The Evolution of Human Traits: An In-depth Anthropological Study

This essay provides an overview of human evolution from an anthropological perspective, highlighting the development of key human traits such as bipedalism, complex brain structure, and the capacity for language and tool use. It discusses how these traits evolved over millions of years from ape-like ancestors, influenced by genetic mutations and environmental adaptations. The essay emphasizes the role of natural selection in favoring traits that enhanced survival and reproduction, such as bipedal locomotion for better visibility and efficient energy expenditure. The study concludes that genetic variations in early human populations facilitated adaptation and shaped human evolution. Desklib offers a variety of study tools and solved assignments to help students further explore this topic.

Running head: ANTHROPOLOGY
Anthropology
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

1ANTHROPOLOGY
Introduction- Evolution of human is a lengthy process and this process later led to the
evolution of modern day humans from the ape like ancestors. The scientific evidences have
shown that the behavioural and the physical traits that are shared by the people now, all evolved
from the ape like ancestors from over a period of six million years (Dettwyler 2017).
One of the earliest traits that are defined the human traits is the bipedalism. The ability of
the humans to walk on the two legs started 4 million years ago. Another important characteristic
of the humans is the large and complex brain, the capacity to learn language and the skills to
make and use the tools. However, the earlier ancestors also possessed the characteristics of the
symbolic expression through the art. The earlier ancestors also elaborated on the cultural
diversity that emerged nearly 100 thousand years ago (Foley 2017). Earlier, it was seen that the
bipedal locomotion is an adaptation of the grassland and the mixed woodland ecosystem. Studies
have shown that the bipedalism was selected in comparison to the other forms of locomotion
because the it was easier to see the long distances when travelling through the areas that were
covered with long grasses. This was even helpful even during the times of watching the big cats
and it was also found to be useful for scavenging for food. While an upright posture also helped
in dissipating more body heat and it further helped in absorbing extra amount of heat from the
sun. Also, longer strides helped in translocation to longer distances and it also helped in spending
less amount of energy. Bipedalism obviously proved to be tough to climb trees, however it was
beneficial and provided advantages over the natural selection (Langergraber et al. 2012).
Evolution occurs when there are changes in the genetic material, DNA. This genetic
material is inherited from the parents. Genes are actually the DNA segments that can provide
chemical code and it helps in the production of proteins. However, it is also important to mention
that certain in the native DNA can lead to mutation. Thus, the way the genes are expressed

2ANTHROPOLOGY
influences the organism’s behaviour. Genes affect an organism’s behaviour and the way it will
develop during the entire time period of life. The likelihood of survival of an organism is
dependent on the organism’s reproduction and survival. While, it is important to mention that the
evolution of an organism does not depend on a single individual, but the evolution changes the
entire population of the species (Jobling, Hurles and Tyler-Smith 2013).
Conclusion- The changes that were experienced by the parents is effectively transferred
to the individuals. The genetic information passed to the offspring help the offspring to survive
and sustain. Throughout the life, an individual experiences genetic changes and it leads to
changes in the genetic material. Similarly, human evolution took place due to the genetic
variations in the populations of the early ancestors and this favoured the humans to adapt to the
changes and it altered the life of the humans.

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Reference
Dettwyler, K.A., 2017. A time to wean: the hominid blueprint for the natural age of weaning in
modern human populations. In Breastfeeding (pp. 39-74). Routledge.
Foley, R.A., 2017. Evolutionary ecology of fossil hominids. In Evolutionary ecology and human
behavior (pp. 131-164). Routledge.
Jobling, M., Hurles, M. and Tyler-Smith, C., 2013. Human evolutionary genetics: origins,
peoples & disease. Garland Science.
Langergraber, K.E., Prüfer, K., Rowney, C., Boesch, C., Crockford, C., Fawcett, K., Inoue, E.,
Inoue-Muruyama, M., Mitani, J.C., Muller, M.N. and Robbins, M.M., 2012. Generation times in
wild chimpanzees and gorillas suggest earlier divergence times in great ape and human
evolution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(39), pp.15716-15721.