HOMINID-PONGID SPLIT

During the past 2 centuries, curious scientists have laid the foundation for answering the question of human origins using advances in technology. Fossil evidence and genetic studies have made this quest possible. Patient accumulation of evidence has led to gradual acceptance by the general public of the conclusion that our species has evolved, during 5 million years, from an ancestor in common with the four great apes in the remote past.

Aristotle, considered the founder of biology, was the first to effectively place animals in a specific order of taxonomy. By organizing species into common groups, he established a foundation for understanding the similarities among life forms on this planet. Even so, he taught the eternal fixity of all species.

Linnaeus, the father of modern taxonomy, took the science of classification to the next level. A species is seen as a group of individuals that share enough biological similarities that they can interbreed with one another successfully. The primate order, which was formed about 70 million years ago, is divided into two suborders: Prosimii and Anthropoidea. Being hominoids, humans and pongids (apes) are placed into the same taxonomie family due to their biological similarities.

Linnaeus's writings were available in the century before Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859). If it were not for Linnaeus's work in biological classification, it would not been possible to speculate on how some species die off and new species are formed. This was later explained by Darwin with his theory of evolution. Darwin realized that species are not in a static state, since everything is in a dynamic process that results in constant change. with the uses of relative dating techniques, Darwin came to the conclusion that fossils in rock strata demonstrate a continuous organic evolution that led to a species' survival or extinction.

Advances in radiometric techniques have allowed scientists to date fossil evidence more accurately. The modern technology of Chronometrie dating, through the use of radioactive decay, has greatly strengthened the hypothesis that our species has evolved from a common ancestor close to the four [Page 676]living great apes (orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos). Darwin argued that our evolution took place in Africa. Scientists realized that, to find the truth about our evolutionary past, they had to gather empirical evidence to solve the mysteries of our origin and history. For more than a century, they have searched for the so-called missing link between the great apes and humans.

The first major discovery that established our descent from a common ancestor with the apes was made in Africa, and known as the “Zinj” skull. This unearthing in 1959 by Mary D. Leakey shed light on the hypothesis that our species is more similar to the great apes than had been thought. Several decades ago, anthropologists thought that the split between fossil hominids and fossil apes had occurred during the Miocene epoch, about 12 million years ago. However, more recent hominid species found in southeast Africa are also pongid-like. This evidence from the Pliocene, about 5 to 7 million years ago, determines that our split from the pongids was more recent than had been thought.

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