Who are the Croods

Who are the Croods?

The 2013 family comedy, The Croods, follows a family of hominins and their journey of development as they navigate a new dangerous world. A number of cultural and biological aspects of the family indicate what species of hominin they are. Although they are capable of bipedal locomotion, they also knucklewalk. This suggests that they fall earlier on the hominin timeline. However, the Croods where partially developed clothing, jewelry, use shelter and begin using fire early on in the movie. These sings of cultural evolution indicate that despite being knucklewalkers, they are actually on the hominin timeline. They had straight, slender fingers which are suitable for precision grip rather than grasping branches, and their hallux is aligned with their other toes, allowing for greater balance when walking. When a new member of the group, Guy, suggests travelling to a distant mountain to escape danger, one of the children explains that the group had never travelled a large distance before - this indicates that the group may not have feet fully suitable for crossing long distances. In terms of their skulls, the Croods have prominent brow ridges, robust haws, and large incisors. Their teeth - canines included - are flat, and some of the family members have a diastema. They display a limited ability of in depth abstract thinking early in the film, however later on Grug begins drawing pictures of his family on the walls of a cave, which suggests the development of abstract thinking. Initially they don't use tools, aside from Guy who is seemingly more developed and uses controlled fire and hunting traps. With these cultural and biological factors in mind, it is likely that the Croods are a later Homo species - such as Homo Erectus or Homo Heidelbergensis, who lived 1.9 million to approximately 30,000 years ago. Although there are slight differences in biological features such as Homo Erectus having smaller teeth, a higher degree of prognathism and being fully bipedal, this species is the one which fits closest to the Croods due to their other biological features and the fact that these hominins were beginning to use fire.