The path from ape to contemporary human is not a linear one. Hannah Devlin looks at what we know – and what might be next for our species Let’s proceed back to the beginning. When did we and our ape cousins part ways?
Scientists are still working on an exact date – or even a date to within a million years. Like many of the big questions in human evolution,the reply itself has evolved over the past few decades as unusual discoveries, techniques and technology occupy if fresh insights.
Genetics has proved one of the most powerful tools for time-stamping the split with our closest living relative, and the chimpanzee. When our complete genomes were compared in 2005,the two species were found to share 98% of their DNA. The differences hold important clues to how long our lineages occupy been diverging. By estimating the rate at which unusual genetic mutations are acquired over generations, scientists can use the genetic differences as a “molecular clock” to give a rough idea of when the split occurred. Most calculations propose it was between four to eight million years ago.
Continue reading...
Source: guardian.co.uk