Human Evolution

Recommended age groups: middle school / high school students (grades 5-12)

Duration: 60 minutes

Recommended number of people: 15 (larger classes are accepted by dividing them into smaller groups)

Price: 2,200 HUF/person, which includes the exhibition entrance fee.

Students will learn about the main stages of hominid evolution and will discuss what physical and behavioural features separate primates from other representatives of the Animal Kingdom. It may turn out what makes an animal anthropomorphic and what makes us human.

We get to know our distant relatives and ancestors and their everyday life through the examples of Hungary’s outstanding, internationally significant anthropological finds.

Part of the session takes place at the Colourful Life exhibition, alongside life-size reconstructions of Rudapithecus hungaricus, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens. All participants can get their hands on replicas of anthropological finds, as well as tool copies and head reconstructions. During our workshop, it becomes clear that Gabi, Samu, Lucy and Ötzi are not members of a group of friends, but famous representatives of our human ancestors, and that putting out a fire is not such an easy thing. We point out the role that language, the use of tools and social behaviour played in the process of becoming human. However, the most important thing is to show what the essence of evolution is and that we, humans, are also part of the long story of Life, the evidence of which we have only found so far on planet Earth.