When the Cro-Magnon modern man appeared. Cro-Magnon cave with wall paintings
It is no coincidence that KROMANONTSA is also referred to unanimously as a “modern man”. (Meaning, of course, the modern Caucasian.) The name "Cro-Magnon" is conditional: it is from the place of Cro-Magnon in France, where the first such skeleton was found. There is no biological reason not to call the Cro-Magnon an early Caucasian - or you and I late Cro-Magnons. If the question of the direct origin of Negroes from Neanderthals has not yet been raised very confidently (more confidently - about the origin of the Australoids from them; we are personally sure of both), then there is no doubt about it. Each representative European nations and even some others (later) can say: the Cro-Magnon is my great-great-great ... -grandfather.
This was understood already at the dawn of anthropology. In the 1860s, the prominent German anthropologist Alexander Ecker (1818-1887) discovered "northern type" skulls in the graves of southern Germany and established their identity with the skulls of modern Germans. Skulls of the pure "northern type" throughout Scandinavia and Northern Germany were also discovered by the largest Swedish anthropologist Anders Retzius (1796-1860). It was on the basis of these numerous craniological series that it was suggested that the modern "northern type" in its structure goes back to the Cro-Magnon type of Paleolithic Europe. The classic of the French anthropological school Armand de Quatrefage (1810-1892) even called the ancient Cro-Magnon blond in modern sense this word. Ideally erect, very tall (average height 187 cm) and large-headed (brain volume from 1600 to 1900 cm?), They, like us, had a straight forehead, a high cranial vault, a sharply protruding chin. Over time, having discovered fingerprints of ancient sculptors on clay figurines of the Paleolithic era, scientists have established their complete racial identity with the modern Caucasian.
The data of craniology is a very serious argument, about which a lot has already been said above. Therefore, the data of science on the spread of the Cro-Magnon skull across the globe deserve not only trust, but also special attention and thought.
As Eugen Fischer wrote in his work “Race and the emergence of races in man” (1927): “One of the most well-founded hypotheses is as follows: from the Cro-Magnon race, the Nordic race, the builders of megaliths, dolmen burials of Scandinavia, Denmark, etc., came from the Cro-Magnon race. , the Nordic race arose as a result of the modification of the Late Paleolithic race in the North as the areas inhabited today were freed from ice. Here the Nordic race arose, at the same time it acquired its typical qualities. it best explanation the origin of the Nordic race. " Let us leave in this passage the question of the place of ethnogenesis of the Cro-Magnon for further discussion (as standing still outside the competence of anthropologists) and accept the main thing: Caucasians settled in the North precisely as modifiers of the Cro-Magnon.
Were they already then divided into racial subtypes? Did the subtypes already start linguistic isolation? There is no doubt that sooner or later this happened. This is quite reasonably stated by the teaching of Darwin: a consequence of natural selection is the divergence of signs. This means that one parent species can give rise to several new species. This is exactly what the waves of migrations from North to South, which were carried out by Cro-Magnons periodically during the entire foreseeable historical and prehistoric retrospective, also speak of this. Figuratively speaking, Cro-Magnons until the twentieth century AD "quanta" were injected to the South, East and West from their northern ecological niche as it overflowed.
But, of course, they did not call themselves Cro-Magnons. What were the names of the expansive "quanta"? They are called by different sources in different ways, and today we will omit the names of many forgotten ones. In the Middle Ages, New and Newest time these were, for example, the Germans, the Spaniards, the British, the French, the Dutch, the Belgians, the Russians. In more distant times - Franks, Vikings, Goths, Normans, Lombards. Before them - the Germans, Celts, Huns, Scythians, Slavs. Before them - the Etruscans, proto-Hellenes, proto-italics. Before them, the Indo-Aryans, before them - the Proto-Iranians, before them - the Hittites ... They all spoke the languages of the Indo-European group, but during the time that elapsed from "quantum" to "quantum", they managed to mutate to the point of complete impossibility of mutual understanding.
Always "from top to bottom", always from North to South, waves of mass migrations ("invasions") rolled one after one, represented by all the new descendants of the Cro-Magnon. At the same time, the later wave often rolled over the earlier one; flared up fratricidal war, all the more terrible because the belligerents no longer saw each other as brothers, because time and cross-breeding with oncoming races and peoples sometimes changed their appearance and language beyond recognition. The brother did not recognize and did not understand the brother. One "quantum" spoke Hittite, the other in Sanskrit, the third in Zend and Avestan, the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh in Greek, Latin, Finnish, Slavic ... Language barriers have already acquired rigidity, and racial subtypes are the result of crossbreeding - have already taken shape: how was the relationship restored? In those days, after all, it had never occurred to anyone to measure skulls to solve this problem!
The skulls were measured in the Newest time - and gasped: the descendants of the Cro-Magnon, it turns out (judging by the protonordic skulls in the burials), reached Central Africa, India, Oceania and Polynesia, not to mention Siberia, the Urals, Altai, Kazakhstan, China, Central Asia, Pamirs and the whole Mediterranean, including North Africa and Western Asia. Etc.
Today these descendants wear the most different names speak different languages, do not understand each other and are not considered kinship. But they all came out of the Great Northern Platform, they all have a common ancestor - a Cro-Magnon.
WHERE HAVE THE NEANDERTHALS GONE
AS EVERYONE knows, Neanderthals once inhabited all of Europe, except for Scandinavia and northern Russia: their remains are found in England, Germany, France, Italy, Yugoslavia, southern Russia (in the Scythian burial mounds), etc. These are autochthons, old-timers of Europe. They were found in Central and Southeast Asia, and in southern Siberia, in China, in the Crimea, in Palestine, in Africa (up to distant Rhodesia) and on the island of Java. We will not touch on the question of how they got there, or where they came from. Different experts date the age of the Neanderthal in different ways: according to some data, he is 50-100 thousand years old, according to others, less reliable - as much as 200, 250 and even 300 thousand years. For now, it is enough for us to take into account the thesis: “Anthropologists state the existence of three variants of fossil people in Europe during the mentioned period of anthropogenesis: 1) Neanderthals; 2) people modern type; 3) intermediate forms ”, specifying that by modern man we mean Cro-Magnon, and by intermediate forms - a hybrid of the first two, and by no means a“ transitional link ”.
The first Neanderthal was found near Dusseldorf in 1856. In 1997, researchers from the University of Munich analyzed the DNA of the remains of this very first Neanderthal. The age of the find was determined at 50 thousand years. The study of 328 identified nucleotide chains led the paleontologist S. Paabo to the conclusion that the differences in genes between Neanderthals and modern humans are too great to be considered relatives. This idea was confirmed by the research of M. Ponce de Leon and K. Zollikofer (University of Zurich), who compared the skulls of a two-year-old Neanderthal man and a corresponding little Cro-Magnon man. The conclusion was unambiguous: these skulls were formed in completely different ways.
In the appearance of the Neanderthals, there were features that were very different from the Cro-Magnon, but even today characteristic of the Negroid and Australoid races: a chin depressed back, large brow ridges, very massive jaws. The Neanderthal had a larger brain than the Cro-Magnon, but a different configuration. The imperfection and small size of the frontal lobes of the brain were brightened up by the presence of convolutions, indicating a certain development mental abilities... In the interspecies struggle, such a brain did not become an advantage over the Cro-Magnon one, but there is hardly any reason to oppose the Neanderthals to the homo sapiens species as a whole, since they undoubtedly had a mind. And the structure of their palate, lower jaw, lower left frontal lobe of the brain (the speech zone of modern humans) is such that it allowed Neanderthals to master speech, although not too phonetically rich, due to the lack of a chin protrusion. The average height of men was 1.65 m, women were 10 cm shorter. At the same time, the men weighed about 90 kg due to very strongly developed muscles and heavy, strong bones.
Whole corpses of Neanderthals (like the corpses of mammoths) have not survived, since they were not found in the soils of the permafrost. There are only skeletons. Therefore, today we cannot judge for sure about the color of their skin. In popular pictures and school manuals, Neanderthals are usually depicted as sparsely coated, white-skinned upright creatures. But this coloring is not based on anything. A number of scientists today have put forward a much more plausible hypothesis that the Neanderthals were black. This is evidenced by both the geographical localization of the Neanderthals closest to us in time, who lived mainly in Central and South Africa and Java, and the color of those modern races that are reasonably considered the descendants of the Neanderthal: Negroids, Australoids, Dravids, etc. Enough " repaint "the Neanderthal from the school table in black - and before us with all convincingness there will appear a creature that is extremely similar in appearance to the named races. Not only the skin and appearance, but also much more, for example, the structure of the tibia and ankle bones (whose articular planes indicate the habit of squatting for a long time, which is not typical of Caucasians) makes the Neanderthal similar to the modern inhabitants of the South of the Earth. It is quite characteristic that among the remains of the Cro-Magnons found in the grottoes of Grimaldi (Italy), the so-called "Grimaldians", there are two skeletons, characterized by some scientists as Negroid, by others as Neanderthal.
Neanderthals, like Cro-Magnons, were people, they were radically different from the animal world. Although people are biologically completely different, much inferior to Cro-Magnon man. Nevertheless, the Neanderthals created their own culture, called the Mousterian (Shelian and Acheulean): stone and bone choppers, scrapers, pointed points, although not in such a wide range as the Cro-Magnons, who created two dozen stone and bone "instruments". Neanderthals also knew fire, already 40 thousand years ago they honorably buried their dead according to a primitive rite, honored afterworld practicing hunting magic. At the same time, they acquired primitive jewelry: pendants made from animal teeth. Scientists believe, however, that they could have adopted the custom of decorating themselves from the Cro-Magnons. In any case, this is no longer characteristic of anyone in the animal kingdom. But the Neanderthals, unlike the Cro-Magnons, did not leave works of art (rock paintings, sculptures made of bone and burnt clay).
The relationship between Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons was not idyllic. At the sites of the Neanderthals, they find carefully crushed and gnawed bones of not only large game, but also the bones of Cro-Magnons, that is, the ancestors of modern people, which were processed in the same way. And vice versa: at the sites of the Cro-Magnons, crushed bones of the Neanderthals were found. The two protoraces waged an irreconcilable war between themselves, a war of destruction, “to be devoured,” as the Bible would say. What kind of war was accompanied, as the fossil skeletons irrefutably testify, by racial mixing, most likely violent.
For about ten thousand years, the fierce confrontation between the two protoraces on the same territory lasted; but by the end of this period (about 40 thousand years ago) the Cro-Magnons drove out the Neanderthals from Europe almost completely. Thirty thousand years ago, their remains still survived in the Gibraltar region, in the Pyrenees and the Dalmatian mountains. But in general, the "race of the vanquished" retreated further south, to Western Asia and the Mediterranean, where the confrontation continued for many millennia.
As already quite reliably established, Cro-Magnons did not and could not descend from Neanderthals. But they could mix with them (we emphasize and confirm this once again), "improving the breed." Moreover, both on their own initiative and apart from it, depending on the outcome of a particular interracial clash. If men who were captured were threatened with the fate of being eaten, the fate of women could be completely different. A study of the Tasmanians "stuck" in the Stone Age up to their disappearance in 19th century, showed that intertribal relations of people of the Paleolithic, in addition to diplomacy, trade and war, certainly include the abduction of women. The breed of Neanderthals clearly improved during crossbreeding, the Cro-Magnon breed was just as clearly deteriorating, but one way or another, the process was so intense, prolonged and reciprocal that it led, as already mentioned, to the formation of new ethnic groups and even races of the second order.
A prominent Russian scientist Yu. D. Benevolenskaya in her article "The problem of identifying the sapient and Neanderthal lineages at the early stages of evolution" (Courier of the Petrovskaya Kunstkamera. Issue 8-9, St. Petersburg, 1999) writes: "The hypothesis of the evolutionary transformation of Neanderthals into a neoanthropus more and more gives way to the idea of the displacement of the first by a man of the modern type, which was accompanied by a cross between them. "
Another prominent Russian anthropologist A. A. Zubov in the article “Problems of intraspecific taxonomy of the genus homo in connection with modern ideas about the biological differentiation of mankind (Modern anthropology and genetics and the problem of races in humans. M., 1995) also points out:“ We can talk about The "network-like" nature of the evolution of the genus homo at all stages of its evolution. It is important to note that the “network” could include different evolutionary “levels” that interacted with each other and made their genetic contribution to the common, unified diversity fund of the evolving genus of homo ”.
In other words, representatives of the "higher" human floors had sexual intercourse with representatives of the "lower", Neanderthal, floors, as a result of which they gave birth to mestizos, then numerically isolated to the level of entire peoples and races, which gave rise to the general evolutionary diversity of the genus homo.
The well-known American biologist Anthony Barnett also testifies in his book The Human Genus (M., 1968) that “people of the modern type appeared at about the same time, if not earlier, as Neanderthal man, and developed in parallel. Intermediate types between modern humans and Neanderthals could have been the result of either interbreeding or early phases of Neanderthal divergence from the lineage that led to modern humans. ”
In all likelihood, all territories, including Europe, where both Protoraces - Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons - lived simultaneously at one time or another, should be considered a cross-breeding zone. The hybrid forms then continued to exist there everywhere and give offspring, interbreeding more and more with the dominant type - in Europe, the Cro-Magnon became such 40 thousand years ago. Moreover, according to Darwin's theory, the signs mixed forms as not foreseen by natural selection (nature) in each generation they were more and more displaced by the dominant features of the Caucasian, being perceived over time as an atavism. As a result, Neanderthal features among white Caucasians, although they are found to this day, are only occasionally found. The closer to the south, the more often they are, and in the zone of Western Asia and the Mediterranean they either become dominant or appear in the form of ethno-hybrids, which can be considered, for example, Semites, Ethiopians, Egyptians, Maghrebians, etc. Cross-breeding is whimsically selective: if Ethiopians have black skin and Caucasoid facial features, while Semites, on the contrary, often have Negroid (Neanderthaloid) facial features with white or olive ("mulatto") skin, and so on.
There is nothing surprising in the fact that whole peoples-hybrids arose in the named zone, because it was here that the final of the Great Neanderthal War was played out for at least ten thousand years, and two protoraces, locked between Mediterranean Sea and the Atlas Mountains, continued to sort things out until they completely dissolved in each other and disintegrated into fancifully combined, but, moreover, rather homogeneous secondary races and ethnic groups. (At the same time, the dominant type disappeared as such and the possibility of returning to it - reversion - became generally excluded, although periodically both initial types necessarily appear, but only singly and fragmentarily.)
The finds of archaeologists D. Garrod and T. McCone, made at the beginning of the twentieth century in Palestine on Mount Carmel in the Kozya (Skhul) and Pechnaya (Tabun) caves, tell about this, in particular. The remains of ancient people were discovered there, separated in time by about ten thousand years: the ancient ash in the Stove Cave - 40 thousand, and in the Kozya - 30 thousand years. Over these ten thousand years, tremendous changes have occurred with the population that inhabited this area: a purely Neanderthal appearance gradually accumulated an increasing number of characteristic Cro-Magnon features. The inhabitants of the Skhul cave closest to us in time have the greatest number of Cro-Magnon characters (including an average height of 175 cm), while remaining, nevertheless, a hybrid.
Later, the conclusions made in the study of the Skhul and Tabun caves were fully confirmed by new finds in the same geographical area and in the same temporary soil layers. Namely: in the 1930s. on Mount Kafeh near Nazareth, the remains of six Neanderthals were found with such characteristic Cro-Magnon differences as a high vault of the skull, a rounded nape, etc. Similar finds were made later in the caves of Yabrud (Syria), Haua Fteah (Libya), Jebel Irhud (Morocco) , Shanidar (Iraq). In 1963, a Japanese expedition found in Israel the skeleton of a whole Neanderthal man, but ... as tall as a Cro-Magnon man (170 cm). Etc.
As we already firmly know, the Cro-Magnon did not descend from the Neanderthal. He fought to the death with him, completely cleared Europe of him (partially mixing with the enemy, but then squeezing out his residual features for tens of thousands of years), but he was unable to repeat this feat in Asia Minor and the Mediterranean. Here, in this region, the first "melting pot" in history arose, in which both the "south-firing" echelons of the Cro-Magnons and the Neanderthals who fled from them, but did not manage to escape, found their death and new life.
Does this mean that today only hybrid, intermediate or secondary forms remain of the ancient Neanderthals, that they all completely dissolved in a stronger race of victors, or simply died out, giving way to other races?
No, there is no reason for such pessimism.
The Atlas Mountains stopped the weary pursuers who had found their cherished ideal bequeathed by genes and tribal traditions in the blessed climate of the Mediterranean: they had nowhere to go and there was no need to strive further. But the persecuted, saving their lives, infiltrated through the mountain barrier and gradually populated all of Africa and not only it. As a result, each protorace was entrenched in its area: the Cro-Magnons, who became Caucasians, - at home, mainly in Europe; Neanderthals who became Negroids and Australoids - at home, mainly in Africa, then in the south of India (where they were driven out in the II millennium BC by the descendants of the Cro-Magnons, the so-called Andronovites - the future Indo-Aryans), in Australia, Tasmania etc.; and the world's first mixed race - at home, in Asia Minor and the Mediterranean. This happened about 30 thousand years ago.
Cro-Magnons(Fig. 1) are the direct ancestors of modern people. This species, according to scientists, appeared more than 130 thousand years ago. Archaeological finds indicate that Cro-Magnons lived for more than 10 thousand years in the vicinity of another species of people - Neanderthals. In fact, Cro-Magnons have no external differences with modern people. There is another definition of the term "Cro-Magnon". In a narrow sense, this is a representative of the human race who lived on the territory of modern France, they got their name from the place in which the researchers first discovered a large number of remains of ancient people - Cro-Magnon gorge. But more often, all the ancient inhabitants of the planet are called Cro-Magnons. During Upper Paleolithic this species dominated over most of the land surface, with few exceptions - in places where Neanderthal communities still remained.
Fig. 1 - Cro-Magnon
Origin
Consensus on how it appeared Cro-Magnon view among anthropologists and historians, no. Two main theories dominate. Most scientists believe that this species appeared in the eastern part of Africa, and further through the Arabian Peninsula spread throughout Eurasia. The adherents of this theory believe that Cro-Magnons later split into 2 main groups:
- Ancestors of modern Hindus and Arabs.
- Ancestors of all modern Mongoloid peoples.
As for the Europeans, according to this theory, they are representatives of the first group, who migrated about 45 thousand years ago. Archaeologists found great amount evidence in favor of this theory, but still the number of scientists who adhere to alternative point vision does not decrease over the years.
IN last time there is more and more evidence, the second version. Scientists who adhere to this theory believe that Cro-Magnons are modern Caucasians and do not belong to this kind Negroids and Mongoloids. A number of scientists insist that the first Cro-Magnon appeared on the territory of modern Ethiopia, and his descendants settled in northern Africa, the entire Middle East, Asia Minor, most of Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent and all of Europe. They insist that the Cro-Magnons almost completely migrated from Africa more than 100 thousand years ago, and only a small part of them remained on the territory of modern Egypt. Then they continued the development of new lands, the ancient people reached France and the British Isles by the X century BC, passing through Caucasian ridge, having crossed the Don, Dnieper, Danube.
Culture
Ancient man Cro-Magnon began to live in rather large groups, which was not observed in the Neanderthal. Communities often numbered 100 or more individuals. The Cro-Magnons inhabiting Eastern Europe sometimes lived in dugouts, such a dwelling was a "discovery" of that time. The caves and tents were more comfortable and spacious compared to similar types of Neanderthal dwellings. The ability to speak articulately helped them to understand each other better, they actively cooperated if one of them needed help.
Cro-Magnons became more skilled hunters and fishermen, these people first began to use the "corral" method, when a large animal was driven into a trap prepared in advance, and there it was waiting for inevitable death. The first similar fishing nets were also invented by the Cro-Magnons. They began to master the procurement industry, dried mushrooms, stocked up on berries. They also hunted birds, for this they used snares and loops, while often ancient people did not kill the animals, but left them alive, designed primitive bird cages and admired them.
Among the Cro-Magnons, the first ancient artists began to appear who painted different colors walls of caves. You can see the work of ancient masters in our time, for example, in France in the Montespan Cave, several creations of ancient masters have survived to this day. But not only painting developed, the Cro-Magnons sculpted the first sculptures from stone and clay, engraved on mammoth tusks. Very often, ancient sculptors sculpted naked women, it was like a cult, in those days it was not harmony that was valued in a woman - ancient sculptors sculpted women with magnificent forms. And also sculptors and artists of antiquity often depicted animals: horses, bears, mammoths, bison.
The Cro-Magnons buried the deceased tribesmen. In many ways, modern rituals resemble those of those years. People also gathered, they also cried. The deceased was dressed in the best skin, they put jewelry, food, tools that he used during his lifetime. The deceased was buried in the "fetus" position.
Fig. 2 - Cro-Magnon Skeleton
Leaps in development
Cro-Magnons developed more actively than the Neanderthals assimilated by them and the common ancestors of both Pithecanthropus species. Moreover, they developed in many areas, a huge number of achievements were made by this particular species. The reason for such an intensive development is Cro-Magnon brain... Before a child of this species was born, the development of his brain completely coincided with the intrauterine development of the brain of a Neanderthal. But after birth, the baby's brain developed differently - there was an active formation of the parietal part and cerebellar. The brain of the Neanderthal after childbirth developed in the same directions as that of the chimpanzee. Cro-Magnon communities were much more organized than Neanderthal communities, they began to master oral speech, whereas Neanderthals never learned to speak. The development went on at an incredible pace, Cro-Magnon tools- these are knives, hammers and other tools, some of which are still used, since, in fact, no alternative has yet been found to them. Cro-Magnon actively adapt to weather factors, their homes began to remotely resemble modern houses... These people created social circles, built a hierarchy in groups, and distributed social roles. Cro-Magnons began to be aware of themselves, think, reason, actively explore and experiment.
The emergence of speech among Cro-Magnons
Just as there is no unity among scientists on the question of the emergence of the Cro-Magnon, there is also no unity with respect to another question - "how did speech originate in the first intelligent people?"
Psychologists have their own opinion on this matter. They argue, with an impressive evidence base, that Cro-Magnons adopted the experience of Neanderthals and Pithecanthropus, who had some rudiments of articulate communication.
Certain linguists (generativists) also have their own theory, backed up by facts. However, it cannot be said that this theory is supported only by generators, many prominent scientists are on their side. These scientists believe that there was no inheritance from previous species, and the appearance of articulate speech is the result of some kind of brain mutation. Generativists, trying to get to the bottom of the truth and find confirmation of their theory, are looking for the origins of the proto-language - the first human language. So far, the controversy does not subside, and none of the parties has exhaustive evidence of their innocence.
Differences between Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon
Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals are not such close species, moreover, they did not have a single ancestor. These are two types, between which there was competition, skirmishes, and, possibly, local or general confrontation. They could not help but compete, as they shared one niche and lived side by side. There are many differences between the two types:
- body constitution, size and physiological structure;
- cranial volume, cognitive abilities of the brain;
- social organization;
- general level of development.
Research conducted by scientists has shown that there is a significant difference in DNA between the two species. As for nutrition, there are also differences, these two species ate differently, generalizing, we can say that Cro-Magnons ate everything that Neanderthals ate, plus plant food. An interesting fact is that the body of the Neanderthals did not assimilate milk, and the basis of the diet of the Neanderthals was the meat of dead animals (carrion). Cro-Magnons, however, only in rare cases, in the absence of other options, ate carrion.
Fig. 3 - Cro-Magnon Skull
In the scientific environment, disputes do not stop about whether these two species could interbreed with each other. There is a lot of evidence that they could. For example, one cannot exclude the fact that echoes of Neanderthal genes are sometimes traced in the structure and constitution of the body of some modern people. The two species lived in close proximity, mating certainly could have taken place. But scientists who claim that the Cro-Magnons assimilated the Neanderthals are opposed in disputes by other scientists, among whom there are famous personalities... They argue that after interspecific crossing, fertile offspring could not be born, that is, for example, a female (Cro-Magnon) could become pregnant from a Neanderthal, could even bear a fetus. But the born baby was weak to survive and even more so to give life to its own offspring. They support these conclusions with genetic studies.
Differences between Cro-Magnon and modern man
There are both minor and significant differences between modern man and his Cro-Magnon ancestor. For example, it was found that the average brain volume of a representative of an earlier subspecies of people was slightly larger. This, in theory, should indicate that the Cro-Magnons were smarter, their intellect was more developed. This hypothesis is supported by an insignificant part of pundits. After all, a larger volume does not always guarantee best quality... In addition to the size of the brain, there are other differences that are not controversial. It has been proven that the ancestor had more dense vegetation on the body. There is a difference in height, it is noticed that over time and evolution, people have become taller. The average height of the two subspecies differs significantly. Not only the height, but also the weight of the Cro-Magnon was less. In those days, there were no giants weighing over 150 kilograms, and all due to the fact that people could not always provide themselves with food, even in the required amounts. Ancient people did not live long, a person who lived up to 30 years old was considered an old man, and cases when a person survived the 45-year mark are generally isolated. There is an assumption that the Cro-Magnons had better vision, in particular, they saw well in the dark, but these theories have not yet been confirmed.
>> History: Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons. The emergence of human races
Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons. The emergence of human races.
4. The emergence of "Homo sapiens"
1. Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons.
About 200-150 thousand years ago, a new type appeared ancient man... Scientists called him "Homo sapiens" (on Latin"homo sapiens"). This type includes Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon.
The Neanderthal was named after the place where his remains were first found in the Neandertal Valley in Germany. He had strongly developed superciliary arches, powerful forward jaws with large teeth.
The Neanderthal could not speak clearly, as his vocal apparatus was not sufficiently developed. Neanderthals made tools out of stone, built primitive houses. They hunted large animals. Their clothing was animal skins. Neanderthals buried the dead in specially dug graves. They first had the idea of death as a transition to the afterlife.
For a long time, it was believed that Neanderthals preceded the emergence of modern humans. IN last years scientists have found that Neanderthals lived simultaneously with another type for some time. " homo sapiens"- Cro-Magnon, whose remains were first found in the Cro-Magnon cave in France. External appearance and the brain of the Cro-Magnons was like that of modern people. Cro-Magnons are our direct ancestors. Scientists called Cro-Magnons, as well as modern people, "homo sapiens, sapiens", that is, "reasonable man, reasonable." Thus, it is emphasized that a person is the owner of the most developed mind on our planet. Cro-Magnons appeared about 40 thousand years ago.
2. Hunters for mammoths.
Approximately 100 thousand years ago, it became sharply colder on Earth and the last glacial period... Very cold periods of time alternated with periods of warming. The northern part of Europe, Asia, America was covered with a powerful glacier.
During the glaciation in Europe, only for a short summer period the ground thawed, and vegetation appeared on it. However, it was enough to feed large herbivores - mammoths, woolly rhinos, bison, reindeer. Hunting these animals provided enough meat, fat and bones to feed people and even to heat and light their homes.
Hunting at that time became the most important occupation of the Cro-Magnons. They began to make tools not only from stone, but also from mammoth tusks and antlers. To the spears were attached points made of deer antlers with bent teeth at the base. Such a spear was deeply stuck in the body of a wounded animal. Small animals were pierced with darts (short spears). The fish were caught using wicker traps and sharp-tipped harpoons.
People have learned to sew clothes from fur. They invented bone needles with which to sew the skins of foxes, arctic foxes, wolves and smaller animals.
Inhabitants of the East European plains built houses from mammoth bones. The foundation of such a house was made of the skulls of huge animals.
3. Tribal communities.
It was impossible to hunt mammoths and other large animals, to build houses from their bones alone. Dozens of people, organized and disciplined, were required. People began to live in tribal communities. This community included several large families forming the genus. Close and distant relatives formed a single team. The tribal community shared dwellings, tools, and food supplies. The men hunted together. They were jointly engaged in the manufacture of tools and construction. The mother was especially respected by the large family. Initially, the relationship was carried out on the maternal side. In the habitats of ancient people, skillfully made female figurines are often found. The women were engaged in gathering, preparing food and preserving food supplies, keeping the fire in the hearth, sewing clothes and, most importantly, raising children.
The clan community, the clan considered themselves descended from one ancestor - a person, an animal or even a plant. The ancestor of the clan was called a totem. Rod bore the name of his totem. There could be a kind of a wolf, a kind of an eagle, a kind of a bear.
The communities were ruled by the wisest members of the family - the elders. They had great life experience, kept ancient traditions and customs. The elders made sure that all members of the clan followed the established rules of conduct, so that no one claimed the share of another in the distribution of food, clothing and place in the dwelling.
Children in the tribal community were raised together. The children knew the customs of the family and followed them. As the boys grew up, they had to pass tests in order to be accepted as adult male hunters. The boy had to be silent under the hail of blows. They made cuts on his body, rubbed ashes, colored earth and plant juices into them. The boy had to spend several days and nights alone in the woods. Much had to be endured to become a real man of the family.
4. The emergence of human races.
With the advent of the Cro-Magnon, human race: Caucasian, Mongoloid, Negroid. Representatives of different races differ in skin color, eye shape, hair color and type, skull length and shape, body proportions.
The Caucasian (Eurasian) race is characterized by light skin, wide eyes, soft hair on the head, and a narrow and sharply protruding nose. Men develop a beard and mustache. In the Mongoloid (Asian-American) race, special features are yellowish or reddish skin, straight black hair, lack of facial hair in men, narrow eyes, and cheekbones. Negroid race characterized by dark skin, curly coarse hair, wide nose, thick lips.
External differences are secondary importance... All races have equal opportunities for development.
Even before the first civilizations, peoples Caucasian race divided into large groups: Semites and Indo-Europeans. The Semites got their name from the biblical Shem (Sema), the son of the patriarch Noah. They settled in the Middle East, North Africa. The modern Semitic peoples include Arabs and Jews. Indo-Europeans (also called Aryans) settled over a vast territory, occupying Europe, North and part of Central India, Iran, Central Asia, the peninsula Asia Minor... The Indo-European peoples included Indians, Iranians, Hittites, Celts, Greeks, Romans, as well as Slavs and Germans. The languages they spoke are called Indo-European.
IN AND. Ukolova, L.P. Marinovich, History, grade 5
Submitted by readers from internet sites
One of the groups of neoanthropic fossils. Name comes from the Cromagnon grotto in the dep. Dordogne (France), where several were discovered in 1868. skeletons of people of this type. Bone remains of K. are known (since 1823) from the late Pleistocene of Europe. ... ... Biological encyclopedic dictionary
Modern encyclopedia
- (from the name of the Cro Magnon grotto Cro Magnon, in France), the generalized name of fossil people modern look(neoanthropines) of the late Paleolithic era. Known for bone remains discovered in all parts of the world. Appeared approx. 40 thousand years ago ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary
Cro-Magnons- (Cro Magnons), prehistoric. people of the present. species (Homo sapiens) that inhabited Europe approx. 35 10 thousand years ago. K. had a more massive physique than modern. man, but otherwise the same anatomical. x ki. Appeared in Europe approx. 35 thousand years ago, and ... ... The World History
Cro-Magnons- (from the name of the Cro Magnon grotto, Cro Magnon, in France), the most common of the fossil people of the modern species (neoanthropines) of the Late Paleolithic era. Known for bone remains mainly from Europe. They appeared about 40 thousand years ... ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary
Tsev; pl. (unit Cro-Magnon, nza; m.). The general name of the people of the late Paleolithic era ● The name comes from the Cro-Magnon grotto in France, where the bones of the Cro-Magnon skeleton were found in 1868. ◁ Cro-Magnon, oh, oh. By the th era, the cave. * * ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary
The general name of the people of the late Paleolithic era. The name comes from the Cro Magnon grotto in the Dordogne department (France), where in 1868 the French archaeologist and paleontologist L. Lartet made finds of C.S. ... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia
Cro-Magnons- the term is ambiguous: 1) in the narrow sense, Cro-Magnons are people discovered in the Cro-Magnon grotto (France) and who lived about 30 thousand years ago; 2) more broad sense this is the entire population of Europe of the Upper Paleolithic period from 40 to 10 thousand years ago; 3) ... ... Physical Anthropology. Illustrated explanatory dictionary.
- (by the name of the cro magnon cave in France, where the first finds of fossil remains were made) are people of the modern type that existed in Europe in the Upper Pleistocene and sharply differed from the Neanderthals. New dictionary foreign words … Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language
The general name of the people of the late Paleolithic era. Name comes from the Cro Magnon grotto in the dep. Dordogne (France), where in 1868 the first finds were made by K. S anthropological. K.'s points of view relate to the present. human species (Homo ... ... Soviet historical encyclopedia
Books
- New Cro-Magnons. Memories of the future. Book 1, Yuri Berkov. If you want to have not only pleasant, but also useful reading, you want to broaden your horizons - read this book. You will dive into mysterious world future and live with its heroes a stormy ... electronic book
- New Cro-Magnons. Memories of the future. Book 2, Yuri Berkov. If you have mastered the first book, then you will read the second with even greater interest. In it you will find amazing collisions of her characters, fascinating underwater adventures and a lot ...
Modern people
The earliest representatives of neoanthropes were named Cro-Magnons due to the fact that their bone remains (several skeletons) were first found in 1868 in a cave near the village of Cro-Magnon in France. Later neoanthropes are modern people , existing now.
The generalized name of modern humans, who replaced all their predecessors in the period 40-30 thousand years ago, is neoanthropes .
Scientists believe that neoanthrope, or a person of the modern type, arose in the Eastern Mediterranean, in Western Asia and in the southeast of Europe. It is here that numerous bone remains of intermediate forms between Neanderthals and early fossil forms were found. Homo sapiens - Cro-Magnons ... In those days, all these territories were occupied by dense deciduous forests, rich in a variety of game, various fruits (nuts, berries) and succulent herbs. In these conditions, it is believed, and the last step was taken on the way to Homo sapiens. New person began to actively and widely spread around the planet, making large migrations across all continents of the Earth.
Cro-Magnons are the first people, that is, direct representativesHomo sapiens... They were characterized by enough tall(about 180 cm), a skull with a large cranium (up to 1800 cm 3, usually about 1500 cm 3) , the presence of a pronounced chin, a straight forehead and the absence of brow ridges. The presence of a chin ridge on the lower jaw indicated that Cro-Magnons were capable of articulate speech.
Cro-Magnons lived in communities of 15-30 people. Their dwellings were caves, tents made of skins, dugouts. They lived in a generic society, began to domesticate animals and engage in agriculture.
Cro-Magnons possessed a developed articulate speech, dressed in clothes made of skins, and were engaged in pottery. The oldest ceramic kiln in the world, which was used by the Cro-Magnons, was found in Dolny Vestonice in Moravia.
The Cro-Magnons had funeral rites... Household items, food, ornaments were placed in the grave. The dead were sprinkled with blood-red ocher, a hair net, bracelets on their hands, flat stones were placed on their faces and buried in a bent position (knees touched the chin).
The appearance of the Cro-Magnon man was no different from the appearance of a modern man.
The Cro-Magnon was characterized by a significant development of brain regions associated with work, speech and responsible for behavior in conditions public life... Along with stone tools, he widely used bone and horn, from which he made needles, drills, arrowheads and harpoons. The objects of the hunt were horses, mammoths, rhinos, deer, bison, arctic foxes and many other animals. The Cro-Magnon also practiced fishing and the gathering of fruits, roots and herbs. Possessed enough high culture, as evidenced not only by tools and household items (he knew how to make leather, sew clothes and build housing from animal skins), but also various drawings on rocks, cave walls, stone and bone sculptures made with great skill.
Wall painting in a Cro-Magnon man's cave (left) and his tools:
1 - horny harpoon; 2 - bone needle; 3 - flint scraper; 4-5 - horn and flint dart tips
By the time Homo sapiens representatives of the genus Homo were already characteristic of almost all morphological signs characteristic of Homo sapiens: upright posture; development of hands as organs of labor activity; proportional, slimmer figure; lack of hairline. Growth increased, the facial part of the skull decreased, and the brain part became very large. There was not only a powerful increase in the mass of the brain, but also its qualitative change: the frontal lobes of the brain and the zones associated with speech, social behavior and complex activity received great development.
All these transformations were not purely biological aromorphoses, like in other animals. They are largely due to the creation of a special, cultural environment and the strongest action social factors... Among them are the development of a social way of life and the use of the accumulated life experience of ancestors; labor activity and the creation of the hand as an organ of labor; the emergence of speech and the use of the word as a means of communication and education of a person; development of thinking abilities, stimulating the improvement of work and speech; the use of fire, which helped scare away animals, protect from the cold, cook food, and also settle in the globe... Social labor and the manufacture of tools of labor provided a special, human path of development of the species, characterized by social (social) relations, the division of labor, the emergence on this basis of trade, art, religion, science and industries.
The emergence of man is the largest aromorphosis in evolution organic world unmatched in quality in the entire history of the Earth. It was characterized by special patterns and specific features, inherent only in anthropogenesis.
Having mastered the culture of making perfect tools, the reproduction of food, the construction of dwellings, the creation of clothes, Homo sapiens, unlike all other types of organisms, has become special, biosocial being , protected himself from unfavorable natural conditions by creating a special - cultural environment. As a result of this, the need for further evolution of man in the direction of transforming him into another, more perfect view... So the evolution of modern man as a biological species stopped. It continues only within the already formed species (mainly along the path of polymorphism of morphophysiological characters in different groups and populations of humans).
The emergence of a neoanthrope did not occur through a simple accumulation of new properties in an organism, but in close unity with the process of becoming all mankind, and social existence (living together, communication, speech, work, collective activity) was one of the essential properties of anthropogenesis. Under these conditions, a qualitatively new being with biosocial properties has appeared on Earth, which creatively transforms the world with the help of its mental and cultural abilities and social production. Becoming unthinkable outside of society Homo sapiens as a special kind. The species stability of the neoanthropus is precisely due to the "transformation" of a person into a representative of humanity.
The appearance of man is an outstanding event in the development of living nature. With the rise of human society at the stage Homo sapiens about 40 thousand years ago, the creative role of natural selection lost its significance for humans