Human evolution

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Picture showing similarities of primates and man
Picture showing similarities of primates and man

Human evolution is the theory by which scientists think that humans became a species (a group of animals that are the same, but different from other groups of animals). A lot of people study it and this study affects and involves several fields, for example the study of genes. Physical anthropology means the study of human evolution. The theory says that some apes started walking on two legs and began to use their hands to carry things about 5 million years ago. Then they got separated from each other and became different. There were two or three different groups of walking apes, and one was the forefather of humans. They learned how to make simple tools.

The scientific name for "human" is Homo. The modern human is called Homo sapiens. Sapiens means "wise" or "knowing". Homo sapiens means "wise human".