The history of the emergence of Homo sapiens. Homo sapiens is a species that combines biological and social essence
Difficulties of classification
There would seem to be no problem in classifying the species of animal known as Homo sapiens sapiens (reasonable man) should not arise. It would seem, what could be simpler? It belongs to the chordates (subphylum vertebrates), to the class of mammals, to the order of primates (humanoids). In more detail, his family is hominids. So, his race is human, his species is intelligent. But the question arises: how is it different from others? At least from the same Neanderthals? Were extinct species of humans really that unintelligent? Can a Neanderthal be called a distant but direct ancestor of man of our time? Or maybe these two species existed in parallel? Did they interbreed and produce joint offspring? Until work is done to study the genome of these mysterious Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, there will be no answer to this question.
Where did the species “Homo sapiens” appear?
Most scientists believe that the common ancestor of all people, both modern and extinct Neanderthals, appeared in Africa. There, during the Miocene era (this is approximately six or seven million years ago), a group of species separated from the hominids, which subsequently evolved to the genus Homo . First of all, the basis for this point of view was the discovery of the oldest remains of a man called Australopithecus. But soon other finds of ancient people were discovered - Sinanthropus (in China) and Homo heidelbergensis (in Europe). Were these varieties of the same genus?
Were they all ancestors of modern humans or dead-end branches of evolution? One way or another, Homo sapiens appeared much later - forty or forty-five thousand years ago, during the Paleolithic. And the revolutionary difference between homo sapiens and other hominids moving on their hind limbs was that he made tools. His ancestors, however, like some modern monkeys, only used improvised means.
Secrets of the family tree
Even 50 years ago, they taught in school that Homo sapiens descended from Neanderthals. He was often represented as a hairy half-animal, with a sloping skull and protruding jaw. And Homo Neanderthals, in turn, evolved from Pithecanthropus. Soviet science depicted him almost as a monkey: on half-bent legs, completely covered with hair. But if everything is more or less clear with this ancient ancestor, then the relationship between Homo sapiens sapiens and Neanderthals is much more complicated. It turns out that both of these species existed for some time at the same time and even in the same territories. Thus, the hypothesis of the origin of Homo sapiens from Neanderthals requires additional evidence.
Did Homo neanderthalensis belong to the Homo sapiens species?
A more thorough study of the burials of this species showed that the Neanderthal was completely upright. In addition, these people had articulate speech, tools (stone chisels), religious cults (including funeral ones), primitive art(decorations). However, he was distinguished from modern man a number of features. For example, the absence of a chin protrusion, which suggests that the speech of such people was not sufficiently developed. The findings confirm the following facts: Neanderthal man arose one hundred and fifty thousand years ago and flourished until 35-30 thousand years BC. That is, this happened at a time when the species “Homo sapiens sapiens” had already appeared and clearly formed. The “Neanderthal” completely disappeared only during the era of the last glaciation (Wurmsky). It is difficult to say what caused his death (after all, the change in climatic conditions affected only Europe). Perhaps the legend of Cain and Abel has deeper roots?
For more than a century now, scientists have been tormented by the question of how old is humanity on Earth? IN different times Religions, science, and philosophy tried to answer it. Thus, even in the most ancient religions there were always myths about the creation of people by gods. And often even specific dates for this event were named.
Tribe of Israel
Christianity gives a fairly accurate answer to the question of how old humanity is. According to the Bible, the first people were Adam and Eve, created in the image and likeness of God.
It is curious that Christians were not the first in this field. Almost all the stories included in the Old Testament are retellings of ancient Shemitic myths. And the Jewish Torah, unlike the Vatican, does not hide the true age of the creator’s favorite brainchild: approximately 7,000 years. 70 centuries to develop from a carefree life in the Garden of Eden and the invention of the plow to the first atomic bomb and space communications satellites.
From Rurik to Peter the Great
You don't have to open the Bible to find answers to eternal questions. We are all accustomed, when talking about Russian or world history, to use the terms “Nativity of Christ” or “our era”. 221 BC, 988 AD... However, this chronology was adopted by the standards of the planet quite recently. Only in the 4th century. The Roman Empire officially switched to new calendar, tied to the birth of the new Messiah - Jesus. Russia made this transition only in 1701, by order of Peter the Great. How were the dates before these events designated? Let's open the most famous chronicle Ancient Rus'- “The Tale of Bygone Years.”
The date given here is startling: summer 6370. According to the Christian calendar, this is 861 years. There is something to think about. Our ancestors counted time from a point distant from our days by more than 7 and a half thousand years. This is the time of occurrence ancient civilizations. More precisely, this is the period about which we have the first more or less reliable information. Meanwhile, the dates on ancient manuscripts indicate that already at that time the Slavs had a level of development high enough to understand the need to number years and store information about them.
Evolution to replace divine will
For a long time, religion has been one of the main sources of human knowledge about the world. Divine intervention explained everything: from natural Disasters and annual agricultural cycles until Athens' victory over the Persians at the Battle of Salamis. However, over time, the forces of religion became insufficient to explain all the mysteries of the world. No matter how many years humanity has lived, it still always strives to learn more than is known now, to open new horizons. In the Middle Ages, this thirst for knowledge manifested itself in a fierce struggle between the emerging sciences and the Christian Church. Copernicus, Galileo, Giordano Bruno - without these names there would be no modern astronomy, physics, chemistry and geology.
The mystery of human origins was considered one of the most pressing for researchers around the world. For many centuries, no one in the Christian world thought to challenge the version of the creation of Adam and Eve. However, in the 19th century, enlightened society was literally blown up by the scandalous book of the English naturalist Charles Darwin.
His “Origin of Species” forced a completely different look at the question of how many years humanity has existed, and forever separated believers and materialists into warring camps. Thus, Darwin compared several tens of thousands of species of animals, plants and birds in his work. He managed to prove that the similarities and differences of living beings in different corners The lands are associated with natural selection, during which, century after century, the individuals most adapted to the conditions survived. He created the theory of evolution. And he smashed to smithereens the statement of the Old Testament about 7000 years of existence of the world and humanity. Natural selection, in his opinion, takes hundreds of thousands of years, which means that the information in the Bible is fundamentally incorrect.
Monkey relatives
In 1974, archaeologist Yohannas, during excavations in Ethiopia, discovered fragments of a skeleton that could well belong to an ancient ancestor of modern man. The skull, several ribs and vertebrae had a clear resemblance to humans, but their owner clearly stood at a lower stage of development than modern inhabitants of the Earth. Scientists named their exhibit Lucy. Research has shown that the age of this find is approximately 3.5 million years! Thus, the age of the mythical Eve increased 500 times.
Discovered in Africa, the species was named Australopithecus, which means “southern man.” For a long time it was believed that he was the most ancient among human ancestors. However, in 2000, an even more shocking discovery followed. In the African state of Chad, the skull of a humanoid teenager was discovered, whose age was almost 8 million years. This species - Sahelanthropus - has further complicated the debate over how old humanity is. If we accept the reality of the existence of a Chadian boy as truth, then the origin of the paintings on the rocks depicting mammoths and smilodons - ancient saber-toothed tigers - becomes clear. Humanity really lived next to these giants. And it turned out to be powerful enough to win the competition for the survival of the species.
Club and stone or plow and sword?
The dispute over how old humanity is has divided the scientific world into several irreconcilable camps. Among them, two stand out, which converge on the idea of the evolution of our species, but diverge on the definition of the starting point. If you count age human race from the moment when the ancient monkeys first descended from the trees and picked up a stick and a stone, there is only one date. If we take the appearance of “homo sapiens” as the moment of the origin of our history, then the total number decreases by a couple of hundred times. In this case, it does not matter how many years humanity lives on earth, what is important is when it began to actively organize its world.
The first modern man, who has the same skeleton as ours, who knows how to make fire and uses tools familiar to us, was discovered in France, near the village of Cro-Magnon. The age of this find is 40,000 years. The Cro-Magnons sewed clothes from animal skins, made needles, spears and knives from stone, and possessed sufficient developed abilities to painting and believed in afterworld. It was with the emergence of this species that the Paleolithic, that is, the ancient Stone Age, began.
Nature's joke
Proponents of the anomalous theory of the emergence of man claim that the age of our species is about 15 million years. It was at this time that there was a sharp leap in the evolution of many species of the animal world. According to enthusiasts, the cause was a change in the radioactivity of the sun or the destruction of the earth's crust above uranium deposits. As a result of this catastrophe, the ancient inhabitants of the planet received radiation damage, which pushed evolution along the path of development of upright walking and intelligence in monkeys. To the deep regret of fans of this hypothesis, it does not stand up to any scientific testing.
Children of another star
There is another theory that is being condemned modern history and archeology, but which, nevertheless, can quite well answer the question of how old humanity is. It is called paleovisit and comes from two Latin words: “paleo” - “ancient” and “visit” - “advent”, “arrival”. According to it, people are the descendants of aliens from another planet who arrived on Earth in time immemorial. Scientists were prompted to this idea by the hieroglyphs on the walls of ancient temples, in which, if desired, one can see quite modern helicopters and spaceships.
There are many variations of alien anthropogenesis. Starting from the ideas that we are all descendants of shipwrecked spacemen, to the theory of life-forming radiation that comes from space and forces life on young planets to develop according to a strictly defined scenario. If we accept latest idea According to the hypothesis, the age of the human race may exceed hundreds of millions of years.
What does the unofficial science say?
Not all available archaeological discoveries appear in school textbooks. Some of the findings are so shocking that leaders scientific world they prefer to consign them to oblivion so as not to destroy the entire modern picture of the world. And, nevertheless, some archaeologists argue that the age of humanity is disproportionately greater than not only the 7 thousand years indicated in the Torah, but also the official date of the appearance of the Cro-Magnon man. 40,000 years, they argue, is only part of the life of the humanoid race, and part is not the largest. So, excavations in South America presented science with several unique finds. Diorite jars from an extinct city of the Olmec Indians are one of them. Radiocarbon dating showed that the age of these stone vessels is about half a million years. However, the material from which they are made is considered one of the most durable on Earth, and even modern technology has difficulty processing it. Really, 500 thousand years ago the Indians were already so developed that they mastered this difficult task?! This is hard to believe, especially looking at the Indian villages lost in the jungle, some of which, such as the Yanomami, are still at the level of the late Stone Age. However, you can't argue with the fact. And then, after all, the Mayan Indians were able to create star maps without electronic telescopes 5 thousand years ago.
Eternal mystery
So, how old is human history? The real story, and not the one from which, as Kozma Prutkov aptly said, you cannot remove all the lies, otherwise there will be nothing left at all. Maybe 40 thousand. Perhaps 8 million. It is quite possible that there will be more. I would like to believe that our descendants will finally be able to answer this eternal question.
Modern scientists have long preferred to limit the history of human civilization to a few thousand years, to which the abyss of the wild and cruel Stone Age supposedly extended. But the discovery of such ancient cities as Catal Huyuk in Asia Minor or Jericho in Israel forced us to look at this issue a little differently and extend the cultural period of human existence by approximately four to five millennia. However, as for the written evidence of the ancients, science continues to take into account only those that were recognized several dozen, or even a hundred years ago.
Meanwhile, there are documents that make it possible to calculate the history of earthly civilization by at least tens of thousands of years.
Paradoxes from serious scientists
Georgy Sintsell was known as an outstanding historian. He lived at the turn of the 8th and 9th centuries after the Nativity of Christ. For many years, Syncellus preached in Palestine, was the personal secretary of the Patriarch Tarasius of Constantinople (784-806), after whose death he retired to a monastery, where he took up writing. The most important work Syncella is considered a "Selected Chronography". When creating it, the historian used the works of ancient authors such as Josephus, Manetho and the famous Babylonian priest Berossus, in whose works one can find many highest degree unusual. The erudition of George Syncellus even allowed him to reasonably criticize the father of church history, Eusebius of Caesarea, for falsifying Egyptian chronology.
Syncell himself, in particular, wrote: “The Egyptians have a certain plate called the “Old Chronicle”; it contains 30 dynasties over 113 generations over a period of 36,525 years. The first group (dynasty) of princes is the Aurites, the second is the Mestroens, the third is the Egyptians. “The Chronicle” reads: “No time was determined for Hephaestus, since he was both day and night. Hephaestus' son Helios ruled for 30 thousand years. Chronos and the 12 gods then reigned for 3,984 years; Next were the demigods, numbering eight, who reigned for 217 years.”
The philosopher Simplicius of Cilicia, one of the founders of the Alexandrian school of Neoplatonism, distinguished by his businesslike nature and strict attitude to facts, even reported in the 6th century that he had heard that the Egyptians had been making astronomical observations for the last 630 thousand years. Even if he was mistaken and we are talking about months, then an impressive period still accumulates - 52.5 thousand years. The late ancient historian of philosophy Diogenes Laertius, possessor of a sharp and caustic mind, established that the Egyptians made their astronomical calculations 48,863 years before Alexander the Great. The encyclopedist writer of the first half of the 5th century, Marcian Capella, argued that the Egyptians secretly studied the stars for 40 thousand years before revealing their phenomenal knowledge to the world.
Zodiac - evidence of antiquity
Even Manetho, whose list of pharaonic dynasties is the cornerstone of modern Egyptology, cited evidence in favor of a much deeper antiquity Egyptian civilization, than is now commonly believed. In the surviving fragments of his History of Egypt there is the following words: “The first man [or God] in Egypt is Hephaestus, who is also known to the Egyptians as the discoverer of fire. The heir of his son Helios [Sun] was Sosis, then in turn Kronos, Osiris, Typhon, brother of Osiris, and finally Horus, son of Osiris and Isis. They were the first rulers of Egypt. After this, royal power passed from one to another, without interruption, until Bidis for 13,900 years.
Then gods and demigods ruled for 1255 years, and again for 1817 years another royal family gained power in the country. Then 30 more Memphis kings reigned for 1790 years, and after them 10 more kings for 350 years. Then came the time of reign “ spirits of the dead", which lasted 5,813 years."
The alignment of the stars as they were approximately 90,000 years ago is demonstrated in the zodiac adorning the ceiling of the Temple of Hathor in the Egyptian city of Dendera. Moreover, this zodiac is so magnificent that the original ceiling was removed and transported to Paris during the Egyptian expedition of Napoleon I, and a plaster copy was installed instead of the original.
The astrological symbols of the zodiac, as British ufologist Raymond Drake writes, according to the precession of the equinoxes, mean the passage of three and a half large cycles of 25,800 years each. The original temple had long since turned to dust, but the unique zodiac was copied by initiates who sought to preserve this evidence of the deep knowledge of the ancients. The dating of 90 thousand years shocks our modern minds, accustomed to limit the history of civilization to four or five thousand years, but similar zodiacs were found in the temples of northern India and on Babylonian clay tablets.
Royal lists
It is curious that the Chaldeans (Semitic pastoral tribes that inhabited the outskirts of Babylonia in the first half of the first millennium BC) also had so-called royal lists, which operated with dates of unimaginable antiquity. The history of the Sumerians, who preceded the Babylonians in Mesopotamia, according to these lists, began with the creation of man. In the Bible we're talking about about 10 forefathers, if you count from Adam; among the Sumerians they were called the most ancient kings, and there are also 10 of them. The Israeli forefathers were distinguished by their extraordinary longevity, but the “Methuselah Age” against the background of the life expectancy of the Sumerian rulers does not seem so long. According to one such king list, which lists only eight kings, they reigned for 241,200 years.
According to another, which mentions all 10, it is 456 thousand years. After this, a flood broke out, but humanity was reborn thanks to the surviving righteous man Utnapishtim. A new dynasty of kings arose, whom descendants perceived as gods and demigods. There were 33 kings in the dynasty, who reigned for a total of 24,510 years. After this, there were several more not so durable dynasties, but the history that science now takes seriously begins with the death of the epic hero Gilgamesh around the beginning of the 26th century BC. e.
How many people were there in total?
Very unusual information about the past of mankind is also contained in the mythology of the Aztecs and Mayans. There we are talking not even about one, but about several humanity, which definitely echoes the teachings of the Theosophists.
The Codex Vaticanus - a genuine monument of Aztec culture - says that the first race on Earth were giants, and they died of starvation. The second humanity became a victim of a grandiose fire. Some of these people, according to legend, were able to survive by creating tunnels and fortified chambers under the surface of the planet. Traces of branched underground structures, the age of which can hardly be estimated, are found in many parts of our planet. There are such structures in South America, and in the African Sahara Desert, and in India, and in Western Europe, and in our country. For example, in Karelia and the Zhiguli Mountains. The third humanity in Aztec myths is called intelligent monkeys, which disappeared as a result of some cataclysm. The fourth race was similar to modern people and drowned in the waters Flood. The fifth lives and develops to this day.
The Codex Rios and the Codex Telleriano-Remensis, documents copied in Latin script in the Aztec language from earlier sources, also tell of four who lived before the present humanity, who were again destroyed by global catastrophes, albeit in a different sequence. Aztec sources give the existence of each of these humanity from four to five thousand years.
But there is one interesting nuance here. The Aztecs and Mayans, in addition to the usual dating, also operated with a number of so-called sacred years, the duration of which is, for example, for the sacred year of Katun - 20 years, for Baktun - 400 years, for Piktun - eight thousand years, and for the longest - This Alautun series is 64 million years old! So it would also be necessary to clarify which years the Indians of Mesoamerica are talking about in such chronicles.
Of course, this kind of dating looks downright scary, if not crazy. They, perhaps, could be swept aside, which is, by and large, what serious science does. However, artifacts of unimaginable antiquity that were discovered in different parts our planet, researchers and random people, it seems, are forcing us to take the “oddities” of ancient documents cited in this article more seriously.
Our world has existed since time immemorial. Every schoolchild knows this. For billions of years, life has existed on Earth, developing and changing over time. We will tell you how old the world really is in this article.
How old is our universe
About 14 billion years have passed since the Big Bang, and this date serves as a record of the beginning of life in our Universe, but this figure is quite relative. In general, scientists are of the opinion that our Universe has existed for at least 12, but not more than 20 billion years. It should be noted that our Universe is at least 2 times older than the Sun and Earth.
How old is our solar system
According to the hypothesis generally accepted today, the formation of our solar system began approximately 4.6 billion years ago. This process began with the gravitational compression of some part of a huge interstellar gas and dust cloud. Most likely this cloud was several light years in size. It became the progenitor for several stars, including our Sun.
How old is our planet
The age of the Earth is slightly less than the age of our solar system and is approximately 4.54 billion years. These data were obtained using radioisotope dating of terrestrial samples and meteorite matter. They were obtained using the uranium-lead method, which was developed by Claire Patterson. It is this figure that corresponds to the age of the oldest terrestrial, lunar and meteorite samples and has not changed since 1956.
How old is humanity
There are several theories that count different ages of humanity. Let's look at a few of them:
- A reasonable man. If we consider the origin of humanity since the appearance of the species Homo sapiens, then according to scientific research, its age ranges from 200 to 340 thousand years. That is, humanity is quite young.
- Genus Homo. As mentioned above, the species Homo sapiens is relatively young, but the genus Homo itself, which includes Homo sapiens, has existed for approximately 2.5 million years. This is exactly the age that scientists established by examining the skull of a teenager from Tanzania, discovered in the Olduvai Gorge in 1960.
- Creationism. The theory of creationism has been and remains the main competitor to the theory of evolution. According to it, all life on Earth, including humans, was created approximately 7.5 thousand years ago.
If you want to know more about the age of the Earth, read our article
Homosapiens- a species that includes four subspecies - Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Anatoly DEREVYANKO
Photo by ITAR-TASS
Until recently, it was believed that modern humans originated in Africa about 200 thousand years ago.
"Modern biological type" means in in this case us. That is, we, modern people, homo sapiens (more precisely, Homosapienssapiens) we are direct descendants of certain creatures that appeared exactly there and exactly then. Previously, they were called Cro-Magnons, but today this designation is considered obsolete.
About 80 thousand years ago, this “modern man” began his victorious march across the planet. Victorious in literally: It is believed that on that campaign he ousted other human forms from life - for example, the famous Neanderthals.
But recently evidence has emerged that this is not entirely true...
The following circumstances led to this conclusion.
Several years ago, an expedition of Russian archaeologists and specialists from other sciences, working under the leadership of the director of the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Academician Anatoly Derevyanko, discovered the remains of an ancient man in the Denisovskaya Cave in Altai.
Culturally, he fully corresponded to the level of contemporary sapiens: the tools of labor were at the same technological level, and the love of jewelry indicated a fairly high stage of social development for those times. But biologically...
It turned out that the DNA structure of the found remains differs from the genetic code of living people. But this was not what caused the main sensation. It turned out that this - by all, we repeat, technological and cultural characteristics - intelligent person turned out to be ... an “alien.” According to genetic data, he moved away from our common ancestral line no less than 800 thousand years ago! Yes, even Neanderthals are closer to us!
“We are apparently talking about a new species of human that was previously unknown to world science,” said Svante Pääbo, legendary in professional circles, director of the department of evolutionary genetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Well, he knows better: he was the one who carried out the DNA analysis of the unexpected find.
So what happens? While we humans were climbing the evolutionary ladder, a certain competitive “humanity” was climbing up in parallel with us?
Yes, says Academician Derevyanko. Moreover: in his opinion, such centers where different groups people strived for the title of Homo sapiens in parallel and independently of each other, there may be at least... four!
He told ITAR-TASS about the main provisions of the new concept, already sometimes called the “new revolution in anthropology”.
Before moving on to the essence of the matter, let's start with the “pre-revolutionary situation”. Before current events, what was the picture of human evolution?
We can confidently say that humanity originated in Africa. The first traces of creatures that learned to make tools have been discovered today in the area of the East African Rift, stretching in the meridional direction from the Dead Sea basin through the Red Sea and further across the territory of Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania.
The spread of the first people to Eurasia and their settlement of vast territories in Asia and Europe occurred in a mode of gradual development of the most favorable ecological niches for living and then moving into adjacent areas. Scientists attribute the beginning of the process of human penetration into Eurasia to a wide chronological range from 2 to 1 million years ago.
The largest population of ancient Homo that emerged from Africa was associated with the species Homo ergaster-erectus and the so-called Oldowan industry. Under the industry in in this context refers to a certain technology, culture of stone processing. Oldowan or Oldowan - the most primitive of them, when a stone, most often a pebble, which is why this culture is also called pebble, was split in half to get a sharp edge without additional processing.
About 450–350 thousand years ago, the second global migration flow began to move to the east of Eurasia from the Middle East. It is associated with the spread of the Late Acheulian industry, in which people made macroliths - stone axes and flakes.
During its advancement, the new human population in many territories met the population of the first migration wave, and therefore there is a mixture of two industries - pebble and late Acheulian.
But here’s what’s interesting: judging by the nature of the finds, the second wave reached only India and Mongolia. She didn't go any further. In any case, the overall difference between the industry of East and Southeast Asia and the industry of the rest of Eurasia is noticeable. This means, in turn, that since the first appearance of the oldest human populations in East and Southeast Asia 1.8–1.3 million years ago, there has been a continuous and independent development of both the physical type of man and his culture. And this alone contradicts the theory of the monocentric origin of modern man.
- But you just said that man was born in Africa?..
It is very important to emphasize, and it was not by chance that I did this: we are talking about a person of a modern anatomical type. According to the monocentric hypothesis, it formed 200–150 thousand years ago in Africa, and 80–60 thousand years ago it began to spread to Eurasia and Australia.
However, this hypothesis leaves many problems unresolved.
For example, the researchers are primarily faced with the question: why, if a person of the modern physical type arose at least 150 thousand years ago, then the Upper Paleolithic culture, which is associated with Homo sapiens, appeared only 50–40 thousand years ago?
Or: if the Upper Paleolithic culture spread to other continents with modern man, then why did its products appear almost simultaneously in regions of Eurasia that were very distant from each other? And besides, significantly differing from each other in basic technical and typological characteristics?
And further. According to archaeological data, a person of a modern physical type settled in Australia 50, and maybe 60 thousand years ago, while in the territories adjacent to East Africa on the African continent itself he appeared... later! In South Africa, judging by anthropological finds, about 40 thousand years ago, in Central and Western Africa, apparently, about 30 thousand years ago, and only in Northern Africa, about 50 thousand years ago. How can we explain the fact that modern man first penetrated into Australia, and only then settled across the African continent?
And how, from the point of view of monocentrism, can we explain the fact that Homo sapiens was able to cover a gigantic distance (more than 10 thousand km) in 5–10 thousand years without leaving any traces along the path of its movement? Indeed, in South, Southeast and East Asia 80–30 thousand years ago, in the event of the replacement of the autochthonous population by newcomers, a complete change of industry should have occurred, but this is not at all visible in East Asia. Moreover, between the regions with the Upper Paleolithic industry there were territories where the Middle Paleolithic culture continued to exist.
Did you swim on something, as some suggest? But in the South and East Africa at the locations of the final middle and early stage No means of swimming were found in the Upper Paleolithic. Moreover, in these industries there are no tools for processing wood, and without them it is impossible to build boats and other similar means, on which you could go to Australia.
What about genetic data? They show that all modern people are descendants of one “father” who lived precisely in Africa and just about 80 thousand years ago...
Well, in fact, monocentrists, based on a study of DNA variability in modern people, suggest that it was in the period 80 - 60 thousand years ago that a demographic explosion occurred in Africa, and as a result of a sharp increase in population and a lack of food resources, a migration wave spilled into Eurasia .
But with all due respect to the data of genetic research, it is impossible to believe in the infallibility of these conclusions without having any convincing archaeological and anthropological evidence to support them. And yet there are none!
Look here. It must be borne in mind that when average duration life at that time was about 25 years old - the offspring in most cases were left without parents at an immature age. With high postnatal and child mortality, as well as mortality among adolescents due to the early loss of parents, there is no reason to talk about a demographic explosion.
But even if we agree that 80 - 60 thousand years ago in East Africa there was a rapid population growth, which determined the need to search for new food resources and, accordingly, the settlement of new territories, the question arises: why migration flows were initially directed far to the east , all the way to Australia?
In short, the extensive archaeological material from the studied Paleolithic sites of South, Southeast and East Asia in the range of 60–30 thousand years ago does not allow us to trace the wave of migration of anatomically modern people from Africa. In these territories there is not only no change in culture, which should have happened if the autochthonous population was replaced by newcomers, but also clearly expressed innovations indicating acculturation. Such authoritative researchers as F.J. Habgood and N.R. Franklin draws a clear conclusion: the indigenous people of Australia never had the full African “package” of innovations, since they were not from Africa.
Or let's take China. Extensive archaeological material from hundreds of studied Paleolithic sites in East and Southeast Asia indicates the continuity of industrial development in this territory throughout last million years. Perhaps, as a result of paleoecological disasters (cold snap, etc.), the range of ancient human populations in the Chinese-Malayan zone narrowed, but archanthropes never left it. Here, both man himself and his culture developed evolutionarily, without any significant outside influences. No similarity with African industries can be traced in the chronological interval 70–30 thousand years ago in Southeast and East Asia. According to the extensive archaeological material available, no migration of people from the west to the territory of China can be traced in the chronological interval of 120–30 thousand years ago.
But over the past 50 years, numerous finds have been discovered in China that make it possible to trace the continuity not only between the ancient anthropological type and modern Chinese populations, but also between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens. In addition, they have a mosaic of morphological characteristics. This indicates a gradual transition from one species to another and indicates that human evolution in China is characterized by continuity and hybridization or interspecific crossing.
In other words, the evolutionary development of Asian Homo erectus took place in East and Southeast Asia for more than 1 million years. This does not exclude the arrival of small populations from neighboring regions and the possibility of gene exchange, especially in areas bordering neighboring populations. But taking into account the closeness of the Paleolithic industries of East and Southeast Asia and their difference from the industries of the adjacent western regions, it can be argued that at the end of the Middle - beginning of the Upper Pleistocene, a person of the modern physical type Homo sapiens orientalensis was formed on the basis of the autochthonous erectoid form of Homo in East and Southeast Asia, along with Africa.
That is, it turns out that the path to sapiens was traversed by different descendants of erectus, independent of each other? From one cutting did different shoots develop, which then intertwined again into one trunk? How can this be?
To understand this process, let's look at the history of the Neanderthals. Moreover, over 150 years of research, hundreds of different sites, settlements, and burials of this species have been studied.
Neanderthals settled mainly in Europe. Their morphological type was adapted to the harsh climatic conditions of northern latitudes. In addition, their Paleolithic locations have also been discovered in the Middle East, Western and Central Asia, and southern Siberia.
They were short, stocky people with large physical strength. Their brain volume was 1400 cubic centimeters and was not inferior to the average brain volume of modern people. Many archaeologists paid attention to the great efficiency of the Neanderthal industry at the final stage of the Middle Paleolithic and the presence in them of many elements of behavior characteristic of a person of a modern anatomical type. There is much evidence of the deliberate burial of their relatives by Neanderthals. They used tools similar to those that developed in parallel in Africa and the East. They also exhibited many other elements of modern human behavior. It is no coincidence that this species – or subspecies – is also considered “intelligent” today: Homo sapiens neanderthalensis.
But it originated between 250 and 300 thousand years ago! That is, it also developed in parallel, not under the influence of “African” man, who can be designated as Homo sapiens africaniensis . And we are left with only one solution: to consider the transition from the Middle to Upper Paleolithic in Western and Central Europe as an autochthonous phenomenon.
- Yes, but there are no Neanderthals today! Just as there is no Chinese Homosapiensorientalensis…
Yes, according to many researchers, Neanderthals were subsequently replaced in Europe by humans of a modern anatomical type who came out of Africa. But others believe that perhaps the fate of Neanderthals was not so sad. One of the leading anthropologists, Erik Trinkaus, having compared Neanderthals and modern humans using 75 traits, came to the conclusion that about a quarter of the traits are characteristic of both Neanderthals and modern humans, the same amount are characteristic of Neanderthals only, and approximately half are characteristic of modern humans.
In addition, genetic research suggests that up to 4 percent of the genome of modern non-Africans is derived from Neanderthals. The famous researcher Richard Greene and his co-authors, including geneticists, anthropologists and archaeologists, made a very important remark: “... Neanderthals are equally closely related to the Chinese, Papuans and French.” He notes that the results of studying the Neanderthal genome may not be compatible with the hypothesis of the origin of modern humans from a small African population, which then displaced all other forms of Homo and spread across the planet.
At the current level of research, there is no doubt that in the border areas inhabited by Neanderthals and modern humans, or in the territories of their cross settlement, processes not only of cultural diffusion, but also hybridization and assimilation took place. Homo sapiens neanderthalensis undoubtedly contributed to the morphology and genome of modern humans.
Now is the time to remember your sensational discovery in the Denisovskaya Cave in Altai, where another species or subspecies of ancient man was discovered. And also - the tools are quite sapiens, but in terms of genetics - they are not of African origin, and there are more differences with Homo sapiens than with Neanderthals. Although he is not a Neanderthal either...
As a result of field research in Altai over the last quarter of a century, over 70 cultural horizons belonging to the Early, Middle and Upper Paleolithic have been identified at nine cave sites and more than 10 open sites. The chronological range of 100–30 thousand years ago includes about 60 cultural horizons, to varying degrees saturated with archaeological and paleontological material.
Based on extensive materials obtained from field and laboratory studies, it is possible to with good reason assert that the development of human culture in this territory occurred as a result of the evolutionary development of the Middle Paleolithic industry without any noticeable influences associated with the infiltration of populations with a different culture.
- So no one came and made innovations?
Judge for yourself. In Denisova Cave, 14 cultural-containing layers have been identified, in some of them several habitat horizons have been traced. The most ancient finds, apparently dating back to the Late Acheulean time - the Early Middle Paleolithic, were recorded in the 22nd layer - 282 ± 56 thousand years ago. Next is the gap. The following culture-containing horizons from the 20th to the 12th belong to the Middle Paleolithic, and the 11th and 9th layers are Upper Paleolithic. Please note: there is no gap here.
In all Middle Paleolithic horizons, the continuous evolution of the stone industry can be traced. Particularly important are materials from cultural horizons 18–12, which belong to the chronological interval of 90–50 thousand years ago. But what is especially important: these are things, in general, of the same level that a person of our biological type had. A clear confirmation of the “modern” behavior of the population of the Altai Mountains 50–40 thousand years ago is the bone industry (needles, awls, bases for composite tools) and non-utilitarian items made of bone, stone, shells (beads, pendants, etc.). An unexpected find was a fragment of a stone bracelet, the design of which used several techniques: grinding, polishing, sawing and drilling.
About 45 thousand years ago, a Mousterian-type industry appeared in Altai. This is the culture of the Neanderthals. That is, some group of them got here and settled for a while. Apparently, this small population was forced out of Central Asia (for example, Uzbekistan, Teshik-Tash cave) by a person of a modern physical type.
It did not exist for long in Altai. Its fate is unknown: either it was assimilated by the autochthonous population, or it died out.
As a result, we see: all the archaeological material accumulated as a result of almost 30 years of field research of multilayer cave sites and open sites in Altai convincingly testifies to the autochthonous, independent formation here 50-45 thousand years ago of the Upper Paleolithic industry - one of the brightest and expressive in Eurasia. This means that the formation of the Upper Paleolithic culture, characteristic of modern humans, occurs in Altai as a result of the evolutionary development of the autochthonous Middle Paleolithic industry.
At the same time, genetically they are not “our” people, right? A study conducted by the famous Svante Pääbo showed that we are even less related to them than to Neanderthals...
We didn't expect this ourselves! After all, judging by the stone and bone industry, the presence large quantity non-utilitarian items, methods and techniques of life support, the presence of items obtained through exchange many hundreds of kilometers away, people living in Altai had modern human behavior. And we, archaeologists, were sure that genetically this population belonged to people of a modern anatomical type.
However, the results of deciphering human nuclear DNA, made from the phalanx of a finger from Denisova Cave at the same Institute of Population Genetics, turned out to be unexpected for everyone. The Denisovan genome deviated from the reference human genome 804 thousand years ago! And they separated from the Neanderthals 640 thousand years ago.
- But there were no Neanderthals then?
Yes, and this means that the common ancestral population of Denisovans and Neanderthals left Africa more than 800 thousand years ago. And it settled, apparently, in the Middle East. And about 600 thousand years ago, another part of the population migrated from the Middle East. At the same time, the ancestors of modern man remained in Africa and developed there in their own way.
But on the other hand, Denisovans left 4–6 percent of their genetic material in the genomes of modern Melanesians. Like Neanderthals - in Europeans. So, although they did not survive to our time in their guise, they cannot be attributed to a dead-end branch in human evolution. They are in us!
Thus, in general, human evolution can be represented as follows.
At the heart of the entire chain leading to the emergence of a modern anatomical type of man in Africa and Eurasia is the ancestral basis of Homo erectus sensu lato. Apparently, the entire evolution of the sapiens line of human development is connected with this polytypic species.
The second migration wave of erectoid forms came to Central Asia, Southern Siberia and Altai about 300 thousand years ago, probably from the Middle East. From this chronological point, we trace in Denisova Cave and other locations in caves and open-air sites in Altai the continuous convergent development of stone industries, and, consequently, of the physical type of man himself.
The industry here was in no way primitive or archaic compared to the rest of Eurasia and Africa. It was focused on the environmental conditions of this particular region. In the Chinese-Malay zone, there was an evolutionary development of both industry and the anatomical type of man himself based on erectoid forms. This allows us to distinguish the modern type of man, formed in this territory, into the subspecies Homo sapiens orientalensis.
In the same way, Homo sapiens altaiensis and its material and spiritual culture developed convergently in Southern Siberia.
In turn, Homo sapiens neanderthalensis developed autochthonously in Europe. Here, however, the case is less pure, since modern people came here from Africa. There is some debate about the form of the relationship between these two subspecies, but genetics in any case shows that part of the Neanderthal genome is present in modern humans.
Thus, there is only one conclusion left to draw: Homo sapiens is a species that includes four subspecies. These are Homo sapiens africaniensis (Africa), Homo sapiens orientalensis (South-Eastern and East Asia), Homo sapiens Neanderthalensis (Europe) and Homo sapiens altaiensis (Northern and central Asia). All archaeological, anthropological and genetic research, from our point of view, indicate exactly this!
Alexander Tsyganov (ITAR-TASS, Moscow)
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