Question

significance of fossils in tracing the evolution of mankind.

Answer 1

Thousands of human fossils enable researchers and students to study the changes that occurred in brain and body size, locomotion, diet, and other aspects regarding the way of life of early human species over the past 6 million years. Millions of stone tools, figurines and paintings, footprints, and other traces of human behavior in the prehistoric record tell about where and how early humans lived and when certain technological innovations were invented. Study of human genetics show how closely related we are to other primates – in fact, how connected we are with all other organisms – and can indicate the prehistoric migrations of our species, Homo sapiens, all over the world. Advances in the dating of fossils and artifacts help determine the age of those remains, which contributes to the big picture of when different milestones in becoming human evolved. 

Answer 2

Fossil evidence helps scientists to reconstruct these trees, but so do morphological and genetic studies. Genetic analysis has yielded striking similarities between chimps and humans. As such, scientists know a last common ancestor of chimps and humans existed, even if we've yet to determine the exact species. Yet paleoanthropologists have found numerous hominid fossils to bridge the evolutionary progression from that unknown common ancestor to modern humans. These finds include such famous East African fossils as Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis), which strengthened the importance of bipedalism in human evolution and proved an essential milestone on our way to modern Homo sapiens.Fossil evidence for human evolution will never be complete, as fossils themselves are rare geologic occurrences. Nevertheless, by incorporating other scientific disciplines, we're able to build an increasingly accurate picture of just what our evolutionary family tree consisted of.Explore the links on the next page to learn even more about evolution.