These fossil Primates cannot however be regarded as direct ancestors of the man, but rather as the representatives of side branches of the common stock on which separated the human branch. They are the consequence (as well as the large anthropomorphic monkeys of Africa) of a phenomenon of convergence related to ecological transformations. It is known that during Miocène the dryness settled in certain points of the sphere; the forest regressed there with the profit of savanna. The arboricolous Primates were constrained to adopt a terrestrial lifestyle. Not finding more their food usual (fruits and sheets), they had to drive out, and some of them became typically omnivorous. Those which did not on any more the occasion to practice the brachiation found in the position upright many advantages.  

Australopithecus

Of all the groups of Primates which expressed these convergent adaptive modifications, only one took truly the route of the hominisation: that of the Hominides, of which the most former known representative would be Homo habilis (- 3 My), discovered in Eastern Africa. However, between this last and the Primates of Miocène (Ramapithécinés, Oréopithécinés) the extremely important group of the Australopithecus is, attached by certain paleontologists to the branch human and considered by others as an autonomous phylum having expressed an early specialization which would have involved it in an evolutionary cul-de-sac. The Australopithecus (of which the first was discovered in South Africa, in 1924) lived there are 6 My and their evolution lasted approximately 5 My. The whole of the specimens discovered is brought back to two types: Australopithecus africanus, omnivore, and Australopithecus robustus, strictly vegetarian. They expressed a clear tendency to the body rectification without taking a perfectly vertical form, presented a starter of cephalization and had a relatively important cranial capacity (from 450 to 500 Cm3) compared to their size (of 1.25 to 1.50 m).  

The last discoveries carried out, in particular by Y. Coppens, make it possible to think that they had an elementary lithic industry. Gay habilis, as for him, is still close to the Australopithecus, of which it is, partly, the contemporary, and it is not excluded that this species constituted, with Australopithecus africanus, only one taxon with variability buissonnante. Gay the habilis had a cranial capacity of 680 Cm3; they made tools and lived arranged places, as testify some the stones, formant of the circular plat bands, found in old levels of 1 ' 800 ' 000 years. That implies already a certain social organization and even an elementary form of culture utilizing the reflection, the memory and the communication. True men, with cranial capacity from 800 to 1000 and even 1300 Cm3, of higher size (of 1.60 to 1.70 m), appeared then: Pithécanthropiens (Homo erectus).

The first, they reached the moderate areas. Oldest of them, found in Java, go back to approximately -1.7 My. One meets vestiges a little more recent of Homo erectus in Eastern Africa, where the species was born probably, and one also finds of it in Europe, but the oldest European fossils hardly have that 500 ' 000 years. With however judging some by prehistoric industry, the men reached Europe well before this date. In Eastern Africa, Homo erectus lived up to 2500 m of altitude. The tools became increasingly elaborate at Homo erectus (industries chelléenne and acheuléenne), whose certain groups learned how to preserve and use fire, acquisition which enabled them to settle in the cold countries.

Homo erectus and Homo sapiens

As for the Australopithecus, one thought either that Homo erectus is the current ancestor of Homo sapiens, or whom it represents a line parallel with that which leads Homo habilis to the current man. The first assumption is made probable by recent exhumations of fossils. At all events, the passage from one type to another was not done in less than a million years.  

During the last glaciation and the interglacial period preceding it, there are 10 ' 000 to 100 ' 000-150' 000 years, lived in Europe (France, Germany, Italy) and in the Middle East of the men known as of Neandertal (Homo sapiens neandertalensis) measuring on average 1.55 m, with flattened skull, convex in chignon with the back, the fleeing face and the strong superciliary arcades. They probably went down from Homo erectus. Their cranial capacity was large, even higher than that of the current men, of which they are not however the ancestors. The Neanderthal men seem to have constituted by the human lines adapted to the cold climate. It is neither sure nor even probable that the Neanderthal men are the persons in charge, single at least, of industry moustérienne of the Paleolithic one, since this one is, in Israel, associated with fossils with more modern men. At all events, at the time Neanderthal man, the stone tools become more elaborate; practices ritual, funerary, magic, medical perhaps, as well as a beginning of artistic activity are attested.  

The Neanderthal men died out approximately 40 ' 000 years ago, time which marks the expansion, to differing degree, on all the continents, of the modern men (Homo sapiens sapiens). The latter, grouped under the general term of cro-magnoïdes, were characterized by a higher size (1.65 m), a face more punt marked by the projection of the chin, deprived of know-orbital pads, and especially by a culture much more advanced (adapted and specialized tools, such as the arc and the harpoon, worship of deaths, charts, etc).  

The morphological evolution of the man was remarkably fast. It is not doubtful that the species Homo erectus and Homo sapiens, at their beginnings, were divided into true biological races. However, the frequent migrations and the interbreeding which is resulted from it have, as of the Neolithic era, stopped the process of raciation, letting remain within the populations only of the morphological variations of secondary nature.