In 1891, on the island of Java in the valley of the Solo River, in the early Pleistocene layers, at a depth of 15 m Dr. Dyubu found the scattered remains of a humanoid creature, which he later named based on the morphological features of Pithecantropus erectus. The vault of the skull found here, despite its primitiveness, still had a number of features that brought it closer to the human. In particular, the volume of his brain was one and a half times the brain of a gorilla, the shape of the thigh categorically testified to the vertical setting of the torso.
In 1926-1927, on the basis of the casting of the skull of Pithecanthropus I (Dubois), the tooth found there, as well as the lower jaw of the Heidelberger, I created my first reconstruction of the Pithecanthropus. This reconstruction of the Pithecanthropus skull, which has many minor flaws, turned out to be fundamentally not so erroneous, as evidenced by the comparison of this skull with the skull reconstructed by Weidenreich, published by him in 1935. They were New finds of Pithecanthropus skulls in Java are taken into account.
When restoring the head of Pithecanthropus, the morphological features of the skull were taken into account, and when reproducing the hairline of the head and face, the latter was taken as it is in chimpanzees and young gorillas. As a result, despite the fact that the face of the Pithecanthropus I restored undoubtedly has more human features than monkey features, the impression is that this is a portrait of some higher ape, which at the same time has human features.
This first reconstruction attempt of mine, despite the obvious errors, showed, however, the possibility of such hypothetical works.
In the same year, an attempt was made to restore the head of a Neanderthal and a man of the Neolithic period from the Glazkovo necropolis. The reconstructions are exhibited in the archaeological department of the Irkutsk Museum.
Only seven years later, during which I systematically collected factual material to solve the problem of facial reconstruction from the skull, in 1934 I again tried to create a new reconstruction. This time, the head of Sinanthropus was reproduced (Fig. 37).
Later, Pithecanthropus in the territory of modern northern China lived one of the oldest representatives of the ancestors of modern people - Sinanthropus Pithecantropus pekinensis. Sinanthropus bones were discovered as a result of systematic excavations from 1927 to 1938 in a cave near Zhou-kou-dian in 40 km southwest of Beiping (Beijing).
In 1929-1930. Chinese scientist Pei found the first two Sinanthropus skulls. By 1938, many bones had already been found that belonged to at least 11 Sinanthropus individuals. These are separate, scattered, mostly fragmented bones and teeth. All of them were found in a redeposited state, i.e. in a secondary position. The bones of men, women and children were found here.
At the same time, extremely primitive, but at the same time undoubted stone tools, bones of killed and eaten animals, and thick layers of coal and ash were found in the same layers, indicating that Sinanthropus knew how to prepare stone tools, knew fire well and knew how to use it. support.
The Anthropological Museum of Moscow State University has at its disposal the whole complex of the main finds of Sinanthropus in beautiful dummies. These dummies were the basis for creating a series of reconstructions of Sinanthropus. In 1934, a man No. I was made, in 1938 - a man No. II, in 1939 - a man No. III and a woman.
S i n a n t r o p I (male) . The basis for the creation of this reconstruction was the skull, restored
updated on the basis of the first finds and, in particular, set II. The incompleteness of the data led to a number of errors in the construction of the facial skeleton, which was
Rice. 37. Sinanthropus, the oldest representative of man.
unnecessarily weighted and had a greater prognathism than it should have, which gave a greater primitiveness to the entire appearance of the skull. The portrait of Sinanthropus reproduced on this basis can serve as an illustration of the extreme, most primitive type. The reconstruction is exhibited at the MAE Academy of Sciences of the USSR in Leningrad (Fig. 37).
S i n a n t r o p I I (male) . This is the second version (significantly supplemented and corrected on the basis of published data. The reconstruction is stored in the Zoological Museum of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Leningrad.
S i n a n t r o p (women) . The female skull was reconstructed on the basis of a number of authentic castings from the bones of Sinanthropus. The vault of the reconstructed skull was an exact copy of the skull cap found by Pei in 1930 and known as category II. The facial skeleton is reproduced taking into account the fragments of the jaws and teeth, selected by size. The sum of these fragmentary remains of a genuine female skull of Sinanthropus made it possible to reproduce, with a sufficient degree of probability, the skull of a woman aged 35 to 40 years.
Constant consultation and exchange of opinions with anthropologists, primarily with Sinelnikov, Roginsky and Gremyatsky, ensured maximum consideration necessary data, so that one can think that this reconstructed female skull of Sinanthropus really closely reflects its true features. In contrast to the skull made by Weidenreich, our reconstruction has a smaller number of bright specialized details than significantly and approaches morphologically to modern man. The reconstruction of this skull deserves at least a brief description.
When considering the proposed female skull of Sinanthropus in profile, first of all, a significant prevalence of the facial skeleton in relation to the cranium is noted in comparison with modern skulls. The face is heavy, especially the jaw section of it, and all of it, as it were, is pushed forward. The vault of the skull in profile is strongly flattened, but has a sharp transition of a low, but rather steep forehead. Strongly protruding superciliary ridges are sharply delimited by a strong inflection of the forehead. The glabella has a sharp inflection edge, and the sharpness of the inflection of the angle is most pronounced in the middle part. As it passes into the superciliary ridges, the facet becomes rounded and forms sharply protruding flattened brow ridges. The structure of the glabella gives the skull pronounced simian features.
In horizontal projection, this Sinanthropus skull, like that of the Pithecanthropus, approaches the beloid form, and the depression between the forehead and the occiput is very strong and is sharply limited by the protrusion of the superciliary. The greatest width of the skull is confined to the region of the mastoid processes.
When examining the cranial vault, the medial crest is clearly visible, almost along its entire length, starting from the inflection of the frontal bone to the occipital. This ridge gives the cross-section of the vault the appearance of a roof-shaped outline, despite its strong flattening. The occiput is protruding, with a pronounced ridge, which, perhaps, should be called a crest due to the sharpness of its outline. The occipital foramen is strongly displaced posteriorly. A wide flattening in front above the bridge of the nose indicates the presence of a flattened wide vault of the root of the nose in Sinanthropus, in which it differs very sharply from all known higher apes. This form of the structure of the root of the nose seems to indicate that the nasal bones of Sinanthropus were wide, slightly wavy, of a simple pattern, that they formed a wide vault of a wide heart-shaped pear-shaped opening of the nose. The direction and degree of development of the zygomatic process of the temporal bone to some extent indicate the external shape of the zygomatic bone.
All Neanderthal skulls that have preserved the facial skeleton have a very peculiar structure of the orbital part of the maxillary bones. Their frontal part is flattened and oblique to the side and backwards, as a result of which there is no crest of the lower edge of the orbit and the canine fossa is smoothed to nothing. When reconstructing these missing parts of the Sinanthropus facial skeleton, I reproduced it by analogy with Neanderthal forms, which gave the skull some forms of primitiveness, but was morphologically fully justified. Precisely in connection with this form of the zygomatic and maxillary bones, the contours of the orbits and the structure of the alveolar part of the upper jaw acquire a very special pattern. These details of the structure of the skull reconstructed by me are very different from the skull of Sinanthropus, reproduced by Weidenreich, published by him in 1938. The lower jaw of Sinanthropus was preserved in a number of fragments, so that its reproduction was simple and sufficient. reliable. It is very massive, with a short ascending ramus and complete absence of a chin prominence.
Comparing the female skull of Sinanthropus, created by Weidenreich, with the skull reconstructed by me completely independently of him (since they were both made almost at the same time and the publication of Weidenreich e x a was still unknown to me), it should be said that
The orbits of “my” skull are lower and less profiled, the nasal bones, when viewed in profile, are longer and flattened, the alveolar process of the upper jaw is less profiled, there is no sharp frontal bend in it, and in general my skull is less prognathous. Weidenreich's skull contains more specialized features, which is unlikely to be correct, especially considering that the reconstructed skull is female. If these ultimately small individual features are ignored, both skulls undoubtedly represent the same racial type, and the degree of difference does not exceed the norm of variation within the same racial group. In this book, there is no need to cover these reconstructions in more detail, since this is beyond the scope of the popular presentation of the material. According to the skull, reconstructed by me, a bust of a Sinanthropus woman was created. When reproducing this bust, the specific features of the head fit, characteristic of the early racial types of man, were taken into account.
S i n an tro p I I I (male) . This reconstruction was performed taking into account the bone material, which, according to morphological data and size, presumably belonged to a man, and the features of sexual dimorphism were taken into account, at these early stages of the formation of the human type, probably more pronounced. That is why the reconstruction
Rice. 38. Sinanthropes - a man and a woman. Finds of recent years in a cave near Beiping have expanded our understanding of Sinanthropus so much that it makes it possible, speaking about their appearance, to assume that these images, restored from genuine bones, are really close to the appearance of these primitive people who lived at the dawn of human pores. , but already knew the elementary techniques for making primitive stone tools and knew how to use fire.
The version of the synanthrope III man has much more so-called primitive features when compared with the synanthrope woman and modern man. Both reconstructions are on display at the Anthropological Museum of Moscow State University.
Of course, it is impossible to consider these reconstructions of synanthropes as portraits, and no one could set himself the solution of such a problem, since, after all, the skulls used for the reconstruction were largely reproduced only on the basis of the sum of the data obtained as a result of the study. fragments of the skull bones of Sinanthropus, but belonging to many individuals. As expected, the proposed reconstructions are generalized racial portraits of these ancient representatives of the hominin genus (Fig. 38).
The oldest representatives of hominids (Pithecanthropes and Sinanthropes) are archaeologically associated with the most ancient cultures of the Lower Paleolithic, Pre-Shellian, Shelian and Acheulian epochs. This epoch is characterized by a stage of primitive gathering, although, undoubtedly, since the advent of fire, hunting has become more and more important.
More than a million years after the appearance of the first people of the type Homo habilis, the most ancient people of Homo erectus appeared on Earth - Homo erectus(Fig. 1). These are Pithecanthropes, Sinanthropes, Heidelberg man and other forms.
Remains of ancient people
The discovery by E. Dubois on the island of Java of Pithecanthropus - the "missing link" in the human genealogy - was a triumph of materialistic science. Excavations in Java were resumed in the 30s and then in the 60s of our century. As a result, the bone remains of several dozen pithecanthropes were found, including at least nine skulls. The most ancient of the Javanese Pithecanthropes, judging by the latest dating, are 1.5-1.9 million years old.
Pithecanthropus (click on the image to enlarge)
One of the most famous and expressive representatives of Pithecanthropus is Sinanthropus, or Chinese Pithecanthropus. The remains of Sinanthropus were discovered in northern China near the village of Zhou-Gou-Dian, 50 km from Beijing. Sinanthropes lived in a large cave, which they probably occupied for hundreds of millennia (only for such a long time deposits up to 50 m thick could accumulate here). Many crude stone tools have been found in the deposits. Interestingly, the tools found at the base of the sequence do not differ from other tools found in its uppermost layers. This indicates a very slow development of technology at the beginning of human history. Sinanthropes kept the fire in the cave.
Sinanthropus was one of the latest and most developed ancient people; it existed 300-500 thousand years ago.
In Europe, reliable and thoroughly studied bone remains of ancient people, close in time to Sinanthropus, were found in four places. The most famous find is the massive jaw of the Heidelberg man, found near the city of Heidelberg (Germany).
Pithecanthropes, Sinanthropes, Heidelberg man had many common features and were geographical variants of the same species (Fig. 2). Therefore, the famous anthropologist Le Gros Clark united them under one common name - Homo erectus (upright man).
Upright man. Homo erectus differed from its predecessors in height, straight posture, human gait. The average height of synanthropes was about 150 cm for women and 160 cm for men. Pithecanthropes of Java reached 175 cm. The hand of an ancient person was more developed, and the foot acquired a small arch. The bones of the legs changed, the femoral joint moved to the center of the pelvis, the spine received a certain bend, which balanced the vertical position of the torso. Proceeding from these progressive changes in physique and growth, the most ancient man got his name - Homo erectus.
Homo erectus still differed from modern man in some essential ways; low sloping forehead with supraorbital ridges, massive, with a sloping chin and a protruding jaw, a flat small nose. However, as one anthropologist noted, they were the first primates that, when you saw them, you would say: "These are not great apes, they are undoubtedly people."
From other primates, their predecessors, the man erect-walking most of all differed in size and significant complication of the structure of the brain and, as a result of this, in more complex behavior. The volume of the brain was 800-1400 cm 3 , the most developed were the lobes of the brain that control higher nervous activity. The left hemisphere was larger than the right, which is probably due to the stronger development of the right hand. This typically human feature, due to the production of tools, is especially strongly developed in Sinanthropus.
Hunting is the basis of the Pithecanthropus lifestyle
Animal bones, hunting tools, found at the sites of ancient people, testify that they were patient and prudent hunters who knew how to stubbornly wait in ambush near the animal trail and jointly round up gazelles, antelopes and even savannah giants - elephants.
Rice. 2. Skulls: A - gorillas, B - Pithecanthropus. C - Sinanthropus, D - Neanderthal, D - modern man
Such raids required not only great skill, but also the use of hunting tricks based on knowledge of the habits of animals. Homo erectus made tools for hunting much more skillfully than its predecessors. Some of the stones he had hewn were carefully shaped into the right shape: a pointed end, cutting edges on both sides, the size of the stone was selected exactly to the hand.
But it is especially important that Homo erectus was able to notice the seasonal migrations of animals and hunted where one could count on abundant prey. He learned to memorize landmarks and, having gone far from the parking lot, find his way back. Hunting gradually ceased to be a matter of chance, but was planned by ancient hunters. The need to follow nomadic game had a profound effect on the lifestyle of Homo erectus. Willy-nilly, he found himself in new habitats, gaining new impressions and expanding his experience.
Based on the structural features of the skull and cervical spine of the most ancient people, it has been established that their vocal apparatus was not as large and flexible as that of a modern person, but it made it possible to produce much more complex sounds than the muttering and screeching of modern monkeys. It can be assumed that Homo erectus “spoke” very slowly and with difficulty. The main thing is that he learned to communicate using symbols and designate objects with combinations of sounds. Facial expressions and gestures probably played a significant role as a means of communication between the most ancient people. (The human face is very mobile, even now we understand the emotional state of another person without words: delight, joy, disgust, anger, etc., and are also able to express specific thoughts: agree or deny, greet, call, etc.)
Collective hunting required not only verbal communication, but also contributed to the development of a social organization that was clearly human in nature, as it was based on the division of labor between male hunters and female food gatherers.
The use of fire by ancient man
In the Zhou-Gou-Dian cave, where the remains of Sinanthropes and their numerous stone tools were found, traces of fire were also found: coals. ashes, burnt stones. Obviously, the first hearths burned more than 500 thousand years ago. The ability to use fire made food more digestible. In addition, fried food is easier to chew, and this could not but affect the appearance of people: the selection pressure aimed at maintaining a powerful jaw apparatus has disappeared. Gradually, the teeth began to decrease, the lower jaw no longer protruded so much, the massive bone structure required for attaching powerful chewing muscles was no longer necessary. The person's face gradually acquired modern features.
Fire not only expanded the sources of food many times over, but also gave mankind constant and reliable protection from the cold and from wild animals. With the advent of fire and the hearth, a completely new phenomenon arose - a space strictly intended for people. Gathering around the fire, which brings warmth and security, people could make tools, eat and sleep, communicate with each other. Gradually, the feeling of “home” was strengthened, a place where women could look after children and where men returned from hunting.
Fire made man independent of the climate, made it possible to settle on the surface of the Earth, and played an important role in the improvement of tools.
Despite the widespread use of fire, Homo erectus could not learn how to mine it for a very long time, and perhaps, until the end of his existence, he did not comprehend this secret. "Fire stones", such as silicon and iron pyrite, were not found among the cultural remains of Homo erectus,
At this stage of human evolution, many physical features of the most ancient people are still under the control of natural selection, primarily associated with the development of the brain and the improvement of bipedalism. However, along with the biological factors of evolution, new, social patterns begin to emerge, which over time will become the most important in the existence of human society.
The use of fire, hunting wanderings, the development of the ability to communicate to some extent prepared the spread of a man who walked upright beyond the tropics. From Southeast Africa, he moved to the Nile Valley, and from there north along the East Mediterranean coast. His remains were found even east - on the island of Java and in China. What are the boundaries of the ancestral home of mankind, the territory where the separation of man from the animal state took place?
Ancestral home of mankind
In favor of the African ancestral home of humanity, numerous finds in the south and especially in east Africa of very ancient (up to 5.5 million years) remains of Australopithecus, skilled man and ancient stone tools testify. The fact that anthropoids, the chimpanzee and the gorilla, that are closest to humans, live in Africa, is also significant. Neither in Asia nor in Europe has so far been found such a complete evolutionary range of primates as in East Africa.
Findings of dryopithecus and ramapithecus in India and Pakistan, the remains of fossil apes close to Australopithecus found in southern China and northern India, as well as the remains of ancient people - pithecanthropes and sinanthropes speak in favor of the South Asian ancestral home.
At the same time, the finds of fossil remains of the most ancient people, made in Germany, Hungary. Czechoslovakia, testify in favor of including the south of Europe in the boundaries of the settlement of the most ancient people. This is also evidenced by the discovery in the Ballone grotto in southeastern France of the remains of a hunting camp, which has an antiquity of up to 700 thousand years. Of great interest is the recent discovery in the north-east of Hungary of the remains of Ramapithecus monkeys, which were on the path of hominization.
So, many researchers do not give preference to any of the three named continents, believing that the transformation of anthropoid apes into humans occurred in the process of their active adaptation to the most diverse and changing environmental conditions. Probably, the ancestral home of mankind was quite extensive, including a significant territory of Africa, Southern Europe, South and Southeast Asia. New discoveries of the bone remains of our ancestors constantly force us to expand the boundaries of the alleged ancestral home of mankind. It should be noted that America and Australia were inhabited by people of a modern physical type who came from Asia not earlier than 30-35 thousand years ago.
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Pithecanthropus, Pithecanthropus photo
Homo erectus erectus (Dubois, 1892)
Pithecanthropus(from Greek πίθηκος - monkey and ἄνθρωπος - man), or ape-man, or "Javanese Man"- a fossil subspecies of people, once considered as an intermediate link in evolution between Australopithecus and Neanderthals. The estimated interval of existence is between 1 million and 700 thousand years ago. At present, Pithecanthropus is considered as a local variant of Homo erectus (along with Heidelberg man in Europe and Sinanthropus in China), which is characteristic exclusively for Southeast Asia and did not give rise to the direct ancestors of modern man. It is possible that the direct descendant of the Javanese man is the Floresian man.
- 1 Appearance
- 2 Material culture
- 3 Discovery history
- 4 Pithecanthropus and modern humans
- 5 Notes
- 6 See also
- 7 Links
- 8 Literature
Appearance
Pithecanthropus had a short stature (slightly over 1.5 meters), a straight gait and an archaic structure of the skull (thick walls, low frontal bone, protruding supraorbital ridges, a sloping chin). In terms of brain volume (900-1200 cm³), he occupied an intermediate position between a skilled man (Homo habilis) and a Neanderthal man, a reasonable man.
material culture
There is no direct evidence that Pithecanthropus made tools, since the bone remains on the island of Java were found in a redeposited state, which excludes the presence of tools. On the other hand, in the same layers and with the same fauna as the finds of Pithecanthropus, finds of archaic tools similar to the Acheulian culture were made. In addition, among the later finds (Synanthropus, Heidelberg Man, Atlanthropus) belonging to the same species Homo erectus or related species (Homo heidelbergensis, Homo ergaster, Homo antecessor), tools of the same culture as Javanese were found. Therefore, there is reason to believe that the Javanese tools were made by Pithecanthropes.
Discovery history
The term Pithecanthropus was proposed by Haeckel in 1866 as a designation for a hypothetical intermediate link between apes and humans.
In 1890, the Dutch physician Eugene Dubois traveled to the island of Java in search of an ancestor of modern man. After a month of excavations on the banks of the Solo River near the village of Trinil, a petrified monkey molar was discovered, and a month later, in October 1891, a skullcap, after which Dubois concludes that these parts belong to a large ape. A year later, a human femur was found 14 meters from the find site, which was also attributed to the remains of an unknown humanoid. According to the shape of the femur, it was concluded that it was bipedal, and the new species itself was named Pithecantropus erectus (upright ape-man). Later, another molar tooth was found three meters from the skullcap. Eugene brought these bones to Europe for study, forgot the box with them in a cafe, but then, returning to this cafe, he found it in the same place where he forgot.
In December 1895, a conference was held at the Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory with the aim of reaching a conclusion about the remains discovered by Dubois. The abundance of primitive features inherent in the Pithecanthropus cranium (low sloping forehead, massive supraorbital ridge, etc.) led the then scientific community to be skeptical about the find as a possible human ancestor, and the President of the Society, Rudolf Virchow, even stated:
“There is a deep seam in the skull between the lower vault and the upper edge of the orbits. Such a seam is found only in monkeys, and not in humans, so the skull must have belonged to a monkey. In my opinion this creature was an animal, a giant gibbon. The femur has nothing to do with the skull."
In the 1930s, van Koenigswald discovered other, better preserved, remains of the Pithecanthropus Homo erectus soloensis on the island of Java (the town of Mojokerto near Sangiran), after which doubts about the belonging of the Pithecanthropus to the genus Homo disappeared, but buried the hope that this subspecies played some kind of role. any role in the evolution of modern humans.
Pithecanthropus and modern humans
Modern researchers are not inclined to consider Pithecanthropus the ancestor of modern man. Apparently, it represents a distant and isolated population of Homo erectus, which, under the conditions of Indonesia, survived until the advent of modern humans and died out 27 thousand years ago.
Notes
- Porshnev BF On the beginning of human history. - M.FARY-V, 2006 - S.63-64
see also
- List of bones of the human skeleton
Links
Wiktionary has an article "Pithecanthropus"- "Human erectus"
- The misadventures of Eugene Dubois, the discoverer of Pithecanthropus...
- Details about the first find of Pithecanthropus in Java (Trinil)
- Hominid species
Literature
- D. Johanson, M. Go. Lucy. Origins of the human race. Per. from English. M., 1984.
- Biological Encyclopedic Dictionary / Ch. ed. M. S. Gilyarov; Editorial staff: A. A. Baev, G. G. Vinberg, G. A. Zavarzin and others - M .: Sov. encyclopedia, 1986. - S. 470-471. - 100,000 copies.
- V. P. Alekseev, A. I. Pershits. History of primitive society. M., 2001
| Anthropogenesis and paleoanthropology | |
|---|---|
| Extinct genera Hominini/Hominina |
Sahelanthropus Orrorin Ardipithecus Kenyanthropus Australopithecus (Anam Afar Bahr el Ghazal African Gari Sediba) Paranthropus (Ethiopian Boisa robustus) |
| People (genus Homo) |
H. gautengensis H. skillful H. rudolphian H. Georgian H. working H. erectus ( Pithecanthropus Sinanthropus Javanthropus) H. cepranensis H. helmei Ch.-precursor Heidelberg Ch. Neanderthal Denisovsky Ch. Ch. |
| Hominid finds |
Azyhanthrope Rhodesian Man Atlantrop Boy from Turkana Olduvai Sterkfontein Caves Saint Sezer Skhodnensky Skull Teshik-Tash Treintier Tumai Laetoli Koobi-Fora Lucy Steinheim Man Yuanmou Man Meganthrope |
| Origin |
Main hypotheses: Monocentrism African marginal: Extratropical Dicentrism Multiregional (polycentrism) Nayapitek Homo pampeanus |
| Spreading |
Archaeogenetics Cradle of mankind Paleo-Indians Theories of coastal migrations |
Pithecanthropus, Pithecanthropus drawings, Pithecanthropus Sinanthropus, Pithecanthropus photo, Pithecanthropus is, Pithecanthropus, Pithecanthropus finds
Pithecanthropus Information About
Niramin - Sep 5th, 2016
Pithecanthropus (or ape-man) existed on our planet 1.0 - 1.8 million years ago. Followers of Darwin's theory recognize him as a link between the great ape and modern humans. However, recently there is more and more evidence that pithecanthropes are not our ancestors, it was an independent species that completely died out 26 thousand years ago.
The first remains of Pithecanthropus were discovered in Indonesia in 1891 and caused a real sensation in the scientific community. The tibia from the island of Java was clearly human, and the skull looked more like a monkey. At first, scientists refused to admit that these remains could belong to one creature, but new skeletons found confirmed this.
The Pithecanthropus cranium differed significantly from the human one: the cranial bone was several times thicker than that of our contemporaries; the forehead was flat, the jaw protruded sharply forward, and the supraocular ridges were thick and rough. The brain volume of pithecanthropes was smaller than that of humans, but much larger than that of monkeys. The main feature of the structure of their body, according to which they can be attributed to humans, was the tibia. They indicate that Pithecanthropes walked upright, which is not characteristic of the great ape.
The lifestyle of Homo erectus (as Pithecanthropus is often called) consisted mainly of constant searches for food. They were gathering and hunting large mammals. The tools of labor were more advanced than those of their ancestors: hand axes were invented instead of choppers, and piercers, scrapers and spears also came into use. Pithecanthropes knew how to build dwellings using branches and skins of dead animals, and also gradually learned to use fire.
Photo: Pithecanthropus - reconstruction. 
Video: Pithecanthropes of Java. Retrieving Link #19
. Man at that time still practically did not stand out from the animal world. The economic life of the forefathers and their social relations did not differ from those of other social animals. start date anthropogenesis
Pithecanthropus. During this period, the most ancient forefathers successively succeeded each other. Pithecanthropus was the first in this chain. He was an upright creature and differed from modern man in the structure of the cranium, the brain volume was 900 cm3, the skull retained many monkey features: low height, primitive structure, and a highly developed brow ridge. The hands of Pithecanthropus were capable of performing the simplest labor operations. Pithecanthropus already knew how to make some tools. To do this, he used wood, bone, boulders and pebbles, subjecting them to primitive processing: the chips on the stones still do not show any regularity. The era of primitiveness is usually called the Stone Age, and its initial stage is the early Paleolithic (Ancient Stone Age). The ancient Paleolithic ended approximately 100 thousand years BC. Pithecanthropus habitats are associated with the ancestral home of mankind. Most likely it is Central and South Africa, Central Asia. Separate species of Pithecanthropus lived in relative isolation, did not meet with each other and were separated by genetic barriers. Their daily life was similar to the life of Australopithecus monkeys - a predatory lifestyle, hunting for small animals, gathering, fishing, nomadism. They lived in groups of 25-30 adults in caves, grottoes, rocks, shelters made of trees and bushes. They didn't know how to make fire.
Synanthropes. Appeared on Earth300 thousand years ago. Like the Pithecanthropus, the Sinanthropus was of medium height, dense build, and its brain volume was 1050 cm3. Sinanthropus was capable of sound speech. More complex labor activity and stone tools. The most common were hand axes and flakes with obvious traces of artificial processing. They hunted such large animals as deer, wild horses and rhinos. They lived in caves, learned to build ground dwellings. They led a nomadic lifestyle, preferring the banks of rivers and lakes as habitats. They did not know how to make fire, but they had already learned how to maintain natural fire. They had hearths where fire burned day and night. The extraction of fire became the most important economic task, and the struggle for fire became a frequent cause of conflicts and wars between neighboring human groups.
Neanderthals. The Neanderthal type of man was formed about 200 thousand years ago. Neanderthals were small in stature (the average height of a man was 156 cm), broad-boned, with highly developed muscles. The brain volume of some Neanderthal forms was larger than that of modern humans. The structure of the brain remained primitive: poorly developed frontal lobes, important for the function of thinking and inhibition. Possessed limited ability of logical thinking. The behavior was characterized by a sharp excitability, which led to violent conflicts and clashes.
Stone tools were made: axes, points, punctures, drills, flakes. The main methods of stone technology: squeezing, breaking stone, for which flint, sandstone, quartz, volcanic rocks were used. Stone technology is gradually improving, stone tools acquire the correct form. Previously unknown tools appeared: side-scrapers, awls. Part of the tool could be made of stone, part of wood or bone.
Successfully located sheds and caves were used as permanent dwellings, they could be used throughout the life of several generations. Complex ground dwellings were built in open places. Economic life was based on gathering, fishing, hunting.
Gathering required a lot of time, and food provided little and mostly low-calorie. Fishing required exceptional attention, quick reaction and skill, but did not provide much prey. Hunting was the most efficient source of meat food. Hunting objects: hippos, elephants, antelopes, wild bulls (in the tropical zone), wild boars, deer, bison, bears (in the northern regions). They also hunted mammoth and woolly rhinoceros. They made trapping pits and used the driven method, in which all adult males of the community participated. Hunting was a form of labor activity that ensured the organization of the collective, the most progressive branch of the economy, it was it that determined the development of primitive communal society. Any prey belonged to the whole team. The distribution of prey was equal. If there was little food, then hunters received it first of all. In extreme conditions, the killing of children and the elderly was practiced. Endless bloody conflicts, as well as difficult living conditions, did not allow Neanderthals to live to old age. Gradually their numbers increased and they settled throughout Europe, Asia and Africa.
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II. The economic life of the primitive human herd.
The most ancient period of human history is usually referred to as era of the primitive human herd. Man at that time still practically did not stand out from the animal world. The economic life of the forefathers and their social relations did not differ from those of other social animals.
start date anthropogenesis- the formation of man and human society - 2.5 million years. This epoch ends with the emergence of modern man about 100,000 years ago.
Pithecanthropus. During this period, the most ancient forefathers successively succeeded each other. Pithecanthropus was the first in this chain. He was an upright creature and differed from modern man in the structure of the cranium, the brain volume was 900 cm3, the skull retained many monkey features: low height, primitive structure, and a highly developed brow ridge.
The hands of Pithecanthropus were capable of performing the simplest labor operations. Pithecanthropus already knew how to make some tools. To do this, he used wood, bone, boulders and pebbles, subjecting them to primitive processing: the chips on the stones still do not show any regularity. The era of primitiveness is usually called the Stone Age, and its initial stage is the early Paleolithic (Ancient Stone Age). The ancient Paleolithic ended about 100,000 years ago.
BC Pithecanthropus habitats are associated with the ancestral home of mankind. Most likely it is Central and South Africa, Central Asia. Separate species of Pithecanthropus lived in relative isolation, did not meet with each other and were separated by genetic barriers. Their daily life was similar to the life of Australopithecus monkeys - a predatory lifestyle, hunting for small animals, gathering, fishing, nomadism.
They lived in groups of 25-30 adults in caves, grottoes, rocks, shelters made of trees and bushes. They didn't know how to make fire.
Synanthropes. Appeared on Earth300 thousand years ago. Like the Pithecanthropus, the Sinanthropus was of medium height, dense build, and its brain volume was 1050 cm3.
Sinanthropus was capable of sound speech. More complex labor activity and stone tools. The most common were hand axes and flakes with obvious traces of artificial processing.
They hunted such large animals as deer, wild horses and rhinos. They lived in caves, learned to build ground dwellings. They led a nomadic lifestyle, preferring the banks of rivers and lakes as habitats. They did not know how to make fire, but they had already learned how to maintain natural fire.
They had hearths where fire burned day and night. The extraction of fire became the most important economic task, and the struggle for fire became a frequent cause of conflicts and wars between neighboring human groups.
Neanderthals. The Neanderthal type of man was formed about 200 thousand years ago.
years ago. Neanderthals were small in stature (the average height of a man was 156 cm), broad-boned, with highly developed muscles. The brain volume of some Neanderthal forms was larger than that of modern humans. The structure of the brain remained primitive: poorly developed frontal lobes, important for the function of thinking and inhibition. Possessed limited ability of logical thinking. The behavior was characterized by a sharp excitability, which led to violent conflicts and clashes.
Stone tools were made: axes, points, punctures, drills, flakes.
The main methods of stone technology: squeezing, breaking stone, for which flint, sandstone, quartz, volcanic rocks were used.
Stone technology is gradually improving, stone tools acquire the correct form. Previously unknown tools appeared: side-scrapers, awls. Part of the tool could be made of stone, part of wood or bone.
Successfully located sheds and caves were used as permanent dwellings, they could be used throughout the life of several generations. Complex ground dwellings were built in open places.
Economic life was based on gathering, fishing, hunting.
Gathering required a lot of time, and food provided little and mostly low-calorie. Fishing required exceptional attention, quick reaction and skill, but did not provide much prey. Hunting was the most efficient source of meat food. Hunting objects: hippos, elephants, antelopes, wild bulls (in the tropical zone), wild boars, deer, bison, bears (in the northern regions). They also hunted mammoth and woolly rhinoceros.
They made trapping pits and used the driven method, in which all adult males of the community participated. Hunting was a form of labor activity that ensured the organization of the collective, the most progressive branch of the economy, it was it that determined the development of primitive communal society.
Any prey belonged to the whole team.
The distribution of prey was equal. If there was little food, then hunters received it first of all. In extreme conditions, the killing of children and the elderly was practiced. Endless bloody conflicts, as well as difficult living conditions, did not allow Neanderthals to live to old age. Gradually their numbers increased and they settled throughout Europe, Asia and Africa.
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stick
Pithecanthropus tool
Alternative descriptions
No eyes, no ears, but leads the blind (riddle)
Cut thin trunk or branch of a tree without knots
Ski support
A piece of wood that can be bent
Skier's helper
Striped girlfriend of a traffic cop
She has two ends
. ...-lifesaver
stake and staff
Bat, stake or stick
. ...-digger
about two ends
Cane, staff
. skier's "staff"
Ski …
She is taken to extremes
Oryasina
She is put into the wheels of the enemy
The owner of two ends at once
Eternally bent
piece of wood
Polish biathlete
A piece of wood
Straight tree branch without knots
A thick branch of a tree without knots, used as a support when walking
Cut thin trunk or cut straight tree branch without knots
. "Staff" skier
. "baton" in French
. “if the dog is a bat, there will be ...” (last)
a perch, stake or club, convenient in size, for wielding it with one hand; batog, baidig, batozhek, padozhek, cane, staff, staff, hard, cut twig.
A stick serving as a handle, or in business, called. looking at things: a scythe, a kopeck, a shaft, a stalk, a banner, a nag, a lever, a gag, a twist, etc. He walks, propped up with a stick. and app. wand. Drum sticks. There is no razor, so the awl shaves; there is no fur coat, so the stick warms.
soldier We work from under the stick, reluctantly. The stick does not rule, but breaks. her stick, and she gave me a rolling pin! A fool always grabs a stick. There is no learning without a stick. To whom the first cup, that and the first stick, rank. Your will, our stick: beat us, but listen to you. Stick on stick, not good, but glass on glass, nothing. When a soldier is not afraid of a stick, he is not fit for service or business. our regiment is of no use: whoever got up earlier and took the stick was the corporal. He rode off on a stick.
There is a dog, so there is no stick; stick eat dog no! Whoever needs to hit the dog will find the stick.
Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus
He gives a stick to himself. There is nowhere to cut a drumstick: there is nothing to carve a guy with (treelessness). If there was a dog, we would find a stick (and vice versa). Happiness is not a stick: you can’t take it in your hands. No eyes, no ears, but leads the blind? (stick). The red stick strikes in vain; the white stick strikes for the cause. Do not stir if the sticks (fingers) are not good. Stick, Vologda. pralnik, kichiga, laundry roll. A stick of sealing wax. Lollipop stick. Stick (tile) chocolate. Stick pl. a short blow with sticks on the drum, like a sign, a lighthouse, for a friendly volley from cannons, on a ship; also a sign to the infantry officers, to enter from behind the front to their places, after the firing stops.
Mn. card game. Wand cf. sticks for punishment, beating; rods, batozhe, old. lengths. Palchina vlad. club. collected sib. stick, pole. Stick insect m. batozhnik, bushy or young wood, suitable for sticks. Rusten. Typha; Angustifolia: tyrlych vyat. chakan donsk.
robin? cattail or cattail; tub? philatics? latifolia: kubys south. cattail and cattail, kuga, ears, chakan, tyrlik, wad, siskin, tub. Downy, but very hard cobs of stick insects, in asters. dipped in lard or blubber, and burned vm. candles; from its trunks they weave bedding, braid chairs, knit floats for a seine. Timothy grass, rye, Phleum. Rusten. Dactilis glomerata? hedgehog, south, miser? Stick fragments. That's what life is like beating with a stick! The cane guard, in the camp, and now the back, where the prisoners are, and where the guilty are punished.
Mace a cane, a club, a stick, a bulldyuga, especially a weighty one; novg. hard. kichiga, pralnik or pralo, pralny roll, hoof; but the handle of the hoof is longer, for winter. (Acad. Sl. erroneously available). Oslop, a club for defense, as a weapon, with a heavy rhizome, butt or with a bound knob, a combat mace.
Elm, two-handed club. old potes baroque, instead of the helm and oars. Expects that the drunkard will drink a jar, that the dog will bludgeon, dumbfounded. Clubbing. Mace army, palichniks, bludgeons, oslopniki
What word Dunno came up with the rhyme "herring"
Dunno rhyme to the word "herring"
The one that is always "two-way"
. "..., ..., cucumber" (children's drawing)
Report: Pithecanthropus.
At the end of the XIX century. (1890-1891) a sensation was caused by the finds of fossil remains of a humanoid creature in the early Pleistocene deposits of the river. Solo in Java. A skull cap and long bones of the lower extremities were found there, on the basis of the study of which it was concluded that the creature moved in an upright position, which is why it received the name Pithecanhropus erectus, or “upright ape-man.”
Immediately after the discovery of the remains of Pithecanthropus, a lively controversy arose around him. Views were expressed that the cranium belonged to a huge gibbon, a modern microcephalus, just a modern man, and acquired its characteristic features under the influence of post-mortem deformation, etc.
etc. But all these assumptions have not been confirmed by a thorough comparative morphological study. On the contrary, it irrefutably proved that the peculiarity of the find cannot be explained by pathology. In addition, starting from the 30s of the 20th century, the remains of almost 20 more similar individuals were found on the island of Java. Thus, there is no doubt about the real existence of Pithecanthropes.
Another remarkable discovery of human remains from the Early Pleistocene era was made in 1954-1955.
in North Africa. Unfortunately, it is even more fragmentary than the finds on the island of Java. Only incompletely preserved mandibles were found, belonging to three individuals, who received the name Atlanthropus mauritanicus. However, they were deposited in an unredeposited state and together with tools, which significantly increases the value of the find.
The most important discoveries for understanding the evolution of the morphological type of the most ancient hominins were made starting from 1927 in northern China, not far from Beijing, in the Zhoukoudian cave.
Excavations of the camp of the most ancient hunters discovered there have brought huge archaeological material and bone remains of more than 40 individuals - men, women and children. Both in the development of culture and in their morphological appearance, these people turned out to be somewhat more advanced on the path of approaching modern man than the Pithecanthropes.
They belong to a later era than the Pithecanthropes, and were separated into an independent genus and species Sinanthropus pekinensis - Peking ape-man. The preservation of the bone material made it possible to almost completely study the structure of the Sinanthropus skeleton and thereby fill in the gaps in our knowledge due to the fragmentary nature of the finds of Pithecanthropus and other ancient hominins.
Sinanthropus, like Pithecanthropus, was a creature of medium height and dense build.
The volume of the brain exceeded that of the Pithecanthropus and varied in different individuals from 900 to 1200 cm3, averaging 1050 cm3. Nevertheless, many primitive features were still observed in the structure of the skull, bringing Sinanthropus closer to anthropoid apes.
An indirect argument in defense of this conclusion can be the relatively high level of labor activity of synanthropes.
The tools are diverse, although they do not have a completely stable shape. There are few implements worked on both sides, the so-called hand axes, and they also do not differ in typological uniformity. Sinanthropus has already killed such large animals as deer, gazelles, wild horses and even rhinos.
He had permanent habitats in caves.
Probably two more European finds have a very ancient dating. One of them was made in 1965 at the Vertesselles site in Hungary. This is the occipital bone of an adult individual. Some researchers assess the morphological features of the bone as very primitive and suggest that it was left by Pithecanthropus.
Given the insignificance of the preserved fragment, it is difficult to resolve the issue definitely, but the volume of the brain restored from the occipital bone exceeds 1400 cm3, which is closer to Neanderthal values. Perhaps the bone belonged to a very ancient Neanderthal or some transitional European form from Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus to Neanderthals. True, it is also possible that the volume of the brain determined from such small fragments may be erroneous.
The second find was made in 1972-1975.
at the Bilzingsleben site in Thuringia. The tools and fauna found with her also testify to her early age. Fragments of the frontal and occipital bones were found. The supraorbital relief is characterized by exceptional thickness, and therefore we can think that we are dealing in this case with a very early type of hominid, possibly with the European Pithecanthropus.
Finally, the remains of creatures morphologically similar to pithecanthropes have been found in ancient Early Pleistocene and Middle Pleistocene layers in many locations in Africa.
In terms of their structure, they are quite peculiar, but in terms of the level of development and brain size they do not differ from the Javanese ape-men.
Ape-like people - Pithecanthropus, Sinanthropus, Atlanthropus, Heidelberg Man and others - lived in warm climatic conditions, surrounded by heat-loving animals and did not settle far beyond the area of \u200b\u200bits original appearance; judging by the fossil finds, most of Africa, southern Europe and southern Asia were inhabited.
The existence of the genus Pithecanthropus covered a huge period of time and belonged to both the lower and the middle Pleistocene.
Thus, at present, the point of view of those researchers who, on the basis of morphology, attribute Australopithecus to the family of hominids (assuming, of course, that we are talking about representatives of all three genera - Australopithecus, Paranthropus and Plesianthropes), is the closest to reality, singling them out as subfamily Australopithecus.
The remaining later and progressive forms are combined into the second constituent family of hominids - the subfamily of hominins, or humans proper.
The overwhelming majority of serious modern researchers consider all forms of the most ancient people known to us without exception as representatives of a single genus.
The cursory list of paleontological finds of anthropomorphic primates of the Late Tertiary and Early Quaternary periods, as well as Australopithecus, made above, clearly illustrates the complexity of the problem of the ancestral home of mankind.
The remains of fossil primates, which can be close to hominids, have been found on various continents of the Old World. All of them are approximately synchronous with each other within the limits of geological time, and therefore paleontological data do not make it possible to make a choice of the territory in which the separation of man from the animal world took place.
Geological, paleozoological, paleobotanical, and paleoclimatological data paint a picture of a fairly favorable habitat for higher primates in wide areas of Central and Southern Africa and Central Asia.
The choice between the Eurasian and African continents is also hampered by the lack of developed prerequisites for determining the region of the ancestral home of mankind.
Some scientists believe that the separation of man from the animal world occurred in the conditions of a rocky landscape of some foothills, others - that the immediate ancestors of the hominid family were inhabitants of the steppes.
Having excluded the hypotheses that are untenable from a factual point of view, the hypotheses about the origin of mankind in Australia and America, which were not at all included in the zone of settlement of higher primates, being cut off from the Old World by impassable water barriers for them, we currently do not have the opportunity to solve the problem of the ancestral home of mankind with due certainty. .
C. Darwin, based on the greater morphological similarity of man with African anthropoids compared to Asian ones, considered it more likely that the African continent was the ancestral home of mankind. The fossil finds of higher primates in India, made at the beginning of our century, have shaken the balance and tipped it in favor of the Asian continent.
However, the discovery of fossil remains of Australopithecus monkeys, Zinjanthropus, Prezinjanthropus and other forms again draws the researchers' attention to the African continent as the cradle of mankind.
Summary: Ancient people
Report on the topic "Ancient people"
NEANDERTHALS- Fossil ancient people (paleoanthropes) who created the archaeological cultures of the early Paleolithic. Skeletal remains of Neanderthals have been discovered in Europe, Asia and Africa. The time of existence is 200-28 thousand years ago. As studies of the genetic material of Neanderthals have established, they, apparently, are not the direct ancestors of modern humans.
They are considered as an independent species of “Neanderthal man” (Homo neanderthalensis), but more often as a subspecies of Homo sapiens neanderthalensis. The name is given by an early discovery (1856) of a fossil man in the Neandertal valley, near Düsseldorf (Germany). The bulk of the remains of Neanderthals and their predecessors "pre-Neanderthals" (about 200 individuals) were found in Europe, mainly in France, and belong to the period 70-35 thousand years ago.
years ago.
Physical type of Neanderthals
Neanderthals inhabited mainly the pre-glacial zone of Europe and were a kind of ecological type of ancient man, formed in a harsh climate and in some ways reminiscent of modern Arctic types, for example, the Eskimos. They were characterized by a dense muscular build with a small stature (160-163 cm in men), a massive skeleton, a voluminous chest, an extremely high ratio of body mass to its surface, which reduced the relative heat transfer surface.
These signs could be the result of selection acting in the direction of an energetically more favorable heat exchange and an increase in physical strength. Neanderthals had a large, although still primitive brain (1400-1600 cm3 and above), a long massive skull with a developed supraocular ridge, a sloping forehead and an elongated "chignon-like" nape; very peculiar "Neanderthal face" with sloping cheekbones, a strongly protruding nose and a cut chin.
It is assumed that Neanderthals were born more mature and developed faster than fossil humans of a modern physical type. It is possible that Neanderthals were quite hot-tempered and aggressive, judging by some of the features of their brain and hormonal status, which can be reconstructed from the skeleton. There are also signs of constant pressure of stress factors, such as thinning of tooth enamel, which apparently indicates poor nutrition, and a number of other pathological signs on the skeleton, some of which can be explained by life in dark, damp caves.
An unfavorable manifestation of the advanced "strength" specialization of Neanderthals is evidenced by excessive thickening of the walls of the bones of long limbs, which should lead to a weakening of the hematopoietic function of the bone marrow and, as a result, to anemia.
Unilateral strength development could occur at the expense of endurance. The Neanderthal's hand, broad, paw-shaped, with shortened fingers, compacted joints and monstrous nails, was probably less dexterous than that of modern man.
Neanderthal man had a high infant mortality rate, a shortened reproductive period, and a short lifespan.
Neanderthal culture
Intellectually, the Neanderthals advanced quite far, creating a highly developed Mousterian culture (named after the Le Moustier cave in France).
Over 60 different types of stone tools have been found in France alone; their processing was significantly improved: for the manufacture of one Mousterian pointed point, 111 blows were required against 65 when making a hand ax of the early Paleolithic. Neanderthals hunted large animals (reindeer, mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, cave bear, horse, bison, etc.),
Neanderthals: our ancestors or a side branch?
Neanderthals most likely represented an extinct side branch of the hominid family tree; they often coexisted with modern man in Asia Minor and some parts of Europe and could mix with him.
Pithecanthropus Sinanthropus Neanderthals
But there is another view of Neanderthals, they are considered possible ancestors of modern man in certain regions, for example, in Central Europe, or even a universal link in the evolution from Homo erectus (Homo erectus) to modern Homo sapiens. However, work in the 1990s comparing mitochondrial DNA isolated from bones found in Neanderthal with the corresponding genetic material of modern humans suggests that Neanderthals are not our ancestors.
Around 35,000 years ago, Neanderthals suddenly died out. (later sites of Neanderthals have now become known, showing that some of their groups "held out" in the territory occupied by the Cro-Magnons for quite a long time - up to 28,000 years ago). Shortly before this, modern man (Homo sapiens sapiens) appeared in Europe.
Perhaps there is a connection between these two events. Here are some of the most ancient finds of modern man (Cro-Magnon, France):
Neanderthal from the Caucasus. Mysteries clear up
The prestigious scientific journal Nature published an article by Russian, British and Swedish scientists on the analysis of Neanderthal DNA. Perhaps the most dramatic page in the history of the origin of modern man is the problem of Neanderthals. Disputes about their fate and their contribution to our blood have not stopped for many decades.
“To put it simply, we see the mind of modern man, enclosed in the body of an ancient creature ... The Neanderthals had beliefs, customs and rituals. Burial of the dead, compassion for one's own kind and attempts to influence fate - these are the new aspects introduced into human life by Neanderthals, ”wrote Ralph Solecki.
"Under the sloping forehead of a Neanderthal, a truly human thought burned" - the opinion of Yuri Rychkov.
And these creatures disappeared without a trace from the face of the planet? No, many anthropologists place them among our ancestors. The traces of the first Neanderthals date back to 300,000 years old, and they disappeared somewhere around 25,000 years ago. And for at least 30,000 years, Neanderthals and our direct ancestors - the Cro-Magnons - lived side by side, in the same places in Europe.
So why don't they mix? - ask the supporters of our relationship with the Neanderthals. And yet, in recent times, it is customary to consider Neanderthals a "side" branch of the evolutionary tree of Homo sapiens.
Now, results from analysis of mitochondrial DNA samples from Neanderthal ribs support this view.
A few clarifications regarding the methods of analysis. Mitochondria (the main source of cellular energy) are scattered outside the nucleus, in the cell cytoplasm. They contain small rings of DNA, which contain about twenty genes.
Mitochondrial DNA is amazing in that it is transmitted from generation to generation in a fundamentally different way than chromosomal DNA: only through the female line.
A person receives from his father and from his mother a set of twenty-three specific chromosomes.
But which of them is inherited from the grandmother, and which from the grandfather, is determined by chance. Therefore, the chromosomes of siblings are somewhat different, and they may not be very similar to each other. And most importantly, for this reason, in the course of sexual reproduction between members of the population, a kind of “horizontal” mixing of chromosomes and the emergence of various new genetic combinations occur. These combinations are the material for evolution, for natural selection.
Another thing is mitochondrial DNA. Each person receives mtDNA only from his mother, she - from her own, and so on in a series of only female generations, which has a chance to pass it on.
And now, scientists have analyzed mitochondrial DNA from the bones of the skeleton of a two-month-old baby found by an expedition of the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the Mezmaiskaya cave in the Caucasus.
Note that this is the easternmost find of a Neanderthal man, and he lived 29 thousand years ago. From the ribs found, geneticists managed to extract the remains of the child's genetic substance and, as a result, obtained a segment of mtDNA of 256 pairs.
What did the analysis show? First, the "Caucasian" mtDNA differs by 3.48 percent from a segment of 379 pairs from the bones of a native Neanderthal from Germany, from the Neander Valley, whose analysis was made back in 1997. These differences are small and speak of the relationship of the two beings, despite the great distance separating them and the time. It is curious that, according to scientists, German and Caucasian Neanderthals had a common ancestor about 150 thousand years ago.
But the main thing: this segment is very different from the DNA of a modern person. It failed to find traces of genetic material that could be transferred from Neanderthals to modern humans.
How reliable is the analysis of fragments of ancient DNA obtained with great difficulty as a reliable tool for studying the distant past? - my question is to one of the authors of the sensational discovery, Igor Ovchinnikov.
“A fairly large segment of DNA cannot be obtained from ancient remains.
It is possible to obtain a number of different short DNA fragments, or to obtain a large fragment by combining overlapping segments. Nevertheless, there is, of course, an opportunity for comparing ancient and modern material and for phylogenetic analysis.
As a rule, in such work, for comparison, two highly variable regions in the control region of human mitochondrial DNA are used, for which studies have been carried out on various modern populations and the approximate rate of mutations is known.
From here, it becomes possible to build a phylogenetic tree showing the relationship between different populations and the time of their origin from a common ancestor.
However, in my opinion, the final point in the dispute about the degree of kinship between the Neanderthal and humans should not be put. It is possible to compare the mtDNA of a Neanderthal with the mtDNA of not only modern humans, but also our direct ancestor, the Cro-Magnon.
True, such mtDNA has not yet been obtained, but everything is ahead.
Perhaps there were different - genetically different - groups of Neanderthals, and some of them were still among our ancestors.
But all this does not remove the drama of the situation: two parallel branches were moving towards the bright future of civilization. And one of them disappears! The circumstances of this are yet to be explored and studied.
This is how you can imagine the main developments in the field of ancient DNA research.
1984 - Obtaining and determining the nucleotide sequence of DNA from the extinct species of quagga zebra in the laboratory of Allan Wilson in California.
1985 - Cloning and sequencing of an ancient Egyptian mummy.
In subsequent years, small stretches of DNA from the ancient remains were multiplied a thousandfold using the polymerase chain reaction, a method that was developed in 1985.
This method revolutionized molecular biology and genetics, and the authors received the Nobel Prize for it. By obtaining many copies of the source material, the researchers significantly simplified their work.
1988 - the possibility of analyzing mitochondrial DNA from 7,000-year-old human brain samples was shown.
1989 - Two groups in the USA show the possibility of multiplying ancient mitochondrial DNA.
1989 - Analysis of the mitochondrial DNA of a marsupial wolf from Australia, which became extinct in the last century.
1990 - a DNA fragment was obtained from the chloroplasts of ancient magnolia species.
1992 - a DNA fragment was obtained from a fossil termite in amber.
Somewhat later, the main work on the ancient human remains began. The most interesting are:
1995 - study of mitochondrial DNA from the Tyrolean mummy.
1997 - study of mitochondrial DNA from the remains of a Neanderthal found in the vicinity of Düsseldorf in 1856.
Quite a lot of research in recent years has been associated with the study of mummies from North and South America.
If all previous studies were related to the analysis of mitochondrial DNA, then in recent years there have been works related to the analysis of DNA of chromosomes from ancient human remains.
1993 - the possibility of determining sex in ancient and medieval human remains is shown.
1996 - the possibility of studying microsatellites (short repeats) of DNA from medieval remains was shown. These two approaches are of great interest to anthropologists and archaeologists for the study of the sexual and social structure of human communities of the past.
Homo erectus (Homo erectus)
Homo erectus(lat. Homo erectus) is an extinct species from the genus People (lat. Homo). The first evidence of its existence appears in the early Pleistocene (about 1.8 million years ago), and the last disappear only about 27 thousand years ago. The species originated in Africa and then spread to Europe and Asia.
Discovery and study
The Dutch anatomist Eugène Dubois, fascinated by Darwin's theory of evolution as applied to man, set out in 1886.
to Asia (which, despite the opinion of Darwin, began to be considered the cradle of mankind) to find the ancestors of man. He spent his first few years in Sumatra as an army doctor. However, his search there was fruitless. But in 1891, his team discovered human remains on the island of Java in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). Dubois called it " Pithecanthropus"(lat.
Pithecanthropus erectus). The name comes from other Greek. words "pithekos" - monkey and "anthropos" - man, i.e. "monkey man" The remains consisted of several teeth found on the banks of the Solo River (Trinil, East Java), a cranial vault and a femur, similar to the corresponding bones of a modern person. The find became known as the Java Man. These fossils are now classified as Homo erectus.
In 1921, the Swedish geologist and archaeologist Johan Gunnar Andersson and the American paleontologist Walter Granger arrived in Zhoukoudian (near Beijing, China) in search of prehistoric fossils.
Excavations began immediately, led by Andersson's Austrian assistant paleontologist Otto Zdansky, who found something that turned out to be a petrified human tooth. Zdansky returned to the excavation site in 1923, and the materials extracted from the ground on both of his visits were sent to Uppsala University (Sweden) for analysis.
In 1926, Andersson announced the discovery of two human teeth in the materials, and Zdansky published this discovery.
Canadian anatomist Davidson Black of the Peking Unified Medical College, delighted with Andersson and Zdansky's find, received funding from the Rockefeller Foundation and resumed excavations in 1927 with Chinese and Western scientists. Swedish paleoanthropologist Anders Birger Bolin discovered another tooth during these excavations, a description of which Black published in the journal Nature.
He characterized the find as belonging to a new species (and genus), which he called Sinanthropus Pekinensis (lat. Sinanthropus pekinensis). generic name " Sinanthropus"comes from other Greek. words denoting "China" and "man", i.e. "Chinese Man".
Many scientists were skeptical about identifying a new species based on a single tooth, and the foundation requested additional samples to continue funding. In 1928, several more teeth, skull fragments and a lower jaw were found.
Black presented these finds to the foundation and was awarded an $80,000 grant with which he founded the Cenozoic Research Laboratory.
Excavations with the participation of specialists from Europe, America and China continued until 1937, when Japan invaded China. By this time, more than 200 different remains belonging to more than 40 individuals have been discovered.
Among them were 15 partially preserved skulls, 11 lower jaws, many teeth and some bones of the skeleton. In addition, many stone tools were also found.
Almost all of the original finds were lost during World War II.
Origin, classification and evolution
There is no single point of view on the classification and origin of this species.
There are two alternative points of view. According to the first, Homo erectus can only be another name for a working person and, thus, is the direct ancestor of later hominids, such as Heidelberg man, Neanderthal man and modern man (lat. Homo sapiens). According to the second, it is an independent species.
Some paleoanthropologists consider H. ergaster to be only an African variety of H. erectus.
This led to the terms "Homo erectus sensu stricto" ("Homo erectus in the strict sense") for the Asiatic H. erectus and "Homo erectus sensu lato" ("Homo erectus in the broad sense") for a group including both early African (H . ergaster) and the Asian population.
The first origin hypothesis is that H. erectus migrated out of Africa about 2 million years ago.
years ago during the early Pleistocene, possibly as a result of the action of the "Sugar pump", and widely distributed in the Old World. Fossilized remains aged 1-1.8 million years have been found in Africa (Lake Turkana and Olduvai Gorge), Spain, Georgia, Indonesia, Vietnam, China and India.
The second hypothesis, on the contrary, states that H. erectus originated in Eurasia, and from there already migrated to Africa. Individuals found in Dmanisi (Georgia) date back to 1.77-1.85 million years ago.
years ago, which corresponds to the appearance of the earliest African remains or slightly older.
It is now generally accepted that Homo erectus is a descendant of earlier genera, such as Ardipithecus and Australopithecus, or earlier species of the genus Humans - a skilled person or a working person.
H. habilis and H. erectus have coexisted for several hundred thousand years and may have descended from a common ancestor.
For much of the 20th century, anthropologists debated the role homo erectus in human evolution. At the beginning of the century, thanks to the finds from Java and from Zhoukoudian, it was believed that man appeared in Asia. However, several naturalists (Charles Darwin most famous among them) believed that the earliest ancestors of people were Africans, because.
chimpanzees and gorillas, the closest living primate relatives to humans, live only in Africa. Numerous finds of fossilized remains of extinct primates in the 50s - 70s of the XX century in East Africa gave evidence that early hominids appeared there.
Homo erectus georgicus
In 1991, the Georgian scientist David Lordkipanidze, as part of an international group of researchers, found fossilized remains in Dmanisi (Georgia) - jaws and skulls.
At first, scientists believed that these remains belonged to H. ergaster, but due to the difference in size, they subsequently concluded that they belonged to a new species. They called him a Georgian man (lat. Homo georgicus). It was assumed to be a descendant of H. habilis and an ancestor of the Asiatic H. erectus. However, this classification was not accepted, and it is now considered to be a divergent group of H. erectus - sometimes referred to as a subspecies of Homo erectus georgicus (Georgian Homo Erectus).
Possibly this is a stage shortly after the transformation of H. habilis into H. erectus.
In 2001, a partially preserved skeleton was discovered. The remains are about 1.8 million years old.
The oldest people (Chinese Sinanthropus, Javanese Pithecanthropus), or archanthropes
In total, 4 skeletons were found, which have a primitive skull and torso, but progressive spine and lower limbs, providing high mobility. H. erectus georgicus exhibits a high degree of sexual dimorphism, with males significantly larger than females.
Skull D2700, dated to 1.77 million years ago, has a volume of about 600 cm3 and is in good condition, allowing comparison of its morphology with that of a modern human skull. At the time of discovery, it was the smallest and most primitive hominin skull found outside of Africa.
However, in 2003, a skull of a hominid (Floresian man) was found on the island of Flores, which had an even smaller brain volume.
The excavations also unearthed 73 stone cutting and chopping tools and 34 bone fragments of unidentified animals.
Morphological features
The brain volume of H. erectus is larger than that of H. habilis and ranges from 850 cm3 in the earliest specimens to 1200 cm3 in the latest ones (however, the skulls from Dmanisi are noticeably smaller).
The skull is very thick with massive supraorbital ridges. Height reached 180 cm, the physique is more massive than that of a modern person. Sexual dimorphism was greater than that of modern man, but much less than that of Australopithecus. On average, males are 25% larger than females.
material culture
Erectus made extensive use of stone tools.
However, they were originally more primitive than the Acheulean Homo ergaster instruments. Products of the Acheulean culture outside of Africa appear only about a million years ago.
There is evidence of the use of fire by a man who walks upright. The earliest of them date back to about 1 million years ago and are located in the Northern Cape of South Africa. There are traces of the use of fire dating back to 690-790 thousand years in northern Israel. In addition, there is such evidence in Terra Amata on the French Riviera, where it is believed that about 300 thousand
H. erectus lived years ago.
Excavations in Israel suggest that H. erectus could not only use and control fire, but also produce it. However, some scholars argue that the use of fire became typical only for later human species.
Undoubtedly, the development of stone-working techniques and the mastery of fire made Homo erectus one of the most successful species of the genus.
Stone weapons made it possible to successfully defend against predators and hunt, fire warmed and illuminated, heat treatment made animal food better digestible and disinfected it.
Society and language
Probably, along with working humans, Homo erectus became one of the first human species to live in hunter-gatherer societies. It is assumed that the erectus were the first hominids to hunt in organized groups, as well as to take care of the sick and infirm members of the group.
The increase in brain size, the presence of Broca's center and anatomy similar to modern humans suggest that Homo erectus began to use verbal communication. Apparently, it was a primitive proto-language, not having the complex developed structure of modern languages, but much more perfect than the wordless "language" of the chimpanzee.