Hello, students, in this module we finally begin to study origin and evolution of human being. Students, let’s look at an overall of this process of how did man originate and evolve.

So, let’s begin. The very first attempt was made by Thomas Huxley in his book. What was the name of his book? The name of his book was “Man’s Place in Nature”. He made the first attempt to actually explain the origin of man. He was the one who stated that our closest relatives are apes. Then the second attempt when we speak of evolution, one name that always comes to our mind, Mr. Charles Darwin. So, Charles Darwin back in the year 1871 penned down his idea in another book. What is the name of his book? It’s called as “Descent of Man”. In this book he wrote down about man’s ancestry. Unfortunately, Charles Darwin’s ideas and the ideas of Thomas Huxley were totally misunderstood. But, of course, with the help of fossil record we totally know that be it monkey, be it ape, be it man all of them have arisen from one common ancestor. So, remember that we have not arisen out of ape, he is not our ancestor, he is our relative, because all of these, monkey, ape and man have arisen out of the same common ancestor.

Now, next important name that we have to know Carolus Linnaeus very famous taxonomist, Father of taxonomy, placed man amongst monkeys and apes while he was classifying man. He did one more important job. He gave the first scientific name to man. What is the scientific name of the man, students? Homo sapiens, yes. What does this word Homo sapiens mean? Homo sapiens meaning “a man who is wise”. So, this was the name that was given by Carolus Linnaeus.

Now, students, let’s take a look at the place of humans in the entire animal kingdom. To give you a summary, modern man is always studied under the order Primates and the class Mammalia. We are all mammals. Whenever you see the word Primates, one very important about primates that you should know, they are plantigrade. Plantigrade mean walk on palms and soles.

So, students, let’s now look at the classification of man. We all belong to a class Mammalia, which order, Primates. Order Primates, is further divided into two sub-orders. The first sub-order is known as Prosimii. The second sub-order is known as Anthropoidea. Students, within Prosimii, which kind of animals or which kind of primates do we study. We study 3 typical primates. The first one lemurs, take a look at lemurs. The second one known as lorises, observe the lorises and the third example, students, tarsiers, take a look how does a tarsier appear.

Students, further, under sub-order Anthropoidea, we have 3 divisions. The first division, students, is known as Ceboidea, new world monkey. The second is Cercopithecoidea also known as old world monkey and students the last one is known as Hominoidea, apes and man.

So, we have looked at both the sub-orders, sub-order Prosimii and sub-order Anthropoidea, which we will individually study in the upcoming modules.

So, students, what have we looked at in this module. Students, in this module we have looked at origin and evolution of human being.

Thank you.