Behold the Hominid

[MaxCathedral]

Was it the opposable thumb, bipedalism, maybe a branch that broke off and the development of language, and thus communication?

 

Maybe it was the tool making?

 

What was it that created the hominid to the modern man we know now?

[Dokta]

All of those are the ingredients for how we got here. If one was missing then we wouldn't be like this. That is why no other animal on Earth today could achieve close to what we have is because of our perfect mixture of abilities - curiosity, bepedalism, opposable thumb, social skills and language.

[Mokele]

What distinguishes humans from other hominids, and hominids from other apes? A whole plethora of things, including what's listed above. What's the *official* taxonomic basis for distinction? I'd bet it's something skeletal, probably having to do with the skull, because language, culture, curiousity, etc don't fossilize, and most of the lines we have to draw in that arena deal with "How do we classify this skull we found?"

 

Mokele

[greentea]

Not tool making and not communication. Both are evident to some extent in animals.

[Hellbender]

Most apes have opposable thumbs, so I would say it is the large, complex brain and the bipedalism that really distinguishes us hominids. Complex speech only seemed more important in the later hominids, likely becuase our brains got larger and our social structure, more complex. Of course, we also differ morphologically from our more traditionally apelike ancestors, but that is a given.