Evolution

Human evolution

Human evolution is the long change, in Africa, from earlier hominins to modern humans. It is studied from fossils and from tools, not from a ladder of “improvement”.

CAPS

Grade 12 · Life Sciences · Evolution

Life Sciences is two papers. Use the strand to know which one.

Where it is examined
Paper 1 is reproduction, responding to the environment, and homeostasis. Paper 2 is DNA, meiosis, genetics and evolution. Each paper is 150 marks.
How to write it
Name the structure, then say what it does. A labelled diagram only scores if the labels are the biological names. “It helps the body” is not a function.
How a marker reads it
A common mix-up is the “march of progress” cartoon, or the claim that human fossils are only found in Europe.

A 2-mark “explain” wants two facts, or one fact and its reason. Extra sentences that contradict the first one can cancel a mark.

Diagram

Worked theory

Worked theory. A fossil pelvis and a fossil skull from the Cradle. A short, bowl-shaped pelvis and a forward opening for the skull’s spinal cord support upright walking. A larger brain case in a later fossil supports the brain trend. One bone does not make a species. The date and the other bones found with it matter. A cartoon that puts a chimpanzee on the left and a suited man on the right is not the evidence. The evidence is the fossils, their ages, and what the bones could do. People did not stop evolving because we wear shoes. The timescale is hundreds of thousands of years.

More worked examples

Little Foot and a later skull
Little Foot, from Sterkfontein, has a pelvis and knee that fit upright walking, and a brain case far smaller than ours. A later Homo skull from East Africa has a larger brain case and smaller teeth. The order is feet and pelvis first, brain later. A chart that enlarges the brain before the hip is the cartoon, not the fossils. Both finds are African. Neither is a chimpanzee.
Footprints at Laetoli
The footprints at Laetoli in Tanzania, about 3.6 million years old, show a heel-to-toe walk and a big toe in line with the others. That is upright walking, long before brains the size of ours. The prints are not a chimpanzee’s, and they are not a modern human’s. They sit in the order the fossils also show: the pelvis and the foot change first, the large brain later. A chart that grows the skull before the footprints has the sequence backwards.

In ordinary words

Trends in the fossils include upright walking, smaller canine teeth, a larger brain relative to the body, and later the use of tools and fire. The Cradle of Humankind in Gauteng holds many of those fossils. Upright walking freed the hands before brains reached modern size, so the story is not “brain first”. Modern humans arose in Africa and later spread. Other hominin populations existed and died out. Chimpanzees are cousins with a shared ancestor, not a stage people passed through last century.

In South Africa

The Cradle of Humankind, between Johannesburg and Pretoria, is the site this topic stands on.

Part 1 / 4

What it is

Human evolution is the long change, in Africa, from earlier hominins to modern humans. It is studied from fossils and from tools, not from a ladder of “improvement”.

More worked examples

Board walkthroughs on this topic. Open one, copy the working, then try the next.

Example 1 / 20

Give three anatomical features shared by humans and African apes that suggest common ancestry.

How we got there

Read this like a teacher at the board. We go slowly, name every number, and say why we take each step.

Explain in another language · 11

1. What is the question asking?

Read the question twice. Circle the unknown. Underline every number and unit. The paper is asking: Give three anatomical features shared by humans and African apes that suggest common ancestry.

In other words — as if you have never seen this before

If you have never seen this before: Shared characteristics. We will name a method in words, write the formula with no numbers, then substitute one line at a time.

2. What do we already know?

Primate features.

3. Which method — and why this one?

Shared characteristics.

4. Step-by-step working

01 / 07
Step A — Read the question twice
Slow down. Circle the word that names the unknown. Underline every number and its unit. Do not grab a formula yet — first decide what the paper is actually asking.
Why this step: If you can say the method in a sentence, you will pick the right formula. First-timers skip this and grab the first equation they remember.
02 / 07
Step B — Write the given in a column
Primate features.
Why this step: A column with units stops you mixing cm with m, or minutes with seconds. Markers can also see you started correctly.
03 / 07
Step C — Name the method in words
Shared characteristics.
Why this step: If you can say the method in a sentence, you will pick the right formula. First-timers skip this and grab the first equation they remember.
04 / 07
Identify the given
Opposable thumbs; forward-facing eyes (stereoscopic vision); large brain relative to body; nails instead of claws; similar DNA.
Why this step: We only do one job per line so a marker can follow the marks — and so you can find a slip without starting over.
05 / 07
Step G — Sense-check the size
Ask: is this the kind of number a Grade 10–12 paper would want? A speed of 3 000 ms for a learner walking, or a probability bigger than 1, means a unit or algebra slip. Estimate first: round the numbers and do the sum in your head.
Why this step: Markers write ‘unrealistic’ in the margin when the method is right but the size is wild. A 10-second head check often finds a missing 10² or a unit that never changed.
06 / 07
Step F — Box the answer with its unit
Opposable thumbs, binocular vision, large brains, nails.
Why this step: A number without a unit is half a mark on a Physics paper, and a marker can miss a Maths answer that is buried in working.
07 / 07
Step H — What the marker is looking for
On an NSC memo you usually earn: (1) a method mark for naming the right formula or idea in words, (2) an accuracy mark for substituting the given numbers with units, (3) an accuracy mark for the boxed answer with its unit. Write those three lines even if you are unsure of the arithmetic — blank pages score zero.
Why this step: First-timers chase the final number and leave the method blank. The memo still pays out for the idea and the substitution even when the last line is wrong.

5. The answer

Opposable thumbs, binocular vision, large brains, nails.

Copy onto your answer sheet — in this order

Answer: Opposable thumbs, binocular vision, large brains, nails.

6. Check it like a marker

Humans and chimps share about 98–99% of DNA.

7. A trap first-timers fall into

First-timers often grab the first formula they remember, mix units (cm with m, minutes with seconds), or drop a minus sign. Write the formula in words first: “this equals that, because…”

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