US Trends

what did hominins look like 7 million yeras ago

Seven million years ago, hominins probably still looked a lot like other African apes, but with a few early human-like traits beginning to show, especially in the pelvis, spine, and feet.

What they likely looked like

  • Small-bodied and fairly light, with long arms and shorter legs than modern humans.
  • A face that still projected forward more than ours, with a brain much smaller than a modern human’s.
  • Hair-covered bodies and an ape-like overall build were probably still the norm.
  • Some of the earliest likely hominins may already have been adapting to walking upright, at least part of the time.

The big uncertainty

We do not have a complete skeleton from that time, so any reconstruction is partly inferred from fragmentary fossils and comparisons with later hominins and living apes. That means scientists can say they were likely ape-like but already on the human branch , not exactly what they looked like with certainty.

Simple mental picture

Imagine an African ape with a smaller face, a slightly more human-like walking posture, and a body built for climbing and moving on the ground in a mixed way. That is probably closer to reality than imagining a tiny modern human or a chimpanzee exactly as it is today.

TL;DR

At 7 million years ago, hominins were likely ape-like creatures with small brains, long arms, and some early signs of upright walking, but their exact appearance is still uncertain because the fossil record is sparse.