People have always found it difficult to accept the idea that they are simply another monkey species with African roots and that their physical differences from some of the others are relatively slight. All across the human body, there are commonalities. Both humans and African apes lack external tails, have similar internal organ arrangements, all of the same bones (albeit somewhat different in size and form), and numerous crucial blood type systems. The thumbs of human hands and those of African apes are sufficiently apart from the other fingers to allow for opposable grips.
Identification of an individual is a key component of forensic anthropology. As a result, it may be regarded as a medico-legal specialization of both forensic science as well as physical anthropology. While physical anthropology focuses on the study of human species in terms of primate evolution, human genetics, and biological differences, forensic anthropology focuses on the analysis of human osteology in order to achieve a conclusive identification. The data that will be used in this research paper will be obtained from the secondary sources on the works that have been documented by various experts in the field of forensic anthropology. This research follows the mechanism of forensic anthropology where the all the physical characteristics of humans will be compared to other apes like Gorilla.
Aims of the Forensic Anthropology in the Research
There exist five major objectives of the research paper on the differences that exist between the great apes and humans. These objectives include determination in the ancestry of these creatures, age, sex and living heights. Whenever there is evidence of traumatic injury to a human bone, the research is aimed at determining the type of injury and what caused it in comparison to the other apes. Additionally, it will make a decision about the postmortem period, assisting in the search for and recovery of remains to ensure the recovery of all evidence necessary for a forensic inquiry, and offer details that can be used to positively identify deceased people.
To assign names and identities to unidentified human remains from homicide, a large-scale tragedy, or other discovered human remains, forensic anthropology is required. Both the identification of bones and the retrieval of bodies are helped by forensic anthropologists. In addition to identifying the bones, forensics experts also examine bone damage to learn more about the manner and cause of death.
Literature Review
Scientists may never come to an agreement on what actually happened since it was an event that took place on the time scale of evolution, which may take hundreds of thousands or millions of years to develop. For many years, it was believed that only people could create and utilize tools and be able to reason with numbers as well as other representations (Chang 1999). But when researchers discovered more about what other primates are capable of, that notion was abandoned (Remis 1998). With the correct trainer, a chimpanzee can add numbers, use a computer, and light a cigarette.
There is currently disagreement over why and how much human behavior varies from that of big apes. Although it may be easy to ignore, investigations like the one conducted in Leipzig by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology have identified what may be a distinctive aspect of the human brain system (Besenbacher et al., 2019). Children start to have a keen knowledge of what is going on inside their parents’ thoughts from before their first birthday—a milestone some psychologists refer to as “the nine-month revolution.” They demonstrate this new skill by gazing in the direction of their parents or doing what they direct. This mind-melding, according to some psychologists and anthropologists, could have been a crucial occasion that occurred hundreds of thousands of years ago and influenced subsequent human evolution (Remis 1998). Small groups of hunter-gatherers’ capacity for cooperative behavior ultimately triggered a series of cognitive changes that resulted in the evolution of language and the dispersal of several human civilizations around the world.
Methodology
The research is based on secondary sources and the researcher depended solely on these research materials, carried out a systematic investigation on the existing data throughout the research process. The data used were collected from the materials that extracted from the peer reviewed academic libraries. The initial phase in any methodical inquiry is often secondary research. This is because it enables the researcher to comprehend prior study endeavors and employ this information to devise a fresh course for their inquiry.
Findings
In 2005, work on understanding the common chimpanzee’s full genome was finished. This and the human genome, which was finished in 2001, may be compared to see that 96% of the DNA base pair sequences of humans and Gorilla are identical. Duplicated non-gene segments account for the majority of the 4% variance (Böhme et al., 2019). When comparing just gene segments, there is a 98% commonality. The genes that vary mostly regulate hearing, smelling, protein digestion, speaking, and illness susceptibility (Besenbacher et al., 2019). Given that humans have been on fundamentally different evolutionary paths for 6-7 million years, these differences are to be expected (Patterson 1986). Humanity have experienced some somewhat distinct natural selection forces during that period. The ancestors’ bigger brains and bipedalism as a result of these characteristics ultimately led to natural selection pressures.
The volume of the contemporary human brain is three times greater compared to that of giant apes. Most significantly, their brain is substantially larger relative to the body, and it has a larger cerebral cortex with a greater density of neurons. A bigger brain requires a significant energy investment to evolve (Patterson 1986). About 25% of the energy from the foods that humanoids eat and 20% of the oxygen people breathe are used by their brain (Böhme et al., 2019). Recent studies have hypothesized that our superior intellect may be the result of evolutionary changes in the HAR1F regulator gene, which first appeared in our pre-human ancestors around 6 million years ago but did not appear in chimpanzees or other apes.
There is one more interesting distinction that should be made between humans and all other primates. Human females who are older go through menopause and become infertile, sometimes decades before they pass away from old age (Chang 1999). Even when they are quite old, female chimpanzees, gorillas, and other non-human primates are often still able to conceive and give birth. If they experience menopause at all, they only survive for a little period of time in the wild. The fact that years of life beyond menopause have been shown to have natural selection value for our species is one reason for this variation in humans (Besenbacher et al., 2019). Post-menopausal women throughout the world frequently look after their grandkids while their daughters are at work since they have reared their own children.
Conclusion
From the research done, there is significant differences that can be identified in humans from other apes making them a special kind of creature. However, apes like chimpanzees, monkeys and Gorillas displays some similarity features as well as attributes to the beings. They are able to communicate and understand each other like humans. The role of forensic anthropology in determination of the fossil age is still under deep research and the major problems of this technique are under consideration and researched in order to allow for proper integration of the results from different methods like when performing the age evaluation.
References
Besenbacher, S., Hvilsom, C., Marques-Bonet, T., Mailund, T., & Schierup, M. H. (2019). Direct estimation of mutations in great apes reconciles phylogenetic dating. Nature ecology & evolution, 3(2), 286-292. Web.
Böhme, M., Spassov, N., Fuss, J., Tröscher, A., Deane, A. S., Prieto, J.,… & Begun, D. R. (2019). A new Miocene ape and locomotion in the ancestor of great apes and humans. Nature, 575(7783), 489-493. Web.
Chang, K. (1999). China on the eve of the historical period. In M. Loewe & E. Shaughnessy (Authors), The Cambridge history of ancient China: From the origins of civilization to 221 BC (pp. 37-73). Cambridge University Press.
Patterson, F. (1986). The mind of the gorilla: Conversation and conservation. In Benirschke K. (ed.) Primates (pp. 933-947). Springer.
Remis, M. J. (1998). The gorilla paradox. Subtitle: In Strasser E. et al. (eds.) Primate locomotion (pp. 95-106). Springer Science.