Funeral rites of the Cro-Magnons. Where did the modern form of man appear? Differences between Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon

Who are the Cro-Magnons? These are fossil people, completely similar in their own way appearance and development on modern man... They lived 40-10 thousand years ago in Europe. At the same time, they coexisted with the Neanderthals for at least 7 thousand years. Their first skeletons and tools of the era Upper Paleolithic were found in 1868 in France in the Cro-Magnon cave.

It should be noted that such a term as "Cro-Magnon" implies several concepts at once:

1. These are people whose remains were found in the Cro-Magnon grotto, and lived on Earth about 40-30 thousand years ago.

2. These are the people who inhabited Europe during the Upper Paleolithic.

3. These are all people who lived on the globe during the Upper Paleolithic.

I must say that there is still such a thing as neoanthropes... It implies a common collective name Homo sapiens, that is, a reasonable person. It includes both Cro-Magnons and modern people. That is, you and I are neoanthropists who completely replaced the paleoanthropes (Cro-Magnons) 30 or 40 thousand years ago. And the first neoanthropes appeared on Earth about 200 thousand years ago in Africa.

But let us not look so far, but return to nearer times. Cro-Magnon fossils have been found in Africa at Fish Hook and Cape Flats. Their age was estimated at 35 thousand years. In Europe, as already mentioned, in 30 thousand years. In Asia, the age of the remains was 40-10 thousand years. In New Guinea, 19 thousand years.

Settlement Cro-Magnons

The ancient people also reached Australia. They lived there beautifully 20-14 thousand years ago. But in America, near Los Angeles, a settlement was found, the age of which dates back to 23 thousand years ago. But there are also later settlements from 11 to 13 thousand years ago.

In the excavation sites, experts have discovered the remains of individuals of different sexes and ages. At the same time, ancient people were buried in accordance with the funeral rites of that distant era. From modern people they differed very little in their morphological structure. However, the bones of the skeletons and skulls were more massive. Anthropologists, at least, have come to this opinion.

Where did the modern form of man appear?

Currently, experts are asking questions: which of the ancient people can be considered the ancestors of modern man and in what historical period did they appear? The first traces of people like us were found in Africa. These findings are from 200 to 100 thousand years old. One of the finds was made in Herto in Ethiopia in 1997. There, paleontologists from California discovered remains of 160 thousand years old.

In South Africa, in Clazies River, the discovered remains are 118 thousand years old. In the northeastern part South Africa at Border Cave, a skull of 82 thousand years old was discovered. Remains were also found in Tanzania, Sudan. They are characterized by the fact that fossil human skulls are very similar in shape to those of modern humans. They do not have a sharply protruding occiput, large superciliary arches, and a sloping chin. At the same time, the volume of the brain is extremely large. Similar finds were found in the Middle East in the Qafzeh and Skhul caves.

Cave paintings

As a result of the efforts of paleontologists, it turned out that 40 thousand years ago, people with a modern appearance lived in Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia. They appeared in America much later, about 11-12 thousand years ago. But there are archaeologists who call the time period 30 thousand years.

Thus, it turns out that the first Cro-Magnons saw the light in the southeastern regions of Africa approximately 200 thousand years ago... First they settled on the hot continent, and then came to the Middle East. It happened 80-70 thousand years ago. Having settled in the Middle East, they moved to Europe and Asia, mastering the southern and then northern regions. We got as far as Australia, and then ended up on the lands of America.

Our direct ancestors were the complete opposite Neanderthals. They had long limbs, height up to 180 cm, proportional bodies, well-developed lower jaws and an elongated skull. Subsequently, from them came the people of the present civilization, which is 7 thousand years old.

Nowadays there is an opinion that modern look people is the crown of biological evolution, which has transformed into social evolution. However, many disagree with this. That is, biological changes continue to this day. It's just that very little time has passed yet to talk about any physical transformations. But as we all know, the single Cro-Magnons have changed significantly in appearance, thanks to the emergence of races.

Burial of Cro-Magnons

Cultural achievements of the Cro-Magnons

Our direct ancestors differed from their predecessors not only in physical features. They also had a more highly developed culture. This primarily concerns the tools of labor. They made them from stone, horn and bone. Moreover, initially, blanks were prepared en masse, and then they were processed and received the necessary tools. Came up with a bow with arrows and spears. It should be noted that the level of culture practically did not differ among the ancient people who inhabited different ends of the planet. They tamed the wolf, which became a domestic dog.

But the main thing, of course, is rock painting... Beautiful specimens have been preserved in caves from Britain to Lake Baikal rock paintings... In addition to them, statuettes depicting animals and people were also found. They are made of limestone, bones and mammoth tusks. The handles of the knives were carved, and the clothes were decorated with beads and painted with ocher.

Our ancient ancestors lived in communities. They numbered from 30 to 100 people. Dwellings were not only caves, but also dugouts, and huts, and tents. And this already points to the settlements. They dressed in clothes that were sewn from skins. Communicated with each other through developed speech.

The main cult was the cult of the hunt. This is indicated at least by the fact that many images of animals are complemented by arrows and spears. That is, at first, the prey was killed in the drawings, and only then they went on a real hunt.

The Cro-Magnons practiced widely funeral rites... This primarily indicates what the ancient people thought about underworld... Ornaments, hunting tools, household items and food were placed in the graves with the deceased. The bodies were sprinkled with blood-red ocher and sometimes covered with bones of slaughtered animals. It was customary to bury dead bodies in the fetal position. That is, in what position the embryo was in the womb, in the same position and left for another world.

Ceramic figurine Vestonitskaya Venus

Cro-Magnon culture is characterized as perigord culture... It is subdivided into an earlier chatelperon and later gravetian culture... The latter subsequently passed into Solutrean culture... An example of Gravettian culture is Vestonitskaya Venus found in the Czech Republic in 1925. This is the oldest ceramic figurine 11 cm high and 4 cm wide. An ancient kiln was also discovered, in which clay objects were burned, turning them into ceramic products.

In conclusion, it should be said that in the days of fabulous antiquity, a woman appeared in southeast Africa, from whom the entire human race descended. This woman is designated as mitochondrial Eve by mitochondrial DNA inherited only through the female line. What kind of woman she is, and how she ended up in hot Africa is unknown. But the beautiful creation was radically different from other women and marked the beginning of the human civilization that now dominates the blue planet..

Alexey Starikov

The immediate ancestor of modern man - Cro-Magnon (40-10 thousand years BC) was named Homo sapiens sapiens (Homo sapiens). During the late Paleolithic era, 1200 generations changed and about 4 billion Cro-Magnons passed through the Earth. They lived at the end of the Wurm glaciation. Warming and cold snaps replaced each other quite often, and Cro-Magnons successfully adapted to changing natural conditions. They created the protoculture of modern man and, while remaining hunter-gatherers, brought the development of mankind to the culture of agriculture. The achievements of the Cro-Magnons are truly amazing. Their art of stone processing was so high that it can be said that technology came into the world with the Cro-Magnon man. Technological innovation and development material culture came to replace physical evolution. They also learned how to make all kinds of tools and weapons from bones, tusks, antlers and wood. Cro-Magnons achieved a high degree of excellence in the manufacture of clothing, the construction of vast dwellings. In their hearth, not only trees, but also other combustible materials, such as bone, could be used for heating. The clay kilns they built were prototypes of blast furnaces. They have brought almost to the limit beyond which agriculture begins, the ways of using plants. These people reaped the ears of wild cereals and collected so many cereals that they covered most of nutritional needs. They invented devices for grinding and grinding grain. Cro-Magnons knew how to make wicker containers and came close to the art of pottery. After centuries of wandering after animals or in search of seasonal edible plants, the Cro-Magnon managed to switch to a sedentary lifestyle, using more efficiently the resources of one locality. A sedentary lifestyle contributed to the formation social life, accumulation of practical and social knowledge and observations, which became the basis for the creation of language, art and religion. Hunting methods have changed. Spear throwers were invented, with the help of which hunters began to hunt more animals, and they themselves received less wounds, lived longer and better. Prosperity has also improved health and physical development... A sedentary lifestyle, combined with an increased life expectancy, contributed to the acquisition of experience and knowledge, improved the mind and developed culture. There is reason to believe that the Cro-Magnons also had a bow, although material evidence of this has not been preserved. Important role To expand the diet of Cro-Magnons, the invention of various devices for catching fish played - one of such ingenious devices was a prison. Cro-Magnons have learned to make various mixtures of clay with other substances. From these mixtures they made different figurines and burned them in a specially arranged hearth. In fact, they discovered a way to obtain new substances with new useful qualities by combining two or more starting materials. The Cro-Magnons have created a truly great prehistoric art. This is confirmed by the numerous wall paintings in the caves, sculptural works, figurines. ...

A, M. Cro Magnon. From the name of the Cro Magnon grotto in France, where in the second half of the 19th century. skeletons of these people were discovered. Mn. People of the late Paleolithic era. ALS 1. We are civilized Cro-Magnons and will no longer understand the strange, stupid truth about ... ... Historical Dictionary gallicisms of the Russian language

KROMANONETS, nza, husband. Fossil man of the late Paleolithic era. | adj. Cro-Magnon, oh, oh. Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary. S.I. Ozhegov, N.Yu. Shvedova. 1949 1992 ... Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary

- (nyo), ntsa, m., soul. (named after the Cro Magnon cave in France, where fossils were first found). Human modern type that existed in Europe in the Upper Pleistocene. || Wed archanthropus, neanderthal, neoanthropus, ... ... Dictionary foreign words Russian language

Sush., Number of synonyms: 1 person (86) ASIS synonym dictionary. V.N. Trishin. 2013 ... Synonym dictionary

A representative of the extinct race of people (Homo sapiens), the remains of which were first discovered in 1866 in France in the Cro-Magnon cave. At the end of the Paleolithic, the Cro-Magnon race inhabited Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia. Geological Dictionary: in 2 volumes ... Geological encyclopedia

The general name of the fossil people of a modern species, belonging to the neoanthropes and who lived about 40 thousand years ago ... Comprehensive Medical Dictionary

M. see Cro-Magnons Efremova's Explanatory Dictionary. T.F. Efremova. 2000 ... Modern explanatory dictionary Russian language Efremova

Cro-Magnon, Cro-Magnon, Cro-Magnon, Cro-Magnon, Cro-Magnon, Cro-Magnon, Cro-Magnon, Cro-Magnon, Cro-Magnon, Cro-Magnon, Cro-Magnon, Cro-Magnon (Source: "Full Accentuated Paradigm by A. A. Zaliznyak") ... Forms of words

Cro-Magnon- (2 m), R. croagno / nza, Tv. cromagno / ntz; pl. Cro-Magno / Ntsy, R. Cro-Magno / Ncev ... Spelling dictionary of the Russian language

Cro-Magnon- Cro-Magnon / ets / ... Morphemic-spelling dictionary

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• Human. Super encyclopedia for the smart and curious, I. E. Gusev. Man yesterday, today, tomorrow ... What are we, who we were and what will we become in the future? Since ancient times, man has striven to know himself. Gradually his guesses and conjectures turned into ...

They differed not only in physical features. The Cro-Magnons had a much more advanced culture. The technique of making tools has grown immeasurably. They began to be made from plates - specially prepared narrow and long blanks, which made it possible to manufacture much more elegant and varied tools than Mousterian points.

Dwelling of a neoanthropus.

State Darwin Museum, Moscow.

Photo courtesy of the Darwin Museum.

Cro-Magnons also widely used animal bones for making tools. As a result, the diversity of the Upper Paleolithic cultures is immeasurably superior to the Mousterian variations: if the Mousterian tools in France and in Altai are almost indistinguishable, then in the Upper Paleolithic era, even neighboring groups of people could have sharply different tools. The technical equipment of people has grown - at the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic era, a spear thrower appeared, and at the end - a bow and arrows. Much less is known about the population of Africa and Asia during the Upper Paleolithic than about the population of Europe. However, they were fundamentally similar both biologically and culturally.

The most significant phenomenon is the flourishing of Upper Paleolithic art. In the caves of France, Spain, Italy and the Urals, excellent examples of rock art have been preserved; in the layers of the sites from Brittany to Lake Baikal, figurines of people and animals made of bones, mammoth tusks and limestone were found. The handles of knives and spear throwers were decorated with intricate carvings. Clothes were decorated with beads and painted with ocher.

Art, apparently, had a magical meaning at that time. The images of animals are accompanied by signs of arrows and spears, designed to facilitate the upcoming hunt. Judging by the footprints of teenagers in the clay in front of the cave paintings, initiation into hunters was also held here. Of course, we can only assume the true meaning of these traces of the spiritual life of our ancestors, but its richness and the fundamental similarity of the psyche of people of those times with ours is undoubtedly.

Human settlements of the Upper Paleolithic were usually regularly visited hunting grounds. Here dwellings were built, the life of society went on, rituals were performed, the dead were buried. Ritual practice reached its peak. Cro-Magnons put tools, spears, stone knives, and numerous ornaments in the grave with the deceased. At the same time, the burial was often covered with red ocher, sometimes covered with mammoth bones from above. Obviously, at this time, ideas about the afterlife arise.

In the Upper Paleolithic era, man tamed the wolf, turning it into a dog. So man himself began to actively influence the process of speciation in animals, carrying out artificial selection.

17. Evolution of the primate brain

However, in a herd of primates, with a certain level of intelligence, exceptions become possible. Either at the stage of the successful life of the herd, when there are some collective limitations in the aggressiveness of mutual behavior, or under the protection of the parents, the next brain defect becomes viable. Namely: the lobes of the personality reduced by about two times! Once again: we do not pay attention to the division of the brain and the lobe of the personality into two parts, into two hemispheres. Let's call such individuals as "Forzy".

The mechanism of their formation is as follows. The Forsey phenomenon in its genetics is not limited to any one variant. Personality lobes can be reduced from birth to the most different reasons... The main ones are: 1) both half-shares (right and left) be reduced, or 2) the share on one side is completely absent, or 3) some more complex option. The first option is the most important. In this case, a decrease in personality lobes may occur due to the fact that one of the two inter-growing "branches" of the brain lobe has not grown (see above, again, not to be confused with the hemispheres!). As a result, the entire portion of the "personality" consists of one branch, of cells built with only one set of chromosomes. But both "hemispheres" of the personality, both half-shares are preserved, although reduced. This option is more viable, since it is a whole organism and is turned on at full capacity immediately from birth. In the second case, also due to a regressive mutation, the right or left lobe of the "personality" turns out to be non-functioning, or one lobe is absent altogether. This case, in principle, is more difficult, because the connection between the "half of the personality" and the unused half of the resources is established with difficulty and not immediately, already in the years of mature life. But an even more powerful end result is possible here.

From the above, absolutely natural conclusions can be drawn. The first stone to throw at the opponent (because of the female) or throw it at the game was taken by Forzy. They also took the first stick in their hands. They sharpened the stick. And they tied a stone to a stick. And they learned to maintain the fire. And they learned how to make clothes from skins. And in general, they, Forzy, discovered all the stages of the development of human technologies. They have always been at the forefront of evolution. They set the bar for all technologies, and then the whole flock or herd pulled up to this bar, already Evolutionarily, with natural selection, after many millennia and hundreds of generations. Under their leadership, some herds of primates defeated others, in which there were more cruel manners and in which the Forsey could not survive, in which the Forsey was killed. And it was precisely those herds in which the Forzy could survive that won, this is the greatest truth. That is, they are less aggressive within themselves. Think of the American Indians involved in cruelty.

In their psychology, Forsy differ from normal individuals. They have a different brain architecture, a different value system. Therefore, when choosing a sexual partner (partner), individuals are also closer to them - Forzy. However, then banal laws of genetics come into play. The offspring of two spouses - forseus splits into three branches. 1) Also Forzy is 50% of the number of children. 2) Normal full-fledged individuals, not Forzy - this is 25% of the number of children. 3) And, finally, individuals carrying a repetition of a defect in personality genetics on both sets of chromosomes. That is, individuals with practically no personality brain lobes. We'll call them Munkers. These are deeply defective creatures, unable to play at least some role in the herd and quickly perishing in nature.

Yes, Forsey has always been instinctively hated in the herd, because they are very different from the usual individuals. They were often exterminated "at the root" together with their families. But Forzy is a negative mutation, it happens here and there all the time and gives life to new Forzy. And therefore, it also gives a new impetus to human evolution.