Human Evolution
The family Hominidae of order Primates includes chimpanzees and humans. Evidence from the fossil record and from a comparison of human and chimpanzee DNA suggests that humans and chimpanzees diverged from a common hominoid ancestor approximately 6 million years ago. Several species evolved from the evolutionary branch that includes humans, although our species is the only surviving member. The term hominin (or hominid) is used to refer to those species that evolved after this split of the primate line, thereby designating species that are more closely related to humans than to chimpanzees. Hominins, who were bipedal in comparison to the other hominoids who were primarily quadrupedal, includes those groups that probably gave rise to our species: Australopithecus africanus, Homo habilis, and Homo erectus, along with non- ancestral groups such as Australopithecus boisei. Determining the true lines of descent in hominins is difficult. In years past, when relatively few hominin fossils had been recovered, some scientists believed that considering them in order, from oldest to youngest, would demonstrate the course of evolution from early hominins to modern humans. In the past several years, however, many new fossils have been found. It is possible that there were often more than one species alive at any one time and that many of the fossils found (and species named) represent hominin species that died out and are not ancestral to modern humans. However, it is also possible that too many new species have been named.
