Mellars, Paul (June 20, 2006). "Why did modern human populations disperse from Africa ca. 60,000 years ago? A new model". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 103 (25): 9381–9386. Bibcode: 2006PNAS..103.9381M. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0510792103. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 1480416. PMID 16772383. Based on archaeological and paleontological evidence, it has been possible to infer, to some extent, the ancient dietary practices [50] of various Homo species and to study the role of diet in physical and behavioral evolution within Homo. [51] [52] [53] [54] [55] A new proposed species Australopithecus deyiremeda is claimed to have been discovered living at the same time period of Au. afarensis. There is debate if Au. deyiremeda is a new species or is Au. afarensis. [30] Australopithecus prometheus, otherwise known as Little Foot has recently been dated at 3.67million years old through a new dating technique, making the genus Australopithecus as old as afarensis. [31] Given the opposable big toe found on Little Foot, it seems that the specimen was a good climber. It is thought given the night predators of the region that he built a nesting platform at night in the trees in a similar fashion to chimpanzees and gorillas. Noonan, James P. (May 2010). "Neanderthal genomics and the evolution of modern humans". Genome Research. 20 (5): 547–553. doi: 10.1101/gr.076000.108. ISSN 1088-9051. PMC 2860157. PMID 20439435. a b Clark, G.; Henneberg, M. (June 2015). "The life history of Ardipithecus ramidus: a heterochronic model of sexual and social maturation". Anthropological Review. 78 (2): 109–132. doi: 10.1515/anre-2015-0009. S2CID 54900467.

Barnicot, Nigel A. (April–June 2005). "Human nutrition: Evolutionary perspectives". Integrative Physiological & Behavioral Science. 40 (2): 114–117. doi: 10.1007/BF02734246. ISSN 1932-4502. PMID 17393680. S2CID 39549910. There is no general agreement on the line of special descent of H. sapiens from H. erectus. Some of the species depicted in the image may not actually represent a direct evolutionary ancestor to H. sapiens, and may not directly derive from one another, namely:

On this page

Kordos, László; Begun, David R. (January 2001). "Primates from Rudabánya: allocation of specimens to individuals, sex and age categories". Journal of Human Evolution. 40 (1): 17–39. doi: 10.1006/jhev.2000.0437. ISSN 0047-2484. PMID 11139358. Willoughby, Pamela R. (2005). "Palaeoanthropology and the Evolutionary Place of Humans in Nature". International Journal of Comparative Psychology. 18 (1): 60–91. doi: 10.46867/IJCP.2005.18.01.02. ISSN 0889-3667. Archived from the original on January 17, 2012 . Retrieved April 27, 2015.

The human species eventually developed a much larger brain than that of other primates—typically 1,330cm 3 (81cuin) in modern humans, nearly three times the size of a chimpanzee or gorilla brain. [136] After a period of stasis with Australopithecus anamensis and Ardipithecus, species which had smaller brains as a result of their bipedal locomotion, [137] the pattern of encephalization started with Homo habilis, whose 600cm 3 (37cuin) brain was slightly larger than that of chimpanzees. This evolution continued in Homo erectus with 800–1,100cm 3 (49–67cuin), and reached a maximum in Neanderthals with 1,200–1,900cm 3 (73–116cuin), larger even than modern Homo sapiens. This brain increase manifested during postnatal brain growth, far exceeding that of other apes ( heterochrony). It also allowed for extended periods of social learning and language acquisition in juvenile humans, beginning as much as 2million years ago. Encephalization may be due to a dependency on calorie-dense, difficult-to-acquire food. [138] On the basis of the early date of Badoshan Iranian Aurignacian, Oppenheimer suggests that this second dispersal may have occurred with a pluvial period about 50,000 years before the present, with modern human big-game hunting cultures spreading up the Zagros Mountains, carrying modern human genomes from Oman, throughout the Persian Gulf, northward into Armenia and Anatolia, with a variant travelling south into Israel and to Cyrenicia. [195]Manzi, Giorgio; Mallegni, Francesco; Ascenzi, Antonio (August 14, 2001). "A cranium for the earliest Europeans: Phylogenetic position of the hominid from Ceprano, Italy". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 98 (17): 10011–10016. Bibcode: 2001PNAS...9810011M. doi: 10.1073/pnas.151259998. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 55569. PMID 11504953. Not to be confused with Pongidae, an obsolete family which grouped together orangutans, gorillas, and chimps to separate them from humans