How did the first human evolve?

Answer 1

SPECIES

TIME PERIOD

Ardipithecus ramidus 5 to 4 million years ago Australopithecus anamensis 4.2 to 3.9 million years ago Australopithecus afarensis 4 to 2.7 million years ago Australopithecus africanus 3 to 2 million years ago Australopithecus robustus 2.2 to 1.6 million years ago Homo habilis 2.2 to 1.6 million years ago Homo erectus 2.0 to 0.4 million years ago Homo sapiens archaic 400 to 200 thousand years ago Homo sapiens neandertalensis 200 to 30 thousand years ago Homo sapiens sapiens 200 thousand years ago to present

Answer 2

They didn't. Evolution is part scientific theory, part unconfirmed hypothesis. There is absolutely no evidence that points to evolution, and it never even moved from a hypothesis to a theory! People who believe in evolution have more faith than Creationists, or they're just uninformed.

Evolutionary answer:

There is far more evidence for evolution than anything else, and whilst our knowledge is still far from complete, it continues to grow and be refined as discoveries and techniques arrive. That's why it is still a Theory! If you don't understand that here you will never understand Science generally.

One of the main problems is that land animals tend to be poorly represented in the fossil records, making analysis and taxonomy very difficult.

Evolution works at a genetic level by tiny, chance, molecular changes that produce adaptions or mutations. The effective ones work, others fail.

By present knowledge the modern primates - including us - evolved in Africa from a common ancestor some 4M years ago, perhaps more; and dispersed from there. Our side of the family, the Hominids, passed through various developmental stages that have culminated so far in Homo Sapiensis & H. Neanderthalis. These two were so alike they were once considered simply two races but later study has given the Neanderthals their own species. Individual species seem to have paleontological time-limit of up to about 3M years - no-one can calculate what will replace us!

Why the Neanderthals became extinct is not known, but the similarities were such that palaeontologists now think from DNA tests that the two peoples not only lived side-by-side but loved side-by-side ("loved" assuming agreement rather than rape-&-pillage!), to such an extent that genetic traces of the Neanderthals remain in modern Sapiens.

Answer 3

The first humans are believed to have evolved from ape-like ancestors over millions of years through a process called evolution by natural selection. This gradual transition involved changes in anatomy, behavior, and genetics, ultimately leading to the emergence of modern humans. The exact details of this evolutionary process are still a topic of ongoing research and debate among scientists.