The Life of the Hominins

The life of Australopithecines & H. Habilis Life

• Tool use - early stone tools.

• Meat consumption - mostly scavenged, not hunt

• Body hair loss (mostly naked skin) - developed in the early evolution of Homo

• Speech - largely unknown for speech capacity

Which Homo did not use stone tools?

H. Habilis

What hominins have some brain specialization?

Australopithecines & H. Habilis

Homo Erectus Life

• Tool use - developed much more sophisticated stone tools (probably other tools too)

• Meat consumption - growing evidence of hunting and meat processing. Evidence for substantial reliance on meat.

• Speech - brain specialization and asymmetry

• Use (control?) fire

• Left Africa

• Evidence for cooking food

• In fact, humans may have evolved a unique response to burn injury