussion of Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) and our cultural misconceptions about them.
The above video is a discussion of the Denisovans, a non-Neanderthal, non Homo sapiens, relatively recent human relative, i.e., as an additional, only relatively recently extinct, distinct species member of genus Homo. Really fascinating stuff.
This is a good place to call this module quits. It does cover human evolution, but goes a bit further than that, with some emphasis on the concept of collective learning.