Human Origins Studies: A Historical Perspective

Research into the deep history of the human species is a relatively young science which can be divided into two broad periods. The first spans the century between the publication of Darwin’s Origin and the end of World War II. This period is characterized by the recovery of the first non-modern human fossils and subsequent attempts at reconstructing family trees as visual representations of the transition from ape to human. The second period, from 1945 to the present, is marked by a dramatic upsurge in the quantity of research, with a concomitant increase in specialization. During this time, emphasis shifted from classification of fossil humans to paleoecology in which hominids were seen as parts of complex evolving ecosystems. This shift is in no small part due to the incorporation of neo-Darwinian synthetic theory. Finally, technological innovation and changes in social context are considered as influences on human origins studies.