Hello all Whyvillian's. I decided to continue my series "Stirring Up Science". A few weeks ago, while I was still in school, my class was studying early human development. I was gladly enjoying learning about different species of humans. All aging back to thousands, even millions of years ago. This really interested me, so I decided to write what I have learned in the Times. This is Nateenka, signing in.
Australopithecus is the earliest of humans. The timeline for Australopithecus is about 3.9 million to 3 million years ago. These early humans never really knew anything other than to eat, sleep, find shelter, hunt, and stay away from hurtful things such as large boulders or animals that are larger than they are. Australopithecus always tried to find shelter rather than try to make one.
They never wore any type of clothing. This was not needed because Australopithecus lived in warm climates. As well, these humans never wanted to risk their lives to wear something over their bodies. Clothing didn't actually come until thousands maybe millions of years later. The "cavemen" that we see on commercials or think of that wear clothing aren't that old. Wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. That will be discussed in other articles.
Food was a scarce thing for the Australopithecus. Food was way too hard to find. Mostly, they would consume dead insects, raw insects, and even ants. They would use a twig laying on the ground, take it, then stick it in an ant hole. Crazy, I know, but that's how it was long ago. If they could find anything, anything at all that was dead, or had been captured by other animals, they would eat it raw.
Australopithecus's skulls were much unlike ours. They were much larger and had a large jaw.
This is a picture of an Australopithecus's skull.
These people wouldn't use tools. They had no use for tools. At all. Australopithecus did not make fire. Or toast anything over the fire. Or did not kill animals larger than them. That's why they never used tools.
Shelters were not so easy to find. In fact, the Australopithecus humans tried to find anything from caves to bushes. All they needed shelters for were to keep warm and from harmful items. They tried to get a nice soft shelter, but sometimes those kinds weren't available. Australopithecus did not know how to improvise, so they just dealt with the hard.
This is a picture of an Australopithecus.
I hope you have learned the first step into humans. There will be a continuing article on the later steps and so on.
This is Nateenka, signing off.
Author's Note: Sources: www.google.com/Australopithecus, www.wikipedia.org/Australopithecus, My teacher's assignments, and LIFE Early Human's Book
