Life in the Neogene Period (midlate Cenozoic, 232.6 million yrs ago) was starting to look more like life today. Whales were becoming fully aquatic, ungulates were growing larger molar teeth to eat the expanding grasses, herbs evolved and expanded along with grasses leading to radiations of rodents, songbirds, & snakes, and homo sapiens (humans) evolved.
Early apes evolved from monkeys in Africa around 20 million years ago. Soon after, Africa collided with Eurasia allowing the spread of these apes throughout both continents. Hominins (the taxinomic family that includes humans) evolved around 67 million years ago, and a subfamily of Hominins called Australopithecines evolved soon after. The genus, Australopithecus, evolved around 4 million years ago, exhibited increased bipedalism, and eventually evolved into early Homo (the human genus). Homo habilus evolved ~2.4 million years ago with bigger brains that they used to fashion stone tools that they used to sever meat from bones. This transition to bigger brains was due to increased pelvis size due to increased bipedalism which was forced due to the shrinkage of forests and lack of trees available to climb. Bigger brains came at the price of helpless babies (due to delayed brain growth until after birth), but the pros of intelligence quickly outweighed those cons. After Homo habilus came Homo erectus which evolved ~2 million years ago and survived until less than 100,000 years ago. Another notable (potential human ancestor) was Homo heidelbergensis, which may have been the species that branched off into the two lineages that led to Homo neanderthalensis (neanderthals) and Homo sapiens (humans). Neanderthals evolved ~530,000 years ago and humans around 300,000 years ago. Humans and Neanderthals interbred before Neanderthals finally went extinct ~30,000 years ago leaving humans to take over Earth.
References: Earth System History: https://amzn.to/3v1Iy0G
2021 Human Evolution paper w/diversification graphs & cultural evolution figure: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aba3776
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Nontextbook books I recommend:
Oxygen by D. Canfield: https://amzn.to/3gffbCL
Brief history of Earth by A. Knoll: https://amzn.to/3w3hC1I
Life on young planet by A. Knoll: https://amzn.to/2RBMpny
Some assembly required by N. Shubin: https://amzn.to/3w1Ezm2
Your inner fish by N. Shubin: https://amzn.to/3cpw3Wb
Oxygen by N. Lane: https://amzn.to/3z4FgwZ
Alien Oceans by K. Hand: https://amzn.to/3clMx1l
Life's Engines: https://amzn.to/3w1Nhke
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0:00 Life Events in the Neogene
1:11 Marine Life
2:54 Cooling & Drying changed environments
4:01 Animal success cascaded up food web
4:36 Large mammals during Neogene
5:52 Unusual mass extinction ~67 Ma
6:55 When Apes evolved
8:00 When Hominins evolved
8:40 Australopithecus led Homo
10:33 Homo Habilis (Handy Man) made tools
11:17 Baby brains of Australopithecus vs Homo
13:35 Aridity forced Australopithecus to leave trees
14:34 Larger pelvises allowed larger brains
14:56 Homo erectus & Flores people
16:30 Homo heidelbergensis
17:04 Neanderthal brains & culture
18:44 Homo sapiens tools & jewelry
19:36 When Neanderthals & Humans Interbred
19:56 Human cultural evolution
21:36 related videos & references
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