Man appeared about 40 thousand years ago modern look, called by scientists Homo sapiens - Homo sapiens.

Through the isthmuses that existed at that time, people penetrated into Australia and America. The resettlement of people in different geographic conditions led to the beginning of the process of race formation. The result was the division of humanity into Caucasians, Mongoloids and Negroids.

Appearance was not the only thing that distinguished Homo sapiens from its predecessors. The most important event for the formation of man as a species was the awareness of new relationships within collectives. We now call these relationships social or public.

First of all, this was expressed in the affirmation of kinship relations between people. It was a real revolution in human life. It was the recognition of kinship that stabilized human collectives, led to the regulation of relations between people, made tribal communities permanent and close-knit associations, which was not observed either in the animal world or in the primitive herd. A tribal community arose, all members of which were descended from a common ancestor.

The most important step towards becoming public relations became a ban on marriage or sexual relations between relatives. Wives were now allowed to take in neighboring friendly births. This, in turn, led to the establishment of stable relationships between individual genera. Several friendly clans began to unite into tribes.

There was a ban on the murder of a relative, and if he died at the hands of a foreigner, the clan avenged his death. "Blood feud" largely contributed to the containment of bloody clashes and wars between clans, since it was unsafe to kill a person, because he was under the protection of his kind. Therefore, the most terrible punishment was expulsion from the clan.

Generic associations were also important because only the entire genus had the opportunity to feed. Social differentiation in the tribal community of the hunting and gathering period did not yet exist. All property of the clan, including food, was shared. Relatives helped each other in all matters, jointly procured food. Everyone made a contribution to the life of the community and received from it as much as possible.

A huge role in the development of social relations between people was played by the emergence of the main means of communication - language.

It should be noted in the formation of Homo sapiens as social kind and the meaning of religion. The question of the reasons for its appearance is very difficult. However, it is clear that this was the first attempt by people to explain the world around them, which testifies to the emergence of abstract thinking.

The religious views of the people of that time were manifested in the emergence of burial rituals for the dead.

It is known about the emergence of the cult of fertility at this time. Fertility was personified by goddesses with disproportionately thick bodies. Archaeologists call their figurines "Paleolithic Venus".

The appearance of abstract thinking in the Late Paleolithic is also evidenced by Paleolithic art. The preserved "cave galleries" in the caves of France, Spain and in the Kapova cave in Russia make a grandiose impression.

Social relations and abstract thinking became the hallmarks of Homo sapiens from its ancestors.

Systematic position of a person

Taxon is a classification unit in the taxonomy of plant and animal organisms.

The main evidence of the origin of man from animals is the presence of rudiments and atavisms in his body.

Rudiments are organs lost in the process historical development(evolution) its meaning and function and remaining in the form of underdeveloped formations in the body. They are laid even during the development of the embryo, but do not develop. Examples of rudiments in humans can be: coccygeal vertebrae (remnants of the tail skeleton), appendix (appendix of the cecum), body hair; ear muscles (some people may wiggle their ears); third eyelid.

Atavisms are a manifestation, in individual organisms, of characteristics that existed in individual ancestors, but were lost in the course of evolution. In humans, this is the development of the tail and hairline throughout the body.

Historical past of people

The first people on Earth. The name of the ape-man - Pithecanthropus received one of the earliest finds, made in the 19th century in Java.

For a long time, this find was considered a transitional link from monkey to man, the first representatives of the hominid family. These views were promoted by morphological features: a combination of modern-looking bones of the lower limb with a primitive skull and intermediate brain mass. However, the Pithecanthropes of Java are a fairly late group of hominids. From the 1920s to the present, an important discovery was made in southern and East Africa: the remains of bipedal Plio-Pleistocene primates (from 6 to 1 million years old) were found. They marked the beginning of a new stage in the development of paleontology - the reconstruction of these stages of evolution of hominids on the basis of direct paleontological data, and not on the basis of various indirect comparative anatomical and embryological data.

The era of the two-legged ape-men Australopithecus. The first Australopithecus of East Africa - zinjanthropus was discovered by the spouses L. and M. Leakey. The brightest distinctive feature Australopithecus - upright posture. This is evidenced by the structure of the pelvis. Walking upright is one of the most ancient human acquisitions.

The first representatives of the human race in East Africa. Along with the massive Australopithecines, other creatures lived in East Africa 2 million years ago. For the first time this became known when, the next year after the discovery of zinjanthropus, the remains of a miniature hominid were found, the brain volume of which was no less (and even more) than that of Australopithecus. It was later revealed that he was a contemporary of the zinjanthropus. The most important discoveries were made in the lowest layer, dating back 2–1.7 million years. Its maximum thickness is 40 meters. The climate when this layer was laid was more humid and its inhabitants were Zinjanthropus and Presinjanthropus. The latter did not last long. In addition, stones with traces of artificial processing were found in this layer. Most often it was a pebble with a size of walnut up to 7–10 cm, with few chips of the working edge. Initially, it was assumed that the zinjanthropes were able to do this, but after new discoveries it became obvious: either the more advanced prezinjanthropus made the tools, or both inhabitants were capable of such initial processing of the stone. The emergence of a clamp with a complete opposition of the thumb should have been preceded by a period of dominance of the power grip, when the object was raked in a handful and clamped in the hand. Moreover, it was the nail phalanx of the thumb that experienced especially strong pressure.

Preconditions of anthropogenesis. The common ancestors of great apes and humans were herd narrow-nosed monkeys living on trees in tropical forests. The transition of this group to a terrestrial lifestyle, caused by a cooling climate and the displacement of forests by steppes, led to upright posture. The straightened position of the body and the shift of the center of gravity caused the replacement of the arcuate spinal column by the S-shaped one, which gave it flexibility. A vaulted springy foot was formed, the pelvis expanded, the chest became wider and shorter, the jaw apparatus was lighter, and most importantly, the front limbs were freed from the need to support the body, their movements became freer and more varied, their functions became more complicated. The transition from using objects to making tools is the line between ape and man. The evolution of the hand followed the path natural selection mutations useful for work. Along with upright posture, the most important prerequisite for anthropogenesis was the herd way of life, which, with the development of labor activity and exchange of signals, conditioned the development of articulate speech. Concrete ideas about the surrounding objects and phenomena were generalized into abstract concepts, thinking and speech abilities were developed. Higher nervous activity was formed, and articulate speech developed.

Stages of human development. There are three stages in human evolution: ancient people, ancient people and modern (new) people. Many populations of Homo sapiens did not replace each other sequentially, but lived simultaneously, fighting for existence and destroying the weaker ones.

Human ancestors	Progressive features in appearance	Lifestyle	Tools
Parapitecus (discovered in Egypt in 1911)	We walked on two legs. Low forehead, superciliary arches, hairline	Regarded as the oldest great ape	Tools of work in the form of a club; hewn stones
Driopithecus (found bone remains in Western Europe, South Asia and East Africa. Antiquity from 12 to 40 million years)	According to most scientists, Dryopithecus are considered as a common ancestral group for modern apes and humans.
Australopithecus (bone remains of 2.6-3.5 million years old were found in South and East Africa)	They had a small body (length 120–130 cm), weight 30–40 kg, brain volume - 500–600 cm2, walked on two legs.	They consumed vegetable and meat food, lived in open areas (such as savannahs). Australopithecus is also considered as a stage of human evolution that immediately preceded the emergence of the most ancient people (arhanthropus).	Sticks, stones, animal bones were used as tools
Pithecanthropus (the most ancient man, the remains were discovered - Africa, Mediterranean, the island of Java; 1 million years ago)	Height 150 cm; the volume of the brain is 900–1,000 cm2, the forehead is low, with a superciliary ridge; jaws without chin protrusion	Social lifestyle; lived in caves, used fire.	Primitive stone tools, sticks
Sinanthropus (China and others, 400 thousand years ago)	Height 150-160 cm; brain volume 850–1 220 cm3, low forehead, with a superciliary ridge, no chin protrusion	Lived in herds, built primitive dwellings, used fire, dressed in skins	Tools of stone and bone
Neanderthal (ancient man); Europe, Africa, Asia; about 150 thousand years ago	Height 155-165 cm; brain volume 1,400 cm3; little convolutions; the forehead is low, with a superciliary ridge; the chin protrusion is poorly developed	Social lifestyle, construction of hearths and dwellings, use of fire for cooking, dressed in skins. They used gestures and primitive speech for communication. There was a division of labor. The first burials.	Tools of labor made of wood and stone (knife, scraper, polyhedral points, etc.)
Cro-Magnon - the first modern man (everywhere; 50-60 thousand years ago)	Growth up to 180 cm; brain volume - 1 600 cm2; high forehead; convolutions are developed; lower jaw with chin protrusion	Tribal community. Homo sapiens belonged to the species. Settlement construction. The emergence of rituals. The emergence of art, pottery, agriculture. Developed. Developed speech. Domestication of animals, domestication of plants. They had cave paintings.	Various tools made of bone, stone, wood

Modern people. The emergence of people of the modern physical type occurred relatively recently (about 50 thousand years ago), who were called Cro-Magnons. Increased brain volume (1600 cm3), well-developed articulate speech; the construction of dwellings, the first rudiments of art (rock painting), clothing, jewelry, bone and stone tools, the first tamed animals - everything indicates that real man finally isolated himself from his bestial ancestors. Neanderthals, Cro-Magnons and modern humans form one species - Homo sapiens. Many years passed before people moved from an appropriating economy (hunting, gathering) to a producing economy. They learned how to grow plants and tame some animals. In the evolution of the Cro-Magnons great importance had social factors, the role of education, the transfer of experience has grown immeasurably.

Human race

All modern humanity belongs to one species - Homo sapiens. The unity of mankind follows from the common origin, similarity of structure, unlimited crossing of representatives of different races and the fertility of offspring from mixed marriages. Within the species - Homo sapiens - there are five large races: Negroid, Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Australoid, American. Each of them is divided into small races. The differences between the races are reduced to the peculiarities of the color of the skin, hair, eyes, the shape of the nose, lips, etc. these differences arose in the process of adaptation of human populations to local natural conditions. It is believed that black skin absorbed ultraviolet rays. Narrow eyes protected from harsh sun exposure in open spaces; a wide nose cooled the inhaled air faster by evaporation from the mucous membranes, on the contrary, a narrow nose warmed the cold inhaled air better, etc.

But man, thanks to work, quickly got out of the influence of natural selection, and these differences quickly lost their adaptive value.

Human races began to form, they began to form, as it is believed, about 30-40 thousand years ago in the process of human settlement of the Earth, and then many racial characteristics had an adaptive meaning and were fixed by natural selection in a certain geographic environment. All races of man are characterized by the general species characteristics of Homo sapiens, and all races are absolutely equal in biological and mental relations and are at the same level of evolutionary development.

There is no sharp border between the main races, and there are a number of smooth transitions - small races, whose representatives have smoothed or mixed features of the main masses. It is assumed that in the future the differences between races will completely disappear and humanity will be racially homogeneous, but with many morphological variants.

Human races should not be confused with the concepts of nation, people, linguistic group. Different groups can be part of one nation, and the same races can be part of different nations.

The origin of modern man

The emergence of Homo sapiens was preceded by a long period of development of the organic world of the planet. The origins of the oldest mammals are traced back to the end Mesozoic era... The common ancestor of mammals was primitive insectivores. The unity of origin of primates with other mammals is proved by the biological similarity of the orders of mammals. The order of primates has a multimillion-dollar history of development.

The lower primates include small animals: tupai, lemurs and tarsiers. The great primates include monkeys and humans. The suborder of higher anthropoid primates is divided into two groups: broad-nosed monkeys (lower monkeys) and narrow-nosed monkeys (lower monkeys, higher apes and humans).

The most important in science is the question of the ancestral home of the original form of the human ancestor.

Historically, the hypothesis of the Asian ancestral home was the first to be versatile. In Pakistan and India, numerous finds were made of Middle Miocene hominoids of Sivapithecus, which lived about 8-12 million years ago. According to modern concepts, the Asiatic Sivapithecus were the ancestors of only modern orangutans.

Later Asian richest African finds of fossil bones were made. A number of finds of primates living in the early and middle Miocene are known from Africa. Their morphology is closest to the modern Pongids and the first Australopithecines.

Fossil hominoids lived not only in Asia and Africa, many great apes inhabited southern Europe in the Miocene.

Of the three possible centers of origin of the original human ancestor, the most complete connection between the Miocene and later hominoids is traced in Africa: Samburupithecus (9.5 million years ago) - Sahelanthropus (6-7 million years ago). There are fairly late Miocene great apes in Asia and Europe, but no very ancient hominids. Thus, Africa is most likely the ancestral home of the hominids.

There are two trends in the theory of the formation of mankind. The classic - monocentrism - speaks of one ancestral home of humanity on the African continent. Supporters of polycentrism argue that there were several independent zones of anthropogenesis, one of which could be located not just in Asia, but even in a zone with extremely harsh climatic conditions.

The framework of the hominid family depends on what traits are used as the basis for determining the place of specific species in the hominoid system. Since the only modern representative of the family is a person, from its features, three most important systems were historically identified, which are considered truly hominid. These systems have been called the hominid triad:

Bipedal walking (bipedia);

A brush adapted to the making of tools;

Highly developed brain.

The systematic division of hominins is very confusing. In old works, it was customary to distinguish several stages of human evolution - archanthropus, paleoanthropus and neoanthropus. The Archanthropus were immediately preceded by the Australopithecines, or, in the terminology of stages, by the Protantropes. Stage terms are sometimes used in modern literature as well.

Currently, almost all scientists are inclined to think about the more complex nature of evolution. Some populations were ahead of others in terms of their level of development, and migration or isolation played a significant role in the uneven distribution of progressive signs across the planet. Progressive signs could arise not in a complex, but in different groups independently, later uniting as a result of confusion. This type of evolution is called network evolution.

Thus, the terms "archanthropus", "paleoanthropes" and "neoanthropes" should be regarded only as conditional (but sometimes convenient), combining sometimes very different groups of hominins. The advantage of using them is avoiding the confusing systematic nomenclature, understood in different ways by different researchers.

By arranging the fossil finds of hominids chronologically, one can get an idea of ​​the stages of human evolution:

- Australopithecus (human precursors);

- Pithecanthropus (ancient people, archanthropus);

- Neanderthals (ancient people, paleoanthropes);

- a person of the modern type (neoanthropes).

It is believed that Australopithecus are descendants of Ramapithecus descended from Dryopithecus - the most likely human ancestors.

Australopithecines appeared about 6-7 million years ago, and the last of them became extinct only about 900 thousand years ago, during the existence of much more progressive forms. As far as is known, the Australopithecines never left Africa, although some finds made on the island of Java are sometimes referred to this group.

The complexity of the position of australopithecines among primates lies in the fact that their structure combines mosaic features characteristic of both modern apes and humans.

The skull of Australopithecus is similar to that of a chimpanzee. Characterized by large jaws, massive bony ridges for the attachment of the masticatory muscles, a small brain and a large flattened face. The teeth of the Australopithecus were very large, but the canines are short, and the details of the structure of the teeth are more similar to humans than those of monkeys.

The structure of the skeleton of Australopithecus is characterized by a wide low pelvis, relatively long legs and short arms, a grasping hand and a grasping foot, a vertical spine. Such a structure is already almost human, the differences are only in the details of the structure and in small sizes.

The lifestyle of the Australopithecines, apparently, was unlike that known among modern primates. They lived in tropical forests and savannas, and ate mainly plants. However, the late Australopithecines hunted antelopes or took prey from large predators - lions and hyenas. Australopithecus lived in groups of several individuals and, apparently, constantly roamed the vastness of Africa in search of food. The tools of the Australopithecus were unlikely to be made, although they were probably used.

The remains of Pithecanthropus - the earliest representatives of humans or Homo erectus (Human erect, erect) - are widespread in Asia, Africa and Europe.

Pithecanthropus were people who were practically modern in skeletal structure, but their skulls were significantly different from modern ones. Huge jaws, overhanging brow ridges, a sloping forehead and a protruding back of the head are very characteristic physiognomic features of Archantropians. The walls of the skull were very thick, reaching 2 cm in thickness in some individuals. The brains of the archantropists continued to progressively change. The frontal lobe grew, the role of the temporal lobe increased. Its volume ranged from 700-1100 cm3. The arm was already completely modern in structure. Approximately by the time of 1-1.5 million years ago, tools are being improved so much that they are already referred to a new archaeological culture - the Acheulean. A typical tool of the Acheulean culture is a hand ax - heavy, with a rough cutting edge. In addition to stone tools, archanthropus also made wooden spears, which are occasionally found in the peat bogs of Europe.

The period of existence of the archantropists is important in the sense that it was then that the foundations of modern human society were laid. Perhaps the appearance of speech belongs to this time, as can be judged by the casts of the brain. At this time, people began to hunt large dangerous animals, which undoubtedly required the coordination of the team and the complication of communication. Then there was an acquaintance of people with fire and the first resettlement from tropical zones to subtropical ones. Obviously, the size of the archantropic groups increased, and the population of the Earth as a whole grew. Archanthropus knew how to build primitive dwellings.

Among the archanthropists there were some kind of specialized groups that did not leave descendants, while others evolved further. Sometimes many species are distinguished among them. Apparently, there were at least two main branches of the Archantropians - Western, or Afro-European, and Eastern, or Asian.

The Hominins of the period from about 500 to 35 thousand years ago are referred to as paleoanthropes or "archaic sapiens". They are systematically subdivided into "Heidelberg Man" and Neanderthals.

The biological evolution of hominins continued in the direction of a decrease in the massiveness of the skull and an increase in the volume and complexity of the brain structure. It is essential that the volume of the brain grew faster than the structure developed and the shape changed. In some representatives of paleoanthropes, brain sizes reached modern meanings, in general, the scope of their brain volume reached 1000-1700 cm3.

According to the increasing complexity of the structure of the brain, the behavior of people also became more complicated. While the early paleoanthropes used the Acheulean stone-working technique, later ones perfected it. About 200 thousand years ago, the Mousterian technique appeared - more advanced and economical. The typical tools of the Mousterian era are the point and the side-scraper. The cultural difference between territorial groups of people increased. In Asia, primitive methods of stone processing were preserved for a long time. In Europe, the Mousterian technique reached its prime and markedly specialized. African cultures were especially progressive. So, in Africa, the traditions of bone processing and the use of ocher, possibly for ritual purposes, appeared very early.

Paleoanthropes, like their ancestors, continued to migrate across the planet. Getting into new environmental conditions, people learned to cope with various natural difficulties. Apparently, the appearance of clothing dates back to this time. The ways of building dwellings improved, people actively settled in caves, driving out large predators from there - bears, lions and hyenas. The methods of hunting animals have noticeably improved, as evidenced by the numerous remains of bones at the sites. European Neanderthals were, in fact, the main predators of their time. However, there is also evidence of cannibalism among paleoanthropists.

Important changes took place in the psyche of ancient people. Symbolic activity arose. Its first examples cannot even be called art: these are pits on stones, stripes carved on limestone, bones and pieces of ocher. However, such non-utilitarian activity indicates a significant complication of mental processes paleoanthropus.

Even more significant is the archaeological evidence for the ritual practice of the Neanderthals. The most important evidence of the high level of psyche of the Neanderthals is the first burial of the dead. The most ancient of them date back to about 100 thousand years ago. Probably, at the same time, the first ideas about the afterlife appeared.

Outwardly, paleoanthropes were very different. They had a huge brow and a high face, a wide nose, a heavy lower jaw with a sloping chin, and a sloping forehead. The nape of many paleanthropes protruded strongly backward. However, all these signs were not as pronounced as among the archantropians. Late paleoanthropes, attributed to Neanderthals, had a number of specific features, for example, a very strongly protruding wide face with sloping cheekbones. Many signs of European Neanderthals could have arisen under the influence of the harshest conditions of the Ice Age about 60 thousand years ago. The physique of the Neanderthals was very stocky, the legs were relatively short, the chest was barrel-shaped, the shoulders were very wide.

Sapientation is the process of the emergence of the modern human species Homo sapiens sapiens, which consists both in biological restructuring - an increase in the brain, rounding of the skull, a decrease in the size of the face, the appearance of a chin ridge - and in socio-cultural innovations - the emergence of art, symbolic behavior, technical progress, and the development of languages.

In several African localities dating from 200 to 100 thousand years ago, bones were found of people who did not have a strongly protruding occiput, a large superciliary ridge, and at the same time had a very large brain and a protruding chin. Similar finds have been made in the Middle East. Since about 40 thousand years ago, people of a completely modern appearance, only slightly more massive modern ones - neoanthropes - are known from almost the entire territory of the oecumene - from Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia. Only America may have been settled a little later.

The population of Europe, belonging to the modern species, who lived in the Upper Paleolithic era - from 40 to 10 thousand years ago - is called Cro-Magnons. Note that Cro-Magnons in Europe coexisted with Neanderthals for 5 thousand years in a row. They differed among themselves not only in terms of physical structure.

Homo sapiens

The Cro-Magnons had a much more advanced culture. The technique of making tools has grown immeasurably. They began to be made from plates - specially prepared blanks, which made it possible to manufacture much more elegant tools than Mousterian points. The Cro-Magnons also widely used animal bones for the manufacture of tools. The technical equipment of people has grown - a bow and arrows have appeared.

The most significant phenomenon is the flourishing of Upper Paleolithic art. In the caves of France, Spain and Italy, excellent examples of rock art have been preserved; in the layers of the sites from Brittany to Lake Baikal, figurines of people and animals made of bones and limestone have been discovered. The handles of knives and spear throwers were decorated with intricate carvings. Clothes were decorated with beads and painted with ocher.

Human settlements of the Upper Paleolithic were usually regularly visited hunting grounds. Here dwellings were built, the life of society went on, rituals were performed, the dead were buried. In the Upper Paleolithic era, man tamed the wolf, turning it into a dog. So man himself began to actively influence the process of speciation in animals.

Regarding the fate of the Neanderthals, it was previously believed that they evolved into people of the modern type, one stage passed into another. Now this option seems almost unbelievable - the differences in structure and culture are too great, and the coexistence of Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons has already been proven.

Some scholars believe that in the struggle for territory the Cro-Magnons helped immeasurably more high level technical equipment and social organization. In addition, the mixing of some groups of the first neoanthropes and late Neanderthals is not at all excluded. Probably, it was precisely such a mixture of genes and cultures that helped the first neoanthropes to quickly adapt to completely new natural conditions for them.

So, according to paleontological data, the line of predecessors leading to man split from the line of modern apes about 4-8 million years ago. In science, there are many mutually exclusive opinions about the causes, time and place of occurrence. modern man... There were a huge number of predecessors of modern man, not all of whom were our ancestors. They can be divided into stages or groups can be distinguished according to biological systematics: archanthropus, paleoanthropus and neoanthropus. Along with biological evolution, there was social evolution, reconstructed, in particular, by the methods of archeology.

According to the most reasoned point of view, a person of modern appearance and behavior arose in Africa or the Middle East from 100 to 40 thousand years ago. Since about 35 thousand years on Earth, there is only a modern species of man, which has spread throughout the planet.

Aspects of the decision-making process
Cell theory, mineral metabolism
The pharynx, esophagus and stomach in the human digestive system
Aging process
Water-salt metabolism in humans
Differences between human activity and animal behavior
Human heredity
Second signaling system
The mechanism of urination in the kidneys
Development of the brain in ontogenesis
The role and function of human skin
Connection environmental issues and health

The emergence of modern humans: the time and place of human origin. Basic hypotheses.

The earliest remains of modern humans are found in Africa. Homo sapiens appeared here about 130-100 thousand years ago. There are still disputes about the origin of Homo sapiens in anthropology. Proponents of the theory of monocentrism associate the origin of Homo sapiens with one region. Their opponents - adherents of polycentrism - say that Homo sapiens appeared simultaneously in several regions of the Earth.
- hypothesis of monocentrism(hypothesis of the African ancestral home). It was from Africa, according to this version, that Homo sapiens crossed Gibraltar and Western Asia about 100 thousand years ago to Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Another route of settlement ran to Southeast Asia. About 50 thousand years ago, Homo sapiens settled in Australia. It entered America about 25-30 thousand years ago.

- hypothesis of polycentrism, first put forward by the American anthropologist Franz Weidenreich (1873-1948), distinguishes four centers of the formation of a modern person and, accordingly, his races: East Asia(australoids), South Africa(Negroids), East Asia (Mongoloids) and Western Asia (Caucasians). Nowadays, the multi-regional hypothesis is more widespread - it proceeds from the fact that Homo erectus settled from Africa and then arose - simultaneously in several centers - modern man.

Neoanthropes - a generalized name for modern humans who replaced all their predecessors in the period 40-30 thousand years ago.
Homo sapiens were actively populating our planet 40-38 thousand years ago.

Human evolution

The earliest representatives of modern man in Europe and partly outside of it are Cro-Magnons (fr. Homme de Cro-Magnon) who lived 40-10 thousand years ago (the period of the Upper Paleolithic). The name comes from the Cro-Magnon grotto in France, where several human skeletons were discovered in 1868 along with tools from the late Paleolithic. The most important fossil finds: in Africa - Cape Flats, Fish Hook, Nazlet Hater; in Europe - Komb Capell, Mladech, Cro-Magnon, in Russia - Sungir, in Ukraine - Mezhirech. The volume of the brain is 1200-1500 cm³. Height is about 180 cm. Flattened, high, almost vertical forehead. The brow ridges are reduced.

24. Acceleration. Morphological, physiological and mental manifestation of acceleration. Basic hypotheses of acceleration.

ACCELERATION - acceleration of growth and physical development of children in comparison with previous generations. For the first time, such phenomena were noted in the middle of the 19th century. When comparing the results of anthropometric surveys carried out at the beginning of the XX century, with the data of the 30s. XIX century. it was found that the acceleration process covered the population of all economically developed countries.

Signs of acceleration are noted already at the stage of intrauterine development. So, over the past 70-80 years, the body length of a newborn has increased by an average of 1 cm, weight - by 100-300 g. 6th month of life, now observed at 4 months; the baby's chest circumference becomes larger than the head circumference not at 6 months, but at 2-5 months. Children begin to hold their heads earlier, in more early age their fontanel is overgrown and milk teeth erupt. With age, the rate of acceleration grows: the body length of 4-7-year-old children for each decade increases on average by 1.5 cm, body weight - by 0.5 kg.

Observations show that significant differences in the rate of acceleration of children of different nationalities not found. Urban children are subject to acceleration to a slightly greater extent than rural children.

In the 1980s. there is a slowdown in the rate of acceleration, which indicates a relative stabilization of the rate of development of children born at the end of the 20th century.

There are a number of hypotheses designed to explain the causes of acceleration, but none of them is considered exhaustive. Probably, the acceleration of development occurs under the influence of a whole complex of socio-economic and natural living conditions - improved nutrition; genetic changes as a result of the intensification of the processes of migration and mixing of the population; an increase in the intensity of external stimuli that stimulate the nervous system, etc. (individual factors and conditions are difficult to accurately account and estimate).

There is evidence of the so-called psychological acceleration, i.e. accelerating the mental development of children. However, in the opinion of most experts, these data rather indicate a previously underestimated child's intellectual capabilities. It is shown that the creation of favorable stimulating conditions and the use of special techniques for the development of perception, attention, speech, etc. contributes to a fuller realization of the child's capabilities. Psychologists, however, warn against "artificial acceleration", when intellectual development is overly intensified, placing excessive demands on the child. A reliable indicator of the compliance of the developmental influences with the child's capabilities is his emotional stability, his readiness to enthusiastically accept new stimuli and tasks.

A rapid increase in body length and weight is not an unambiguous indicator of physiological and mental development. Distinguish between passport (chronological) and biological age, which characterizes the actual development of the child. For some children, these ages coincide, however, most children of the same passport age are at different stages of biological development. Moreover, children of small stature can mature according to their biological age, and, conversely, with high growth, the infantilism of physical development can be preserved. There is also acceleration within one generation. Within one age group, there are about 8% of children characterized by accelerated development, and about the same number of children who are characterized by some delay in physical development.

In general, acceleration is a statistical pattern. For each individual child, its manifestations have their own individual characteristics which should not be construed as advantages or disadvantages.

1. Heliogenic hypothesis suggests that the main reason for the acceleration is an increase in the level of insolation (sun exposure), including ultraviolet, which modern children are exposed to. According to E. Koch, who was the first to express such an assumption, ultraviolet radiation, activating all processes in the body, including the formation of vitamin D, contributes to the acceleration of growth.

The beneficial effect of solar radiation on a growing organism is well known, but there are facts that do not fit into this hypothesis. For example, it was noted that the rate of acceleration among residents of northern latitudes is as significant as in the southern regions of the globe. In some mountainous areas (Tien Shan, Pamir, Altai), children grow up somewhat more slowly than their peers from flat areas, despite the fact that the level of insolation in high mountain areas is higher. Contradicting the heliogenic hypothesis is the fact that children living in rural areas grow and develop on average more slowly than their peers in cities.

2. The next in time of appearance and the first in the number of supporters is alimentary(literally - nutritious) theory... Some adherents of this theory associate acceleration with an increase in the consumption of proteins and fats of animal origin, others - milk and vitamins, especially in the first months of a child's life.

Despite the known anabolic effects of a high-protein diet, this hypothesis has its weaknesses. So, in some countries, for example, in Japan, the population traditionally receives significantly less protein of animal origin than in Europe, but the pace of acceleration of Japanese children is very high. The connection between acceleration and vitaminization of the diet is also doubtful, since the synthesis and industrial production of vitamins have been carried out over the past 20-30 years, and the process of acceleration has been observed for over 100 years.

3. Urbanization hypothesis... Its supporters believe that the accelerated pace of urban life, an increase in mental load due to additional sources of information (radio, television, newspapers and books), street noise and other factors have an exciting effect on the central nervous system of children, activate its somatotropic function. The urbanization hypothesis partly explains the higher rates of acceleration in cities, but does not fully reveal the cause of the phenomenon itself.

4. Contamination and mutagenic hypotheses... Supporters of these hypotheses believe that the main reason for the acceleration is the pollution (contamination) of the human environment with industrial waste, which has mutagenic properties and therefore gives a biostimulating heterosis-like effect. The products of oil, coal and gas processing are named as causal agents. elevated level radiation exceeding the natural modern background by 20–70 times, radio wave pollution and others.

5. Genetic hypothesis... Its supporters see the reason for the acceleration in the genetic effect associated with the conclusion of marriages between people who previously lived in remote from each other settlements. Industrialization and the massive movement of the young part of the population to cities have led to an increase in the number of heterolocal marriages (marriages between people from different places), to population mixing and an effect similar to heterosis. The phenomenon of heterosis has been well studied in animals. It consists in the phenomenon of superiority of the first generation hybrids in a number of characteristics over the best of the parental forms. Studies have shown that with an increase in the distance between the motherland of the father and mother, the indicators of physical development in children increase, and maturation accelerates.

6. Hypothesis of cyclical growth and development rates children and adolescents depending on the cycles of solar activity. Analyzing the anthropological indicators of the population in different eras, as well as the results of morphological studies of some species of animals, scientists noted that periods of increase and decrease in the rate of development were observed, obviously, in previous times, but their intensity was less pronounced. Based on this, an assumption is made about the phasing of this process and a gradual slowdown in the rate of acceleration is predicted *.

Concluding the conversation about acceleration, it should be noted that it is not only scientific interest... Her study made it possible to conclude that children who are ahead of their peers in physical development more often have disharmonious states, which are risk factors for the occurrence of various diseases... These diseases include postural disorders, myopia, autonomic disorders, obesity, heart, lung and kidney disease. In addition to these medical consequences, acceleration also has psychological consequences associated with the discrepancy between the degree of physical, functional development and social status of the adolescent.

At one time, Ernst Haeckel - an energetic propagandist of Darwinism - built a scheme of human evolution, consisting of 22 stages. But gradually it became clear that almost none of them correspond to reality. Meanwhile, since the end of the last century, anthropology has left the sphere of arbitrary fortune-telling and embarked on an active search for the fossil ancestor of man. It was especially tempting to find the so-called "missing link" that would connect man and ape.

At first, the excavation seemed to bring what was expected of them. In 1892 on about. Java E. Dubois found the bones of a creature that was dubbed "upright monkey-man" - Pitecantropus Erektus (See the article by E. Dubois about the discovery of Pithecanthropus in the collection "Human Evolution". M., 1924). In 1911, fragments of a skull and jaw with clearly ape features were discovered in England. They were declared to belong to the "Man of Dawn", eoanthropus. In 1924, in Africa, R. Dart discovered the skull of a monkey with features that bring it closer to humans. She was named "southern monkey", Australopithecus (Dart R.A. Australopithecus africanus. The Man Ape of South Africa. - Nature. Februari, 7. P. 191). And finally, in 1927 in China, near Beijing, the skull and bones of a creature very similar to the Pithecanthropus called Sinanthropus were found (Teilhard de Chardin P. La decouverte du Sinantrope. - Etudes. July 5, 1937. see also: Py-kan W., Shenlon L. Peking man. - "In the world of science." 1983. N 8). In addition, fossilized bones of creatures very close to humans have been found in Europe before. They received the name "primitive people", or Neanderthals, after the place where the remains of this creature were first discovered (See collection: Fossil hominids and the origin of man. M., 1966).

These findings, as well as a number of others, made it possible for the proponents of slow evolution to recreate the "path from monkey to man." Indeed, the scheme based on these findings attracts with its simplicity and persuasiveness. According to this scheme, development gradually proceeds from the ancient monkey to Australopithecus, from him - to Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus, and from them the line stretches to Eoanthropus and Neanderthal - the ancestors of modern humans. Gradually, however, this scheme began to raise serious doubts and the question of the ancestor of man turned out to be immeasurably more complicated than previously thought.

Eoanthropus has long instilled doubt in its antiquity and, finally, dropped out of our lineage under the most unexpected circumstances. As it turned out, it simply turned out to be a fake, fabricated from human and chimpanzee bones. Thus, the scientific world for 40 years was a victim of deliberate deception (see: Jlupuwe V. I. Garden of Eden. M., 1981, p. 81).

Further: new finds of Australopithecus (paranthropus, plesianthropus, etc.) showed that these were monkeys that inhabited Africa in large numbers, but their "human" features were clearly exaggerated. The fact is that the first find belonged to a calf. And as you know, babies of great apes have features that bring them closer to humans. This feature indicates that the ancestors of the monkeys were more "humanoid". Modern anthropoids have gone far from the main trunk of human development. They developed large jaws, powerful fangs, and even a crest on their skulls, which strengthened their chewing muscles, like those of predators. When the skulls of adult australopithecines were found, it turned out that although they had not yet developed canines, like modern gorillas, they had powerful jaws, not inferior to those of a gorilla and an orangutan. The skull of a calf, found in 1924, was as much a witness to more "human" ancestors as the skulls of the young of modern anthropoids.

"Numerous objections of a morphological, zoogeographic, geological and general biological order," writes the Soviet anthropologist Yakimov, "do not allow the recognition of direct human ancestors in the South African Australopithecines, which, in their further development, gave rise to early forms of hominids" (Yakimov V.P. Early stages of anthropogenesis. - In collection: Proceedings of the Institute of Ethnography. T. XVI. 1951. P. 33).

In 1960, anthropologist Louis Leakey made a sensational statement around the world that he had discovered a human ancestor. In East Africa, in the Oldway Gorge, Leakey found fragments of the bones of a primate, which he named Zinjanthropus. However, it was soon established that the zinjanthropus is nothing more than one of the forms of the Australopithecus monkey, close to the gorilla (Kraus B.S. The Basis of Human Evolution. 1964. P. 240). Soon Leakey made another discovery. He found the bones of a more progressive form, which he called the pre-zinjanthropus, or Homo Habilis. In some respects, the pre-Zinjanthropus was more primitive than the Australopithecines. This gave Louis Leakey reason to consider him a member of the direct lineage of man, especially since the first dating indicated that this find is more than one and a half million years old (Leakey L. At 1,750,000 years into the past of man. - In: Science and Humanity. M " 1963, p. 85) Until now, the find and its age are the subject of lively discussion, and there is still no definitive evidence whether the pre-Zinjanthropus could have been our direct ancestor (See: Reshetiv Yu.G. The Nature of the Earth and the Origin of Man. M., 1966, p. 213 a.).

Great interest was aroused in Lately finds of Louis Leakey's son, Robert Leakey. On the shores of Lake Rudolph in Africa, he discovered the bones of humanoid creatures, the life of which the scientist attributed to the second million years before our time (see: Leakey R. E. Further Evidence of Lower Pleistocene Hominids from East Rudolf, North Kenya.-Nature. V 231. 1971; The emergence of human society. Paleolithic Africa. M., 1977, p. 24 letters; Go M. The missing link / Translated from English. M., 1977. p. 67 f.; Hours F. Dieu crea l'hommea Son image - "Le monde de la Bible" 1979 WS P. 42-48).

But the most sensational was the find of Donald Johanson in Hadera (Ethiopia). There, in 1974, an almost complete skeleton of a female was found, similar in type to the Australopithecines. "Lucy" (as Johanson dubbed this creature) had an upright gait, was distinguished by a rather slender physique with a height of about a meter, but her skull wore quite ape features. Scientists have dated the find at 3-3.5 million years. It is likely that "Lucy" gives us an idea of ​​those biological forms that gave rise to the genus Homo (See: D. Johanson, Go M. Lucy. The origin of the human race. M "1984).

As for a real person, until very recently it was believed that his antiquity does not exceed 50-40 thousand years. However, recent studies by the French physicist A. Villade (1988) helped to establish that the age of the oldest finds of Homo Sapiens reaches 100-130 thousand years. Most of them are found in East Africa. An exception is the skull from the Jebel Qafzeh cave near Nazareth, a city well known in biblical history.

Biomolecular analysis of representatives of various modern races of the Old World, carried out by scientists from the United States and Japan, showed that all these races originate from a single genetic root and most likely from Africa.

The closest relative of Homo Sapiens among the currently known fossil forms is the Neanderthal. This species was extremely widespread in Europe, Asia and Africa. The study of Neanderthals has revealed one remarkable feature. The early forms of Neanderthals, which preceded the classical ones in time, turned out to be morphologically closer to Homo Sapiens (Kraus V. Op.

The emergence of modern humans

cit. P. 243). These early forms include the skulls found in Steinheim, Svanscombe and Fonteshevade (See: M. Gerasimov People of the Stone Age. M., 1964, p. 47 ate). These forms are conventionally called "presapient", that is, preceding a real person. The classical Neanderthals, in the general opinion of anthropologists, could not have been our ancestors. This is a very specialized species, stopped in its development, and, unlike the "presapiens", in many respects adjoins the lower monkeys, despite its "human" appearance. Studies of the brain cavities of Neanderthal skulls have shown that these creatures had underdeveloped frontal regions, which are directly related to the control of emotions. "The defeat of the orbital parts of the frontal region in a person can lead to drastic changes in his character, to a violation of the social structure of the personality, to manifestations of unbridled rage, etc." (Roginsky Ya.Ya. Problems of anthropogenesis. M., 1977. S. 197). Consequently, the psychology of the Neanderthal was characterized by unbridled aggressiveness, and his intelligence was significantly lower than that of a human.

Nevertheless, some groups of Neanderthals had a rudimentary art (see.

A. Chernysh's message about this discovery in the book: At the origins of creativity. Novosibirsk, 1979), therefore, some researchers tend to consider Neanderthals not as precursors of humans, but as one of the primitive human races.

Thus, the abundance of finds did not clarify the picture, but rather complicated it. Until now, the species that could be recognized as the direct ancestor of man is still unknown. The finds mainly speak of creatures that represented lateral branches of development, deadlocked and, perhaps, unable to withstand competition with humans.

Some scientists believe that in inaccessible areas and still could have survived a few copies of these "cousins" of man, these fruits of a failed attempt to humanize. All information about the so-called "Bigfoot" and other similar creatures (basically, apparently, reliable) suggests that in appearance and behavior they are not much different from modern anthropoids (See: R. Izzard. Following the footsteps of Bigfoot. M ., 1960; as well as a number of articles on this issue in periodicals).

The question arises, when did the Great Moment come chronologically and when did anthropogenesis take place? About 9 million years ago, Australopithecines appeared on Earth, about 3 million years ago - Habilis, and later - Arhanthropus. Early forms of Neanderthals existed at the same time as Archanthropus. The heyday of the Neanderthals spans between 300 and 40 millennia BC.

It is believed that a real person first appeared about 100 thousand years ago. Thus, compared with 9 million years of the existence of animals close to humans, the era of Homo Sapiens seems negligible. It was truly a "sudden leap".

The difficulties associated with solving the problem of our biological ancestor gave rise to many hypotheses of anthropogenesis. Suffice it to mention the theory of Hermann Klaach (1922), who, on the basis of comparative anatomical data, denied a close relationship between humans and anthropoids and who derived our lineage from a special primate trunk; the theory of F. Wood Jones (1929), who considered the Tertiary tarsier our ancestor; the theory of Henry Osborne, who, like Klaach, denies the origin of man from ape-like ancestors; Franz Weidenreich (1947) associates our family tree with a special group of giant primates. According to Robert Broome, "the human line goes through the tarsiers and primitive non-specialized anthropoids to some ape-like men", which laid the foundation for the hominid family (1947). The latter theory is currently the most successful.

A number of researchers, including Soviet ones, believe that a person arose from several (at least two) genetic stems. However, serious objections are raised against this theory of polygenism. The majority of modern anthropologists therefore take the positions of monogenism, which considers Homo Sapiens as a single species that arose from a single root (See: Roginsky Ya. Ya. Problems of Anthropogenesis. P. 141 f.).

How did Christians view the theory of human origins? Initially, the teaching that "man descended from ape" shocked many. Undeserved contempt for monkeys made this seem shameful. A whole storm broke out (fortunately, a short one). At the famous Oxford debate, Bishop Wilberforce ironically asked the defender of Darwinism Huxley: in what line does he consider himself a descendant of a monkey - through the line of grandparents? Huxley replied in a tone that he prefers to come from a monkey than from a person who pokes his nose into what he does not understand. Pastor Sedgwick, a naturalist, Darwin's teacher, signed his letter to him with these words: "In the past your friend, now - one of the descendants of a monkey." But soon the passions began to subside. The problem that Wallace had already put forward made one think about whether the human spirit can have a natural origin. Some defenders of the literal understanding of the Bible wanted by all means to consider the "dust of the earth" of Genesis as necessarily clay.

But the more reasonable admitted that, in the words of A. Tolstoy, "a shmat of clay is no more noble than an orangutan."

Gradually they began to understand that there was a misunderstanding. "The conviction that a person has the same natural origin as other living beings, just as can not be to the detriment of religion, as the doctrine of the rotation of the Earth" (Klaach G. Origin and development of the human race. P. 364).

This idea was expressed publicly by Erich Wasmann, a famous Austrian zoologist who owns hundreds of scientific papers... Back in 1906, he gave a series of lectures on the origin of man, which attracted great attention of the Christian intelligentsia. In them, he showed that the biblical teaching does not exclude the evolutionary origin of the human body (Vasman E. Christianity and the theory of development. Pg., 1917, p. 24). Vasman's point of view was soon shared by many scientists, including those far from Christianity. Thus, the neo-Darwinist August Weismann argued that religion in these matters cannot contradict science.

As a result, many Christian scientists began to study the problem of paleoanthropology. Among them, the first place is taken by Henri Breuil, Hugo Obermeier and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. The ecclesiastical point of view on this issue was reflected in Pope Pius XII's encyclical "Humani generis" - "On the human race", which says that the Church recommends studying evolutionary theory "to the extent that research speaks about the origin of the human body (Discharge mine.- AM) from preexisting living matter, but adhere to the fact that souls are directly created by God. " (For this encyclical see: "Antonianum", January - April 1958.)

Date of publication: 2014-12-10; Read: 73 | Page copyright infringement

studopedia.org - Studopedia.Org - 2014-2018. (0.003 s) ...

27 How man appeared on Earth

191. Consider the drawing. Indicate the similarities and differences between humans and great apes.

• Answer: Five-fingered limbs, broad shoulders, similarity of the auricle, general external similarity.

192. Write down the names of the ancestors of modern humans in the order of their appearance on Earth.

1) Driopithecus

2) Australopithecus

3) Skillful man

4) Homo erectus

5) Neanderthal

6) Cro-Magnon

193. Review the drawing and label the names of the person's ancestors.

194. Using the material of the textbook, fill in the table "Ancestors of modern man".

• Ancestor	Features of the external structure	Capabilities
  Driopithecus	More like a modern monkey	No distinctive
  Australopithecus	The first erect	Used items found as weapons
  Skillful man	Changed skull, straighter back	Started making primitive tools, building huts, using fire
  Homo erectus	He was larger than his ancestor, had a developed brain	Used fire and made weapons to perfection
  Neanderthal	Large head, massive eyebrows, medium height	We sewed clothes, insulated huts, had speech
  Cro-Magnon	Much like a modern person	We knew how to draw, the first pet appeared

195. Answer the question.

Which of the human ancestors first developed articulate speech?

• Answer: Homo sapiens (Neanderthal, Cro-Magnon)

196. Using additional sources of information, prepare a message about one of the human ancestors. Write down your message plan.

Who are we, descendants of monkeys or the most ancient inhabitants of the planet?

Indicate the source of the information used.

1) Appearance

2) Cro-Magnon classes

3) hunting the first pet

4) Drawings of Cro-Magnons

5) Speech and reasoning

197. Insert the missing letters.

• Answer: Austral O pitek, dri O P AND tech, n E onde R talc, to R Oman B end.

Make 2 - 3 sentences with these words.

• Answer Monkeys and humans have a common ancestor - driopithecus. From him came australopithecus, subsequently, the intelligent man who gave life to the species.

And they were replaced by a new variety of "homo sapiens". These new humans were the first humans on Earth to have the same skull and body shape as modern humans. They were named Cro-Magnons, they were our immediate ancestors (for more details see the article ""). Cro-Magnons lived in caves or huts at the very end of the last ice age. In those days it was cold, and the winters were snowy, only low grasses and shrubs could grow in such conditions. Cro-Magnons hunted reindeer and woolly mammoths.

Hunting and fishing

Cro-Magnons have learned to make many new types of weapons and weapons. To their spears, they tied sharp points of staghorn with teeth directed backwards so that the spear was deeply stuck in the side of the wounded animal. In order to throw spears as far as possible, they used special throwing devices. These devices were made from a deer's antler, and some of them were decorated with carved patterns. They fished with harpoons carved from antlers, tipped and curved backward. The harpoons were tied to the spears, and the fishermen pierced the fish with them directly in.

Sewing

Needles carved from a deer antler were found next to the remains of the Cro-Magnons. This suggests that people have already learned how to sew animal skins. Cro-Magnons cut the antlers with a chisel-like stone tool - a chisel (read also the article ""). They were probably the first people to learn how to make needles and sew. At one end of the needle, they made a hole that served as an eye. Then they cleaned the edges and the point of the needle by rubbing it against a special stone. They may have pierced the hide with a stone drill so that the needle could be threaded through the holes. Instead of thread, they used thin strips of animal skin or intestines. Cro-Magnons often sewed small beads of multicolored stones to their clothes to look more elegant. Sometimes for these purposes they also used shells with holes in the middle.

Ancient burial

Many burials have been discovered in the earthen floor of Cro-Magnon huts and caves. The skeletons were covered with beads of stones and shells, previously attached to rotted clothing. The dead, as a rule, were laid in the grave in a bent position, with their knees pressed to the chin (see also the article ““). Sometimes various tools and weapons are also found in the graves.

This is the skull of a Cro-Magnon woman. It has the same shape as the skull. modern people, and has a capacious rounded cranium, a pointed chin and a straight forehead.

Mammoth Bone Huts

Some Cro-Magnon tribes lived on the cold steppe plains of Eastern Europe. There were no caves to settle, and there was not enough wood to build huts. However, the woolly mammoths they hunted supplied them with almost everything they needed for life (read also the article ““). Cro-Magnons built huts from long tibia and mammoth tusks, covering the frame with animal skins. The ends of the bones were inserted into the skulls, since the builders could not stick them into the frozen ground. These Cro-Magnons wore trousers and jackets made from mammoth skins. They ate mammoth meat and stored it in pits dug in the frozen ground.

How to make a caveman necklace

Cro-Magnons made necklaces from small pebbles and shells, fish bones, or pieces of eggshells. Perhaps they also wore beads made from seeds or grains of various fruits, but they have not survived in a fossil form. Sea shells and pebbles often have small holes in the middle. If you happen to visit the sea, you can collect them and string them on a string to make a necklace. You can also poke a needle through small pieces of fresh eggshells. Place them on cotton thread along with apple and orange seeds for another necklace.

Homo sapiens came to the region much later - about 40 thousand years ago. After the appearance modern people European Neanderthals became completely extinct in about 5 thousand years. The exact reasons for the disappearance of H. neanderthalensis are unknown, ... food and other resources. The authors of the new work tried to estimate the size of the populations of the Neanderthals living in Europe and modern people focusing on several indicators. Scientists have calculated the number of known sites of both types, their size and number ...

https: //www.site/journal/137709

Their ideas and very slowly move up the steps of the knowledge of the World. Many, even fundamental, scientific theories modern people took for the final idea of ​​the world. It was for just one reason - a lack of ... all these abilities. First of all, thanks to healthy way life, a good attitude to the world and to people in particular, a worldview based on high human values ​​and, of course, comprehensive holistic self-development. The third way is ...

https: //www.site/journal/143557

All kinds of electrical appliances make our life easy and convenient. And in this sense, the standards of living modern people equal to the highest standards of antiquity, say, the standards of the ancient rulers of Egypt, who were served by hundreds of servants ... the highest point ever reached by mankind. But are we really satisfied with this modern life? I think no. Nowadays, almost everything people not satisfied with their current life. Workers are in perpetual dispute with employers and ...

https: //www.site/religion/12090

... ". And even if the interpretations made on the basis of these observations are significantly outdated, and the theoretical part is only suitable for history, the very fact that people noticed the relationship between bodily manifestations and the psyche gives us, modern people, limitless possibilities in knowing yourself and those around you. There is no need to talk about the applicability of this art. At the very least, it's just interesting ...

https: //www..html

At home, you should "sit down on the path." These signs are time-tested, and in order to ward off trouble from yourself, people strictly follow them. V modern the world still has room for important superstitions, and their number is increasing every year. After all ... it will worsen significantly. And if, while taking a bath, you see rusty water, a sign promises health problems. V modern the world people began to be more skeptical of superstitions, and if the omens come true, then they consider it a common coincidence. However, don't ...

https: //www.site/magic/17523

The balance between Yin-Yang, a theory known in ancient China. The electron carries a negative Yin charge. Modern electronic technology mainly uses electrical energy produced by electron flow and then transformed into others ... under conditions created by the balance between Yin and Yang. Have modern people got into the habit of staying awake late at night using all kinds of lights and getting up far away by noon. Some people sleep during the day when they have to amplify them ...

Knowing what happened to a person in the distant past, one can make predictions for the distant (and not so) future. Anthropologist Stanislav Drobyshevsky has several scenarios for the development of events on the planet. He does not exclude, for example, that people will climb back into trees or still invent a computer that will take care of everything. T&P publishes the theses of the lecture "The biological future of man", which the scientist read at the Kazan center of contemporary culture "Smena".

Scenario "warm": thin and curly

What will happen to humans if global warming wins? We know that people who were born in the tropics have very elongated proportions, because the closer the shape to the stick, the faster it cools, and the more it looks like a ball, the longer it stays warm. So, if it is hot, everyone will be elongated, like the inhabitants of the Sahara - Tuaregs, for example. Metabolism will definitely decrease, since the human body emits heat, muscles release heat, even the brain emits something a little, and in a warm climate there is a task to get rid of this temperature.

It will be necessary to take care of the head area, because brain overheating is one of the most critical phenomena. To remove heat, the nose will expand; lips will thicken as wide lips evaporate water; for the same reason, the oral cavity will increase. All tropical dwellers have prominent jaws, wide noses, and thick lips. The shape of the head can also change: it has been experimentally proven that an elongated narrow skull heats up less than a wide one. In addition, such a thing as curly hair was invented: it is the best heat insulator because there is air between them (the principle of double glazing on windows).

Of course, people can build buildings, climb there, and eventually wear umbrellas. But you can't get away from nature. No matter how a person hides from external conditions, they still act on him, and the selection based on these criteria will be quite tough.

Tuaregs living in Mali © H. Grobe / Wikimedia Commons

Scenario "cold": fat, rolling, hibernation

The opposite may be the case: it is known from geological history that over the past hundreds of thousands of years the climate has become colder and colder. There were ice ages, there were warming, these stages replaced each other. We are now living at the peak of warming. The interglacial has been going on for 10 thousand years - this is an obscene amount in the course of the previous interglacials. Before that, in 100 thousand years, about 100 ice ages have changed, and it has never happened that it was so warm for 10 thousand years in a row. Therefore, the nearest one is about to happen. ice Age in the style of the film "The Day After Tomorrow" - much colder than the last glaciation 20 thousand years ago, which was the coldest in history. Then a "cold" scenario arises.

The inhabitants of the Arctic, or at least even the Norwegians, possess morphological and biochemical complexes that help them to live in cold conditions. These are, for example, stocky proportions: the height can be anything, but the proportion itself is similar to a square. As I mentioned, the closer the body is to the ball, the better it retains heat. This is the principle of the samovar: why is the samovar so pot-bellied? To keep warm in the middle.

For the appearance of heat, the metabolism must accelerate. It is higher among modern inhabitants of the Arctic than among inhabitants of the temperate or equatorial region. For example, Eskimos can eat three kilograms of fat a day. For them, this is a normal daily diet, and they do not have any problems with cholesterol or plaque in their blood vessels. Their enzymes turn everything into heat, so they can sleep perfectly in a igloo made of snow, where the temperature does not rise above 5 degrees.

Among other things, people will be more muscular because muscles also provide a lot of heat. Surprisingly, fat deposition will not be that great (modern Arctic inhabitants are not that fat). But, for example, polar pilots are people with an increased type of fat deposition, since by virtue of their profession they do not particularly have the opportunity to jump and warm up due to muscle contraction. So in a "cold" scenario, the type of future person largely depends on what he will do. If people sit still, they will certainly be plump, and with a more or less active lifestyle, they will be rolling with a powerful metabolism.

In the long run of the "cold" scenario, any miracles can happen, up to hibernation. Among the primates there are some that hibernate. True, not cold, but, on the contrary, hot. For example, fat-tailed lemurs in Madagascar hibernate in the summer because of the drought they have nothing to eat. They crawl into the hollow, their tail grows, and fat is stored there (hence the name), and they live well on these reserves. A person following their example can hibernate like badgers, bears or hedgehogs. Moreover, ethnographers have recorded that the northern peoples also fell, if not into hibernation, then into some kind of sleepy state. They can sit around the fire of their plague for days and not even talk. Here, of course, a very powerful selection for mental properties will take place, because not every person can endure such a state. To withstand the polar night is also not given to everyone. Another thing is that if the "cold" scenario assumes a decrease in temperature throughout the planet, then, strictly speaking, we are not talking about the polar night here: there may be a cold climate at the equator, while the sun will shine, the temperature will simply drop to minus 60, for example ...

Inhabitants of Wrangel Island, 1924. Wikimedia Commons

Wild scenario: strong or smart

Man destroys his habitat at an accelerated pace: we eat everything, we shit everywhere, we pollute the atmosphere. The likelihood that people will destroy everything around and civilization will collapse is catastrophically high. Personally, I am convinced that this is the main scenario of our near future.

If civilization begins to collapse, medicine disappears first. Now, thanks to the fact that there is heat, gas and running water, as well as antibiotics, almost everyone survives, even people with serious disabilities. So such a classic natural selection will begin, which will allow only the most hardy to survive: who will consume little energy and will be able to eat everything in the world. Most likely, human health will improve as a result of this selection. If you take the tribe of the wild Papuans of New Guinea or the Amazonian Indians, then they, as a rule, are all healthy, they have a minimum of mental deviations, because the weak die in infancy.

Now society as a whole allows living both smart and unwise. But since the best will survive by natural selection, there are two options. If everything turns out to be completely sad, then a return to the state of a monkey is possible: people will again climb trees, the selection will go to dexterity, strength, cunning, but not to intellect. Or, on the contrary, the intellect will grow, and then everything will repeat itself: people will start to create something. But we are now wasting resources at such a speed that potentially in the future, there may not be anything to build a civilization on. If we burn all the coal and gas (there is a lot of coal, but gas and oil are very easy), then where do we get the energy? They won't even have firewood.

This is unfortunate for individuals, but optimistic for the species as a whole. The fact is that modern civilization is far from being civilized everywhere. Yes, there are big cities, but there are also non-contact Amazonian Indians, there are Bushmen from the Kalahari, there are Papuans of New Guinea and pygmies in the center of Africa. They may simply not notice this collapse. Even when all these million-dollar megacities fall into tartarars, the pygmies will also hunt elephants (although now they have iron tips, but they will again be stone ones). And then they will go to re-develop the land, they will carry out excavations and wonder: “There are some incomprehensible walls, who created this at all? Atlanta, I guess. " They will create civilization again, and there is some probability that a wave-like process will occur: everything will repeat itself with an interval of tens of thousands of years.

The scenario is unreal and hyperreal

Maybe people will be so intelligent that they will overcome all these adversities and invent limitless energy sources or build a tokamak, which they started back in the 50s.

There are several options here. The first option (unrealistic): everyone will be engaged in art, science, create, compose poems - in the style of the Strugatsky brothers. I personally don't believe in this scenario. If there is a huge amount of resources, then, as the practice of our time shows, most people use these resources for other purposes. People don't strive for progress. They want to live in peace, and any progress means overcoming the crisis. When all the mammoths were eaten, they began to hunt fallow deer. When they had eaten all the fallow deer, they began to collect wild millet, oats or wheat. Collected all the wild, began to grow. Then they began to carry out irrigation, then they dirtied everything and invented fertilizer, then they began to use pesticides. This is progress.

There is another option: humanity will create technologies that can self-replicate. That is, computers will assemble computers, and this process will already be independent of a person. We are already seeing the first steps - artificial intelligence is being actively developed in different countries... When this technique begins to provide for a person (feed him, drink him, nourish and cherish), but at the same time support himself, without his participation, then the person will become a wonderful application in the style of the movie "The Matrix". He will receive all the joys and do nothing - such as lying under a technological banana that periodically falls into his mouth.

There is an example of evolution in such conditions: wonderful tapeworms that live in food, around them food, they do not need anything, their digestive system is completely reduced and almost completely nervous system, but only the reproductive system functions, because the only purpose of any living organism is to reproduce its genetic copies. This feature is unlikely to go away.

Scenario "calculated": the human brain and the brain of a healthy Cro-Magnon

We can imagine how the signs have changed so far, and calculate what will happen to them later. The most interesting thing happens to the brain. If we imagine that the evolution of the brain takes 20 million years, and we take the arithmetic mean for this time, then it turns out that we should not have such a brain as it is now. According to these calculations, the human brain should weigh 10 kilograms. Just in case: for a modern man it is on average 1,350 grams, for chimpanzees - 350 grams.

The secret is that over the past 25 thousand years, the brain, on the contrary, has been decreasing. There are several explanations for this trend. According to one version, the brain has shrunk, but it has begun to work harder: connections have become richer, biochemistry is more active, blood supply has improved. I like the second version much more. The fact is that the time of the Upper Paleolithic is the time of the generalists - the Cro-Magnons could do everything. Each specific person during the first ten years of his life had to learn how to build a house, make stone tools, kindle a fire, build pit traps, catch animals and know everything about them (by age, sex, seasons, who lives where, how to catch, and who can catch and eat it). Plus to this - legends, myths, legends, various social information (who is good, who is bad). In general, an unlimited amount of data in one head. Considering that average duration life was about 35 years old, the transmission of information to the next generations was rather limited, they did not have time to pass everything on to children, everyone learned from their mistakes. There was a selection; the brain grew accordingly.

Then there was such a thing as specialization. Let's say I can tell stories about our future, and someone can film me on camera, someone can drive a taxi, someone can build starships, someone invents engines, someone bakes bread, someone grows, someone forges a sickle to harvest this bread, and so on. Not much information needs to be held in everyone's head. For example, I do not understand the brands of cars, and some do not understand anything about Australopithecus. But we have mentors for every occasion: in a manger, in kindergarten, at school, and then at the institute, there are textbooks, dictionaries, instructions for any occasion in life.

A person's dental system changes. Over the past few million years, our jaw and teeth have shrunk dramatically. This is now an active process, we are in an acute stage of evolutionary change: the third molars (in dental terminology - eights, they are also wisdom teeth) are very small and are non-functional for many people. Many people are firmly convinced that these are harmful teeth that must be pulled out, they must be destroyed. But before they were the most useful and important teeth in evolution, because they are closest to the joint and they have a greater chewing load. In Australopithecus and Pithecanthropus, these are the largest and most significant teeth. But since then, as people began to cook food (at least in the most primitive way - fry or cook over a fire), we move on to external digestion, like spiders, which secrete enzymes, digest food, and then suck it out through a tube. In principle, modern people do this: almost any of our food, before it enters the stomach, is already digested in some form. There are raw foodists who are trying to bring us back to the times of the Pithecanthropus, but on the scale of humanity this will not work for them.

Human legs are adapted to walking on the ground, but we have not yet fully evolved, because all land animals create a more perfect leg. For example, a camel has two toes left on its foot, such wonderful pillows, it is practically plantigrade, like us, but it has either bones or hooves. This is our future. In fact, our foot, in general, is still woody, unfinished. It still has room to evolve, because the more compact the fulcrum, the less energy is spent on movement, it is beneficial. In the course of our evolution, fingers are shortened. We got off the tree, and we still have the arches of the foot, which are not particularly needed - this is side effect of our past tree climbing. Terrestrial animals have no vaults, and they live well without them.

Such changes will increase diversity to such an extent that, most likely, completely new species of people will arise that simply cannot interbreed with each other. This, in fact, can be the salvation of humanity. One of the current problems is that our species diversity is decreasing. 50 thousand years ago, at least four types of people lived on Earth: there were Sapiens, Neanderthals, "Denisovans", "Hobbits" Flores, and maybe others. Since then, only one species has remained - sapiens, and this is not a good trend. Moreover, the variability of the people of the Upper Paleolithic who lived 40 thousand years ago - group, individual, whatever - is greater than modern racial diversity (which is decreasing). And the more monotonous the groups are, the more vulnerable they are. When the conditions of the external environment change dramatically, there may be no one who will be adequate to the new conditions - everyone will die out at once. And when there is great variety, someone will survive.

Neoanthropes. For the first time, the remains of an ancient man of the modern type were discovered in 1868 in the Cro-Magnon cave in France. Cro-Magnons were taller than Neanderthals, their height reached 180 cm, the brain volume was up to 1600 cm3, the skull did not differ from the skull of a modern person, a high forehead, a chin on the lower jaw testifies to well-developed logical thinking and speech.

People of the modern type, neoanthropes Subsequently, similar fossil forms of people were found in many countries of Europe, Asia, Africa. The latest data indicate that modern humans appeared thousands of years ago.

People of the modern type, neoanthropes Cro-Magnons outwardly do not differ from modern people. In their caves were found arrowheads, spears, harpoons, products made of horn, bone and stone. Like the Neanderthals, they were skilled hunters, and the disappearance of many animals was due to their fault. The decline in wildlife facilitated the transition from a hunting community to an agricultural one.

With the advent of modern humans, biological factors of evolution are losing their leading importance. The leading role of natural selection is removed, life in society ensures the upbringing and transfer of accumulated experience, protection from animals and bad weather, and the provision of food.

People of the modern type, neoanthropes. Social factors, social lifestyle, work, speech, thinking come out on top. If earlier it was mainly the strongest who survived, then in the conditions of collective life, altruism and concern for one's neighbor become an important factor in evolution.

People of the modern type, neoanthropes Advantages were received by those tribes in which people of the older generation are preserved, who retain the experience of making tools, hunting and raising. Only life in society, especially in the early stages, leads to the development of speech, work skills and consciousness.

Human races, their origin and unity of the ancestral home of humanity, the place where the most early stages anthropogenesis, Charles Darwin named Africa. Modern anthropologists point out a more precise place in East Africa, where the terrain and climate are most favorable for the existence of hominids. In addition, in some places in East Africa, uranium ore deposits are close to the surface, which induced various mutations in Australopithecines.

Human races, their origin and unity The dispersal of neoanthropic populations to Europe, Asia and Australia, across the Bering Bridge to the American continent, their further isolation, led to morphological adaptations, adaptations to various climatic conditions. Large and small human races have formed, systematic divisions within the species Homo sapiens, to which the entire population of the Earth belongs.

Human races, their origin and unity There are three large races: the Eurasian Caucasoid, the Asian-American Mongoloid and the equatorial Australo-Negroid. Within each race, small races and racial groups are distinguished. All races belong to the same species, as evidenced by the fertility of interracial marriages. In addition, all races are biologically and psychologically equal.

Human races, their origin and unity In each race there are people who consider their race to be special, superior. Racists argue that different races have different origins, biologically unequal, that there are "superior" and "inferior" races. They explain the economic and cultural backwardness of some peoples by racial inequality, and not by socio-economic factors. There is no scientific evidence for racial inequality. The morphological features of races are the result of adaptations to specific living conditions.

Human races, their origin and unity The dark skin of the Negroid race, due to the pigment melanin, protects the body from excess ultraviolet rays and excess formation of vitamin D. Anti-rachitis vitamin D is formed in the skin under the influence of ultraviolet rays and is necessary to maintain the balance of calcium in the body. If there is too much vitamin D, too much calcium in the bones, they become brittle.

Human races, their origin and unity The Mongoloid race is characterized by yellowish skin, a flat face with wide cheekbones, straight black hair, slit eyes and a developed epicanthus, a swollen upper eyelid. These features are adaptations to life in certain lighting conditions in open spaces.

Human races, their origin and unity Europeans living in latitudes with less solar radiation have lighter skin, less melanin, and accordingly, a sufficient amount of vitamin D is formed. Beard and mustache are protection from the cold in winter. Review: Which of these factors are biological factors in anthropogenesis? 1. Speech. 2. Labor. 3.Hereditary variability. 4. Social lifestyle. 5. Natural selection. 6 gene drift 7.Insulation. 8. Population waves. 1. The historical age of a modern person…. 2. A person of the modern type originated from…. 3. Who belongs to archanthropus, paleoanthropus, neoanthropus? 4. What species are archanthropus, paleoanthropus, neoanthropus?