ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we shall discuss the chain of descent that connects us with the common ancestor of modern humans and the African apes. Genetic evidence, which will be discussed in later chapters, has us most closely related to the chimpanzees with a common ancestor 5-7 million years ago. Unfortunately, there are no fossils of apes in that time period to tell us what our common ancestor actually looked like. Yet from that time period forward, there are fossils of hominins, which walked upright on two legs. Before we examine the hominin species individually in the following chapters, we first want to look at them collectively in this chapter.
7.2 SPECIES NAMES
