Human development

The evolutionary process that led to the formation of Homo sapiens as a unique species of the hominid family, which includes the great apes, is known as human evolution. This process included the gradual emergence of features like bipedalism and language, as well as interbreeding with other hominins, indicating that human evolution was not linear but rather a web.

Physical anthropology, evolutionary anthropology, primatology, archaeology, palaeontology, neurobiology, ethology, linguistics, evolutionary psychology, embryology, and genetics are among the scientific fields that research human evolution. Primates separated from other mammals about 85 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous period, according to genetic studies, and the first fossils appeared in the Paleocene, around 55 million years ago.

Within the superfamily Hominoidea, the family Hominidae (great apes) split from the family Hylobatidae (gibbons) about 15–20 million years ago; the subfamily Homininae (African apes) split from Ponginae (orangutans[a]) about 14 million years ago; the tribe Hominini (including humans, Australopithecus, and chimps) split from the tribe Around 300,000 years ago, anatomically modern humans appeared in Africa.

Anatomical alterations

Human evolution has been marked by physical, developmental, physiological, behavioural, and environmental changes since its split from the last common ancestor of humans and chimps. Environmental (cultural) evolution, which was found much later in the Pleistocene, had an important influence in human evolution as evidenced by human transitions between subsistence systems. Bipedalism, larger brain size, extended ontogeny (gestation and infancy), and decreased sexual dimorphism are the most noteworthy of these adaptations. The relationship between these developments is still a point of contention. The evolution of a power and precision grip was another key morphological alteration.