Ask An Anthropologist

Ask An Anthropologist is an educational resource for students, teachers, parents, and life-long learners. We encourage anyone interested in anthropology to make use of its content.

Becoming Human Logo

Powered by Becoming Human

Becoming human brings together interactive multimedia, research and scholarship to promote greater understanding of the course of human evolution.

bipedality illustration

Walking Upright: A Tale of Two Legs

How do you move from one place to another? Well, most humans walk. Walking on two legs is a very human trait. Learn how the evolution of bipedal walking changed the course of our history.
Two hands holding a straw without using thier thumbs

Thumbs Up

When you tape down your thumb, you’ll get a sense of how hard it would be to do many things if our hands were shaped differently. Even a simple task like placing a straw in a bottle becomes difficult!
Hand made

Hand Made

When you put on the mitts and try to build a structure, you will get a sense of how hard it would be to do things that we do every day if our hands were shaped differently.
Compare the size if primate brains in this activity!

Head to Head

The modern human brain is the largest and most complex of any living primate. As you will learn in this activity, it is also larger than the brains of our ancient human ancestors. What does brain size have to do with our biology?