Video Discription |
Hi, welcome to Enchiridion. I am honored to provide these facts on Australopithecus as part of the series Prehistoric Beasts!
Australopithecus, meaning “southern ape”, was an early hominin that existed in Africa during the Late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene. The genera Homo, which includes modern humans, Paranthropus, and Kenyanthropus evolved from Australopithecus. In other words, Australopithecus were primates closely related to, if not actually ancestors of, modern human beings. For this reason, it is a crucial evolutionary link between nonhuman ape-like creatures and early human species. It is perhaps one of the richest paleoanthropological finds with fossils like “Lucy” yielding significant insights into our evolutionary past.
Species are numerous, and include Australopithecus garhi, Australopithecus africanus, Australopithecus sediba, Australopithecus afarensis, Australopithecus anamensis, Australopithecus bahrelghazali, and Australopithecus deyiremeda.
Australopithecus is known from a series of fossils found at numerous sites in eastern, north-central, and southern Africa, also known as the cradle of humankind. For the longest time, scientists believed our early ancestors arose from Europe or Asia, yet in 1924, a fossil discovery in South Africa revolutionized the perception of early human evolution, known as the Taung Child, which we will get to later in the video.
The earliest known member of the genus, Australopithecus anamensis, existed in eastern Africa around 4.2 million years ago, possessing a smaller cranial capacity than other australopithecines. Australopithecus fossils become more widely dispersed throughout eastern and southern Africa, with the Chadian Australopithecus bahrelghazali indicating the genus was much more widespread than the fossil record suggests, before eventually becoming extinct 1.9 million years ago, or 1.2 million to 600,000 years ago if Paranthropus is included, during the Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs. The validity of Paranthropus is contested, with paleoanthropologists currently debating about synonymy with Australopithecus. While none of the groups normally directly assigned to this group survived, including the subspecies, Australopithecus gave rise to living descendants: humans, or Homo, which emerged from an Australopithecus species some time between 3 and 2 million years ago. One of the greatest mysteries in paleoanthropology might be the exact species from which early Homo arose, whose discovery could notably change our view of early human evolution.
Audio Design:
"Giant Of The Skies", “Time Of The Titans” — Walking With Dinosaurs Soundtrack by Benjamin Bartlett
“Clementine Suite” — The Walking Dead Original Game Score by Jared Emerson-Johnson
“The Sky Of Our Ancestors”, “Bittersweet”, “Impact Lento”, “Majestic Hills” by Kevin Macleod
#Enchiridion #PrehistoricBeasts #Australopithecus #Paleoanthropology #Hominin #Human #Homo #Hominid #OlduvaiGorge #Evolution #Science
Table of Contents:
0:00 - Introductory Story
1:27 - Introduction
5:47 - Taxonomy; Research History
9:57 - Evolution
13:16 - Anatomy & Biology
17:37 - Diet
21:14 - Technology
22:17 - Naming
22:33 - Named By
22:45 - Taxonomy; Scientific Classification
27:21 - Species
27:52 - Diet
28:05 - Size
28:18 - Brain Size
28:34 - Weight
28:51 - Known Locations
29:19 - Time Period
29:30 - Fossil Representation; Notable Specimens
31:06 - KT-12/H1, Australopithecus bahrelghazali
32:13 - Karabo, Australopithecus sediba
34:04 - Laetoli footprints, possibly by Australopithecus afarensis
35:33 - AL129-1, Australopithecus afarensis
37:25 - Lucy, Australopithecus afarensis
38:34 - Selam, Australopithecus afarensis or Australopithecus africanus
39:29 - STS 5 (Mrs. Ples), Australopithecus africanus
40:35 - STS 14, Australopithecus africanus
41:30 - STS 71, Australopithecus africanus
42:11 - Taung Child, Australopithecus africanus
42:51 - Popular Culture
43:47 - Conclusion
45:58 - Outro
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Transcript:
https://www.deviantart.com/madwizard38/journal/Australopithecus-A-Crucial-Evolutionary-Link-921119503
Sources:
McHenry, Henry M., and Katherine Coffing. “Australopithecus to Homo: Transformations in Body and Mind.” Annual Review of Anthropology, vol. 29, Annual Reviews, 2000, pp. 125–46, http://www.jstor.org/stable/223418.
Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. (n.d.). Australopithecus. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved December 18, 2021, from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Australopithecus
Haile-Selassie, Y., Melillo, S. M., Vazzana, A., Benazzi, S., & Ryan, T. M. (2019, August 28). A 3.8-million-year-old hominin cranium from Woranso-Mille, Ethiopia. Nature News. Retrieved December 18, 2021, from https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1513-8
Kimbel William H. and Villmoare Brian, William H. Kimbel William H. Kimbel Institute of Human Origins, Kimbel, W. H., William H. Kimbel Institute of Human Origins, Villmoare, B., Brian Villmoare http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1012-9388 Department of Anthropology |