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1.4.4 Timeline Of Human Evolution: Ardipithecus kadabba and Descendents
Here are some significant points in evolutionary history, focussing on events of musical significance (all dates approximate, of course).
- 3.8 to 3.9 billion years ago: The original replicator starts replicating.
- 500 million years ago: Life forms begin to sense sound.
- 5 to 7 million years ago: Hominid line splits from other primates. Last common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans probably lived about 7 million years ago.
Oldest known hominin could be Sahelanthropus tchandensis, about 6 million years old. Or it could be Ardipithecus kadabba, also about 6 million years old. Or some other two-legged critter with a fancy Latin name.
Hominins arose in Africa. A key characteristic of hominins is that all were bipedal—the first significant trait that separated early hominids from great ape species. This led to rearrangement of internal organs now characteristic of modern humans, the only hominid species that has not (yet) gone extinct.
Due to bipedalism, humans have a unique respiratory tract, compared with our non-bipedal close relatives such as chimpanzees and gorillas. Humans
Proto-music and language may have begun soon after the hominid branch split from the common ancestor of humans and today’s great apes. However, bipedalism did not lead directly to encephalization (brain expansion). Hominids were walking upright for several million years before encephalization began.
For the first 5 million years of hominin evolution, the dominant species were various runty little Australopithecines (“austral” means “southern,” as in southern Africa; nothing to do with Australia).