Donald Johanson Quotes

The difference between humans and Neanderthals is .004 percent of gene code. That's how big the difference is, one species to another.

When we look for the origins of all humanity today, let's not just look at Europe, because I think Africa was the cradle, the crucible that created us as Homo sapiens.

I would hazard a guess that we have found fossilized human remains of at least a thousand different specimens in South and East Africa, more or less complete at that. I think this is where the prelude to human history was primarily played out.

Certainly the first true humans were unique by virtue of their large brains. It was because the human brain is so large when compared with that of a chimpanzee that paleontologists for years hunted for a half-ape, half-human skeleton that would provide a fossil link between the human and the ape.

Homo Sapiens

The right question to ask from a Darwinian prospective is what was it about bipedalism that was so advantageous? Why did it lead to a - why did that adaptation ultimately lead to a species Homo sapiens that has come to dominate the planet today with six and a half billion people?

We hope to find more pieces of the puzzle which will shed light on the connection between this upright, walking ape, our early ancestor, and modern man.

When I realized, in 1978, that Lucy did represent a new species of human ancestor, and that I had an opportunity to name this new species, I realized this was a revolutionary step in understanding human origins.

What's changed is we now have good anatomical, geological, archaeological evidence that Neanderthals are not our ancestors. When I wrote 'Lucy,' I considered Neanderthals ancestors of modern humans. We have gone back twice the age of Lucy, six million years. And we see that upright bipedal walking goes back that far in time.

Once anthropology and geology had opened up the pre-recordkeeping darkness of humanity's long, slow, sustained infancy as suitable grounds for speculation, writers began trying to imagine human existence as it must have been with only stone-age technology.

Such discoveries have led me, and other geologists, to reconsider the evidence previously derived from caves brought forward in proof of the high antiquity of Man.

I, too, am convinced that our ancestors came from Africa.

In the two million years during which we climbed from stone-tool-wielding Homo erectus with sloping brows to high-foreheaded Homo urbanis - man, the inventor of the city - we underwent 60 glaciations, 60 ice ages.

When the first fossils began to be found in eastern Africa, in the late 1950s, I thought, what a wonderful marriage this was, biology and anthropology. I was around 16 years old when I made this particular choice of academic pursuit.

Darwin wasn't just provocative in saying that we descend from the apes - he didn't go far enough. We are apes in every way, from our long arms and tailless bodies to our habits and temperament.

Some people will deny anything that displeases or scares them: unusual pain in their chests, unwanted lumps beneath their skin, or the fact that humans share ancestry with apes are a few examples. Another is climate change.

Are we the first hominids? I really, really, really doubt it.

I'm a paleoanthropologist, and my job is to define man's place in nature and explore what makes us human.

The chimpanzees' closest relative is not the gorilla but humans.

The number of known human fossils only increases slowly. But the manner of regarding and assessing them is capable of progressing rapidly, as indeed it does. In the absence of any absolutely sensational discovery in prehistory, there is an up-to-date and scientific manner of understanding man, which is solidly based on palaeontology.

Until about 30,000 years ago, there were at least five other species of humans on the planet. Homo Sapiens, our ancestors, lived mainly in East Africa, and you had the Neanderthal in Europe, Homo Erectus in part of Asia, and so forth.

Then, of course, through the umbilical link we all tumble backwards down the spiralling DNA staircase to one common ancestor in Africa, and before that some bunch of curious monkeys. Down and down we go unto the sea, unto the dust, the single cellular dust. What impulse drove one cell to become two? What yearning pulled the fish on to the land? What caused apes to walk upright? Some invisible magnetic pull. Is there a difference between attraction and intention? Where is evolution taking us?

If humanity can exist for another million years, everybody's going to be a light shade of yellow-brown-red-tan.

We have reason to believe that man first walked upright to free his hands for masturbation.

Humans cannot produce viable offspring with our closest animal cousin: the chimpanzee. We cannot impregnate a chimp. So you know what that means? No condoms.