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Overview

People have been fascinated with apes for a long time. King Kong, Tarzan, Planet of the Apes and the orangutans at zoos are just some examples.

It makes sense that we’re closely related to other primates, because they’re our closest evolutionary cousins. In fact, it may be more surprising that we aren’t closer to them than previously thought.

Humans are complex. They’re fascinating creatures that have been around for thousands of years, and they’re still evolving today. Technology has made it possible to better understand humans, but the brutal truth about them is also important to know.

Chimpanzees are considered human by some taxonomists. There’s also a theory about how language emerged, and it suggests that humans may have been better off as hunter-gatherers.

Big Idea #1: Science shows that humans are more genetically similar to other primates than previously thought.

It’s not hard to see similarities between humans and other primates. However, exactly how genetically similar are we? Scientists can now analyze the human genome and find out just how alike we are to our wild cousins. The results are pretty striking: 96.4 percent of our genes match orangutans’, 97.7 percent match gorillas’ and 98.6 percent match chimpanzees’. That means that only 1 percent of DNA separates us from chimpanzees, which is a small amount considering that it also contains the genetic tools for unique human attributes such as language, art, and technology.

It’s actually pretty close, so much so that some scientists consider us to be a part of the same family.

In most encyclopedias, humans are classified as primates. However, some taxonomists believe that genetic distance is the main factor in classifying animals. Humans and chimpanzees have a common ancestor but are placed in different families: Hominidae for humans and Pongidae for chimpanzees. There’s even more separation between us and them when you consider genus (plural genera). Chimpanzees belong to one genus while humans belong to three: Homo troglodytes, Homo paniscus, and Homo sapiens.

Species in the same genus are closely related, so much so that sometimes they might be distinguishable only to experts. Take willow warblers and chiffchaffs as an example. They share 97.7% of the same DNA and look virtually identical, but they’re less closely related than humans are to chimps.

Humans and chimpanzees are very similar, but we’re also different in many ways. For example, humans have art, technology, and language.

Big Idea #2: Humans were always evolving, but it was the ability to speak that really changed things.

According to many anthropologists, there was an important leap in human development about 40,000 years ago. However, we should really start looking at the first stage of human evolution.

Around 3 million years ago, there were two distinct species of early humans that are quite different from apes. They were Australopithecus robustus and Australopithecus africanus. The latter evolved into Homo habilis and then into Homo erectus. These had larger brains and bodies as well as territories that expanded to Asia and Europe from Africa.

Humans evolved into a new species called Homo sapiens. This occurred around 500,000 years ago, and it was the development of language that really allowed our species to thrive.

In order to speak, you need the correct vocal apparatus. Humans use this to produce a variety of sounds that can be manipulated into language.

Humans can speak because we have the right anatomy. It’s believed that humans didn’t have this structure until 460,000 years ago. Even then, it wasn’t useful for speaking until we developed language and could use our vocal range to communicate effectively.