# How long have we looked like we do? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 15, 2003, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-we-looked-like-we-do/201716 "2003-09-15T14:25:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sandlegs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@Sandlegs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sandlegs)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2003, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-we-looked-like-we-do/201716/1 "2003-09-15T14:25:17Z")
I know that there was a gradual change over time, that is clear, but i’m looking for a time frame from when we really started to look like we do today. Mesolithic? Neolithic? older? thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2003, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-we-looked-like-we-do/201716/2 "2003-09-15T14:34:10Z")
What, exactly do you mean look like the way we do? Do you mean like modern Homo Sapiens sapiens? Or do you mean standing upright and not having a tail? Modern humans, which are you and me (and most of the posters on these boards) have been around, depending on who you talk to, roughly 60,000 - 100,000 years. Homo Erectus was the first upright hominid. They didn’t have tails, but they would stand out today like a sore thumb. They were short in stature, had much smaller brains, and therefore smaller heads, and they were hairy. Sorry, bur I can’t recall the timeframe that they were wondering the earth, but it was several hundred thousand years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Sandlegs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@Sandlegs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sandlegs)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2003, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-we-looked-like-we-do/201716/3 "2003-09-15T14:36:49Z")
yes, i’m talkin’ homo sapiens. Thanks for the info. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2003, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-we-looked-like-we-do/201716/4 "2003-09-15T14:52:37Z")
I don’t know about you, but I’ve looked like this since I got up. I need a haircut. ---
**Author:** ![refusal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ac91a4/32.png) [@refusal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/refusal)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2003, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-we-looked-like-we-do/201716/5 "2003-09-15T15:55:55Z")
Due to improved nutrition and changes in personal grooming, people today do look different from people a few hundred years ago, e.g. in height. In the past many people would also be scarred from diseases like measles or small pox, and bear other signs of illness, as well as in many cultures being much dirtier. I assume that white Homo sapiens evolved out of black Homo sapiens and therefore have existed in their present form for less time, although there are also significant differences between different populations of black Africans. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2003, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-we-looked-like-we-do/201716/6 "2003-09-15T16:04:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by adam yax \* > \*\*What, exactly do you mean look like the way we do? Do you mean like modern Homo Sapiens sapiens? Or do you mean standing upright and not having a tail? > > Modern humans, which are you and me (and most of the posters on these boards) have been around, depending on who you talk to, roughly 60,000 - 100,000 years. > > Homo Erectus was the first upright hominid. They didn’t have tails, but they would stand out today like a sore thumb. They were short in stature, had much smaller brains, and therefore smaller heads, and they were hairy. Sorry, bur I can’t recall the timeframe that they were wondering the earth, but it was several hundred thousand years ago. \*\* Homo Erectus was **not** the first upright hominid. We don’t know which hominid was, but _Australopithicus afarensis_ walked upright a million years before _H. erectus_ arrived on the scene. And it is pretty certain that earlier hominids also walked upright. The Australopithicines (~4 - 2Myrs ago) looked a lot different from us, even thought they did walk upright. They had much longer arms and shorter legs with heads that looked more like chimps than humans. They also had a torso that was naorrower at the top and wider at the hips (like an ape’s). You’d never mistake one of these guys for us. Erectus arrived on the scence about 2M years ago and looked a lot like us from the neck down. Almost indestinguishable. But the head still had a backwards sloping forhead, jutting jaw and heavy brow ridges. _Homo sapiens_ appear in the fossil record around 150K yrs ago +/-. While the older skulls do retain some “primitive” features such as heavy brow ridges, they look pretty much like we do. So, the answer to your question is: sometime between 200k and 100k yrs ago, you’d be hard pressed to see any differnces at all. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2003, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-we-looked-like-we-do/201716/7 "2003-09-15T16:13:15Z")
Gotta correct more of Adam’s post: We have absolutely no idea how much hair Erectus individuals had. There is no way of telling this for the fossil record. Early Erectus fossils show the group to be rather on the tall side. The most famous example, dubbed the “Nariokotome boy” would have been over 6’ tall had he grown to maturity. To say that Erectus had no tails is like saying they didn’t have fins. No ape has a tail, so that aspect of our anatomy (or lack of) goes back probably 15M years or more. **Adam:** You need to educate yourself more fully on human evolution before posting about that subject in GQ. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2003, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-we-looked-like-we-do/201716/8 "2003-09-16T00:36:22Z")
> [@](#): > > We have absolutely no idea how much hair Erectus individuals had. There is no way of telling this for the fossil record. We have quite a few ways of telling, none of them perfect though. A lot of work has been done, particulalry on the Nariokotome boy, that suggests that H. erectus was hairless. The hypertropical body form (long, thon torso ad limbs etc) is almost certainly an adpatation to losing heat, just as we find in tropical people today. At least no other plausible explanation exists. If an animal has evolved to a body shape perfectly suited to radiating heat from all body surfaces it’s pretty clear that it’s not covered in wool over most of that body. Yes it’s deductive reasoning, but it’s based on sound scientific principles. We can be as sure that erectus was hairless as we are that he was social. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2003, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-we-looked-like-we-do/201716/9 "2003-09-16T01:11:40Z")
> [@](#): > > Blake wrote: > We can be as sure that erectus was hairless as we are that he was social. That statement is simply wrong. Yes, it is highly likely that Erectus had little if any body hair. There is **some** evidence, as you noted, that this is so. However there is **overwhelming** evidence that Erectus (as well as all other hominids) was a social animal. In fact, based on what we know of humans, chimps, and gorillas, one could be fairly certain of the social nature of Erectus w/o ever seeing a single fossil. My original statement about what we know of the hairiness of Erectus was to counter the obviously incorrect posting that Erectus was hairy. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2003, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-we-looked-like-we-do/201716/10 "2003-09-16T01:25:09Z")
> [@](#): > > However there is overwhelming evidence that Erectus… was a social animal. Cite! In order for you to claim that my statement that we are as certain of erectus’ hairlessnessas we are of his gregraiousness is “just plain wrong” your overhwleming evidence is gong to have to be pretty overhwlming. The simple fact that all the evidence points to that conclusion is not going to be suffiecent. There is certainly overhwelming evidence that erectus was hairless. _All_ th evidence points to hairlessness, and none at all against. So come along John, let’s see the upon which you made your staement that I am just plain wrong. Let’s see al the evidence for erectus socity and all the evidence for hairlessness so we can understand why you believe that there is more eveidence for the former. You were being patronising to **Adam** and you stuffed up. Trying to call me out as well is not going to help. The only evidence we have of erectus sociality is deductive. The only evidence we have of hairlessness is deductive. However at least the hailress staus of erectus is based on solid, objective measurements and not just comparisons to relatives. > [@](#): > > based on what we know of humans, chimps, and gorillas, one could be fairly certain of the social nature of Erectus w/o ever seeing a single fossil. And based on what we know of every single group of extant erectus descendants we can be fairly certain of te hairless nature of erectus without ever seeing a single fossil.