Sterkfontein is the location at which Australopithecus africanus fossils were unearthed. Cooper’s Cave is home to Paranthropus robustus and numerous animal fossils such as pigs, carnivores and antelope. Kromdraai is famous for being the first site in which Paranthropus robustus was discovered, in 1938.

Fossil sites in the Cradle of Humankind

• Bolt’s Farm. Twenty caves with antelope, baboon, sabre-toothed cats and rodents, some of which are between 5-million and 4-million years old.
• Swartkrans.
• Sterkfontein.
• Minnaar’s Cave.
• Cooper’s Site.
• Kromdraai.
• Plover’s Lake.
• Wonder Caves.

In caves with fossil hominins, it’s not uncommon to find non-hominin bones, indicating that other animals used the caves at some point and died there, or that natural forces, like water, could have carried the bones to where they were discovered. But at Rising Star, there weren’t any fossils from any other species.

Lee Berger, in full Lee Rogers Berger, (born December 22, 1965, Shawnee Mission, Kansas, U.S.), American-born South African paleoanthropologist known for the discovery of the fossil skeletons of Australopithecus sediba, a primitive hominin species that some paleontologists believe is the most plausible link between the …

South Africa has a rich palaeo-anthropological heritage. The very first Plio-Pleistocene specimen of Australopithecus, from the site of Taung, was described by Raymond Dart in 1925. In 1936 the first australopithecine was discovered at the site of Sterkfontein.

“The Taung Child is important because it was the very first early hominid discovered,” explains Zipfel. “It’s very important as people didn’t know where the Cradle of Humankind was.” Africa is now almost unanimously considered the Cradle of Humankind as it is home to some of the world’s oldest hominid fossils.

A third reason is that, despite accepting that modern humans had emerged by evolution, many anthropologists believed that the genus Homo had split from the great apes as long as 30 million years ago and so felt uneasy about accepting that humans had a small-brained, ape-like ancestor, like Australopithecus africanus.

The Taung Child’s fossilized anatomy represented the first time researchers saw evidence of early human upright, two-legged ( bipedal ) walking. The evidence was the position of the Taung Child’s foramen magnum , or the hole through which the spinal cord connects with the brain.

Raymond Dart

Lucy, a 3.2 million year old Australopithecus afarensis named after the Beatles’ song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”, is perhaps the most famous fossil in the world.

Australopithecus afarensis

It is believed that she was a mature but young adult when she died, about 12 years old. In 2016 researchers at the University of Texas at Austin suggested that Lucy died after falling from a tall tree.

Seven Stages of Early Man

• Human Evolution Timeline. Human evolution has been through several stages, but seven different stages of mankind stand out.
• Hominidae.
• Ardipithecus Ramidus.
• Australopithecus Afarensis.
• Homo Habilis.
• Homo Erectus.
• Homo Heidelbergensis.
• Homo Sapiens.

There are seven stages a human moves through during his or her life span. These stages include infancy, early childhood, middle childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, middle adulthood and old age.

Stages in Human Evolution

• Dryopithecus. These are deemed to be the ancestors of both man and apes.
• Ramapithecus. Their first remains were discovered from the Shivalik range in Punjab and later in Africa and Saudi Arabia.
• Australopithecus.
• Homo Erectus.
• Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis.
• Homo Sapiens Sapiens.

In fact, it is so simple that it can be broken down into five basic steps, abbreviated here as VISTA: Variation, Inheritance, Selection, Time and Adaptation.

There are four principles at work in evolution—variation, inheritance, selection and time. These are considered the components of the evolutionary mechanism of natural selection.

Thus, the most appropriate answer is D, that is the correct order for human evolution is Australopithecus, Homo erectus, Neanderthal man, Cro-magnon man, Homo sapiens.