The experts had once thought that humans evolved in a single lane of australophits, then Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Human Neanderthral , and humans. Now they realize that a lot of branches.
- Humans and apes have much in common, such as arms and long fingers and a big brain - most experts think they must have evolved from the same creature.
- Common ancestor was probably a creature like an orangutan with four legs - called dryophitecines, who live in trees 22-10 million years ago, such as 'Proconsul' of East Africa.
- The split occurred when 'hominid' (ape-like humans) started living on the land and walk on two legs.
- Footprints of the three being bipedal (two legs) derived from 4 million years ago was found covered with ash in Laetoli, Tanzania.
- The oldest hominid known as Ardipithecus ramidus, is known from the fragments derived from 4.4 million years ago in Aramis, Ethiopia.
- Most of the early hominids were australopiths ('southern ape'), like Australipiths anamensis from 4.4 million years ago.
- Australopith only 1 meter high and their brains have the same size with the apes, but they were bipedal.
- The most famous Australopith named 'Lucy', Australopithecus afarensis skeleton from 3 million years ago, discovered in Kenya in 1974.
- Lucy's discoverer, Don Johanson and Maurice Tieb, named Lucy because at the time they found him listening to the Beatles song 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds'.
- Most of the remains of early hominid bones and skulls only. Lucy is a nearly perfect skeleton. He suggests that the hominids learned to walk upright before their brains grow.
