Human Ancestors' Growth Spurt: The Complex Story of Body Size Evolution
A new study has called into question a long-held assumption in anthropology: that human ancestors gradually increased in size over millions of years, and in a linear manner. Researchers from the University of Reading and the University of Oxford discovered that the largest and most rapid increase in body size occurred about 2 – 2.5 million years ago with the emergence of two species, Homo erectus and Homo ergaster. This change occurred at the same time as the emergence of many significant behavioral and ecological changes, prompting a complete reevaluation of our understanding of the human family tree, as well as our perceptions of the evolution of hominins and humans as much more complex than previously understood.
For many decades, paleoanthropologists believed that hominins (the evolutionary lineages leading to modern humans) consistently grew in height and weight over evolutionary time; in other words, that there was a general evolutionary trend toward increasingly larger hominin body sizes. However, the new study by the University of Reading and the University of Oxford paints a different picture, showing that early hominin relatives, such as Australopithecus, were actually about 40 kg (88 lbs) in weight, and had heights similar to modern children. This was done by using estimates of body mass from 386 fossil specimens from across 21 different species of hominins.
“The human story is not simply one of constant growth, but also of a major change that happened later, within our own genus,” explained Dr. Jacob Gardner, lead author at the University of Reading. “While other branches of the family, including some surprisingly small relatives, went their own way entirely.”
www.Ancient-Origins.net – Reconstructing the story of humanity’s past
Source: https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-evolution-human-origins/hominin-body-size-00102916
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