Pithecanthropus message. Pithecanthropus tool

When did the very moment "X" happen when the great ape ceased to relate to the animal world, having set foot on the path of human development? According to a number of scientists, the most ancient of people is recognized Pithecanthropus, who fought for the survival of its own species 1.0 - 1.8 million years ago. It is precisely this, upright type of Homo erectus, that is considered by adherents of Darwin's theory to be a transitional link that separates the world of monkeys and a person like us all. True, not all historians are in a hurry to reject the theory that Pithecanthropus belongs to an independent species of living creatures that inhabited our planet, which for some reason ceased to exist 26 thousand years ago.

First discoveries: signs of apes and humans

The sensation of the discovery of the first remains by the Dutch anatomist and physician E. Dubois shocked the scientific world in 1891. At first, the scientist himself could not believe in luck, and the molar tooth he found (the third upper one) hastened to rank it among the monkeys, although the length and shape were clearly human.

Rice. 1 - Remains of Pithecanthropus discovered by Dubois in Java in 1891-1893: calvarium, tibia in two projections and teeth

But very soon, on the island of Java in Indonesia, at a depth of 15 meters, a tibia was dug out, leaving no doubt that it belonged to a person. But the skull found in the same place bore obvious signs of a monkey. The final doubts about these finds as the remains of a single creature were dispelled with the discovery of complete skeletons. Judging by the cranium, it is impossible not to notice the differences with the structure of similar parts of a modern person:

the thickness of the cranial bone, several times greater in thickness;
low and sloping forehead;
flattened occiput;
brain volume is about 900 cc. cm;
sharp protrusion of the jaw forward;
relatively complicated structure of the brain with uneven development of different departments;
thickness and coarseness of the supraocular ridges.

Pithecanthropus brain although it has not reached the size characteristic of modern man, it is already noticeably superior to the monkey. The main sign of the structure of the body, which speaks of the upright posture of this creature, is the tibia, which is not at all the same as in monkeys. Judging by their length, which was 45.5 cm, it could be assumed that the height of Pithecanthropus reached somewhere around 170 cm. And the straightness of the tibia, not curved, as in modern humans, as well as the bulge of the popliteal fossa (flat in representatives of our time ), indicates an imperfect gait. But, at the same time, all this directly indicates the ability of Pithecanthropus to walk, albeit waddling, but always straightening up, and not on all four limbs, like animals.

Despite the primitive features of the skull, it was possible to notice the imprint of Broca's area on it, which clearly testified to the inclinations of speech development. But judging by the absence of a chin protrusion, there was no need to talk about the articulation of speech. Most likely, Pithecanthropus built communication with fellow tribesmen by some semblance of meaningful pronunciation of individual sounds.

An amazing find pleased the excavations on the shores of Lake Turkana, in Kenya. During archaeological research, which began in 1968 by Richard Leakey and his colleagues, a well-preserved skeleton of a twelve-year-old boy (Fig. 2) was discovered (in 1982), who walked along the paths of our planet 1.6 million years ago. Like all representatives of that species, its skull resembles that of a Neanderthal, but other bones of the skeleton are almost identical to the anatomy of a modern person. Its size can be judged by its height of 170 cm, which, given the age of 12, makes one reasonably surprised. To mark the discovery of scientists, the state of Kenya (in 1982) issued a series of postage stamps depicting Pithecanthropes.

Rice. 2 - Boy from Turkana

Secrets of life and lifestyle of Pithecanthropus

If we talk about Pithecanthropus lifestyle(from the Greek pithekos - monkey and anthropos - man), then his main occupation was the tireless search for food. In addition to gathering roots, berries and other fruits from the plant world, which could not completely saturate their fellow tribesmen, they had to hunt mammals, both small and solid in size. Similar in structure to the Javanese Pithecanthropus Dubois, finds discovered in 1054-55. on the African continent (in Algeria), already made it possible to lift a certain veil of secrecy regarding the image of the inhabitants of that time. Near the bones of humanoid creatures, parts of the skeleton of rhinos, elephants, hippos and giraffes were found. Stone tools were also scattered here.

The danger that lay in wait for the Pithecanthropes at every turn forced them to live in villages. But judging by the spacious dwellings, several generations of a large family coexisted in one room. Unlike the modern way of life, the Pithecanthropus did not have too strict separation in sexual partnership. But it happened that some male showed aggression in defense of a particular female, which is why the relatives retreated and left them alone.

In addition, life in large groups facilitated the hunting of large animals, distinguished by remarkable strength. In addition to hunting, these primitive creatures were engaged in fishing. But most often, they had to fish with their bare hands. Unlike the Australopithecus monkeys, the hands of the Pithecanthropus were already able to process wood, bones and stone. While working on the creation of primitive tools, they had to bring to relative perfection the materials that were split in a natural way or split the stone on their own, make chips on it.

Rice. 3 - Pithecanthropus Lifestyle

According to scientists, skirmishes often occurred in the Pithecanthropus society, often leading to the death of certain members of the community. In order to coexist peacefully even in such a primitive society, it was necessary to make efforts to curb primitive instincts. It was for this purpose that it was necessary to observe some norms of behavior, which made it possible to move to a new stage in the development of coexistence for all relatives. To control the implementation of certain rules, there is a need for leaders who were assigned a leadership role.

If most of the life of the male half of the population fell on hunting, then women were engaged in everyday life, raising children, caring for the wounded and sick. The inclusion of meat in the daily diet of Pithecanthropus helps to solve the problem of providing the body with reliable sources of replenishment of the energy reserve necessary for solving physically difficult tasks. And the use of different plants for food is a great way to learn their healing properties, which can be considered the first steps towards healing. Moreover, science has evidence of collective care for sick fellow tribesmen.

Even in those distant primitive times, Pithecanthropus begins to realize the importance of hygienic skills, like removing the remains of eaten animals from the habitat or burying dead relatives. But in the absence of abstract thinking, at that period of human development, everything goes without special rituals and the cult of the dead.

Tools

The tasks that at that time had to be solved on a daily basis forced us to modify the known tools of labor and create new ones. For example: the usual choppers are replaced by hand axes, and piercings, scrapers and even spears appear in everyday life. In 1936, an American by birth, geologist G. Koenigswald, who explored the town of Modjokerto near the city of Sangiran, became famous for finding tools that belonged to Pithecanthropus. It was to him that the Earth gave 3 jaws and 3 skulls, one of which belonged to a child.

In addition, this scientist dug up tools, albeit rough processing, but with flakes-blades. And a hand ax was a boulder or a piece of flint, the processing of which consisted in applying blows of great force from two sides. beating the edges, Pithecanthropus learned to create heavy wedge-shaped tools(length - 10-20 cm; weight - 0.5-1 kg). At first glance, the subtle difference between a hand ax and a chopping axe, in fact, lies in the stability of the shape and a clear separation of the working edge and the heel. In addition to the surface chipped with small chips, the ease of use also depended on the rounded end of the hand ax.

Rice. 4 - Pithecanthropus tools

Forced to work on the processing of wood and bone, Pithecanthropes widely used flake tools. For sewing together pieces of skins and other materials, punctures were used. In addition, wooden tools were also preserved in the peat layers, due to the fragility of the material, which have come down to us in very small quantities. As examples of the use of wood, we can recall the yew spear, which served a man for hunting elephants and other animals thousands of years ago. The length of this gun reached 215 cm. And in order to make the combat end more durable, it had to be burned at the stake.

Judging by the center of gravity of such a spear, shifted downward from the middle, one can conclude that it was used as a pike, but not as a throwing weapon. But the Earth has preserved for our contemporaries not only wooden spears, but also the remains of clubs, special sticks used to dig up roots.

Dwellings

In order to hide from bad weather and ensure the relative safety of their neighbors, pithecanthropes were forced to settle in natural shelters (caves, grottoes, hollows of trees). Besides, Pithecanthropes have already learned to build primitive dwellings from branches, leaning on the central pillars, prudently covered with the skins of dead animals. The dimensions of such dwellings are impressive, since their length reaches 15 meters, and the width, in almost all cases, is at least 5 meters. Not counting children, 25-30 adults fit freely here.

Rice. 5 - Pithecanthropus dwelling

The skills of building primitive housing greatly facilitated the living conditions of nomadic life, which was forced to resort to Pithecanthropus, looking for sources of food. Judging by the excavations, already at that time people had the skills to use fire. Just this can be judged by the remains of hearths made of stone. Moreover, such evidence is not isolated, they can be observed in a variety of settlements.

Migration

It remains only to guess why the Pithecanthropus, content with the habitat of the African continent, after 1.2 million years suddenly began to populate the territory of Eurasia. Penetration into the expanses of modern Europe dates back 700 thousand years to the present day. This event is evidenced by excavations in Germany (near Heidelberg), which ended with the discovery of the lower jaw of a physically developed, young Pithecanthropus. And in 1965, during archaeological research at the Vertesselles site (Hungary), science was enriched with another occipital bone of a Pithecanthropus with a fairly developed brain. Evidence of the existence of pithecanthropes is found throughout Europe. Our Fatherland is no exception.

Found skull of a monkey, mistaken for the skull of a "fossil man"

Discovery history

In 1890, the Dutch physician Eugene Dubois traveled to the island of Java in search of an ancestor of modern man. After a month of excavations on the banks of the Solo River near the village of Trinil, a petrified monkey molar was discovered, and a month later, in October 1891, a skullcap, after which Dubois concludes that these parts belong to a large anthropoid ape. A year later, a human femur was found 14 meters from the place of discovery, which was also attributed to the remains of an unknown "humanoid". According to the shape of the femur, a conclusion was made about upright posture, and the new species itself was named Pithecantropus erectus(monkey-man erectus). Later, another molar tooth was found three meters from the skullcap.

In December 1895, a conference was held at the Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory with the aim of reaching a conclusion about the remains discovered by Dubois. The abundance of primitive features inherent in the Pithecanthropus cranium (low sloping forehead, massive supraorbital ridge, etc.) led the then scientific community to be skeptical about the find as a possible human ancestor, and the President of the Society, Rudolf Virchow, even stated:

“There is a deep seam in the skull between the lower vault and the upper edge of the orbits. Such a seam is found only in monkeys, and not in humans, so the skull must have belonged to a monkey. In my opinion this creature was an animal, a giant gibbon. The femur has nothing to do with the skull."

Shortly before his death, Dubois admitted that the skullcap he discovered belonged to a large gibbon.

Thus, the very existence of Pithecanthropus is nothing more than a fiction.

In the 1930s, van Koenigswald discovered other, better preserved, remains of a creature that he considered a Pithecanthropus (lat. Homo erectus soloensis) on the island of Java (the town of Mojokerto near Sangiran). The study of this find buried the hope of evolutionary scientists that this subspecies played any role in the so-called "evolution of humans" to the modern species.

findings

Pithecanthropus existed only in the imagination of Eugene Dubois, in reality it never existed.

Even from the standpoint of evolutionary scientists, Pithecanthropus was an animal (monkey), and its discovery and attempt to present it as a "transitional form" is a hoax.

Part of the skull of a gibbon, a few teeth and a human femur, can by no means serve as evidence of "the origin of man from an ape-like ancestor."

. Man at that time still practically did not stand out from the animal world. The economic life of the forefathers and their social relations did not differ from those of other social animals. start date anthropogenesis

Pithecanthropus. During this period, the most ancient forefathers successively succeeded each other. Pithecanthropus was the first in this chain. He was an upright creature and differed from modern man in the structure of the cranium, the brain volume was 900 cm3, the skull retained many monkey features: low height, primitive structure, and a highly developed brow ridge. The hands of Pithecanthropus were capable of performing the simplest labor operations. Pithecanthropus already knew how to make some tools. To do this, he used wood, bone, boulders and pebbles, subjecting them to primitive processing: the chips on the stones still do not show any regularity. The era of primitiveness is usually called the Stone Age, and its initial stage is the early Paleolithic (Ancient Stone Age). The ancient Paleolithic ended approximately 100 thousand years BC. Pithecanthropus habitats are associated with the ancestral home of mankind. Most likely it is Central and South Africa, Central Asia. Separate species of Pithecanthropus lived in relative isolation, did not meet with each other and were separated by genetic barriers. Their daily life was similar to the life of Australopithecus monkeys - a predatory lifestyle, hunting for small animals, gathering, fishing, nomadism. They lived in groups of 25-30 adults in caves, grottoes, rocks, shelters made of trees and bushes. They didn't know how to make fire.

Synanthropes. Appeared on Earth300 thousand years ago. Like the Pithecanthropus, the Sinanthropus was of medium height, dense build, and its brain volume was 1050 cm3. Sinanthropus was capable of sound speech. More complex labor activity and stone tools. The most common were hand axes and flakes with obvious traces of artificial processing. They hunted such large animals as deer, wild horses and rhinos. They lived in caves, learned to build ground dwellings. They led a nomadic lifestyle, preferring the banks of rivers and lakes as habitats. They did not know how to make fire, but they had already learned how to maintain natural fire. They had hearths where fire burned day and night. The extraction of fire became the most important economic task, and the struggle for fire became a frequent cause of conflicts and wars between neighboring human groups.

Neanderthals. The Neanderthal type of man was formed about 200 thousand years ago. Neanderthals were small in stature (the average height of a man was 156 cm), broad-boned, with highly developed muscles. The brain volume of some Neanderthal forms was larger than that of modern humans. The structure of the brain remained primitive: poorly developed frontal lobes, important for the function of thinking and inhibition. Possessed limited ability of logical thinking. The behavior was characterized by a sharp excitability, which led to violent conflicts and clashes.

Stone tools were made: axes, points, punctures, drills, flakes. The main methods of stone technology: squeezing, breaking stone, for which flint, sandstone, quartz, volcanic rocks were used. Stone technology is gradually improving, stone tools acquire the correct shape. Previously unknown tools appeared: side-scrapers, awls. Part of the tool could be made of stone, part of wood or bone.

Successfully located sheds and caves were used as permanent dwellings, they could be used throughout the life of several generations. Complex ground dwellings were built in open places. Economic life was based on gathering, fishing, hunting.

Gathering required a lot of time, and food provided little and mostly low-calorie. Fishing required exceptional attention, quick reaction and skill, but did not provide much prey. Hunting was the most efficient source of meat food. Hunting objects: hippos, elephants, antelopes, wild bulls (in the tropical zone), wild boars, deer, bison, bears (in the northern regions). They also hunted mammoth and woolly rhinoceros. They made trapping pits and used the driven method, in which all adult males of the community participated. Hunting was a form of labor activity that ensured the organization of the collective, the most progressive branch of the economy, it was it that determined the development of primitive communal society. Any prey belonged to the whole team. The distribution of prey was equal. If there was little food, then hunters received it first of all. In extreme conditions, the killing of children and the elderly was practiced. Endless bloody conflicts, as well as difficult living conditions, did not allow Neanderthals to live to old age. Gradually their numbers increased and they settled throughout Europe, Asia and Africa.

stick

Pithecanthropus tool

Alternative descriptions

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

Cut thin trunk or branch of a tree without knots

Ski support

A piece of wood that can be bent

Skier's helper

Striped girlfriend of a traffic cop

She has two ends

. ...-lifesaver

stake and staff

Bat, stake or stick

. ...-digger

about two ends

Cane, staff

. skier's "staff"

Ski …

She is taken to extremes

Oryasina

She is put into the wheels of the enemy

The owner of two ends at once

Eternally bent

piece of wood

Polish biathlete

A piece of wood

Straight tree branch without knots

A thick branch of a tree without knots, used as a support when walking

Cut thin trunk or cut straight tree branch without knots

. "Staff" skier

. "baton" in French

. “if the dog is a bat, there will be ...” (last)

a perch, stake or club, convenient in size, for wielding it with one hand; batog, baidig, batozhek, padozhek, cane, staff, staff, hard, cut twig.

A stick serving as a handle, or in business, called. looking at things: a scythe, a kopeck, a shaft, a stalk, a banner, a nag, a lever, a gag, a twist, etc. He walks, propped up with a stick. and app. wand. Drum sticks. There is no razor, so the awl shaves; there is no fur coat, so the stick warms.

soldier We work from under the stick, reluctantly. The stick does not rule, but breaks. her stick, and she gave me a rolling pin! A fool always grabs a stick. There is no learning without a stick. To whom the first cup, that and the first stick, rank. Your will, our stick: beat us, but listen to you. Stick on stick, not good, but glass on glass, nothing. When a soldier is not afraid of a stick, he is not fit for service or business. our regiment is of no use: whoever got up earlier and took the stick was the corporal. He rode off on a stick.

There is a dog, so there is no stick; stick eat dog no! Whoever needs to hit the dog will find the stick.

Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus

He gives a stick to himself. There is nowhere to cut a drumstick: there is nothing to carve a guy with (treelessness). If there was a dog, we would find a stick (and vice versa). Happiness is not a stick: you can’t take it in your hands. No eyes, no ears, but leads the blind? (stick). The red stick strikes in vain; the white stick strikes for the cause. Do not stir if the sticks (fingers) are not good. Stick, Vologda. pralnik, kichiga, laundry roll. A stick of sealing wax. Lollipop stick. Stick (tile) chocolate. Stick pl. a short blow with sticks on the drum, like a sign, a lighthouse, for a friendly volley from cannons, on a ship; also a sign to the infantry officers, to enter from behind the front to their places, after the firing stops.

Mn. card game. Wand cf. sticks for punishment, beating; rods, batozhe, old. lengths. Palchina vlad. club. collected sib. stick, pole. Stick insect m. batozhnik, bushy or young wood, suitable for sticks. Rusten. Typha; Angustifolia: tyrlych vyat. chakan donsk.

robin? cattail or cattail; tub? philatics? latifolia: kubys south. cattail and cattail, kuga, ears, chakan, tyrlik, wad, siskin, tub. Downy, but very hard cobs of stick insects, in asters. dipped in lard or blubber, and burned vm. candles; from its trunks they weave bedding, braid chairs, knit floats for a seine. Timothy grass, rye, Phleum. Rusten. Dactilis glomerata? hedgehog, south, miser? Stick fragments. That's what life is like beating with a stick! The cane guard, in the camp, and now the back, where the prisoners are, and where the guilty are punished.

Mace a cane, a club, a stick, a bulldyuga, especially a weighty one; novg. hard. kichiga, pralnik or pralo, pralny roll, hoof; but the handle of the hoof is longer, for winter. (Acad. Sl. erroneously available). Oslop, a club for defense, as a weapon, with a heavy rhizome, butt or with a bound knob, a combat mace.

Elm, two-handed club. old potes baroque, instead of the helm and oars. Expects that the drunkard will drink a jar, that the dog will bludgeon, dumbfounded. Clubbing. Mace army, palichniks, bludgeons, oslopniki

What word Dunno came up with the rhyme "herring"

Dunno rhyme to the word "herring"

The one that is always "two-way"

. "..., ..., cucumber" (children's drawing)

Report: Pithecanthropus.

At the end of the XIX century. (1890-1891) a sensation was caused by the finds of fossil remains of a humanoid creature in the early Pleistocene deposits of the river. Solo in Java. A skullcap and long bones of the lower extremities were found there, on the basis of the study of which it was concluded that the creature moved in an upright position, which is why it received the name Pithecanhropus erectus, or “upright ape-man”.

Immediately after the discovery of the remains of Pithecanthropus, a lively controversy arose around him. Views were expressed that the cranium belonged to a huge gibbon, modern microcephalus, simply modern man, and acquired its characteristic features under the influence of post-mortem deformation, etc.

etc. But all these assumptions have not been confirmed by a thorough comparative morphological study. On the contrary, it irrefutably proved that the peculiarity of the find cannot be explained by pathology. In addition, starting from the 30s of the 20th century, the remains of almost 20 more similar individuals were found on the island of Java. Thus, there is no doubt about the real existence of Pithecanthropes.

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

in North Africa. Unfortunately, it is even more fragmentary than the finds on the island of Java. Only incompletely preserved mandibles were found, belonging to three individuals, who received the name Atlanthropus mauritanicus. However, they were deposited in an unredeposited state and together with tools, which significantly increases the value of the find.

The most important discoveries for understanding the evolution of the morphological type of the most ancient hominins were made starting from 1927 in northern China, not far from Beijing, in the Zhoukoudian cave.

Excavations of the camp of the most ancient hunters discovered there have brought huge archaeological material and bone remains of more than 40 individuals - men, women and children. Both in terms of the development of culture and in terms of their morphological appearance, these people turned out to be somewhat more advanced on the path of approaching modern man than the Pithecanthropes.

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

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

The volume of the brain exceeded that of the Pithecanthropus and varied in different individuals from 900 to 1200 cm3, averaging 1050 cm3. Nevertheless, many primitive features were still observed in the structure of the skull, bringing Sinanthropus closer to anthropoid apes.

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

The tools are diverse, although they do not have a completely stable form. There are few implements worked on both sides, the so-called hand axes, and they also do not differ in typological uniformity. Sinanthropus has already killed such large animals as deer, gazelles, wild horses and even rhinos.

He had permanent habitats in caves.

Probably two more European finds have a very ancient dating. One of them was made in 1965 at the Vertesselles site in Hungary. This is the occipital bone of an adult individual. Some researchers assess the morphological features of the bone as very primitive and suggest that it was left by Pithecanthropus.

Given the insignificance of the preserved fragment, it is difficult to resolve the issue definitely, but the volume of the brain restored from the occipital bone exceeds 1400 cm3, which is closer to Neanderthal values. Perhaps the bone belonged to a very ancient Neanderthal or some transitional European form from Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus to Neanderthals. True, it is also possible that the volume of the brain determined from such small fragments may be erroneous.

The second find was made in 1972-1975.

at the Bilzingsleben site in Thuringia. The tools and fauna found with her also testify to her early age. Fragments of the frontal and occipital bones were found. The supraorbital relief is characterized by exceptional thickness, and therefore we can think that we are dealing in this case with a very early type of hominid, possibly with the European Pithecanthropus.

Finally, the remains of creatures morphologically similar to pithecanthropes have been found in ancient Early Pleistocene and Middle Pleistocene layers in many locations in Africa.

In terms of their structure, they are quite peculiar, but in terms of the level of development and brain size they do not differ from the Javanese ape-men.

Ape-like people - Pithecanthropus, Sinanthropus, Atlanthropus, Heidelberg man and others - lived in warm climatic conditions, surrounded by heat-loving animals and did not settle far beyond the area of \u200b\u200bits original appearance; judging by the fossil finds, most of Africa, southern Europe and southern Asia were inhabited.

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

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

The remaining later and progressive forms are combined into the second constituent family of hominids - the subfamily of hominins, or humans proper.

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

The above cursory list of paleontological finds of anthropomorphic primates of the Late Tertiary and Early Quaternary periods, as well as Australopithecus, clearly illustrates the complexity of the problem of the ancestral home of mankind.

The remains of fossil primates, which can be close to hominids, have been found on various continents of the Old World. All of them are approximately synchronous with each other within the limits of geological time, and therefore paleontological data do not make it possible to make a choice of the territory in which the separation of man from the animal world took place.

Geological, paleozoological, paleobotanical, and paleoclimatological data paint a picture of a fairly favorable habitat for higher primates in wide areas of Central and Southern Africa and Central Asia.

The choice between the Eurasian and African continents is also hampered by the lack of developed prerequisites for determining the region of the ancestral home of mankind.

Some scientists believe that the isolation of man from the animal kingdom occurred in the conditions of a rocky landscape of some foothills, others that the immediate ancestors of the hominid family were inhabitants of the steppes.

Excluding hypotheses that are untenable from a factual point of view, about the origin of mankind in Australia and America, which were not at all included in the zone of settlement of higher primates, being cut off from the Old World by impassable water barriers for them, we currently do not have the opportunity to solve the problem of the ancestral home of mankind with due certainty. .

C. Darwin, based on the greater morphological similarity of man with African anthropoids compared to Asian ones, considered it more likely that the African continent was the ancestral home of mankind. The fossil finds of higher primates in India, made at the beginning of our century, have shaken the balance and tipped it in favor of the Asian continent.

However, the discovery of fossil remains of Australopithecus monkeys, Zinjanthropus, Prezinjanthropus and other forms again draws the attention of researchers to the African continent as the cradle of mankind.

Summary: Ancient people

Report on the topic "Ancient people"

NEANDERTHALS- Fossil ancient people (paleoanthropes) who created the archaeological cultures of the early Paleolithic. Skeletal remains of Neanderthals have been discovered in Europe, Asia and Africa. The time of existence is 200-28 thousand years ago. As studies of the genetic material of Neanderthals have established, they, apparently, are not the direct ancestors of modern humans.

They are considered as an independent species of “Neanderthal man” (Homo neanderthalensis), but more often as a subspecies of Homo sapiens neanderthalensis. The name is given by an early discovery (1856) of a fossil man in the Neandertal valley, near Düsseldorf (Germany). The bulk of the remains of Neanderthals and their predecessors "pre-Neanderthals" (about 200 individuals) were found in Europe, mainly in France, and belong to the period 70-35 thousand years ago.

years ago.

Physical type of Neanderthals

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

These signs could be the result of selection acting in the direction of an energetically more favorable heat exchange and an increase in physical strength. Neanderthals had a large, although still primitive brain (1400-1600 cm3 and above), a long massive skull with a developed supraocular ridge, a sloping forehead and an elongated "chignon-like" nape; very peculiar "Neanderthal face" with sloping cheekbones, a strongly protruding nose and a cut chin.

It is assumed that Neanderthals were born more mature and developed faster than fossil humans of a modern physical type. It is possible that Neanderthals were quite hot-tempered and aggressive, judging by some of the features of their brain and hormonal status, which can be reconstructed from the skeleton. There are also signs of constant pressure from stress factors, such as thinning of tooth enamel, which apparently indicates poor nutrition, and a number of other pathological signs on the skeleton, some of which can be explained by life in dark, damp caves.

An unfavorable manifestation of the advanced "strength" specialization of Neanderthals is evidenced by excessive thickening of the walls of the bones of long limbs, which should lead to a weakening of the hematopoietic function of the bone marrow and, as a result, to anemia.

Unilateral strength development could occur at the expense of endurance. The Neanderthal's hand, broad, paw-shaped, with shortened fingers, compacted joints and monstrous nails, was probably less dexterous than that of modern man.

Neanderthal man had a high infant mortality rate, a shortened reproductive period, and a short lifespan.

Neanderthal culture

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

Over 60 different types of stone tools have been found in France alone; their processing was significantly improved: for the manufacture of one Mousterian pointed point, 111 blows were required against 65 when making a hand ax of the early Paleolithic. Neanderthals hunted large animals (reindeer, mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, cave bear, horse, bison, etc.),

Neanderthals: our ancestors or a side branch?

Neanderthals most likely represented an extinct side branch of the hominid family tree; they often coexisted with modern man in Asia Minor and some parts of Europe and could mix with him.

Pithecanthropus Sinanthropus Neanderthals

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

Around 35,000 years ago, Neanderthals suddenly died out. (later sites of Neanderthals have now become known, showing that some of their groups "held out" in the territory occupied by the Cro-Magnons for quite a long time - up to 28,000 years ago). Shortly before this, modern man (Homo sapiens sapiens) appeared in Europe.

Perhaps there is a connection between the two events. Here are some of the most ancient finds of modern man (Cro-Magnon, France):

Neanderthal from the Caucasus. Mysteries clear up

The prestigious scientific journal Nature published an article by Russian, British and Swedish scientists on the analysis of Neanderthal DNA. Perhaps the most dramatic page in the history of the origin of modern man is the problem of Neanderthals. Disputes about their fate and their contribution to our blood have not stopped for many decades.

“To put it simply, we see the mind of modern man, enclosed in the body of an ancient creature ... The Neanderthals had beliefs, customs and rituals. Burial of the dead, compassion for one's own kind, and attempts to influence fate - these are the new aspects introduced into human life by Neanderthals, ”wrote Ralph Solecki.

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

And these creatures disappeared without a trace from the face of the planet? No, many anthropologists place them among our ancestors. The traces of the first Neanderthals date back to 300,000 years old, and they disappeared somewhere around 25,000 years ago. And for at least 30,000 years, Neanderthals and our direct ancestors - the Cro-Magnons - lived side by side, in the same places in Europe.

So why don't they mix? - ask the supporters of our relationship with the Neanderthals. And yet, in recent times, it is customary to consider Neanderthals a "side" branch of the evolutionary tree of Homo sapiens.

Now, results from analysis of mitochondrial DNA samples from Neanderthal ribs support this view.

A few clarifications regarding the methods of analysis. Mitochondria (the main source of cellular energy) are scattered outside the nucleus, in the cell cytoplasm. They contain small rings of DNA, which contain about twenty genes.

Mitochondrial DNA is amazing in that it is transmitted from generation to generation in a fundamentally different way than chromosomal DNA: only through the female line.

A person receives from his father and from his mother a set of twenty-three specific chromosomes.

But which of them is inherited from the grandmother, and which from the grandfather, is determined by chance. Therefore, the chromosomes of siblings are somewhat different, and they may not be very similar to each other. And most importantly, for this reason, in the course of sexual reproduction between members of the population, a kind of “horizontal” mixing of chromosomes and the emergence of various new genetic combinations occur. These combinations are the material for evolution, for natural selection.

Another thing is mitochondrial DNA. Each person receives mtDNA only from his mother, she - from her own, and so on in a series of only female generations, which has a chance to pass it on.

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

Note that this is the easternmost find of a Neanderthal man, and he lived 29 thousand years ago. From the ribs found, geneticists managed to extract the remains of the child's genetic substance and, as a result, obtained a segment of mtDNA of 256 pairs.

What did the analysis show? First, the "Caucasian" mtDNA differs by 3.48 percent from a segment of 379 pairs from the bones of a native Neanderthal from Germany, from the Neander Valley, whose analysis was made back in 1997. These differences are small and speak of the relationship of the two beings, despite the great distance separating them and the time. It is curious that, according to scientists, German and Caucasian Neanderthals had a common ancestor about 150 thousand years ago.

But the main thing: this segment is very different from the DNA of a modern person. It failed to find traces of genetic material that could be transferred from Neanderthals to modern humans.

How reliable is the analysis of fragments of ancient DNA obtained with great difficulty as a reliable tool for studying the distant past? - my question is to one of the authors of the sensational discovery, Igor Ovchinnikov.

“A fairly large segment of DNA cannot be obtained from ancient remains.

It is possible to obtain a number of different short DNA fragments, or to obtain a large fragment by combining overlapping segments. Nevertheless, there is, of course, an opportunity for comparing ancient and modern material and for phylogenetic analysis.

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

From here, it becomes possible to build a phylogenetic tree showing the relationship between different populations and the time of their origin from a common ancestor.

However, in my opinion, the final point in the dispute about the degree of kinship between the Neanderthal and humans should not be put. It is possible to compare the mtDNA of a Neanderthal with the mtDNA of not only modern humans, but also our direct ancestor, the Cro-Magnon.

True, such mtDNA has not yet been obtained, but everything is ahead.

Perhaps there were different - genetically different - groups of Neanderthals, and some of them were still among our ancestors.

But all this does not remove the drama of the situation: two parallel branches were moving towards the bright future of civilization. And one of them disappears! The circumstances of this are yet to be explored and studied.

This is how you can imagine the main developments in the field of ancient DNA research.

1984 - Obtaining and determining the nucleotide sequence of DNA from the extinct species of quagga zebra in the laboratory of Allan Wilson in California.

1985 - Cloning and sequencing of an ancient Egyptian mummy.

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

This method revolutionized molecular biology and genetics, and the authors received the Nobel Prize for it. By obtaining many copies of the source material, the researchers significantly simplified their work.

1988 - the possibility of analyzing mitochondrial DNA from 7,000-year-old human brain samples was shown.

1989 - Two groups in the USA show the possibility of multiplying ancient mitochondrial DNA.

1989 - Analysis of the mitochondrial DNA of a marsupial wolf from Australia, which became extinct in the last century.

1990 - a DNA fragment was obtained from the chloroplasts of ancient magnolia species.

1992 - a DNA fragment was obtained from a fossil termite in amber.

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

1995 - study of mitochondrial DNA from the Tyrolean mummy.

1997 - study of mitochondrial DNA from the remains of a Neanderthal found in the vicinity of Düsseldorf in 1856.

Quite a lot of research in recent years has been associated with the study of mummies from North and South America.

If all previous studies were related to the analysis of mitochondrial DNA, then in recent years there have been works related to the analysis of DNA of chromosomes from ancient human remains.

1993 - the possibility of determining sex in ancient and medieval human remains is shown.

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

Homo erectus (Homo erectus)

Homo erectus(lat. Homo erectus) is an extinct species from the genus People (lat. Homo). The first evidence of its existence appears in the early Pleistocene (about 1.8 million years ago), and the last disappear only about 27 thousand years ago. The species originated in Africa and then spread to Europe and Asia.

Discovery and study

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

to Asia (which, despite the opinion of Darwin, began to be considered the cradle of mankind) to find the ancestors of man. He spent his first few years in Sumatra as an army doctor. However, his search there was fruitless. But in 1891, his team discovered human remains on the island of Java in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). Dubois called it " Pithecanthropus"(lat.

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

In 1921, the Swedish geologist and archaeologist Johan Gunnar Andersson and the American paleontologist Walter Grainger arrived in Zhoukoudian (near Beijing, China) in search of prehistoric fossils.

Excavations began immediately, led by Andersson's Austrian assistant paleontologist Otto Zdansky, who found something that turned out to be a petrified human tooth. Zdansky returned to the excavation site in 1923, and the materials extracted from the ground on both of his visits were sent to Uppsala University (Sweden) for analysis.

In 1926, Andersson announced the discovery of two human teeth in the materials, and Zdansky published this discovery.

Canadian anatomist Davidson Black of the Peking Unified Medical College, fascinated by Andersson and Zdansky's find, received funding from the Rockefeller Foundation and resumed excavations in 1927 with Chinese and Western scientists. Swedish paleoanthropologist Anders Birger Bolin discovered another tooth during these excavations, a description of which Black published in the journal Nature.

He characterized the find as belonging to a new species (and genus), which he called Sinanthropus Pekinensis (lat. Sinanthropus pekinensis). generic name " Sinanthropus"comes from other Greek. words denoting "China" and "man", i.e. "Chinese Man".

Many scientists were skeptical about identifying a new species based on a single tooth, and the foundation requested additional samples to continue funding. In 1928, several more teeth, skull fragments and a lower jaw were found.

Black presented these finds to the foundation and was awarded an $80,000 grant with which he founded the Cenozoic Research Laboratory.

Excavations with the participation of specialists from Europe, America and China continued until 1937, when Japan invaded China. By this time, more than 200 different remains belonging to more than 40 individuals have been discovered.

Among them were 15 partially preserved skulls, 11 lower jaws, many teeth and some bones of the skeleton. In addition, many stone tools were also found.

Almost all of the original finds were lost during World War II.

Origin, classification and evolution

There is no single point of view on the classification and origin of this species.

There are two alternative points of view. According to the first, Homo erectus can only be another name for a working person and, thus, is the direct ancestor of later hominids, such as Heidelberg man, Neanderthal man and modern man (lat. Homo sapiens). According to the second, it is an independent species.

Some paleoanthropologists consider H. ergaster to be only an African variety of H. erectus.

This led to the terms "Homo erectus sensu stricto" ("Homo erectus in the strict sense") for the Asiatic H. erectus and "Homo erectus sensu lato" ("Homo erectus in the broad sense") for a group including both early African (H . ergaster) and the Asian population.

The first origin hypothesis is that H. erectus migrated out of Africa about 2 million years ago.

years ago during the early Pleistocene, possibly as a result of the action of the "Sugar pump", and widely distributed in the Old World. Fossilized remains aged 1-1.8 million years have been found in Africa (Lake Turkana and Olduvai Gorge), Spain, Georgia, Indonesia, Vietnam, China and India.

The second hypothesis, on the contrary, states that H. erectus originated in Eurasia, and from there already migrated to Africa. Individuals found in Dmanisi (Georgia) date back to 1.77-1.85 million years ago.

years ago, which corresponds to the appearance of the earliest African remains or slightly older.

It is now generally accepted that Homo erectus is a descendant of earlier genera, such as Ardipithecus and Australopithecus, or earlier species of the genus Humans - a skilled person or a working person.

H. habilis and H. erectus have coexisted for several hundred thousand years and may have descended from a common ancestor.

For much of the 20th century, anthropologists debated the role homo erectus in human evolution. At the beginning of the century, thanks to the finds from Java and from Zhoukoudian, it was believed that man appeared in Asia. However, several naturalists (Charles Darwin most famous among them) believed that the earliest ancestors of people were Africans, because.

chimpanzees and gorillas, the closest living primate relatives to humans, live only in Africa. Numerous finds of fossilized remains of extinct primates in the 50s - 70s of the XX century in East Africa gave evidence that early hominids appeared there.

Homo erectus georgicus

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

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

Possibly this is a stage shortly after the transformation of H. habilis into H. erectus.

In 2001, a partially preserved skeleton was discovered. The remains are about 1.8 million years old.

The oldest people (Chinese Sinanthropus, Javanese Pithecanthropus), or archanthropes

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

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

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

The excavations also unearthed 73 stone cutting and chopping tools and 34 bone fragments of unidentified animals.

Morphological features

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

The skull is very thick with massive supraorbital ridges. Height reached 180 cm, the physique is more massive than that of a modern person. Sexual dimorphism was greater than that of modern man, but much less than that of Australopithecus. On average, males are 25% larger than females.

material culture

Erectus made extensive use of stone tools.

However, they were originally more primitive than the Acheulean Homo ergaster instruments. Products of the Acheulean culture outside of Africa appear only about a million years ago.

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

H. erectus lived years ago.

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

Undoubtedly, the development of stone-working techniques and the mastery of fire made Homo erectus one of the most successful species of the genus.

Stone weapons made it possible to successfully defend against predators and hunt, fire warmed and illuminated, heat treatment made animal food better digestible and disinfected it.

Society and language

Probably, along with working humans, Homo erectus became one of the first human species to live in hunter-gatherer societies. It is assumed that the erectus were the first hominids to hunt in organized groups, as well as to take care of the sick and infirm members of the group.

The increase in brain size, the presence of Broca's center and anatomy similar to modern humans suggest that Homo erectus began to use verbal communication. Apparently, it was a primitive proto-language, not having the complex developed structure of modern languages, but much more perfect than the wordless "language" of the chimpanzee.

Let me introduce one of our oldest brothers in the genus ... yes, yes, pithecanthropes belong to the same genus with us, to the genus "People". This is also indicated by the name pitekANTROP - "ape man" ... a suitable name for an intermediate link between ape and man! It was proposed in 1866 by the German naturalist E. Haeckel for such a hypothetical species. As for E. Haeckel, he considered Southeast Asia to be the birthplace of man. And when in 1890 the Dutchman E. Dubois discovered on the island of Java the bones of a creature that combines the features of a man and a monkey, the researcher decided: here he is - Pithecanthropus!

True, not everyone agreed with him ... after all, Pithecanthropes were far from the human habit of burying the dead, so finding a whole (or at least almost a whole) skeleton of such a creature is incredible luck. E. Dubois did not have such luck, all he had was a molar, a skull cap and a femur ... he almost lost this too: he forgot a box in a cafe - however, having realized it, he returned and found it on the same place (either people were more decent then, or even thieves did not covet such goodness). So the verdict of the Berlin Society of Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory, headed by Rudolf Virchow, was unequivocal: the skull belongs to some giant variety of gibbon (the supraorbital ridges are like a monkey, there are other features that are definitely not found in humans), the tooth is also undoubtedly a monkey (although it was admitted that something human could be seen in him, but this does not change the essence of the matter), and the femur is definitely human, it belonged to a completely different creature (it is not at all clear why Dubois correlated it with a skull?).

The moment of truth 40 years later, when another Dutch scientist - G. Koenigswald - on the same island of Java again discovered the remains of such a creature (this time - better preserved). Now there was no doubt - Pithecanthropus existed!

What was he like - Pithecanthropus, who lived on Earth for quite a long time, 700-27 thousand years ago? Having met such a person, you and I would hardly have recognized him as a “relative” (so we will not judge E. Dubois’s opponents strictly): Pithecanthropus were no more than one and a half meters tall, the structure of the skull really resembled a monkey - a sloping chin, protruding supraorbital ridges, low forehead. But his brain volume was no longer that of a monkey (although not yet the same as ours): from 900 to 1200 cm3. And most importantly - he walked like us: on two legs! That is why the species to which he belonged was called Homo erectus - which can literally be translated as "Upright Man" (remember the meaning of the word "erection"), but the generally accepted Russian-language term is "Human erect".

Stop, stop, we were talking about Pithecanthropus - where did some kind of upright erectus come from? Everything is very simple! As we have already said, pithecanthropes lived in Southeast Asia (in particular, on the island of Java), but people lived in other places (already people!) With similar features. There were differences between them - but not to such an extent as to single them out as separate species. In other words, we have a species that has broken up into many local subspecies, which are usually named after the place of the first discovery: in Europe - Heidelberg man, Sinanthropus - found in China, in Africa - Atlanthropus (by the name of the Atlas Mountains in Africa).

Did they make tools? Apparently they were made. We say “apparently” because there is no direct evidence of this (no tools were found directly next to the remains), but on the same island of Java, in the same layers (i.e., in the same era!) They found tools similar to those used by Sinanthropes, Heidelberg people and other "relatives" of Pithecanthropus: primitive flint axes, flakes ... archaeologists call such a culture Acheulian (since it was first discovered in the suburbs of Amiens (France) - Saint-Acheul).

And finally - the most burning question: was Pithecanthropus our ancestor?

No wasn `t. This subspecies of Homo erectus lived in Indonesia in isolation - and survived many foreign "relatives" (both Heidelberg man and Sinanthropus), even reaching the time of the appearance of Homo Sapiens! So, was it an absolutely dead-end branch - or did this species still have descendants?

It is quite possible that they were. We all have heard about the Floresian man (Homo floresiensis), discovered in 2003 (quite recently by historical standards), nicknamed the "hobbit", who lived in the same area - in Indonesia. So, a number of researchers believe that the "hobbits" from the island of Flores are the descendants of Pithecanthropes. Strictly speaking, there is nothing incredible about this: island populations often “slide” into dwarfism (for example, about 4000 years ago - when the pyramids were already being built in Egypt - the last mammoths still lived on Wrangel Island, and they were dwarf). Scientists believe that all representatives of this species died 12 thousand years ago due to a grandiose volcanic eruption.

However, to this day on the island of Flores they talk about the bloodthirsty ibu-gogo - a small hunched man who allegedly walked through the forests back in the 19th century, before the arrival of Europeans. Perhaps the prototype of this character is a macaque, or maybe ...

This question scientists have yet to find out!

In the 70s. In the 19th century, after the works of Ch. Darwin proved the origin of man from fossil monkeys, Darwin's follower E. Haeckel built a genealogical tree of the animal world from the simplest animals to humans. To fill the gap between fossil apes and man, Haeckel placed in it an intermediate transitional form, which he called ape-man, or pithecanthropus. No remains of such a Pithecanthropus were known, but Haeckel argued from Darwin's teachings that Pithecanthropus must have existed. Haeckel recommended looking for the bone remains of the ape-man in southeast Asia, in those areas where great apes are currently found and where it could be assumed that at the turn of the Quaternary period the most favorable conditions for the humanization of monkeys.

The Dutch researcher E. Dubois joined E. Haeckel's hypothesis. In 1887, he went to southeast Asia in search of the remains of the ape-man predicted by Haeckel - this missing link (the English term is common in science - missing link) in the general chain of development of living beings. First, Dubois went to Sumatra, but there he failed to discover ancient geological layers. And in 1890 he transferred his work to Java. Here a significant event took place - Dubois found what he was looking for. In 1891 and 1892 they discovered near Trinil in geological deposits dating back to the beginning of the Quaternary period, a skullcap, two molars and a femur of a creature that combined the signs of a man and a monkey, the same Pithecanthropus whose finds were predicted by Haeckel (Fig. 10). The discovery of the remains of Pithecanthropus was a real triumph for materialistic science.

In 1936-1941. the bones of several more Pithecanthropes were: discovered and studied on the island of Java. G. Koenigswald. F. Weidenreich also made a major contribution to their research. The development of the problem of pithecanthropes moved to a new stage in 1951, after Indonesian anthropologists, geologists and archaeologists, S. Sartono, Teuku Yakob and others, began searching and studying the remains of pithecanthropes. They discovered and studied a significant number of skulls and other bones of pithecanthropes, as well as for the first time obtained potassium-argon dates for the latter. As a result, bone remains of several dozen pithecanthropes, including at least nine skulls, are currently known in Java [Ivanova, 1965; Uryson, 1966; Nesturkh, 1970; Jacob, 1972, 1973; Koenigswald, 1973a, 1973b; Sartono, 1973].

The oldest of the Javanese pithecanthropes belong to the Eopleistocene and, judging by the latest potassium-argon dates, are 1.5-1.9 million years old. They are represented by the skull of a child from Mojokerto and the skull of "Pithecanthropus IV", found together with the Eopleistocene Javanese Jetis fauna. This Mojokert Pithecanthropus was more primitive in its physical structure than other Javanese Pithecanthropes, and in general occupied an intermediate position between them and Homo habilis. His brain volume was somewhat less than 800 cm3. Just as in East Africa Homo habilis and the Olduvian Pithecanthropus coexisted with the Australopithecus apes, in Java the Mojokert Pithecanthropus coexisted with the Meganthropes, which were a form close to the Australopithecus. Bones of meganthropes were found in the same layers together with the fauna of the Dzhetis; one of the jaws of the meganthrope was crushed by the teeth of a large crocodile.

Most of the Javanese pithecanthropes belong to the Lower Pleistocene and are associated with the Trinilian fauna of Java. On the basis of potassium-argon determinations, it is dated 500 thousand - 1 million years ago. Their average brain volume is 860 cm3, with fluctuations in individual individuals from 775 to 975 cm3. The climate in Java was then about 6°C colder than at present. The bulk of the plant remains found together with the Trinilian fauna belong to the subtropical flora. Pithecanthropes lived in wooded areas, along the banks of rivers, lakes and the sea, but not in the very thick of the forest. However, tropical jungles were not widespread here in the Lower Pleistocene.

In Java, along with the bones of pithecanthropes, no stone tools were found. This is probably largely due to the fact that the bones of Pithecanthropus were carried and redeposited by lava flows that destroyed the remains of their camps. There is reason to believe that some of the Javanese Pithecanthropus, whose bones have come down to us, even died as a result of a volcanic eruption, if they were not eaten by tigers. In any case, the physical structure of the Javanese Pithecanthropes, in comparison with the physical structure of other Asian, African and European archanthropes, along with the remains of which their stone tools were found, allows us to assert that the Javanese Pithecanthropes were already systematically manufacturing tools. Many researchers suggest that the ancient Paleolithic Patjitan stone tools, reminiscent of the ancient Acheulean and found in Java without accompanying paleontological and paleoanthropological remains, were made by Pithecanthropes or their not very distant descendants. Recently, G. Koenigswald suggested that the Pithecanthropes owned the Sangiran stone industry in Java; usually it was dated to a later era, the time of the existence of Neanderthal man.

Archanthropes (Homo erectus), which include Javanese pithecanthropes, were distributed in the Eopleistocene and in the lower Pleistocene far beyond the borders of Indonesia and East Africa. One of their most famous and expressive representatives is Sinanthropus, otherwise - Beijing Pithecanthropus or Chinese Pithecanthropus.

The remains of Sinanthropus are open in the north of China, near the villages. Zhoukoudian, about 50 km southwest of Beijing (Fig. 11). In the hilly area, in rocky crevices and caves, there are a number of different-temporal locations of bones of fossil animals. Five of them also contain primitive stone tools. The most noteworthy is location No. 1 (“Locus 1”), which is a huge open cave on a hillside. Here in 1927-1937 and in 1949-1966. systematic excavations were carried out under the guidance of Pei Wen-chung, Yang Chung-chian, Jia Lan-po, D. Black, P. Teilhard de Chardin and other researchers [Efimenko, 1953; Pei Wen-chung, 1954; U Zhukan, Cheboksarov, 1959; Ivanova, 1965; Uryson, L966; Nesturkh, 1970; Larichev, 1969, 1972]. Excavations have uncovered the skulls and other bones of more than 40 Sinanthropus, as well as the remains of their culture. In terms of its physical development, Sinanthropus closely resembled the Javanese Pithecanthropus, but went ahead of it (Fig. 12; 13, 4, 5). The volume of the brain varied from 915 to 1.225 cm3, averaging about 1050 cm3. The average height of men was 162-163 cm, and women 152 cm.

Sinanthropus was one of the latest archanthropes. Some researchers attribute it to the second half of the Mindel (the end of the Lower Pleistocene) and date it to 500 thousand years ago. Others attribute it to the mindel-riss (beginning of the Middle Pleistocene) and date it 200-300 thousand years ago. For the location No. 1 of Zhoukoudian, there is only one recently obtained and insufficiently verified absolute date - 300 thousand years ago.

Sinanthropes lived in a large cave, which later collapsed. They probably occupied this cave for tens, and maybe hundreds of millennia; only for such a long time sediments up to 50 m thick could accumulate here. Many coarse shapeless stone tools prepared for use by synanthropes were found in the sediments. It is noteworthy that the tools found at the base of the sequence do not differ from the tools found in its uppermost layers. This testifies to the very slow development of technology at the beginning of human history, to the fact that among the most ancient people the tools and techniques for their manufacture changed over tens and even hundreds of millennia so slowly that modern scientific methods do not allow us to note these changes.

Tools were made by Sinanthropes mainly from quartz, and also from limestone, sandstone, and occasionally flint. Pebbles of sandstone and quartz, which were processed, were taken from the bed of the river flowing in the neighborhood. Quartz, when cleaved, does not produce shards with such a straight edge as flint, obsidian, or quartzite. But it is fragile and if there are cracks in it, it breaks easily. Therefore, it is easy to handle. These properties, perhaps, attracted the most ancient people, who took the very first steps on the path of stone processing and had not yet fully mastered the valuable qualities of flint as a material for tools. The tools found in the site No. 1 of Zhoukoudian (Fig. 13, 6) are mostly large and small shapeless pieces and fragments of irregular shape, having dents along the edges or at the end on one or both surfaces - traces of sharpening by a human hand, and sometimes traces of rough upholstery. Individual specimens can be designated as points, scraping tools, chopping tools, etc. But stable series of specimens similar to each other cannot be distinguished. Yes, and these crude tools come across as a few among the many thousands of shapeless fragments chipped off in search of the best. Starting to process a stone, a person, apparently, did not yet know which of the fragments would be more suitable for work. Most of the Sinanthropus tools are so primitive that they give the impression of natural stone fragments. If they had not been found in the Paleolithic cultural layer, along with the bones of Sinanthropus and other remains of the culture of the latter, they could not be classified as tools at all. But there are also well-pronounced flakes with all signs of intentional chipping by a human hand (see above, pp. 26-28) - these are the so-called -Clekton, non-Levallois flakes, belonging to the group of the most archaic primitive flakes and characterizing mainly the Olduvai and Old Acheulean cleavage techniques . Levallois and Mousterian flakes with impact platforms with traces of facets are absent here.

In the literature, there are indications of the presence of primitive bone tools in Sinanthropes - split bones and horns, sharpened at the end by grinding and upholstering. Among the researchers of Zhoukoudian, there is no consensus on these items. Pei Wen-chung believes that in reality we are talking about raw bones and that there are no grounds to talk about the existence of bone tools. In contrast, Jia Lan-po recognizes the presence of a small number of very primitive bone tools among Sinanthropes, some of which could be used to dig roots and tubers of wild plants from the ground. It should be noted that in the Olduvai Gorge in Member II, along with the remains of the Olduvai Pithecanthropus and in a very small amount in Member I, together with the remains of Homo habilis, fragments of animal bones with traces of padding and smoothing at the end were also found.

Undoubtedly, the Sinanthropes also used the simplest wooden tools - sticks and clubs. But they did not reach us.

The most important element of culture, which played a huge role in the development of primitive mankind, was fire. In the Olduvai Gorge, where the cultural layers are well preserved and are not redeposited, no remains of fire have been found with the bones of Homo habilis, nor with the bones of the Olduvai Pithecanthropus. Apparently, he was not yet known. The deposits in which the remains of the Javanese pithecanthropes lie are redeposited, destroyed, and therefore it is impossible to say for sure whether fire was known here or not. And in Zhoukoudian, traces of fires were found - coals, ash, burnt stones. The accumulation of ash reached 6 m in thickness in one area; apparently, a fire burned continuously at this place for a very long time. Neither tree trunks nor bones have yet been used as fuel. The fires were maintained, as the analysis of the coals originating from there, testifies to this, with small branches, probably collected or broken off. It is unlikely that the Sinanthropes knew how to artificially make fire. This is the achievement of a higher level of development. When eating the corpses of animals that died during forest or steppe fires, while collecting roots and tubers at the site of a fire, people could feel the benefits of food cooked on fire, as well as the valuable properties of fire. The fire obtained during a fire or a volcanic eruption was not allowed to die out. Maintaining an unquenchable fire prepared the transition of people at the next stage of development to its artificial extraction. It is difficult to assume that all groups of archanthropes, who were at the same stage of development as the Sinanthropes from Zhoukoudian, used fire. Probably, initially only a few of them got acquainted with fire.

An important role in the economy of the synanthropes was played by the gathering of plant foods - fruits, berries, roots, etc. In particular, the synanthropes ate small berries that looked like cherries; the remains of these berries have been found at the base of the Zhoukoudian deposits. At the same time, hunting played a very important role in the economy of Sinanthropes. In Zhoukoudian, bones of animals hunted by Sinanthropes are mixed with stone tools and ash. Some of the bones are split to extract the brain. The main object of hunting was giant deer, which owns 70% of all bones found. Sinanthropes also hunted small rodents, bears, saber-toothed tigers, wild horses, wild boars, and buffaloes. Sometimes even elephants and rhinos became prey.

The shapelessness, atypicality of Sinanthropus stone tools, the fact that most of them are made of quartz, makes it very difficult to accurately date them. It undoubtedly belongs to the initial stages of the Paleolithic, approximately simultaneously with the very end of the Olduvai archaeological era, the ancient Acheulean, perhaps the beginning of the Middle Acheulean (see above, d. 17). A more accurate archaeological dating of Sinanthropus is not yet possible.

At the site No. 1 of Zhoukoudian, only about a third of the cultural beds containing the remains of Sinanthropus have been excavated. The still unexplored strata of the Sediments in the future can deliver a lot of new and unexpected for understanding the origin of man and his ancient culture.

As for other archaeological sites of Zhoukoudian, point No. 13 is a slightly older site of Sinanthropus, and No. 15 is a later one. They delivered a number of crude stone tools. The so-called upper cave of Zhoukoudian contains cultural remains and bones of human fossils dating back to the Late Paleolithic.

The remains of an archanthrope, more primitive in its physical structure and older than the Sinanthropus from Zhoukoudian, were found by Chinese archaeologists in 1963-1964. in Lantian, about 900 km southeast of Beijing (Shaanxi province). This is the so-called Lantian Sinanthropus, close to the most ancient, Mojokert Pithecanthropes, which are accompanied by the Dzhetis fauna. It is presumably attributed to the Lower Pleistocene and dated 500-600 thousand years ago. However, the new potassium-argon dates obtained for the Mojokert Pithecanthropus (1.9 Ma) will probably make the Lantian Pithecanthropus older as well. His brain volume was less than 800 cm3, possibly approaching 750 cm3. Numerous faunal remains have been found with it. Nearby, stone products were found, including flakes and hand axes, but the connection of the latter with human bones has not been firmly established.

In several caves of Laos and Vietnam, in deposits dating back to the Lower Pleistocene and the beginning of the Middle Pleistocene, teeth of fossil humans, similar to Sinanthropes, were found (Boriskovskii, 1971). Obviously, at the beginning of the Paleolithic, archapaths were widespread in Southeast Asia.

In Europe, reliable and thoroughly studied bone remains of archanthropes, generally close in time to the Beijing Sinanthropus, were found in four places. This is a very massive Heidelberg jaw, not accompanied by indisputable archaeological finds, discovered back in 1907 near the city of Heidelberg, near the village. Mauer (Germany). Some researchers attribute it to the Günz-Mindel time, others to the Mindel time (see above, pp. 8-10). Thus, it is approximately simultaneous with the ancient Acheulean archaeological epoch, perhaps immediately preceding it. In Hungary, at the Vertessellosh site dating back to the Mindel time, L. Vertes, producing in 1963-1968. excavations, discovered fragments of the skull of an adult archanthrope, reminiscent of Sinanthropus, but somewhat superior to the latter in terms of physical development, and fragments of the teeth of a seven-year-old child, apparently related to archanthropes (see below, p. 68). A fragment of a human tooth, also apparently belonging to an archanthrope and dating from the Lower Pleistocene (gunz-mindel), was discovered along with the remains of fossil fauna and with primitive stone products on the territory of Czechoslovakia, in Przezletice, not far from Prague. Finally, interesting finds were made in the cave of Arago, in Totavel (south of France, dep. Eastern Pyrenees), in the cultural layer related to the beginning of the rice. The layer contained the bones of a cave bear, a Mosbach horse, a Merck rhinoceros, a reindeer and other animals, as well as primitive stone tools reminiscent of the ancient teyak (a variant or path of development of the ancient Paleolithic technique, dating mainly to the time of the transition from the Acheulean to the Mousterian) and found together with there are some analogies to the guns from Verteshsöllös. Here A. and M.-A. Lumley was found during excavations in 1969-1971. two lower jaws of archanthropes. They showed similarities with the Heidelberg jaw and with the jaw from the Azykh cave in the Azerbaijan SSR (see below, p. 98). One jaw belonged to a 20-year-old man, the other - to a woman 40-55 years old. The skull of a 20-year-old archanthrope was also discovered.

A significant amount of bone remains of archanthropes was delivered by North and East Africa. In the first, these are finds near Ternifin in Algeria and near Casablanca in Morocco. At Ternifin in 1954-1955. K. Arambur discovered three lower jaws (Fig. 14) and a fragment of the skull of a person very close to Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus, the so-called Mauritanian Atlanthropus, or Ternifinian man, attributed to the early Mindelian. With its remains, bones of an elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, giraffe, mahairod, etc., were found, as well as very expressive stone tools dating from the ancient Acheulean: hand axes, flakes, etc. Near Casablanca, in the grotto of Sidi Abderrahman, P. Biberson in 1955, in a cultural layer containing stone tools (axes, flakes, etc.), bones of a rhinoceros, a wild horse, a gazelle, and other animals, he discovered two small fragments of the lower jaw of a fossil man. The find is dated to the end of mindel-riss and the beginning of riss. Some researchers consider the man from Sidi Abderrahman to be an archanthrope, close to the Mauritanian Atlanthropus. However, many interpret it already as a Neanderthal man. A fragment of the skull of an archanthrope was found in 1973 in the Middle Acheulean cultural layer of one of the sites of Melka-Konture in Ethiopia, 50 km south of Addis Ababa. Finally, the remains of several archanthropes (Olduvai Pithecanthropus) were found above the bones of Homo habilis in Member II of the Olduvai Gorge.

As for the Cape telanthrope, fragments of two lower jaws of which were discovered in the Swartkrans cave in South Africa, most researchers attribute it to archanthropes, bringing it closer to primitive pithecanthropes from the lower part of Member II of the Olduvai Gorge.

All named representatives of archanthropes are convincingly assigned by many researchers to one species (less often - to one genus) - Homo erectus. There are a number of morphological differences between them. In some cases, the differences have a chronological, stadial significance, and are expressed in greater or lesser primitiveness. Homo habilis may have been a representative of the earliest and most primitive stage of development of the same species (genus). A somewhat later stage of this development includes finds in the lower part of Member II of the Olduvai Gorge, the Mojokert Pithecanthropus from Java, and the Lantian Sinanthropus. And the archanthropes from Vertessellosh and the synanthropes from Zhoukoudian characterize the latest stage.

Turning to a general description of the physical structure of archantrols, it should be noted that they are about 30 cm taller than Homo habilis. The skull is characterized by the presence of a continuous, very massive supraorbital ridge. The walls of the skull are thick. The brains of archanthropes were larger than those of their predecessors. Its volume varied from 750 to 1225 cm3 with an average value of 1000 cm3. Noteworthy, along with the general increase in the cranium in comparison with great apes, is the increase in the height of its arch. Endocranial casts, as shown by studies by V. I. Kochetkova and Yu. G. Shevchenko, testify not only to a significant increase in the volume of the brain of archanthropes, but also to the complication of its structure. The growth of the cerebral cortex proceeded unevenly across regions. Some of its sections have received particularly rapid development; they are located in the parietal region, in the lower frontal and in the upper posterior part of the frontal lobe, i.e., in the cortical zones associated with the specific functions of labor and verbal communication. Thus, a qualitative restructuring of the cerebral cortex took place. Significant asymmetry of the sulci and convolutions of the brain is expressed on the endocranes of Javanese Pithecanthropus. In the left hemisphere, the inferior frontal gyrus is more hominid than in the right, possibly due to the development of right-handedness, the use of the right hand when working. As you know, this feature distinguishes man from all animals. It was already expressed in the Javanese Pithecanthropus and is even more noticeable in the Sinanthropes from Zhoukoudian. Significant progressive development, experienced in the lower parietal region of Javanese Pithecanthropus, indicates an increase in their cognitive and purposeful activity in comparison with Australopithecus and Homo habilis. Based on the study of endocranial casts, Shevchenko suggests that the Javanese pithecanthropes did not even have a place for articulation of sounds; only mimic motor functions and guttural inarticulate sounds can be assumed. According to all these features, the brain of synanthropes was at a slightly higher stage of development. Summing up, we note that the main feature in the evolution of the brain of ancient people was the emergence and development of specifically human areas with the help of which labor processes, conceptual thinking and articulate speech are carried out [Kochetkova, 1973].

The lower jaw of archanthropes is massive and wide. The chin protrusion is absent. The teeth are large.

The limb bones of the archanthropes both in Java and in Zhoukoudian have been preserved in much smaller numbers than their skulls. This is sometimes attributed to the fact that many of them fell victim to tigers, and a tiger, attacking a person, usually does not eat only the head. In any case, the structure of the arms and legs of archanthropes is not well known to us. Still relatively primitive, in general, an ape-like skull was combined with the bones of the limbs of the modern human type. The successes in mastering the two-legged gait achieved by Homo habilis were consolidated by the archanthropes. Their hands are entirely focused on labor processes, although in their structure they still differed significantly from the hands of modern man.

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