Pithecanthropus's ability to speak. The most ancient people - Pithecanthropus

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. Dubu discovered the scattered remains of a humanoid creature, which he later named based on the morphological features of Pithecantropus erectus. The skull vault discovered here, despite its primitiveness, still had a number of features that brought it closer to human. In particular, the volume of his brain was one and a half times greater than that of a gorilla, and the shape of the hip categorically indicated a vertical position of the torso.

In 1926-1927, based on the cast 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 Pithecanthropus. This reconstruction of the skull of Pithecanthropus, which has many minor shortcomings, was fundamentally not so erroneous, as evidenced by a comparison of this skull with the skull reconstructed by Weidenreich, published by him in 1935. They were new finds of Pithecanthropus skulls in Java were taken into account.

When restoring the head of Pithecanthropus, the morphological features of the skull were taken into account, and when reproducing the scalp and facial hair, 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 traits than apes, the impression is that this is a portrait of some kind of higher ape, which at the same time has human features.

This first attempt at reconstruction, despite obvious errors, showed, however, the possibility of such hypothetical work.

In the same year, an attempt was made to restore the head of a Neanderthal and a Neolithic man from the Glazkovsky necropolis. The reconstructions are exhibited in the archaeological department of the Irkutsk Museum.

Only after seven years, during which I systematically collected factual material to solve the problem of reconstructing the face 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 on the territory of modern northern China lived one of the most ancient representatives of the ancestors of modern people - the synanthrope Pithecantropus pekinensis. The bones of Sinanthropus 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 individuals of Sinanthropus. These are separate, scattered, mostly fragmented bones and teeth. All of them were found in a redeposited state, i.e. in the secondary position. The bones of men, women and children were found here.

At the same time, extremely primitive, but at the same time undeniable stone tools, bones of killed and eaten animals and thick layers of coal and ash were discovered in these same layers, indicating that Sinanthropus knew how to prepare stone tools, knew fire well and was able to use it. support.

The Anthropological Museum of Moscow State University has at its disposal the entire complex of the main finds of Sinanthropus in beautiful models. These dummies were the basis for creating a series of reconstructions of Sinanthropus. In 1934, man No. I was made, in 1938 - man No. II, in 1939 - man No. III and a woman.

S i n a n t r o p I (male). The basis for this reconstruction was the skull, restored

updated on the basis of the first finds and, in particular, vault II. Incomplete data led to a number of errors in the construction of the facial skeleton, which was

Rice. 37. Sinanthropus, the oldest representative of man.

it was excessively heavy and had a greater prognathism than it should have, which gave 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 was exhibited at the MAE USSR Academy of Sciences in Leningrad (Fig. 37).

S i n a n t r o p I I (male). This is the second (version, significantly expanded and corrected based on published data. The reconstruction is stored in the Zoological Museum of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Leningrad.

Sinanthrop (woman). The female skull was reconstructed from a number of authentic casts from the bones of Sinanthropus. The vault of the reconstructed skull was an exact copy of the skullcap found by Pei in 1930, known as Category II. The facial skeleton was reproduced taking into account fragments of 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 we can think that this reconstructed female skull of Synanthropus really closely reflects its true features. Unlike the skull made by Weidenreich, our reconstruction has a smaller number of bright specialized details, which is significantly closer to modern humans morphologically. The reconstruction of this skull deserves at least a brief description.

When examining the proposed female skull of Sinanthropus in profile, first of all, a significant predominance of the facial skeleton in relation to the cranium is noted in comparison with modern skulls. The face is heavy, especially the jaw section, and it all seems to be pushed forward. The cranial vault in profile is strongly flattened, but has a sharp transition to a low, but rather steep, forehead. Strongly protruding brow ridges are sharply demarcated by a strong bend of the forehead. The glabella has a sharp edge of inflection, and the sharpness of the inflection of the angle is most pronounced in the middle part. As it passes into the brow ridges, the edge becomes rounded and forms sharply protruding flattened brow ridges. The structure of the glabella gives the skull distinctly simian features.

In the horizontal projection, this skull of Sinanthropus, like the skull of Pithecanthropus, approaches the white form, and the depression between the forehead and the back of the head is very strong and sharply limited by the protrusion of the eyebrow. The greatest width of the skull is confined to the area of the mastoid processes.

When examining the cranial vault, the medial ridge is clearly visible, almost along its entire length, starting from the bend of the frontal bone to the occipital bone. This ridge gives the cross-section of the vault a roof-like appearance, despite its strong flattening. The back of the head is protruding, with a clearly defined ridge, which, perhaps, should be called a crest due to the sharpness of its outline. The foramen magnum is strongly moved posteriorly. The wide flattening in front above the bridge of the nose indicates that Sinanthropus has a flattened wide arch of the nasal root, which makes it very different from all known ones. great 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 arch of the 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 preserved the facial skeleton have a very unique structure of the orbital part of the maxillary bones. Their frontal part is flattened and slanted to the side and posteriorly, as a result of which there is no ridge of the lower edge of the orbit and the canine fossa is smoothed to nothing. When reconstructing these missing parts of the facial skeleton of Sinanthropus, I reproduced it by analogy with Neanderthal forms, which gave the skull some forms of primitiveness, but was morphologically completely justified. It is precisely in connection with this shape of the zygomatic and maxillary bones that the outlines of the orbits and the structure of the alveolar part of the upper jaw acquire a completely 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 its reproduction was not difficult and sufficient authentically. It is very massive, with a short ascending branch and a complete absence of the mental protuberance.

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 Weidenre e x a was still unknown to me), it should be said that

of “my” skull, the eye sockets 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 protruding. In the skull created by Weidenreich, a greater number of specialized features are noted, which is unlikely to be correct, especially considering that the reconstructed skull is female. If we ignore these ultimately small individual traits, both skulls undoubtedly give an idea of 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 for a more detailed coverage of these reconstructions, since this goes beyond the scope of the popular presentation of the material. Based on the skull I reconstructed, a bust of a female Sinanthropus was created. When reproducing this bust, we took into account specific features head postures characteristic of early racial types of humans.

S i n a n t r o p I I I (male). This reconstruction was carried out taking into account the bone material, which, based on 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, which was probably expressed more sharply. That's why the reconstruction

Rice. 38. Sinanthropus - man and woman. The discoveries of recent years in a cave near Beiping have so expanded our understanding of Sinanthropus that this makes it possible, speaking about their appearance, to assume that these images, reconstructed from genuine bones, are really close to the appearance of these primitive people, who lived at the dawn of human times, but already knew the elementary techniques of making primitive stone tools and knew how to use fire.

tion of the male Sinanthropus III has significantly more so-called primitive features when comparing him with the female Sinanthropus and modern man. Both reconstructions are exhibited at the Anthropological Museum of Moscow State University.

Of course, it is impossible to consider these reconstructions of Sinanthropus as portraits, and no one could set themselves the solution to such a problem, since the skulls used for the reconstruction were largely reproduced only on the basis of the sum of data obtained as a result of the study fragments of skull bones of synanthropes, but belonging to many individuals. As one might expect, the proposed reconstructions are generalized racial portraits of these ancient representatives of the hominid genus (Fig. 38).

The most ancient representatives hominids (Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus) are archaeologically associated with the most ancient cultures of the Lower Paleolithic, Pre-Cheulian, Chelian and Acheulean eras. This era is characterized by the stage of primitive gathering, although, undoubtedly, since the advent of fire, hunting has become increasingly important.

(from Greek Πίθηκος - "monkey" and ἄνθρωπος — "man", "Javanese man") is a fossil subspecies of humans that was once considered an evolutionary intermediate between Australopithecines and Neanderthals. Lived about 700-27 thousand years ago. Currently, Pithecanthropus is considered as a local variant of Homo erectus (along with Heidelberg man in Europe and Sinanthropus in China), characteristic exclusively of South-East Asia and did not give rise to the immediate ancestors of man. It is possible that the direct descendant of Java Man is Homo flores.

Appearance

Pithecanthropus is short (no more than 1.5 meters), with an upright gait and an archaic structure of the skull (thick walls, low frontal bone, protruding supraorbital ridges, sloping chin). In terms of brain volume (900-1200 cm³) it occupied an intermediate position between a skilled person (Homo habilis) and Neanderthal man, homo sapiens.

Material culture

There is no direct evidence that Pithecanthropus made tools, since bone remains on the island of Java were found in a redeposited state, which precludes the discovery of tools. On the other hand, in the same layers and with the same fauna, and finds of Pithecanthropus, finds of archaic tools similar to the Acheulean culture were made. In addition, among later finds (Sinanthropus, Heidelberg man, Atlantropus) belonging to the same species Homo erectus or related species (Homo heidelbergensis, Homo ergaster, Homo antecessor), tools of the same culture as the Javanese ones were found. Therefore, there is reason to believe that the Javanese tools were made by Pithecanthropus.

History of discovery

The term "pithecanthropus" was proposed by Haeckel in 1866 as a designation for a hypothetical intermediary between ape and man.

In 1890, Dutch physician Eugene Dubois traveled to the island of Java in search of the ancestor of modern humans. After a month of excavations on the banks of the Solo River near the village of Trinil, a fossilized ape molar was discovered, and a month later, in October 1891, a skull cap was discovered, after which Dubois concluded that these parts belonged to great apes. A year later, 14 meters from the place of discovery, a human femur was found, which was also attributed to the remains of an unknown humanoid. Based on the shape of the femur, it was concluded that he walked upright, and he the new kind named Pithecantropus erectus(monkey-homo erectus). Later, another molar was found three meters from the skull cap. Dubois 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 had forgotten it.

In December 1895, a conference was held at the Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and History to reach a conclusion regarding the remains discovered by Du Bois. A large number of The primitive features inherent in the skull of Pithecanthropus (low sloping forehead, massive ridge, etc.) led to skepticism of the then scientific community towards the find as a possible ancestor of man, and the President of the Society, Virchow, even stated:

“There is a deep suture in the skull between the lower vault and the upper edge of the orbits. Such a suture 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 is not connected to the skull in any way. »

In the 1930s, van Koenigswald discovered other remains of the Pithecanthropus Homo erectus soloensis, which were better preserved, on the island of Java (the town of Mojokerto near Sangiran). After this doubt about the belonging of Pithecanthropus to the genus Homo disappeared, but buried the hope that this subspecies played some role in the evolution of modern humans.

Pithecanthropus and modern people

Modern researchers are not inclined to consider Pithecanthropus the ancestor of modern humans. It appears to represent a distant and isolated population of Homo erectus that, in Indonesian conditions, survived until the advent of modern humans and became extinct 27 thousand years ago.

Pithecanthropus

Pithecanthropus is a fossil subspecies of humans, once considered an evolutionary intermediate between Australopithecines and Neanderthals. Currently, Pithecanthropus is considered as a local variant of Homo erectus (along with Heidelberg man in Europe and Sinanthropus in China), characteristic exclusively of Southeast Asia and which did not give rise to direct human ancestors. It is possible that the direct descendant of Java Man is Homo flores.

Pithecanthropus had a short stature (a little more than 1.5 meters), an upright gait and an archaic structure of the skull (thick walls, low frontal bone, protruding supraorbital ridges, sloping chin). In terms of brain volume (900–1200 cm), it occupied an intermediate position between Homo habilis and Neanderthal man, Homo sapiens.

The first remains of Pithecanthropus were discovered on the banks of the Solo River on the island of Java by the Dutch physician Eugene Dubois in 1891. During the excavations, he found a fossilized tooth, femur and skull cap. At first, the owner of the remains was not even assigned to the genus Homo.
Modern researchers are not inclined to consider Pithecanthropus the ancestor of modern humans. Apparently, it represents a distant and isolated population of erectus, which, in Indonesian conditions, survived until the appearance of modern humans and became extinct 27 thousand years ago.

Heidelberg Man

Heidelberg man (lat. Homo heidelbergensis) is a European species of Homo erectus (related to the East Asian Sinanthropus and Indonesian Pithecanthropus) that lived in Europe. Apparently, he is a descendant of the European Homo antecessor and the immediate predecessor of the Neanderthal.

The first discovery dates back to 1907, when a jaw similar to a monkey, but with teeth similar to huge human teeth, was discovered near the city of Heidelberg. Described and identified as a separate species by Professor O. Shetenzak. The age of the find was determined to be 400 thousand years. The culture of tools found nearby (stone axes and flakes) is characterized as Chelles. The Schöninger spears suggest that the Heidelberg people even hunted elephants with wooden spears, but the meat was eaten raw, since no traces of fire were found at the sites.

The discovery of traces of Heidelberg Man in southern Italy allowed scientists to conclude that he was upright and his height did not exceed 1.5 m.

A group of Spanish archaeologists led by Professor Eudald Carbonel, during excavations in the caves of Atapuerca in northern Spain, near Burgos, discovered that the Heidelberg man who lived in them was a cannibal.

Professor Carbonel noted: “The remains of people found in Atapuerca indicate that they were eaten by their own kind. The meat from the bones belonging to ten representatives of prehistoric man was cut off with special cutters,” but not to satisfy hunger, but for ritual purposes.

Sinanthropus

Sinanthropus (from the Latin Sinanthropus pekinensis - “Beijing man”, in the modern classification - Homo erectus pekinensis) - close to Pithecanthropus, but later and more developed. It was discovered in China, hence the name.

Lived about 600–400 thousand years ago, during the glaciation period. The volume of his brain reached 850–1220 cm; the left lobe of the brain, where the motor centers of the right side of the body are located, was slightly larger compared to right lobe. Consequently, the right hand of Sinanthropus was more developed than the left. Height – 155-160 cm. In addition to plant foods, he consumed animal meat. He mined and knew how to maintain a fire, dressed in skins. The following were discovered at the sites: a thick, about 6–7 m layer of ash, tubular bones and skulls of large animals, tools made of stones, bones, and horns.

The first Sinanthropus skull was discovered in the grottoes of Zhoukoudian near Beijing in 1923. Thanks to Rockefeller's funding, archaeologists (mostly German) continued excavating the grottoes throughout four years, during which the discovery of forty individuals was announced. All discovered material disappeared during World War II while being transported to the United States.
A number of Western scientists were skeptical about the Chinese finds of fossil hominids. However, Zhoukoudian was still declared by UNESCO as one of the World Heritage Sites. The study of sand from the grotto where the finds were made made it possible to establish the age of Sinanthropus from Zhoukoudian - 770 thousand years (±80 thousand years).

In 1964, the skull of Sinanthropus was found in Lantian (lat. Homo erectus lantianensis).
In the theory of multiregional anthropogenesis, Sinanthropus is considered as the main participant in the formation Mongoloid race at the stage of Homo erectus. However, many anthropologists are inclined to favor the point of view that Sinanthropus was a dead-end branch of the development of anthropoids.

Atlantrop

Atlantrop (ancient Greek bflbt, gen. P. bflbnfpt - “Atlas” ( Mountain country in Africa) and bnischrpt - “man”) is a North African subspecies of Homo erectus. Other varieties of African Archanthropes are homo ergaster and Rhodesian man. Known from the findings of the expedition led by K. Aramburg and R. Goffstegter, made in 1954–1955. near Ternifin in the Oran region (Algeria) - three lower jaws and a parietal bone.

The jaws found are characterized by a primitive structure: massiveness, absence of a chin protuberance, and large teeth. Judging by these characteristics, Atlantropus was approximately at the same level of morphological development as Pithecanthropus.
Stone tools from the Acheulean culture of the Early Paleolithic were discovered along with the bones.

Homo geogicus

Georgian man (Latin: Homo georgicus, “Georgian”) is an extinct species of people whose remains were discovered on the territory of modern Georgia.
All representatives of Homo georgicus became extinct in the process of evolution. Homo georgicus was presumably a local variety of Homo erectus or a transitional form between Homo habilis and Homo ergaster. The stone tools of Homo georgicus are quite primitive, only slightly more advanced than the Olduvai tools of Homo habilis.

The first remains of Homo georgicus were discovered in 1991 in Dmanisi and date back to approximately 1 million 770 thousand years ago. Thus, Georgian man is the most ancient species of the genus Homo that lived in Europe. A study of the remains of ancient hominids found in Georgia showed that at one time a small number of possible predecessors of modern humans likely migrated from Africa to Europe, where they either died out or (according to one theory) could have evolved into Homo erectus. In the second case, they could return back to Africa, where their further transition to Homo sapiens.

David Lordkipanidze, who headed archaeological research in Dmanisi, and his colleagues described four skulls, the brains of the owners of which were approximately half the size (600–680 cm) of the brain of a modern person. Finds in Dmanisi from 1991 to 2007 represent parts of the skeleton of a teenager and three adults (another, fifth skull has now been found, not yet described in scientific articles). Noteworthy is the skull of a man without teeth, in which almost all the tooth sockets are overgrown with bone matter. It is difficult to accurately determine the age of the deceased man, but, according to Lordkipanidze, “he could have been forty years old, and the fact that the bones grew into the cavity of the tooth sockets means that he lived a couple of years after his teeth fell out.” Perhaps his fellow tribesmen took care of him, says Lordkipanidze, which allowed a man who could not chew food to survive. If the archaeologist is right, then ancient people may have experienced a feeling similar to compassion - an unexpected quality for those so early in their evolution. Something similar can only be found among the Neanderthals who lived in Europe during the Ice Age. According to anthropologist Philip Reitmeyer, a member of the Dmanisi research team, this may be a sign of a transition to a higher level of relationships, involving the ability to plan one's actions and share food with others.

Based on the analysis of the finds, it is assumed that the height of Homo georgicus was 145–166 cm, weight – 40-50 kg. Judging by the proportions and shape of the bones, the legs of representatives of Homo georgicus resembled the legs of Homo Sapiens, apart from a number of individual primitive features. The legs were almost as long as those of erectus and modern humans, and noticeably longer than those of australopithecines. Apparently, representatives of Homo georgicus were excellent runners and could walk long distances. This is also evidenced by the structure of the vertebrae. Their hands, however, were more like those of australopithecines, which is especially noticeable in the structure of the shoulder joint (in this regard, people from Dmanisi also resemble the “hobbits” from the island of Flores). In terms of encephalization coefficient, people from Dmanisi are closer to habilis than to erectus. In terms of the structure of the spine, they, on the contrary, are closer to the latter. The slight difference in the sizes of male and female individuals also makes the owners of the found remains similar to Homo erectus and other later ancestors of Homo sapiens.

Contrary to earlier guesses, the bones did not show any signs that their owners were victims of large predators. Also, some small bones were preserved entirely, which are almost never preserved in this form after a meal of a predatory animal. In Dmanisi, not only human bones were found, but also quite a lot of coeval skeletal remains of all kinds of large and small animals. Some bones have scratches left by stone tools. One bone, belonging to a large herbivore, was chewed by a large predator after people scraped the meat off it. This find does not provide strict evidence that the Dmanisi people already knew how to hunt large animals, but it does at least show that they had access to carcasses before their competitors - bears, hyenas, leopards and saber-toothed tigers.

. At that time, man was still practically in no way distinguished from the animal world. Household life proto-humans and their social relations did not differ from those existing among other social animals. start date anthropogenesis

Pithecanthropus. During this period, the most ancient ancestors successively replaced each other. The first in this chain was Pithecanthropus. He was an upright creature and differed from modern humans in the structure of the cranium, the volume of the brain was 900 cm3, the skull retained many ape characteristics: short height, primitive structure, 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 do not yet 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. The habitats of Pithecanthropus are associated with the ancestral home of humanity. Most likely this is Central and Southern Africa, central Asia. Selected species Pithecanthropus lived in relative isolation, did not meet with each other and were separated by genetic barriers. Their everyday life was similar to the life of australopithecine 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.

Sinanthropus. Appeared on Earth 300 thousand years ago. Like Pithecanthropus, Sinanthropus was of average height, densely built, and his brain volume was 1050 cm3. Sinanthropus was capable of vocal speech. More complex labor activity and stone tools. The most common items were hand axes and flakes with obvious traces of artificial processing. They hunted such large animals as deer, wild horses and rhinoceroses. They lived in caves and learned to build above-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. Making fire became the most important economic task, and the fight for fire became common cause conflicts and wars between neighboring human groups.

Neanderthals. The Neanderthal type of man was formed approximately 200 thousand years ago. Neanderthals were small in stature (the average height of a man was 156 cm), large-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. They had limited ability of logical thinking. The behavior was characterized by sharp excitability, which led to violent conflicts and clashes.

They made stone tools: axes, points, piercings, drills, flakes. Basic techniques of stone technology: chipping, breaking stone, for which flint, sandstone, quartz, volcanic rocks were used. Stone technology is gradually improving, stone tools are acquiring correct form. Previously unknown tools appeared: scrapers, awls. Part of the tool could be made of stone, part of wood or bone.

Well-placed sheds and caves were used as permanent homes; they could be used for several generations. Complex above-ground dwellings were built in open areas. Economic life was based on gathering, fishing, and hunting.

Gathering required a lot of time, and the food provided was little and mostly low in calories. Catching fish required exceptional care, quick reaction and dexterity, but did not yield much prey. Hunting was the most effective source of meat food. Objects of hunting: hippopotamuses, elephants, antelopes, wild bulls (in the tropical zone), wild boars, deer, bison, bears (in northern regions). They also hunted mammoth and woolly rhinoceros. They set up trapping pits and used the driving method, in which all adult men of the community participated. Hunting was a form of labor activity that ensured the organization of the team, the most progressive sector of the economy; it was it that determined the development of primitive communal society. Any spoils belonged to the entire team. The distribution of the spoils was equal. If food was scarce, the hunters received it first. IN extreme conditions killing of children and old people 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.

stick

Pithecanthropus tool

Alternative descriptions

No eyes, no ears, but leads the blind (a riddle)

Cut thin tree trunk or branch without knots

Ski support

A piece of wood that can be bent

Skier's assistant

Traffic cop's striped girlfriend

It's double edged

. ...-lifesaver

Stake and staff

Bat, stake or stick

. ...-digger

double edged

Cane, staff

. skier's staff

Ski…

She's being pushed to extremes

Oryasina

It is inserted into the wheels of an 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 tree branch without knots, used as a support when walking

Cut thin trunk or cut straight tree branch without knots

. Skier's "staff"

. "loaf" translated from French

. “if a dog is beaten, there will be…” (last)

a pole, stake or club, convenient in size, for wielding with one hand; batog, bidig, batozhek, padozhek, cane, staff, staff, hard, trimmed twig.

A stick that serves as a handle, or in business, called. looking at the thing: scythe, spear, shaft, butt, banner, nag, lever, gag, twist, etc. He walks, propped up with a stick. and zap. with a stick. Drumsticks. There is no razor, so he shaves with an awl; I don’t have a fur coat, so the stick keeps me warm.

soldier We work under pressure, against our will. The stick does not rule, but breaks. her with a stick, and she used a rolling pin for me! A fool always grabs a stick. Without a stick there is no learning. Who gets the first glass, gets the first stick, rank. Your will, our stick: beat us, but listen to you. Stick to stick, not good, but glass to glass, nothing. When a soldier is not afraid of the stick, he is neither fit for duty nor fit for duty. our regiment is of no use: whoever stood up first and took the stick was the corporal. He rode off on a stick.

There is a dog, but there is no stick; there is a stick, there is no dog! Anyone who needs to hit a dog will find a stick.

Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus

He throws a stick at himself. There is no place to cut a drumstick: there is nothing to flog the guy with (woodlessness). 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 hits in vain; The white stick hits for the job. Don't stir if the sticks (fingers) are not good. Stick, Vologda. washer, kichiga, laundry roller. I use sealing wax stick. Lollipop stick. A stick (bar) for chocolate. Stick plural a short blow with sticks on the drum, as a sign, a beacon, for a friendly volley from cannons, on a ship; also a sign to infantry officers to move from behind the front to their places after the firing stops.

Mn. card game. Stick cf. sticks for punishment, beating; twigs, batogye, old. long ones. Palchina Vlad. baton. collect Sib. stick, pole. Stick insect M. batozhnik, bushy or young forest, suitable for sticks. Plant. Typha; Angustifolia: tyrlych vyat. Chakan Donsk.

Orobinets? cattail or cattail; tub? philatica? latifolia: kubys south. cattail and cattail, kuga, cobs, chakan, tyrlik, wad, siskin, tub. Downy, but very hard cobs of stick insects, in asters. dipped in lard or blubber, and burnt. candles; bedding is woven from its trunks, chairs are braided, and floats are knitted onto seines. Timofey grass, plover, Phleum. Plant. Dactilis glomerata? hedgehog, yuzha, misian? Stick debris. That's what life is like beating with a stick! A stick guard, in the camp, and now in the back, where the prisoners are, and where the guilty are punished.

Palitsa cane, club, stick, bulldug, especially heavy, clumsy; novg. hard kichiga, praline or pralo, praline roll, hoof; but the hoof has a longer handle for winter. (Academic Sl. erroneously present). Oslop, a club for defense, like a weapon, with a heavy rhizome, butt or with a chained knob, a battle mace.

Elm, two-handed club. old sweat baroque, replace the steering wheel and oars. The drunkard is waiting for a scourge, the dog is waiting for a club, an asshole. Mace blow. Mace army, stickmen, clubmen, oslopniks

What word did Dunno come up with the rhyme “herring” for?

Dunno's rhyme for the word "herring"

The one that is always “double-edged”

. “...,..., cucumber” (children’s drawing)

Report: Pithecanthropus.

At the end of the 19th century. (1890-1891), a sensation was caused by the discovery of fossil remains of a humanoid creature in the Early Pleistocene deposits of the river. Solo on the island of Java. A skull cap and long bones of the lower limbs were found there, based on 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 it. Views have been expressed that the skull belonged to a huge gibbon, a modern microcephalus, or simply a modern man, and acquired its own characteristics under the influence of post-mortem deformation, etc.

d. But all these assumptions were not confirmed by a thorough comparative morphological study. On the contrary, it irrefutably proved that the originality 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 Pithecanthropus.

Another remarkable discovery of human remains of the Early Pleistocene era was made in 1954 - 1955.

V North Africa. Unfortunately, it is even more fragmentary than the finds on the island of Java. Only incompletely preserved lower jaws were discovered belonging to three individuals, which received the name Atlanthropus mauritanicus. However, they were found 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 oldest hominins were made starting in 1927 in northern China, not far from Beijing in the Zhoukoudian Cave.

Excavations of the camp of ancient hunters discovered there yielded enormous 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 to approaching modern man than Pithecanthropus.

They belong to more late era, than Pithecanthropus, and were separated into an independent genus and species Sinanthropus pekinensis - the Peking ape-man. The preservation of the bone material made it possible to almost completely study the structure of the skeleton of Sinanthropus and thereby fill the gaps in our knowledge caused by the fragmentary findings of Pithecanthropus and other ancient hominins.

Sinanthropus, like Pithecanthropus, was a creature of medium height and heavy build.

The volume of the brain exceeded the volume of the brain of Pithecanthropus and varied among 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 apes.

An indirect argument in support of this conclusion can be the comparative high level labor activity of synanthropes.

The tools are varied, although they do not have a completely stable form. There are few tools processed on both sides, 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 rhinoceroses.

He had permanent habitats in caves.

Two more European finds probably have a very ancient dating. One of them was taken in 1965 at the Vertescelles site in Hungary. This is the occipital bone of an adult individual. Some researchers estimate morphological features bones 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 definitively, but the brain volume 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 brain volume 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 it also indicate its early age. Fragments of the frontal and occipital bones were discovered. The supraorbital relief is characterized by exceptional thickness, and therefore we can think that in this case we are dealing with a very early type of hominid, possibly with the European Pithecanthropus.

Finally, the remains of creatures morphologically similar to Pithecanthropus were found in ancient Early Pleistocene and Middle Pleistocene layers in many localities in Africa.

In terms of their structure, they are quite unique, but in terms of the level of development and brain volume they do not differ from the Javanese ape people.

Ape-like people - Pithecanthropus, Sinanthropus, Atlantropus, Heidelberg man and others - lived in warm climatic conditions, surrounded by heat-loving animals and did not spread far beyond the area of their initial appearance; judging by fossil finds, they were inhabited most of Africa, southern Europe and southern Asia.

The existence of the genus Pithecanthropus covered a huge period of time and belonged to both the lower and middle Pleistocene.

Thus, at present, the closest to reality seems to be the point of view of those researchers who, on the basis of morphology, classify Australopithecus to the family of hominids (implying, of course, that we are talking about representatives of all three genera - Australopithecus, Paranthropus and Plesianthropus), highlighting them as subfamily Australopithecus.

The remaining later and progressive forms are combined into the second component family of hominids - the subfamily of hominins, or people themselves.

The overwhelming majority of serious modern researchers consider all forms of ancient people known to us, without exception, as representatives of a single genus.

The above cursory list of paleontological finds of anthropomorphic primates of the late Tertiary and early Quaternary periods, as well as australopithecines, clearly illustrates the complexity of the problem of the ancestral home of humanity.

Remains of fossil primates, which may be related to hominids, have been discovered on different 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 occurred.

Geological, paleozoological, paleobotanical and paleoclimatological data paint a picture of a habitat quite favorable for great apes in wide areas of Central and Southern Africa and Central Asia.

The choice between the Eurasian and African continents is further complicated by the lack of developed prerequisites for determining the region of the ancestral home of humanity.

Some scientists believe that the separation of man from the animal world occurred in the rocky landscape of some foothills, others - that the immediate ancestors of the hominid family were inhabitants of the steppes.

Having excluded the factually untenable hypotheses about the emergence of humanity 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 water barriers impassable for them, we are currently unable to solve the problem of the ancestral home of humanity with due certainty .

Charles Darwin, based on the greater morphological similarity of humans with African anthropoids compared to Asian ones, considered it more likely that the ancestral home of humanity was the African continent. Findings of fossilized great apes in India, made at the beginning of this century, shook 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 turns the attention of researchers to the African continent as the cradle of humanity

Abstract: 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. Time of existence 200-28 thousand years ago. As studies of the genetic material of Neanderthals have established, they are apparently not the direct ancestors of modern humans.

Are considered as independent species“Neanderthal man” (Homo neanderthalensis), but more often as a subspecies of Homo sapiens (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis). The name is given after the early discovery (1856) of a human fossil in the Neanderthal Valley, near Düsseldorf (Germany). The bulk of the remains of Neanderthals and their predecessors “pre-Neanderthals” (approximately 200 individuals) were discovered in Europe, mainly in France, and date back to the period 70-35 thousand years ago.

years ago.

Physical type of Neanderthals

Neanderthals inhabited predominantly the pre-glacial zone of Europe and represented a unique ecological type of ancient man, formed in a harsh climate and with some features reminiscent of modern Arctic types, for example, the Eskimos. They were characterized by a dense muscular build with small stature (160-163 cm in men), a massive skeleton, voluminous rib cage, extremely high attitude body mass to its surface, which reduced the relative heat transfer surface.

These characteristics could be the result of selection acting in the direction of 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 supraorbital ridge, a sloping forehead and an elongated “chignon-shaped” nape; a very peculiar “Neanderthal face” with sloping cheekbones, a strongly protruding nose and a cut off chin.

It is believed that Neanderthals were born more mature and developed faster than fossil humans of modern times. physical type. It is possible that Neanderthals were quite hot-tempered and aggressive, judging by some features of their brain and hormonal status that can be reconstructed from the skeleton. There are also signs of constant pressure stress factors, such as, for example, 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 “power” specialization of Neanderthals is evidenced by excessive thickening of the walls of the bones of the long limbs, which should lead to a weakening of the hematopoietic function of the bone marrow and, as a consequence, to anemia.

One-sided strength development could occur at the expense of endurance. The Neanderthal hand, broad and paw-shaped, with shortened fingers, hardened joints and monstrous nails, was probably less dexterous than those of modern humans.

Neanderthal man had high infant mortality, a short reproductive period, and a short life expectancy.

Neanderthal culture

Intellectually, the Neanderthals advanced quite far, creating a highly developed Mousterian culture (named after the Le Moustier cave in France).

In France alone, over 60 have been installed different types stone tools; Their processing was significantly improved: to make one Mousterian point, 111 blows were required versus 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 family tree hominid; they often coexisted with modern man in Western Asia and some areas of Europe and could mix with him.

Pithecanthropus Sinanthropus Neanderthals

But there is another view of the Neanderthals: they are considered possible ancestors of modern humans in certain regions, for example, in Central Europe, or even a universal link in the evolution from Homo erectus to modern Homo sapiens. However, the work of the 1990s. Comparing mitochondrial DNA isolated from bones found in Neanderthals with corresponding genetic material from modern humans suggests that Neanderthals are not our ancestors.

About 35,000 years ago, Neanderthals suddenly went extinct (later sites of Neanderthals have now become known, showing that some of their groups “lasted” in the territory captured by the Cro-Magnons for quite a long time - up to 28,000 years ago). Not long 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

In a prestigious scientific journal Nature published an article by Russian, English 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 the 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 a modern person contained in the body of an ancient creature... Neanderthals had beliefs, customs and rituals. Burial of the dead, compassion for one’s own kind, and attempts to influence fate were new aspects introduced into human life by the Neanderthals,” wrote Ralph Solecki.

“Under the sloping forehead of the Neanderthal, there truly burned human thought“- opinion of Yuri Rychkov.

And these creatures disappeared from the face of the planet without a trace? No, many anthropologists place them among our ancestors. Traces of the first Neanderthals date back to 300 thousand years ago, and they disappeared somewhere around 25 thousand years ago. And for at least 30 thousand years, Neanderthals and our direct ancestors - the Cro-Magnons - lived side by side, in the same places in Europe.

So why shouldn't they mix? - ask supporters of our kinship with Neanderthals. And yet, recently it has been accepted to consider Neanderthals as a “side” branch of the evolutionary tree of Homo sapiens.

Now the results of analysis of mitochondrial DNA samples from Neanderthal ribs reinforce this point of view.

A few clarifications regarding analysis methods. Mitochondria (the main source of cellular energy) are scattered outside the nucleus, in the cell cytoplasm. They contain small rings of DNA containing 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 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, siblings have slightly different chromosomes, and they may not look very similar to each other. And most importantly, for this reason, during sexual reproduction between members of the population, a sort of “horizontal” mixing of chromosomes occurs and the emergence of various new genetic combinations. These combinations are the material for evolution, for natural selection.

Mitochondrial DNA is a different matter. Each person receives mtDNA only from his mother, who receives it from her mother, and so on in a series of only female generations, who has a chance to pass it on further.

And now scientists have analyzed mitochondrial DNA from the bones of the skeleton of a two-month-old child, found by an expedition of the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the Mezmayskaya cave in the Caucasus.

Note that this is the easternmost discovery of a Neanderthal, and he lived 29 thousand years ago. From the found ribs, geneticists were able 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? Firstly, the “Caucasian” mtDNA differs by 3.48 percent from a segment of 379 pairs from the bones of an indigenous Neanderthal from Germany, from the Neander Valley, whose analysis was done back in 1997. These differences are small and indicate the kinship of the two creatures, despite the great distance separating them and 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 is that this segment is very different from the DNA of modern humans. It was not possible to find traces of genetic material in it that could have been transmitted from Neanderthals to modern humans.

How reliable a tool for studying the ancient past is the analysis of painstakingly obtained fragments of ancient DNA? – my question to one of the authors of the sensational discovery, Igor Ovchinnikov.

“It is impossible to obtain a fairly large piece of DNA 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. However, the opportunity to compare ancient and modern material and phylogenetic analysis, of course, there is.

As a rule, in such work, for comparison, two highly variable regions are used in the control region of human mitochondrial DNA, for which studies have been carried out on various modern populations and the approximate rate of occurrence of mutations is known.

This makes it possible to construct 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 debate about the degree of kinship between Neanderthals and humans should not be put. It is possible to compare Neanderthal mtDNA with mtDNA not only of modern humans, but also of our direct ancestor, the Cro-Magnon man.

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 heading towards a bright future for civilization. And one of them disappears! The circumstances of this remain to be studied and studied.

Here's how to imagine the major 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 determination of the nucleotide sequence from an ancient Egyptian mummy.

In subsequent years, small pieces of DNA from ancient remains were multiplied thousands of times using polymerase chain reaction, a method that was developed in 1985.

This method revolutionized molecular biology and genetics, and the authors received Nobel Prize. By obtaining multiple copies of the source material, the researchers made their work much easier.

1988 – the possibility of analyzing mitochondrial DNA from human brain samples dating back 7 thousand years was demonstrated.

1989 - two groups in the USA demonstrated the possibility of multiplying ancient mitochondrial DNA.

1989 - analysis of mitochondrial DNA of the 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 - DNA fragment was obtained from a fossil termite in amber.

Somewhat later, the main work on ancient human remains began. The most interesting include:

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 chromosomes from ancient human remains.

1993 – the possibility of determining sex in ancient and medieval human remains was shown.

1996 - the possibility of studying microsatellites (short repeats) of DNA from medieval remains was shown. These two approaches are extremely interesting to anthropologists and archaeologists for the study of gender and social structure human communities of past times.

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 disappears only about 27 thousand years ago. The species originated in Africa and then spread throughout Europe and Asia.

Discovery and Exploration

The Dutch anatomist Eugene Dubois, fascinated by Darwin's theory of evolution as applied to man, went in 1886.

to Asia (which, despite Darwin's opinion, began to be considered the cradle of humanity) to find human ancestors. He spent his first few years in Sumatra as an army doctor. However, his searches there did not yield results. But in 1891 his team discovered on the island of Java in Dutch East Indies(currently Indonesia) human remains. Du Bois called him " Pithecanthropus"(lat.

Pithecanthropus erectus). The name comes from ancient Greek. the words “pithekos” - monkey and “anthropos” - man, i.e. "ape-man". The remains consisted of several teeth, a calvarium and a femur found on the banks of the Solo River (Trinil, East Java), similar to the corresponding bones of modern humans. The find became known as "Java Man". These fossils are now classified as Homo erectus.

In 1921, Swedish geologist and archaeologist Johan Gunnar Andersson and 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 what turned out to be a fossilized human tooth. Zdanski returned to the excavation site in 1923, and the materials excavated 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 Beijing United medical college, delighted with the discovery of Andersson and Zdansky, received funding from the Rockefeller Foundation and resumed excavations in 1927 together 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 described the find as belonging to a new species (and genus), which he named Sinanthropus pekinensis. Generic name " Sinanthropus" comes from ancient Greek. words for "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 specimens to continue funding. In 1928, several more teeth, skull fragments and lower jaw.

Black presented these findings to the foundation and received a grant of $80,000, 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 had been discovered, belonging to more than 40 individuals.

Among them were 15 partially preserved skulls, 11 mandibles, many teeth and some skeletal bones. In addition, many stone tools were 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 may be just another name for a working person and is thus the direct ancestor of later hominids such as Heidelbergian man, Neanderthal man and modern man (lat. Homo sapiens). According to the second, this 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 Asian H. erectus and "Homo erectus sensu lato" ("Homo erectus in the broad sense") for the group including both early African (H. ergaster) and Asian populations.

The first origin hypothesis is that H. erectus migrated from Africa around 2 million years ago.

years ago during the early Pleistocene, possibly as a result of the action of the "Saharan pump", and spread widely 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 migrated to Africa. Specimens found in Dmanisi (Georgia) date back to 1.77-1.85 million years ago.

years ago, corresponding to or slightly older than the earliest African remains.

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 Homo, or Homo habilis or working man.

H. habilis and H. erectus 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 finds from Java and Zhoukoudian, there was an opinion that man appeared in Asia. However, several naturalists (Charles Darwin the most famous among them) believed that the earliest ancestors of humans were Africans, because...

Chimpanzees and gorillas, the closest living primate relatives to humans, live only in Africa. Numerous discoveries of fossilized remains of extinct primates in the 50s - 70s of the 20th century in East Africa provided evidence that early hominids appeared there.

Homo erectus georgicus

In 1991, Georgian scientist David Lordkipanidze, as part of an international team of researchers, found fossilized remains - jaws and skulls - in Dmanisi (Georgia).

At first, scientists believed that these remains belonged to H. ergaster, but due to the difference in size, it was subsequently concluded that they belonged to a new species. They called him Georgian man (lat. Homo georgicus). It was hypothesized to be a descendant of H. habilis and an ancestor of the Asian H. erectus. However, this classification was not accepted and is now considered to be a divergent group of H. erectus - sometimes referred to as the subspecies Homo erectus georgicus (Georgian Homo erectus).

This may be 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 most ancient people (Chinese Sinanthropus, Javanese Pithecanthropus), or Archanthropus

A total of 4 skeletons were discovered, having a primitive skull and torso, but a progressive spine and lower limbs, providing high mobility. H. erectus georgicus exhibits a high degree of sexual dimorphism, with males being significantly larger than females.

The D2700 skull, dated to 1.77 million years ago, has a volume of approximately 600 cm3 and is in good condition, allowing comparison of its morphology with that of modern humans. At the time of its discovery, it was the smallest and most primitive hominin skull found outside of Africa.

However, in 2003, on the island of Flores, the skull of a hominid (Homo flores) was found, which had an even smaller brain volume.

The excavations also uncovered 73 stone cutting and chopping tools and 34 fragments of unidentified animal bones.

Morphological features

The brain volume of H. erectus is larger than that of H. habilis and ranges from 850 cm3 in the earliest individuals to 1200 cm3 in the latest (however, the skulls from Dmanisi are noticeably smaller).

The skull is very thick with massive supraorbital ridges. The height reached 180 cm, the physique was more massive than that of a modern person. Sexual dimorphism was greater than in modern humans, but significantly less than in australopithecines. 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 tools of Homo ergaster. Products of the Acheulean culture appear outside of Africa only about a million years ago.

There is evidence of the use of fire by Homo erectus. The earliest of them date back to a period of about 1 million years ago and are located in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa. Traces of the use of fire, dating back 690-790 thousand years, are found in northern Israel. In addition, there is such evidence in Terra Amata on the French Riviera, where it is believed that there are about 300 thousand.

years ago lived H. erectus.

Excavations in Israel suggest that H. erectus could not only use and control fire, but also produce it. However, some scientists argue that the use of fire became typical only in later human species.

Undoubtedly, the development of stone processing techniques and mastery of fire made Homo erectus one of the most successful species kind.

Stone weapons made it possible to successfully defend against predators and hunt; fire provided warmth and light; heat treatment made animal food more digestible and disinfected it.

Society and language

Along with working humans, Homo erectus likely became one of the first species of humans to live in hunter-gatherer societies. It is believed that erectus were the first hominids to hunt in organized groups and also to care for sick and infirm members of the group.

Increased brain size, the presence of Broca's center, and similar anatomy to modern humans suggest that Homo erectus began to use verbal communication. Apparently, it was a primitive proto-language that did not have a complex developed structure modern languages, however, much more advanced than the wordless “language” of chimpanzees.

Pithecanthropus or ape-man (“Javanese man”) is a fossil subspecies of man, at one time considered as an intermediate link in evolution between Australopithecus and Neanderthal man.

Just half a century ago, the problem of classifying fossil hominids seemed to pose no difficulty, and simplest scheme, which illustrates the origin of modern man, was in any school textbook: monkey - ape - man. True, none of the diagrammers knew what this very “man-ape” was - the notorious “missing link in the evolutionary chain.” At various times, different researchers assigned this role to Australopithecus, “homo habilis,” etc., but All these candidates were quickly rejected by life itself. And soon scientific world Almost unanimously rejected this very scheme, as primitive as .

Perhaps, only one ancient misconception was able to last the longest, according to which the first “real” representative human race there was a well-known Pithecanthropus, aka Homo erectus! (Homo erectus).

Where did the "missing link" come from?

The discovery of Pithecanthropus is associated with the name of the Dutch physician and anatomist Professor Eugene Dubois (1858–1940). Like many of his contemporaries, Du Bois was strongly influenced by Darwinism, the ardent propagandist of which at that time was the natural scientist and philosopher Ernst Haeckel. Based purely on speculative reasoning, Haeckel drew an “evolutionary tree” of man, on which he placed a certain fantastic creature, which he called the “non-speaking ape-man.” This figment of the imagination was intended to represent the missing link in the evolutionary chain between animals and humans.

Haeckel's scheme, in fact, was no different from geographical maps The Middle Ages, in which scholastics who had never been anywhere and seen nothing confidently placed the “Isles of the Blessed,” “The Land of One-Legs,” Gog and Magog, dog-headed people, 4-eyed Ethiopians and other rubbish. But since there were no other maps, travelers and sailors had no choice but to use these, as a result of which some died, and others accidentally, being sure that India was in front of them. The wretched schemes of the Darwinists played exactly the same role in the history of paleoanthropology.

History of discovery

Inspired by the problem of the “missing link,” Dubois decided to find it at all costs. But where to look for it? The evolution of man from apes most likely took place in the tropics, Dubois reasoned, because that is where apes still live today!

Armed with this, frankly speaking, non-controversial idea, Dubois in 1884 began searching on the Sunda Islands (Indonesia). 7 years of fruitless work were ultimately crowned with success: in 1891, near the village of Trinil (Java Island), Dubois found the right upper molar and part of the braincase of a creature, which he initially mistook for great ape. A year later, Dubois's left tibia fell into his hands. Being an experienced anatomist, he realized at first glance that in front of him was the remains of a fossil man - a man, not a monkey!

And then a thought occurred to him: what if we correlate this find with the previous one? After a careful examination of the remains, there was no longer any doubt: they belonged to a creature of one species, and this species could not be anything other than very archaic and primitive, but still human! Yes, the skull cap is still very sloping, the supraorbital ridge is highly developed, but the tooth is beyond any doubt human, and the tibia clearly indicates the straightened bipedal gait of its owner.

Du Bois decided that the long-awaited “missing link of evolution” had been found. There were no problems with determining the age of the find: the geological layer in which the remains he discovered lay was formed in the Middle Pleistocene and in terms of occurrence level approximately corresponded to the second ice age in the Northern Hemisphere - that is, the creature found by Dubois lived on Earth approximately 700 thousand years ago.

An underrated discovery

1894 - Du Bois published detailed message about his discovery, calling his ape-man “Pithecanthropus erectus.” Since that time, Pithecanthropus, sometimes called “Java man,” has become a true classic of paleoanthropology. But its discoverer had to suffer a lot of grief with it. Just as it later happened with Dart, Du Bois's discovery was subjected to fierce attacks from scientific opponents.

At first, the researcher tried to defend his point of view alone, but then, hounded from all sides, he fell into despair, stopped publishing and hid his find in a safe, not even allowing specialists to see it. And when a few years later the whole world recognized that he was right, Dubois issued a statement in which he renounced his original views, declaring them “unfounded.” The unfortunate “father of Pithecanthropus” died during the Second World War, never realizing that he had made one of the most important discoveries in the history of human evolution.

New finds

New remains of Pithecanthropus were found only more than 40 years after Dubois's discovery. The famous paleoanthropologist, a Dutchman of German origin, Gustav von Koenigswald, in 1937 discovered a juvenile, that is, a child’s, skull near the village of Mojokerto (East Java), which he unmistakably attributed to the human race. The age of the find was about 1 million years.

Description of Pithecanthropus

Then new discoveries followed. A thorough and lengthy study of them dispelled the last doubts: Pithecanthropus is undoubtedly one of the earliest representatives of the genus Homo. Pithecanthropus had a height of 165–175 cm and in terms of its method of movement was no different from modern humans. True, he was clearly not burdened with intelligence: the skull, even in comparison with Australopithecus, looks somewhat heavy, although it is quite large (brain volume is about 880–900 cm3); the forehead is low, sloping, the supraorbital ridge protrudes forward and hangs heavily over the orbits. The jaws are massive (the lower jaw is longer than that of modern humans), the chin is steeply cut. But the entire jaw apparatus looks absolutely “human.”

In general, in most respects, Pithecanthropus actually stands halfway between Australopithecus and modern man. And he could be considered the "missing link". But…

Finds in Zhoukoudian Cave

New discoveries have caused the scientific world to greatly doubt the belief that Pithecanthropus is the direct ancestor of modern man, although initially the future of this theory seemed cloudless. But in 1918–1927. Swedish scientists J. Anderson and B. Bolin found in China, in a limestone cave near the village of Zhoukoudian (approximately 40 km southeast of Beijing) the teeth of a fossil anthropoid. One of these teeth ended up on the desk of a Beijing professor medical institute, Englishman Davidson Black and seemed very familiar to him. After delving into his memory, Professor Black recalled that he had seen something similar among the “dragon teeth” sold in pharmacies selling traditional Chinese medicine. Sellers of “dragon teeth” also named Zhoukoudian Cave as their place of origin.

Human ancestor, Pithecanthropus or Sinanthropus?

After carefully examining the finds, Black determined that they belonged to a primitive man, standing quite close to the Javan Pithecanthropus. The scientist dubbed him Sinanthropus, or “Beijing man.”

New excavations undertaken in the Zhoukoudian cave by Black, and later by other researchers, revealed the remains of more than forty individuals of Sinanthropus - old and young, male and female. Their age was about 400–500 thousand years. But this entire unique collection disappeared without a trace in 1937. They said that the ship on which the finds were transported from China to the USA came under fire from Japanese warships and sank. According to another version, the remains of fossil creatures on the mainland were destroyed Japanese soldiers. After the war, scientists tried to find traces of the missing collection, but, alas, to no avail.

Meanwhile, the Zhoukoudian Cave right up to the very last days never ceases to regularly “supply” more and more remains of synanthropes - teeth, bones, fragments of skulls, etc. Many primitive stone tools were also discovered there - flakes, axes, scrapers, etc. However, the most important discovery was a huge fire pit: It turned out that Sinanthropus already knew how to use fire!

However, he most likely did not know how to mine it: a colossal accumulation of ash and coal six meters thick led researchers to believe that the inhabitants of the cave most likely brought a flaming branch from forest fire, happened in the neighborhood, and then supported him for many years. It’s hard to even say how many generations of synanthropes could have passed around this “eternal flame.”

Without a doubt, such a way of life required some kind of communication skills from the primitive herd. There is no need to talk about articulate speech yet, but Sinanthropus, in any case, knew how to think and convey certain information to his fellow tribesmen and, therefore, was already a human in many respects. However, this could not stop him from devouring his own kind with gusto: many of the skulls discovered in the Zhoukoudian cave were broken by heavy objects. Researchers believe that Sinanthropus were cannibals and hunted each other.

Using the most modern methods, scientists studied Sinanthropus, as they say, up and down. The body structure of “Peking man” was not much different from Pithecanthropus. He stood straight, but was significantly shorter - a little over 150 cm. But the brain volume noticeably exceeded that of Pithecanthropus - 1050-1100 cm3! There is no doubt that on the evolutionary ladder “Peking man” is higher than “Javanese man”, but they were contemporaries! And from whom did modern man come then - from Pithecanthropus or from Sinanthropus?

New species of the genus Pithecanthropus discovered

The picture became even more complicated when, in 1963, in Lantiang (Shanxi Province) Chinese archaeologist They found a well-preserved lower jaw of a primitive man, and a year later in the same area, near Kunwanlin, parts of the facial skeleton, a tooth and a cranial vault of the same species were discovered. These finds turned out to be even older than the Zhoukoudian ones - their age is approximately 1 million years. And we are talking here, as it turns out, about the same Pithecanthropus - but about its third species! But, compared to his relatives, the “man from Lantian” was, as they say, a complete fool: his brain volume barely reached 780 cm3.

Remains of ancient people species Homo erectus have also been found in Africa and Europe. The oldest European find comes from a sand quarry near the village of Mauer near Heidelberg (Germany). 1907, October 20 - the lower jaw, known among experts as the jaw of the “Heidelberg man,” was discovered here. This name was given to the find in 1908 by Professor O. Shetenzak. “Heidelberg Man” was also called “paleoanthropus” or “protanthropus”. Today, the generally accepted point of view is that “Heidelberg man” is another representative of the genus Pithecanthropus. Its absolute age is estimated at 900 thousand years.

Another European find (teeth and occipital bone) was made in 1965 near the village of Vertescelles (Hungary). This fossil man is close in level of development to the Beijing Sinanthropus, and its age is 600–500 thousand years. Other finds of the remains of the species Homo erectus were made in the Czech Republic, Greece, Algeria, Morocco, the Republic of Chad and in the famous Olduvai Gorge, which is called the “gold mines of paleoanthropology.”

Pithecanthropus is not the ancestor of modern humans

The accumulated material allowed scientists to draw amazing conclusions: firstly, Pithecanthropus is much older than previously thought: the antiquity of the most archaic of them reaches 2 million years - that is, the first Pithecanthropus were contemporaries of Australopithecus. Secondly, the species differences among different groups of Pithecanthropus are so great that it is time to talk not about a species, but about an independent genus, Homo erectus, which includes several different species! And finally, thirdly, Pithecanthropus, aka Homo erectus, alas, is not the ancestor of modern man - these are two separate branches of evolution...

Simply put, “a careful and objective assessment of the scale of differences between individual groups forces us to maintain the generic status of Pithecanthropus on the one hand, Neanderthals and modern humans on the other, while identifying “several species within the genus Pithecanthropus, as well as identifying Neanderthals and modern humans as independent species "

The story of Pithecanthropus posed scientific community new and so far unanswerable questions related to... At least, only one thing is clear: the evolution of the human race has been immeasurably more in complicated ways than it seemed to many hotheads just a few decades ago.