• Question: If they say that Humans evolved from Caveman and Caveman evolved from Apes, then where did the Ape evolve from?

    Asked by jodlington to Kate, Kieren, Nicola, Rowena, Roy on 14 Mar 2014.
    • Photo: Rowena Fletcher-Wood

      Rowena Fletcher-Wood answered on 14 Mar 2014:


      Ah! This is actually a common misconception! Humans didn’t evolve from apes – apes and humans evolved from the same common ancestor. We can track evolutionary development using tools and skulls to guess how intelligent things were. It’s actually very hard to classify where one species begins and another ends as evolution is a gradual process. Another kind of early man was the neanderthal who also had a common ancestor with us but we outcompeted the heavier, slower neanderthal and they became extinct.

    • Photo: Kate Nicholson

      Kate Nicholson answered on 14 Mar 2014:


      Apes evolved from a common ancestor of humans – so we went one way the apes we have today a slightly different way. As Rowena says there were also other ancestors of ours that did not evolve the same way as us – neanderthals (other cavemen) became extinct where we survived to tell the tale. Finding the links back to the ancestors is a very tricky business – I’m amazed at how some scientists can look at bones and tell you just how that ancestor was like us and how it was different.

Comments