I am trying to think of examples of species analogous to humans in the evolutionary record. Perhaps the closest match were the trilobites. They were the first animals to develop armor and slicing jaws, meaning they had an asymmetrical advantage over all the other soft bodies animal phyla (many of which they seem to have driven to extinction before we could figure out what they were). Other late comers like the arthropods eventually imitated their innovations and outlasted them. I wonder if humanity is just the first of many iterations of highly social/intelligent vertebrates. Another point to consider is the emergence of shelled creatures like trilobites seems to have been linked to changes in planetary geochemistry. Hominids emerged during a period of unprecedented low and fluctuating carbon dioxide levels (which may have helped tip the balance against megafauna as plantlife struggled to grow).
Actually, trilobites might be the polar *opposite* of our species. One can find different trilobites in the paleological record literally a billion years apart and they look exactly the same.
By contrast humans have changed drastically in what by evolutionary time standards is an eyeblink--only a few million years. This is certainly true morphologically, and it's probably true behaviorally, although of course that's harder to tell from fossils. Plus we appear to be a combination of many different characteristics from multiple different species of bipedal apes, the majority of which have probably not been discovered (and may never be). I think it's understood that we evolved during an especially turbulent period of planetary change, and that shaped us evolutionarily.
The radical changes that our species went through in a relatively short time frame truly are unique. The closest species analogy to us, I think, are ants. But ants came to their eusociality via a very different route and over a much longer time frame. And they don't have tools or cultural transmission the way we do.
How does the theory of hunting large animals to extinction fit with the still existing large animals in Africa? Shouldn‘t African Elefants, Giraffes, Rhinos and other large animals be extinct now?
I believe the theory is that we coevolved with these animals to some extent, since the ancestors of both modern humans and modern elephants and giraffes (and other large animals) existed alongside one another in Africa for millions of years. Homo erectus is the first human ancestor to leave Africa.
As a child, I was always more interested in the Mesozoic age than the Cenozoic age, but I also vividly remember the pictures of the many large mammals roaming the Earth. I have also seen quite a few fossils of these extinct mammals in Museums of Paleontology.
I am just thinking how universal the discoveries from the Levant are due to the number of large animals still alive in Africa. If you follow their theory, there shouldn´t be any land animals larger than gazelles. That may be the case for large parts of the world, but Africa seems to be some kind of exception, even though our species originated on this continent.
I am trying to think of examples of species analogous to humans in the evolutionary record. Perhaps the closest match were the trilobites. They were the first animals to develop armor and slicing jaws, meaning they had an asymmetrical advantage over all the other soft bodies animal phyla (many of which they seem to have driven to extinction before we could figure out what they were). Other late comers like the arthropods eventually imitated their innovations and outlasted them. I wonder if humanity is just the first of many iterations of highly social/intelligent vertebrates. Another point to consider is the emergence of shelled creatures like trilobites seems to have been linked to changes in planetary geochemistry. Hominids emerged during a period of unprecedented low and fluctuating carbon dioxide levels (which may have helped tip the balance against megafauna as plantlife struggled to grow).
Actually, trilobites might be the polar *opposite* of our species. One can find different trilobites in the paleological record literally a billion years apart and they look exactly the same.
By contrast humans have changed drastically in what by evolutionary time standards is an eyeblink--only a few million years. This is certainly true morphologically, and it's probably true behaviorally, although of course that's harder to tell from fossils. Plus we appear to be a combination of many different characteristics from multiple different species of bipedal apes, the majority of which have probably not been discovered (and may never be). I think it's understood that we evolved during an especially turbulent period of planetary change, and that shaped us evolutionarily.
The radical changes that our species went through in a relatively short time frame truly are unique. The closest species analogy to us, I think, are ants. But ants came to their eusociality via a very different route and over a much longer time frame. And they don't have tools or cultural transmission the way we do.
How does the theory of hunting large animals to extinction fit with the still existing large animals in Africa? Shouldn‘t African Elefants, Giraffes, Rhinos and other large animals be extinct now?
I believe the theory is that we coevolved with these animals to some extent, since the ancestors of both modern humans and modern elephants and giraffes (and other large animals) existed alongside one another in Africa for millions of years. Homo erectus is the first human ancestor to leave Africa.
We don't realize how common these large animals used to be all over the world. I meant to include this image which shows just how many types of elephatoids there used to be long ago: https://external-preview.redd.it/4Py-owNyjW4wSK1oDWqjv4s40AESRarUCpkjnysUXDg.png?auto=webp&s=7545da723c9e6d00bf15bdf9bc4a4d180a3e12c8
As a child, I was always more interested in the Mesozoic age than the Cenozoic age, but I also vividly remember the pictures of the many large mammals roaming the Earth. I have also seen quite a few fossils of these extinct mammals in Museums of Paleontology.
I am just thinking how universal the discoveries from the Levant are due to the number of large animals still alive in Africa. If you follow their theory, there shouldn´t be any land animals larger than gazelles. That may be the case for large parts of the world, but Africa seems to be some kind of exception, even though our species originated on this continent.
I also found the first refutation of the "Levantine overkill" hypothesis: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277379122000993