Many people like to learn about their family histories: what their parents, grandparents and even great-grandparents were like and where they came from, or if they are related to an important historical person. Or, they might like to know if a physical feature or behavior they share with an aunt or cousin was passed down from a common relative. Scientists called paleoanthropologists, are interested in the family history of Homo sapiens, the species to which all people living today belong. Unlike paleontologists who study the remains of dinosaurs, paleoanthropologists scientists who study ancient humans and their relatives, study the remains of hominins, a group of primates that includes humans and all of their extinct ancestors and relatives.. Hominins are a group of primates that includes humans and all our extinct ancestors and relatives, most of whom lived in the last 6–7 million years. Like someone trying to trace a family tree, paleoanthropologists try to figure out which of the extinct hominins might be our direct ancestors and which are just distant cousins. These scientists also try to understand what the hominins ate, where they lived, how they died, and other things about the lives of these ancient relatives.

License information: nan
MPAA: PG
Go to source: https://kids.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/frym.2019.00155