Anthropology is the perfect alliance of cultural studies and biological science.
But it's hard to remember, when you're taking a class,
all those hominid species, from the first to the last.
Now I'm not trying to be too professorial; just putting this rhyme out there as a tutorial
for people interested in plugging pre-historical gaps:
This is the hominid rap.
The history starts with a single partial cranium that blew it all apart like a bomb of uranium.
Provisionally dated through faunal correlation, this tiny fellow caused a pretty big sensation.
7 million years ago he lived in northern Chad in the Djurab desert with his mom and dad.
It's hard to know from the little that was found
if he swung through the trees or he walked upon the ground.
As for teeth, he's clinging to a fossilized few,
with a canine small enough to make me think of you.
With his big brow ridges and a sagittal crest, Sahelanthropus tchadensis came before the
rest. Sahelanthropus tchadensis, Sahelanthropus
tchadensis.
Orrorin tugenensis needs a minute of explaining. After 6 million years there wasn't much
of him remaining - Just a lot of bits and pieces from below his
neck, and not a single cranium for us to check.
But that's okay and call me a dreamer, ‘cause the only thing important is the angle
of his femur. It seems proof positive for upright walking;
that's all we need to know about so I'll quit talking.
That's Orrorin tugenensis, Orrorin tugenensis.
We used to wonder how and why we gave up moving as quadrupeds, and so we had a theory worth
proving: That long ago in Africa the trees all died,
forests became savannahs and the rivers went dry.
Our ancestors were forced to come down from the trees
and stand up on their two legs just so they could see
across the taller grasses - and that's only part of this
theory, now dismissed, called the Savannah Hypothesis.
Tim White's team found more than 40 percent of a very ancient hominid, a major event!
Definitely dated to 4.4 million years ago she made it across the floor
and through the trees - would you believe it? – on just two legs,
with a toe set apart from her foot that begged us to reconsider if the theory was limp.
She was a bipedal primate with a foot like a chimp:
Ardipithecus ramidus, Ardipithecus ramidus.
It's time for me to tell you ‘bout a fossil named Lucy,
an ancient hominid and I don't use the term loosely.
Had an inward angled femur and a basin-shaped pelvis,
a wiggle in her walk a little bit like Elvis. A partially divergent toe might explain it.
Got the Laetoli footprints, hang ‘em up and frame it!
4 million years ago her species walked with ease
with arms and hands still built for climbing trees.
Under 4 feet tall, completely lacking in defenses, the mother of us all: Australopithecus afarensis.
Australopithecus afarensis, Australopithecus afarensis.
Now I've got another story ‘bout a child named Taung
who was dug up in a quarry in a South African town.
It was 1924 so Raymond Dart was told that scientists would not accept an African
so old. It would have proved 2 million years of human
evolution in Africa and caused a scientific revolution.
Yeah, no one would believe it was the real homeland,
‘cause they were way too attached to the Piltdown Man -
which was a hoax, with a couple of very big flaws!
Like differing amounts of fluorine and an orangutan jaw.
But at the time, I have to tell you with a little bit of sadness,
they called the child an ape: Australopithecus africanus.
Australopithecus africanus, Australopithecus africanus.
Now, Louis Leakey was a British African growing up in Kenya with people he considered
kin. Despite the fact that they were different
shades, he hung with the Kikuyu boys in his age grade.
He spoke the language and he knew the land so he figured it was sensible to try his hand
down at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. He dug in Africa when China was the panacea.
With Mary Leakey, and their grown son, Richard, they revealed an extensive prehistoric picture
of life in the area for several different hominids;
3 million years of doing what your mama did.
One day Mary was out there diggin' when she spotted a cranium and boy, was it
a big'un! She took off running toward Louis who was
back at the campsite with malaria or some other
attack. She ran in shaking with outstretched hands,
as she announced to her husband, We have found our man!
Together they returned to the fossil she had found
and carefully removed the giant head from the ground.
With a massive jaw, a tiny brain, and bovine teeth,
the Nutcracker Man finally brought within their reach
a fortune in investments and they didn't play coy, hey!
The named it for the money man: Zinjanthropus boisei.
Then it was called a robust Australopithecine –
just one of many in the early Pleistocene. Recently renamed in the Paranthropus genus,
changing it again would probably only demean us:
He's Paranthropus boisei, Paranthropus boisei.
As if that weren't enough to give the Leakeys credit for,
they found another guy who might have been a predator.
He had a bigger brain and bigger plans to match.
He made Oldowan tools so he could cut and scratch
through the meat to the bone and get himself a meal.
For a four-foot guy it was a pretty good deal! Yeah, his arms were long, but his face had
gotten flatter. With a scavenger's diet, there's no way
that he got fatter. But he used one tool to make a tool to make
a thing; that's human ingenuity to make your heart
sing. He's Homo habilis, the handy man – sorry!
Despite – surprise! – Australopithcus garhi --
who could have been the one to make the tools. But Louis Leakey called it and he wasn't
no fool. ‘Cause while there were many out there disagreeing,
he named it Homo habilis, which made it the first human being.
Homo habilis, yeah. Homo habilis, yeah.
So far, the story's been a very straight line;
that's just because I'm sticking to a plot confined
to the significant species of whom you should be aware,
and leaving out the ones that didn't go anywhere.
Human evolution's not a great big tree with roots than run from the past, straight
up to you and me. It's more like a bush, and there's a lot
to discuss ‘cause there's so many dead branches,
and only one that leads to us.
So it gets a little complicated when we start finding fossils that are positively
dated nearly 2 million years ago, so far away
from Africa where all the early hominids stayed. But Eugene Dubois found the Java man – where?
In Indonesia, so how did he get there? Then Davidson Black found the Peking Man
in 1927 at Zhoukoudian. Then Richard Leakey, in family tradition
found the Turkana boy in amazing condition: An 8 year old child, and we nearly have all
of this fellow who would have stood 6 feet tall,
had he grown to adulthood, in all his perfection, and not been killed by a dental infection.
So we got a coupla' names, ‘cause people can't agree
if they're all one species, or two, or even three.
If you can sort it out, then we'll call you the master:
Is it Homo erectus or Homo ergaster? Let's just say I'm a lumper, not a splitter,
so call them erectus and don't call me quitter. He invented a tool technique we call Acheulian,
making pointed blades real sharp. It was truly an
achievement because he could finally hunt and kill enough meat to quit being a runt.
He grew tall and he learned to used fire. He made tailored clothing suited to his desires,
and he went on a journey, yes a very long walk.
He built shelters and so he could probably talk.
He crossed rivers and oceans, through Europe and Asia
and made his way south past the tip of Malaysia to Java, the place where he made his last
stand and went extinct sometime after we entered
that land: He's Homo erectus, Homo erectus.
There's others that I haven't mentioned at all,
like heidelbergensis and Neandertal, but I'm ready to stop right here and call
it done. As far as I'm concerned, we've finally
hit the one who matters the most to the human story:
The traveler, the hunter, in all of his glory. ‘Cause millions of years led nature to select
us, the first truly human being: Homo erectus.
Homo erectus, Homo erectus.
So there you have it all in chronological order, laid out along anthropological
lines from the beginning to just before our kind hit the map.
This was the hominid rap.

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