• Hominids can walk totally upright in two legs, without the need of a tail for balance.
• Their backbone is set vertically, with their head directly on top of it.
• Due to being upright their hands are free to manipulate elements and use tools.
• Chimps were already able to do this, but hominids, with each new species, improved this skill more and more.
• The oldest hominid fossil found near to its own tools was Australopithecus garhi, who was able to create basic tools like rock knives.
• Hominids in general have enormous brains relatively to body size.
• Also, hominids gradually developed the ability to speak.
• Chimps already had a complex system of gestures and signals; hominids improved this by adding the vocal dexterity to form words.
• The oldest hominids that show evidence of a language were Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis.
• Their skulls suggest that they started to develop the Broca's area, the part of the brain that enables speech.
• Compared to the other primates, hominids have flatter faces and smaller canines.
• From all humans on Earth, the ones who seem to be genetically the most ancient are the Khoi-San tribe from central Africa. Moreover, their faces show features from all the varieties of people worldwide.

Australopithecus afarensis; photo by Kevinzim cc-by
Homo habilis; photo by Luciana.luciana cc-by	Homo neanderthalis; photo by Grapitix cc-by	Homo Sapiens, Khoi-San tribe; photo by CharlesFred cc-by-nc-sa

Sources:

-The Variety of Life, Colin Tudge, 2000

Citation: García, A.I. 2015. The Tree Of Nature (Online) at http://thetreeofnature.com

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