What does the fossil record tell us about hominids?

Answer 1

The fossil record tells us:

- That there lived different types of lifeforms in the past than today.

- That life changes over time.

- That life shows diverging progressions of morphological traits over deep time.

- That past life adhered to the same nested hierarchies we also find in extant life.

The above are a number of findings based on the fossil record as a whole. There are many more findings that zoologists are able to determine based on the morphological features of specific lifeforms.

Answer 2

The fossil record reveals many many things about the Earth's organisms. Some of the more popular theories upheld by the fossil record include evolution, natural selection, and continental drift. The fossil record supports the theories of evolution and natural selection by showing vast amounts of similarities between living species today and extinct species of the past, i.e. analogous and homologous structures. Analogous structures are defined as similar appearing traits in unrelated organisms. Some examples of these are wings in birds versus wings in bats. Bat wings and bird wings have entirely different structures, yet serve the same purpose. This upholds the theory of natural selection by showing that organisms survive by developing favorable traits through mutation that allow them to survive and reproduce at higher rates than their relatives without that trait. This would lead to assets such as wings to allow for evasion of predators or the capturing of prey. Homologous structures are defined as similar structures in different organisms that suggest a common ancestor of the organisms being compared. An example of this would be similar hand structures in whales, humans, bats, and monkeys. This would uphold the theory of evolution by suggesting that multiple organisms of different appearances are still similarly structured, therefore related. Other things such as the appendix in humans, leg bones in whales, and fused finger bones in horses show that organisms today have certain parts that seem to be useless that scientists believe to be remnants of now extinct species that had these characteristic that may have been necessary to their survival. These all point towards the theory of natural selection because these traits are not a hinderance nor a help, so they remain prominent in structure because there is no benefit for today's organisms having or not having them. This allowed these structures to still be present without a function although they developed in the way discussed above, through mutation. The fossil record supports the theory of continental drift due to the vast number of identical fossils of numerous species being found on multiple continents. This suggests that several billion years ago when the continents were all part of Pangea, species were free to roam wherever and would die wherever. Eventually, their remains became fossils. Then, when the continents split apart, their fossils were separated among the continents. This is the only realistic explanation for the same fossils being found so far apart separated by such a major barrier as an ocean.

Answer 3

If you were to ask any anthropologist that , there answer would likely be: "Not nearly as much as we'd like". New hominid discoveries are constantly being made, but we still have many, many missing pages in the book. We know we got progressively taller over the millenia, our brain case got consistently larger (Cro-Magnon man's brain case was, on average, a tiny bit larger than ours), we began to walk upright, probably a little sooner than we should have (part of the reason back problems are so common), that we became omnivores early on, and a handful of other things. But there are still more questions than answers.

Answer 4

I found a really good but simple definition on this blog -> http://historyoftheearth-fossils.blogspot.com/search/label/page%205