00:00:01
it's important to remember yet often
00:00:05
overlooked that primates have come an
00:00:08
incredibly long way over the course of
00:00:10
prehistory
00:00:12
it has taken many convoluted steps and
00:00:15
trials and errors of evolution to get to
00:00:18
where we are today
00:00:20
our story can in fact be traced back
00:00:22
billions of years to win the first
00:00:25
single-celled organisms drifted through
00:00:28
the earliest oceans when life first
00:00:30
evolved
00:00:32
but the story of the primates the group
00:00:35
of mammals that includes us begins much
00:00:38
later
00:00:40
this is that story a tour spanning 65
00:00:44
million years
00:00:47
through some of the most unlikely
00:00:49
circumstances our ancestors and
00:00:52
relatives have survived
00:00:54
while many species of primate have been
00:00:57
lost to the fossil record they represent
00:01:00
one of the most diverse groups of
00:01:02
mammals alive today
00:01:05
with our own species included there
00:01:08
exist over 300 distinct species of
00:01:11
primate in the forests grasslands
00:01:14
mountains swamps and even cities in the
00:01:17
modern day all of which are monuments to
00:01:20
the success of this order of mammals
00:01:23
epic story
00:01:25
join us as we explore the story of the
00:01:28
primates
00:01:29
from their humble beginnings as nearly
00:01:32
unrecognizable forest dwellers to the
00:01:34
spectacular hominids of the mammoth step
00:01:38
we will stop at several points
00:01:40
throughout the cenozoic era along the
00:01:42
way examining key species of primate
00:01:45
that sit on the family tree on the path
00:01:48
to us
00:01:50
sit back and relax as we explore the
00:01:53
lives and deaths of our earliest primate
00:01:56
ancestors
00:02:01
primates have not always been here
00:02:04
mammals the class of animal of which we
00:02:07
are a part of have in fact persisted in
00:02:10
their true forms for over 200 million
00:02:13
years
00:02:15
140 of which were Millennia void of any
00:02:19
true primates
00:02:21
the story of the mammals is one that
00:02:24
goes back millions of years prior to
00:02:26
this through the Deep time of the
00:02:28
Paleozoic
00:02:30
but we will begin this journey here in
00:02:33
the expansive Primal forests of the
00:02:36
Mesozoic Era
00:02:38
the mammals Rose into being from a group
00:02:41
of animals known as synapsans who in
00:02:44
turn were part of a larger group known
00:02:46
as their absence
00:02:48
the synapsids would eventually go on
00:02:51
throughout the Triassic the earliest
00:02:53
period of the Mesozoic to diversify into
00:02:57
a wide range of shapes and sizes
00:03:00
from dog-like carnivores to hippo like
00:03:03
herbivores wallowing in the waterways of
00:03:06
vast floodplains
00:03:08
many synapses having evolved from
00:03:11
reptiles still resembled their ancestors
00:03:14
but changes were appearing steadily
00:03:18
attachments in their jaw bones were
00:03:20
beginning to allow the evolution of
00:03:23
strong jaw muscles and in some instances
00:03:26
it is thought that certain Genera were
00:03:29
covered in fine fur-like layers
00:03:32
the first true mammal Morgan nougadon is
00:03:36
thought to have appeared on the fossil
00:03:38
record around
00:03:39
205 million years ago
00:03:42
it resembled a modern-day tree shrill
00:03:45
with a long snout and warm covering of
00:03:48
fur
00:03:49
it would have had no way of knowing but
00:03:52
Morgan was in these dense forests of the
00:03:55
early Jurassic
00:03:57
laying the foundation for all the
00:03:59
mammals you know today
00:04:01
from the smallest mice to the largest
00:04:04
whales
00:04:06
the descendants of Morgan nougadon would
00:04:08
go on to populate the woodlands and
00:04:10
jungles of the remainder of the Mesozoic
00:04:13
living in a proverbial and literal
00:04:16
Shadows of the most famous prehistoric
00:04:19
animals ever the dinosaurs
00:04:23
the mammals that followed Morgan nucadon
00:04:26
throughout the Mesozoic while diverse in
00:04:28
form would only grow to a maximum size
00:04:31
of just over a meter
00:04:34
the largest of these mammals dog-like
00:04:37
carnivores such as repenomemus may have
00:04:40
even fed on young dinosaurs given the
00:04:43
chance
00:04:44
amongst these forests evolved otter like
00:04:47
water dwellers tree climbers similar to
00:04:50
shrews and squirrels
00:04:52
rodent-like burrowers and small agile
00:04:55
carnivores
00:04:57
many of which may have resembled modern
00:05:00
day badgers or Wolverines
00:05:03
it is from some of these tree climbers
00:05:05
that the first transitional primate
00:05:08
ancestors were able to evolve
00:05:11
although the first true primates didn't
00:05:13
appear on the scene until after the
00:05:15
dinosaurs had gone extinct
00:05:20
the earliest known example of what could
00:05:23
be considered a true primate and
00:05:26
therefore the earliest direct ancestor
00:05:28
to human beings is a small peculiar
00:05:32
tree-dwelling mammal called purgatorius
00:05:35
named after the Purgatory Hills in
00:05:38
Montana where its fossils were
00:05:40
discovered in the 1960s
00:05:44
purgatorius would have in life resembled
00:05:47
a squirrel albeit one that was beginning
00:05:50
to evolve longer more slender legs to
00:05:53
assist it with life in the Treetops
00:05:56
the bones of purgatorius have shown
00:05:59
paleontologists the first similarities
00:06:01
in the fossil record with living
00:06:03
primates
00:06:04
details that can be observed in Bones
00:06:07
from the ankle and in the teeth
00:06:10
purgatorius was Ecclesia dapaform
00:06:13
and members of this early group of
00:06:15
primates are thought to have been
00:06:17
widespread throughout the subtropical
00:06:20
forests that existed across the globe in
00:06:23
the wake of the extinction of the
00:06:24
dinosaurs
00:06:26
pleaseia dapaforms were in some
00:06:29
instances superficially lemur-like and
00:06:32
may have been the first mammals to
00:06:34
replace their claws with fingernails
00:06:37
some are thought to have possibly been
00:06:40
able to glide on stretched out folds of
00:06:42
skin between their limbs and many of the
00:06:45
later Genera show a much more distinct
00:06:47
primate form then creatures such as
00:06:50
purgatorius
00:06:52
the closest living relatives to these
00:06:55
plesiadapaforms aside for modern
00:06:58
primates are the kalugos or flying
00:07:01
lemurs found in the rainforests of
00:07:04
Southeast Asia
00:07:06
amongst the Genera of primates to exist
00:07:09
throughout these early tropical forests
00:07:12
of the paleocene was plesiadabus which
00:07:16
existed in both North America and Europe
00:07:18
soon after purgatories evolved around 58
00:07:22
million years ago
00:07:25
it is one of the most well-known of
00:07:27
these early paleocene primates with
00:07:30
almost the complete skeleton known
00:07:33
it is thought that these early species
00:07:36
of primate first began to exhibit larger
00:07:39
brains relative to their body sizes than
00:07:42
other species of mammal that they shared
00:07:44
their warm forest homes with
00:07:48
elsewhere in the world mammals were
00:07:50
branching out into strange new forms
00:07:52
such as the pantodons a group of bogey
00:07:57
herbivores and the creodons a group of
00:08:00
dog-like carnivores
00:08:03
in this world our ancestors were still
00:08:06
small still to evolve were the
00:08:09
capabilities of outwitting a predator or
00:08:11
fighting back
00:08:13
and as a result many of our primate
00:08:15
predecessors would have fallen victim to
00:08:18
new threats such as mammalian carnivores
00:08:21
crocodilians and early birds of prey
00:08:25
the primates had a long way to go before
00:08:28
they were storming The Plains of the
00:08:30
pleistocene but they had to start
00:08:32
somewhere
00:08:34
oh
00:08:37
it was the eocene that mammals primates
00:08:40
included really began to diversify
00:08:44
just like the giant herbivores early
00:08:47
whales and Airborne bats that appeared
00:08:49
around the same time
00:08:51
our ancestors were beginning to take
00:08:53
leaps of their own into lands unknown
00:08:57
from a branch of the plesiadaba forms of
00:09:00
the paleocene evolved two new groups of
00:09:04
primates
00:09:05
the omo Mayans and the adabins
00:09:09
together these primate groups are known
00:09:11
as prosimians a group whose members live
00:09:15
on today in lemurs lorises and Tarsiers
00:09:20
it was around this time from roughly 54
00:09:23
million years ago to around 37 million
00:09:27
years ago that these primate groups
00:09:29
began to Branch out into new areas of
00:09:32
the world
00:09:33
previously unexplored reaches of North
00:09:36
America Europe and now Asia too in the
00:09:40
omo mayads case
00:09:42
these were the first primates to possess
00:09:45
grasping hands used perhaps for plucking
00:09:48
food sources from branches and bushes
00:09:53
throughout the course of the eocene both
00:09:56
groups would go on to create an
00:09:58
abundance of different descendant groups
00:10:00
some of which would succeed and go on to
00:10:03
become the lemurs we know today while
00:10:06
some would get as far as the myocene
00:10:08
epoch before ultimately going extinct
00:10:12
the first opposable digits are also
00:10:15
known from animals of this time
00:10:18
candius and adapted from North America
00:10:20
and Europe is thought to have been the
00:10:23
first animal to evolve with an opposable
00:10:26
digit
00:10:27
in this case a toe on its hind limbs
00:10:30
this is possibly indicative that cantius
00:10:33
may have been one of our own earliest
00:10:36
ancestors and not just to the Lemurs and
00:10:39
lorises of the modern day
00:10:42
this basic biological device would go on
00:10:45
to form the bases of our very own thumbs
00:10:48
which you use to be able to press play
00:10:51
on this video in some way shape or form
00:10:55
the omo miyads on the other hand only
00:10:58
managed to spread their lineages out
00:11:00
throughout the course of the earlier
00:11:02
cenozoic
00:11:04
changes in the climate Force the
00:11:06
descendants of these early primates into
00:11:09
direct competition with monkeys and
00:11:11
later rapes
00:11:12
the latter of which were ultimately
00:11:14
better adapted to the lifestyle that The
00:11:17
omamaya Descendants were initially
00:11:19
engineered to exploit
00:11:22
just about all of the descendants of
00:11:24
this once commonplace group had vanished
00:11:27
by the end of the oligocene epoch the
00:11:30
next chapter in our ancestors story
00:11:38
the oligosine period represented a huge
00:11:42
step forward in the diversification of
00:11:44
mammals in general not just the primates
00:11:48
but this is the time when some of our
00:11:50
earliest primate ancestors began to come
00:11:53
down from the trees adapting to a
00:11:55
lifestyle on the ground
00:11:57
around this time the first true monkeys
00:12:01
began to appear and one of the most
00:12:04
important locations for the
00:12:05
paleontologists who study them is Egypt
00:12:09
specifically the feyum region of the
00:12:12
country's Western desert
00:12:14
rocks belonging to the casserole Saga
00:12:17
and jabel katrani formations have
00:12:20
revealed the science the very first true
00:12:22
monkeys related to baboons langers and
00:12:26
manga Bays of the modern day
00:12:29
from the feiyum region alone in the
00:12:32
various rock formations existed the
00:12:35
likes of epidium
00:12:37
catopithicus parapeticus
00:12:40
oligopithecus and proteopithecus just to
00:12:43
name a few and many of these remains are
00:12:47
very well preserved indeed
00:12:50
the earliest known ancestor of all
00:12:53
modern day monkeys and apes known to
00:12:55
science is egyptopithecus an animal that
00:12:59
would have resembled A Primitive version
00:13:01
of the tree dwelling monkeys of Africa
00:13:03
and Asia
00:13:06
roughly 90 centimeters in length from
00:13:08
nose to tail this monkey lived from
00:13:11
around 38 million years ago to roughly
00:13:15
29 million years ago and was thought to
00:13:18
have moved on four legs through the
00:13:20
trees using grasping hands and feet to
00:13:23
gain a stronghold on branches
00:13:26
something that has been determined
00:13:28
through extensive studies on its hands
00:13:30
Limbs and muscles
00:13:33
it would have inhabited tropical forests
00:13:36
which were seasonally racked with
00:13:38
torrential rain where it fed on fruits
00:13:41
and nuts in the canopies of trees
00:13:45
characteristic of the early cenozoic
00:13:48
epochs was the Persistence of tropical
00:13:50
or subtropical forests across the globe
00:13:53
a far cry from how the world would have
00:13:56
looked in the pleistocene and the most
00:13:58
recent stages of the era
00:14:01
through studies on Egypt epithecus and
00:14:04
its contemporary relatives
00:14:06
scientists have been able to determine
00:14:08
that monkeys were becoming more and more
00:14:10
comfortable walking on four legs through
00:14:13
the trees rather than scurrying or
00:14:16
leaping through the branches like their
00:14:18
prosemian ancestors
00:14:21
with the Advent of adaptations in the
00:14:23
hands and arms of these new and
00:14:26
successful primates
00:14:27
monkeys were becoming more readily able
00:14:30
to fend for themselves against the
00:14:33
numerous threats that were evolving
00:14:35
alongside them
00:14:37
late surviving creodons and early
00:14:39
evolving carnivorous were popping up on
00:14:42
the fossil record at the same time
00:14:44
monkeys began to evolve the latter of
00:14:47
which would pose constant threats to our
00:14:50
ancestors up until recent years
00:14:54
it was in the oligosian in fact that
00:14:57
primates found their way back to the
00:14:59
Americas
00:15:00
having disappeared in North America due
00:15:03
to climatic changes around 26 million
00:15:06
years ago and having never evolved in
00:15:09
South America there was a vacant
00:15:11
ecological niche amongst arboreal
00:15:14
frugivores and insectivores that an
00:15:17
animal such as a monkey would be able to
00:15:19
exploit
00:15:21
the fact that monkeys were able to
00:15:23
survive in South America is one of
00:15:26
Evolution's greatest success stories
00:15:29
today monkeys are diverse and widespread
00:15:32
across the continent
00:15:34
but the story of how they got there is
00:15:37
perhaps even more astounding
00:15:40
30 million years ago just as the last
00:15:43
primate Genera from North America were
00:15:46
starting to die out
00:15:47
South America a continent completely
00:15:50
disconnected from Africa where monkeys
00:15:53
had already evolved saw for the first
00:15:56
time monkeys
00:15:59
did this happen
00:16:01
across the Atlantic Ocean on the west
00:16:03
coast of Africa some time before they
00:16:06
arrived in South America but a community
00:16:08
of monkeys had gathered by the coast
00:16:11
perhaps to search for food or new
00:16:13
territories with access to diverse
00:16:16
habitats foreign
00:16:20
they happened across a huge batch of
00:16:23
vegetation washed up by the beach
00:16:26
running over the monkeys were excited to
00:16:29
find an abundance of fruit hanging from
00:16:32
plants growing out of the mass of soil
00:16:34
and vegetation and tucked in
00:16:37
the mass was large enough to sustain the
00:16:40
whole troop for several weeks and the
00:16:43
monkeys were Keen to stay
00:16:46
one evening however a huge storm blew
00:16:49
across the western coast of Africa
00:16:51
dislodging much of the vegetation from
00:16:54
the beachfront into a floating mass of
00:16:57
plants and soil with the monkeys on
00:16:59
board
00:17:00
the monkeys startled quickly realized
00:17:04
they had been blown out to sea with
00:17:07
little hope of swimming back to land and
00:17:09
making it there in one piece
00:17:11
food was available on this newly
00:17:14
occupied raft however and the primates
00:17:17
spent several days aborted before
00:17:19
finally hitting land
00:17:22
this land however was unlike the like
00:17:25
the one they had
00:17:27
come strange new animals marsupials and
00:17:31
xanarthrens stalked the land and ambled
00:17:34
through the forests
00:17:35
the plant matter was different too but
00:17:39
these monkeys were adaptable
00:17:41
water was available as was shelter and
00:17:45
the monkeys could find safety from the
00:17:47
carnivores Below in the trees
00:17:49
this was South America
00:17:52
fast forward 30 million years and the
00:17:55
ancestors of this very Community can be
00:17:58
seen in the forms of spider monkeys
00:18:00
swinging through the trees on adapted
00:18:02
tails little tamarinds darting through
00:18:06
the forest canopy in search of fruits
00:18:08
and insects the monkeys would Thrive
00:18:12
here
00:18:13
as incredible as this story is through
00:18:16
nothing but chance and natural selection
00:18:18
it is entirely true
00:18:22
this is not the only group of animals
00:18:24
that would Branch off from the African
00:18:26
monkeys however it was around the late
00:18:29
oligozy when the group of primates
00:18:32
containing our very own species would
00:18:34
appear the Apes what are thought to be
00:18:38
the very first Apes appeared in what is
00:18:41
now Tanzania around 25 million years ago
00:18:45
they diverged from monkeys due to
00:18:48
changes in their environment adapting to
00:18:51
a life of Living both on the ground and
00:18:53
in the trees using their long arms to
00:18:56
pull them through the branches
00:18:59
their faces would begin to resemble
00:19:01
humans more closely than those of
00:19:04
previous primates on the fossil record
00:19:06
and they would lose their tails entirely
00:19:09
they were no longer needed for balance
00:19:11
for an animal that would eventually not
00:19:14
need to walk on four legs through the
00:19:16
trees anymore
00:19:18
these early Apes would go on to form the
00:19:21
bases of what was needed for all the
00:19:23
modern groups of Apes to evolve gorillas
00:19:27
chimpanzees bonobos orangutans Gibbons
00:19:31
and of course humans
00:19:37
it was around the myocene epoch from 23
00:19:41
million years ago to roughly 5 million
00:19:44
years ago that the world's environment
00:19:47
took a series of drastic changes
00:19:49
mountain ranges rose up across the world
00:19:52
and more importantly grasslands took a
00:19:56
hold of many of the world's continents
00:19:58
the savannas of Africa the pompous
00:20:01
grasslands of South America the Prairies
00:20:04
of North America and the plains of Asia
00:20:07
all cropped up around this time due to
00:20:10
the diversification and widespread
00:20:13
distribution of grass species
00:20:16
it was a direct result of these changes
00:20:19
that ground-dwelling primates came into
00:20:21
being
00:20:23
monkeys and apes that were much better
00:20:25
suited to feeding on these grasses or
00:20:27
catching small creatures that lived
00:20:29
within them
00:20:30
as the body plans of these primates
00:20:33
evolved so did their brains and by the
00:20:36
end of the miocene and subsequent
00:20:39
pliocene epochs the stage would be set
00:20:42
for the world's first upright walking
00:20:44
Apes to evolve
00:20:47
perhaps the most significant Discovery
00:20:49
to be made from the miocene in terms of
00:20:52
human evolution was that of a Genus a
00:20:55
vape named proconsole from regions that
00:20:58
would one day become Kenya and Uganda
00:21:02
it is thought that the last common
00:21:04
ancestor between human beings and all
00:21:07
Apes Gibbons included which are not
00:21:10
considered to be great apes may have
00:21:13
been pro-consul
00:21:15
visually broke console would have
00:21:18
resembled an uncanny mix between old
00:21:21
world monkeys such as baboons and
00:21:23
langers and the Apes such as chimpanzees
00:21:27
its back would have been more flexible
00:21:29
than those of Apes who preceded it in
00:21:32
order to more flexibly move around the
00:21:34
branches of its Forest home but it would
00:21:38
have still retained the quadrupedal
00:21:40
walking style of earlier primates
00:21:43
while their hands were better adapted
00:21:45
than their ancestors at grasping and
00:21:48
manipulating their environment they
00:21:50
could not yet swing through the trees
00:21:52
like modern Apes do
00:21:54
their arms were simply not powerful
00:21:56
enough at this stage
00:21:58
Pro console was not alone in the Trees
00:22:01
of the miocene however and its family
00:22:04
included a number of other Genera
00:22:06
including dendropithecus
00:22:09
afropithecus and limnopithecus
00:22:13
primates were expanding in Europe too
00:22:17
pliopithecus and its closest relatives
00:22:19
were known across the Plains and forests
00:22:22
of this Northern continent where Modern
00:22:25
wild primates are represented by just
00:22:28
one species the Barbary macaque
00:22:32
once thought to be an ancestral form of
00:22:35
the modern day Gibbons it has now been
00:22:38
determined that the plyopathicids are
00:22:40
actually unrelated to any other group of
00:22:43
living primate
00:22:45
in Asia primates were diversifying too
00:22:50
the sawalik hills for example which span
00:22:53
Pakistan and the northern reaches of
00:22:56
India were known to Harbor some of the
00:22:59
most interesting and important specimens
00:23:01
of prehistoric primate known yet among
00:23:04
which receive apithecus from the late
00:23:06
myosin
00:23:09
sivapithecus represents the first blade
00:23:12
of the pongans the subfamily which
00:23:14
contains the orangutans from the other
00:23:17
rapes of the old world
00:23:19
while today orangutans are endemic to
00:23:22
the Southeast Asian islands of Borneo
00:23:25
and Sumatra their ancestors were once
00:23:28
much more widespread
00:23:31
orangutan ancestors such as core
00:23:33
apithecus are known from Thailand
00:23:36
samburu pedicures from Kenya and even
00:23:39
Graco pitagus which was found in of all
00:23:43
places Greece
00:23:46
another one of the most famous fossil
00:23:49
primates from the myosin this time
00:23:51
discovered in a lignite mine in Italy in
00:23:54
the 1950s was oreopithecus
00:23:58
with short teeth and almost human-like
00:24:01
face and a possible tendency to walk
00:24:04
upright even if just temporarily this
00:24:08
was once thought to be a direct ancestor
00:24:10
to homo sapiens
00:24:12
it is thought to have been one of the
00:24:15
first brachiators that is one of the
00:24:18
first animals that was able to swing
00:24:20
through the branches of trees using just
00:24:23
its long powerful arms
00:24:26
more recent Studies have placed this ape
00:24:29
within the harmony Day family
00:24:32
but it is no longer thought to have been
00:24:34
one of our direct ancestors
00:24:36
having split off from earlier rapes
00:24:39
Millennia earlier
00:24:42
oreopithecus is thought to have
00:24:44
inhabited swampy islands around this
00:24:46
time where it was isolated from many
00:24:49
other species and where Evolution had
00:24:52
the ability to take its course away from
00:24:55
the pressures of the Mainland
00:24:58
eventually oreopithecus would come into
00:25:01
contact with one of the most fearsome
00:25:03
and impressive predators of the miocene
00:25:07
the large saber-toothed cat mercarodus
00:25:11
changes in its environment such as these
00:25:14
may have led to its eventual Extinction
00:25:17
no Apes like oreopithicus exist today
00:25:23
by the time the pliocene started the
00:25:26
world was looking very similar to the
00:25:28
way it does in the modern day
00:25:30
rainforests were commonplace around the
00:25:33
tropics around which were situated
00:25:36
grasslands and mountains deserts and
00:25:39
scrub land in just about the same
00:25:42
locations we see them in today
00:25:45
all of the world's major habitats had
00:25:48
been established and there was therefore
00:25:51
a much higher degree of familiarity in
00:25:54
the Fauna of many areas of the planet
00:25:58
strangely however primates from this
00:26:01
period of time are not well documented
00:26:04
many apes and their lineages cannot be
00:26:08
traced through to the pleistocene from
00:26:10
the roughly three million years that
00:26:12
spanned the pliocene and monkey remains
00:26:16
are scattered and fragmentary at best
00:26:19
the best known and most significant
00:26:22
fossils on the human line from the
00:26:24
pliocene is without a doubt artopithecus
00:26:28
cropping up on the fossil record around
00:26:31
the early pliocene from fossil sites
00:26:34
discovered in the afar region of
00:26:36
Ethiopia
00:26:37
artopithecus was one of the first
00:26:40
australopithecines one of our direct
00:26:42
ancestors
00:26:45
while it was no expert at The Habit
00:26:47
artopithecus could walk upright like you
00:26:50
and me even if just for a brief time
00:26:54
its brain was still proportionally much
00:26:57
smaller than later hominids who would
00:26:59
succeeded and it did not have the brain
00:27:02
power to produce and use stone tools
00:27:05
that being said it is not out of the
00:27:08
question that ardipithicus may have used
00:27:10
simple tools such as sticks and twigs to
00:27:14
Cokes insects out of their Mounds or
00:27:17
rocks to break into knots
00:27:20
artipithecus's arms would have been
00:27:22
substantially longer than our own and
00:27:25
the animal was still well adapted to a
00:27:27
life in the trees
00:27:29
a place where it would often have to
00:27:31
retreat to avoid the dangerous mammalian
00:27:34
predators that stalk the grasslands and
00:27:37
forests in which it lived
00:27:39
it was through these humble beginnings
00:27:42
that Humanity was able to arise in the
00:27:45
forthcoming pleistocene Epoch the world
00:27:48
would be introduced to almost every
00:27:50
other species of prehistoric man
00:27:52
from the australopithecines to us
00:27:59
now the pleistocene epoch has been
00:28:02
covered in great detail on this channel
00:28:04
before
00:28:05
but it is indeed the most important
00:28:07
stretch of time to human evolution in
00:28:10
this entire story
00:28:12
while the human story is known in
00:28:15
intricate detail throughout this time
00:28:17
you may be surprised to learn that our
00:28:19
knowledge of non-human primates from the
00:28:21
pleistocene is sparse and not well known
00:28:24
at all
00:28:26
the only primates from the pleistocene
00:28:28
that are not directly related to us come
00:28:31
from species later on in the epoch and
00:28:35
only from Africa and Asia
00:28:38
the likes of pericolobus dinopithecus
00:28:41
and rhinocolibus for example
00:28:45
perhaps the most famous non-human
00:28:47
primate of all from the bamboo forests
00:28:51
of Southeast Asia is gigantopithecus a
00:28:55
gigantic relative of the modern
00:28:57
orangutan and likely the largest primate
00:29:00
ever to live
00:29:02
this giant lived in family groups
00:29:05
alongside other species of primate
00:29:08
including other hominids where it ate
00:29:11
fruit in the dense woodlands and bamboo
00:29:14
thickets
00:29:15
it may even have gone extinct as a
00:29:18
result of over hunting by Homo erectus
00:29:20
one of our earlier ancestors
00:29:24
the pleistocene is best known as the
00:29:27
time period that would end in the rise
00:29:29
of man however
00:29:31
our earliest ancestors in these times
00:29:33
the australopitheses were well
00:29:37
represented by the bipedal grassland
00:29:39
dweller Australopithecus which came from
00:29:42
the rift valley in Africa
00:29:45
these Apes were not Stone tool users but
00:29:48
their hands were well suited to
00:29:50
manipulating their environment with
00:29:53
fully developed opposable thumbs and
00:29:55
long powerful arms
00:29:58
like artipithecus they could likely use
00:30:01
tools to coax insects out of Mounds
00:30:04
but they were also likely to be able to
00:30:07
throw objects to defend themselves
00:30:09
against large ferocious Predators such
00:30:12
as the big cat Dino fellas
00:30:15
stones and sticks flying through the air
00:30:18
would have likely been enough to put off
00:30:20
even the hungriest of carnivores who may
00:30:23
have considered attacking a group of
00:30:26
Australopithecus
00:30:28
things get a lot more confusing in the
00:30:31
middle pleistocene often dubbed the
00:30:34
model in the middle by anthropologists
00:30:36
and paleontologists studying fossils
00:30:39
from this time
00:30:39
[Music]
00:30:41
after the rise of Homo habilis a much
00:30:44
more modern human step forward in
00:30:47
relation to the more chimpanzee like
00:30:49
Australopithecus
00:30:51
animals in the homogeneous had almost
00:30:53
fully adapted to a life without the need
00:30:56
to rely on trees for protection
00:30:59
the arms of the likes of homo erectus
00:31:02
had shrunk in relation to the sizes of
00:31:05
their bodies to the point where they
00:31:07
were no longer needed to swing through
00:31:09
the trees or climb up for safety
00:31:12
this is an evolutionary trait that
00:31:15
coincided with the Advent of Technology
00:31:18
specifically stone tools
00:31:21
all members of the homogeneous are known
00:31:24
to have used stone tools in some way
00:31:26
shape or form to defend themselves
00:31:29
against predators cut up food start fire
00:31:33
or even make art
00:31:35
[Music]
00:31:36
later hominins from Homo erectus onwards
00:31:40
would go on to harness the use of fire
00:31:42
in their Lifestyles and hunting methods
00:31:46
with the use of controlled fire early
00:31:49
humans were able to reliably cook
00:31:51
different types of food bring down
00:31:54
larger game animals and hunts and defend
00:31:57
themselves against the elements during
00:31:59
winter
00:32:00
towards the end of the pleistocene homo
00:32:04
Neanderthal lenses and Homo denisova
00:32:07
respectively known as the Neanderthals
00:32:09
and Denise events would appear on the
00:32:12
mammoth step
00:32:14
the world's largest continuous
00:32:16
environment
00:32:17
characterized by Rolling planes and
00:32:20
extinct megafauna
00:32:22
these species would lead complex lives
00:32:25
and were capable of creating art
00:32:28
controlled fire and even speech
00:32:32
their barrel-shaped bodies and tough
00:32:34
exteriors would Aid them in the rough
00:32:37
dangerous and ultimately short lives
00:32:40
they LED something majorly important in
00:32:43
the brutal conditions of the mammoth
00:32:45
step
00:32:47
they would soon be joined by Homo
00:32:49
sapiens us
00:32:52
it took us Millions upon millions of
00:32:55
years to get here
00:32:56
but soon enough our very own species
00:32:59
would be running through the Tundras and
00:33:01
plains of the mammoth step after giant
00:33:04
deer extinct bison species and woolly
00:33:08
mammoths
00:33:09
we would migrate to the Americas where
00:33:12
the first people to set foot in the
00:33:14
north would encounter huge mastodons and
00:33:17
ground sloths
00:33:19
those in the South would meet armadillos
00:33:21
the size of cars and the famous
00:33:24
saber-toothed cat Smilodon
00:33:27
soon enough Homo sapiens out-competed
00:33:31
the Neanderthals interbreeding with them
00:33:33
to the point where we essentially
00:33:35
genetically consume their species
00:33:38
we would migrate to every continent on
00:33:41
Earth from the scorching Sands of North
00:33:43
Africa to The Frigid waste of Antarctica
00:33:47
our Technologies would snowball to the
00:33:50
point where we have full control over
00:33:52
our environment and the species that
00:33:54
live on it and this is where our story
00:33:57
ends
00:34:00
greater pressures need to be placed on
00:34:02
governments and corporations to save
00:34:05
species such as the Apes who are at risk
00:34:09
of disappearing
00:34:11
to lose species living today is to lose
00:34:14
a part of Who We Are
00:34:16
each and every species alive today has
00:34:20
followed lineages that began billions of
00:34:22
years ago at the same time as us
00:34:26
distantly we are all related and rely on
00:34:29
one another to make this planet what it
00:34:32
is
