Anthropology is deeply connected to Darwin’s theories about human evolution. In On the Origins of Species, Darwin avoided discussing one critical topic, the implications of his theory for the evolutionary history of our own species. He touched on it briefly at the very end of his book, writing “Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history.” Twelve years later, in 1871, he published The Descent of Man, which applied his evolutionary theory to human origins.
Bipedal locomotion freed up our hands. Since we didn’t need them to walk, we could use our hands in new and important ways.The field of paleoanthropology is a young science. There have been many paleoanthropologists over the years who have found many important fossils. But, even by the early 1970s, we didn't know everything about human evolution—and we still don't!
Back then, reserachers knew a few key events in human evolution and how they make us different from our primate cousins. But, they did not know which events happened first, which is very important to understanding why humans evolved the way we did.