The "very-recent" evolution of human beings from non-human
hominids is now quite well documented.

   * One step back, 45,000 years ago, we find numerous well-preserved
     skeletal remains of Neanderthal man in Europe.  Although they
     made beautiful stone tools, these people seem to have left no
     remains of art -- no decorative carvings, no cave paintings,
     Neanderthalers were different from you and I -- they had a
     longer, lower cranium, much larger teeth and stronger jaws,
     and stronger limb bones with a noticeable curvature.

     Human remains intermediate between the Neanderthal forms
     and modern humans are known from Shanidar in Iraq and from
     caves on Gibraltar.

   * Two steps back, remains of _Homo_erectus_ are known from
     many many places in the Old World -- Africa, Europe,
     southern Asia, Java, and China.  Again, the remains are
     numerous, and some sites are very well documented and have
     been carefully excavated.   _H._erectus_ was so clearly
     not a modern human that you would immediately notice him
     or her in a crowd, even if shaved and dressed in modern
     clothes -- short, with a low, sloping forehead, heavy brow
     ridges, projecting jaws, and a small cranial capacity.
     Their tools were primitive compared to the Neanderthalers,
     and slow to change -- the basic stone-axe culture seems to
     have been pretty stable for most of a million years.

     Forms intermediate between _H_erectus_ and later hominids
     are known from several sites in Africa.  Perhaps the
     most famous is ER 1420.

   * Three steps back, anthropologists have found the remains
     of Australopithecus species in many sites in East Africa.
     These are apes, more man-like than any apes living today,
     that are found in older sediments than any _H_erectus_
     remains.  At least two, and possibly more distinct species
     have been identified: a gracile form, which is possibly
     the ancestral human lineage; and a robust form with really
     unbelievably massive jaws and teeth, that seems to have
     specialized for a rough low-grade vegetarian diet.

     Forms intermediate between Australopithecus and _H._erectus_
     are known from the Lake Turkana/Lake Rudolph areas
     of Africa -- perhaps the best known is "Lucy", an
     almost-complete skeleton of a young female who walked
     upright and had a larger brain than the Australopithecines.

There you have it, Jim.  A continuum of transitional forms has
been found in the last 50 years that clearly documents the
transition between ape and human being.  There is no "missing
link" problem in physical anthropology any more, hasn't been
for almost 20 years.

Given this, it hardly seems necessary to mention Archeopteryx,
the transitional form between reptiles and birds --
Nor the crossopterygian fishes of the Devonian, transitional
between bony fishes and amphibians --

Of course, there are none so blind as he who will not see.
---

References: Gowett, "Ascent to Civilization", 2 ed. (*wonderful*)
            "Fossil Man" (can't remember the author)
            "Avenues to Antiquity", volume of Sci. American reprints

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Joel Hanes