Apes, Hominins, and the Scientific Evidence for Human Origins

Lecture Three in The Origin of Life and Nature Before Sin, with Kieran P. McNulty, PhD, Professor of Anthropology, University of Minnesota.

The subject of human origins has been a focus of curiosity and imagination since well before Darwin, and very likely since our ancestors first became sapient. This talk will review the current scientific evidence documenting the nature and timing of human origins: from the split with the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees to the earliest members of our species, Homo sapiens. The rich fossil record of anatomical innovation in the hominin lineage is supported by archaeological evidence of cultural advancement, neontological and prehistoric genetic analyses, and comparative ethological studies of non-human primates. Altogether, this evidence for the evolutionary accretion of “human” characteristics provides a strong basis for exploring – from a variety of scientific, philosophical, and theological perspectives – a more fundamental question: what does it mean to be human?