Neanderthal was the last ancient man, not the first. He stood on shoulders even stronger than his own. Behind him lay five million years of slow evolution, during which Australopithecus, the offspring of apes and not yet quite a man, became the first species of true man, Homo erectus, and Homo erectus gave birth to the next species, Homo erectus. sapiens). This latter type still exists today. Its early representatives began a long line of varieties and subvarieties, culminating first with Neanderthal and then with modern man. Thus, the Neanderthal concludes one of the most important stages in the development of the species Homo sapiens - later comes only modern man, who belongs to the same species.
When did Neanderthals appear?
Neanderthal man appears about 100 thousand years ago, but by that time other species of Homo sapiens had already existed for about 200 thousand years. Only a few fossils have survived from the Pre-Neanderthals, collectively referred to by paleoanthropologists as “early Homo sapiens,” but their stone tools have been found in large quantities, and therefore the lives of these ancient people can be reconstructed with a reasonable degree of probability. We need to understand their achievements and development, because the history of the Neanderthal, like any complete biography, must begin with the story of his immediate ancestors.
Although the continents in the Ice Age approximately coincided in outline and area with those of today (highlighted in the figure with black lines), they differed from them in climate and, consequently, in vegetation. At the beginning of the Würm glaciation, during the time of the Neanderthals, glaciers (blue color) began to increase and the tundra spread far to the south. Temperate forests and savannah have encroached on former warm-climate areas, including areas of the Mediterranean now covered by the sea, and tropical areas have become interspersed deserts. tropical forests.
Imagine a moment of complete joy of being 250 thousand years ago. Fast forward to where England is now. A man stands motionless on a grassy plateau, inhaling the smell of fresh meat with obvious pleasure - his comrades are using heavy stone tools with sharp edges to chop up the carcass of a newborn deer that they managed to get. His duty is to monitor whether this pleasant smell will attract any predator, dangerous to them, or simply someone who likes to make money at someone else’s expense. Although the plateau seems deserted, the watchman does not relax his vigilance for a moment: what if a lion is hiding somewhere in the grass or a bear is watching them from a nearby forest? But consciousness possible danger only helps him to more acutely perceive what he sees and hears in this corner of the fertile land where his group lives.
The gentle hills stretching to the horizon are overgrown with oaks and elms, dressed in young foliage. Spring, which recently replaced a mild winter, brought with it such warmth to England that the watchman would not feel cold even without clothes. He can hear the roar of hippos celebrating their mating season in the river; its banks covered with willows can be seen about a kilometer and a half from the hunting site. He hears the cracking of a dry branch. Bear? Or maybe a rhinoceros or a heavy elephant is grazing among the trees?
This man, who stands illuminated by the sun, holding a thin wooden claw in his hand, does not seem so strong, although his height is 165 centimeters, his muscles are well developed and it is immediately noticeable that he should run well. When you look at his head, you might think that he is not particularly intelligent: his face is pushed forward, his forehead is sloping, his skull is low, as if flattened from the sides. However, it has a larger brain than its predecessor, Homo erectus, who carried the torch of human evolution through more than a million years. As a matter of fact, in terms of brain volume, this person is already approaching the modern one, and therefore we can consider that he is a very early representative of the modern species Homo sapiens.
This hunter belongs to a group of thirty people. Their territory is so large that it takes several days to traverse it from end to end, but such a huge area is just enough for them to safely obtain meat all year round without causing irreparable damage to the populations of herbivores living here. Near the borders of their territory other small groups of people roam, whose speech is similar to the speech of our hunter - all these groups are closely related, since men of some groups often take wives from others. Beyond the territories of neighboring groups live other groups - almost unrelated, whose speech is incomprehensible, and even further away they live who are not known at all. The earth and the role that man had to play on it were much greater than our hunter could have imagined.
Two hundred and fifty thousand years ago, the number of people in the whole world probably did not reach 10 million - that is, they would all fit in one modern Tokyo. But this figure only looks unimpressive - humanity occupied a much larger part of the Earth's surface than any other species, taken separately. This hunter lived on the northwestern edge of the human range. To the east, where a wide valley stretched beyond the horizon, which today has become the English Channel separating England from France, groups of five to ten families also roamed. Even further east and south, similar hunter-gatherer groups lived throughout Europe.
In those days, Europe was covered with forests with many wide grassy glades, and the climate was so warm that buffalos thrived even north of the present Rhine, and in the tropical rainforests along the banks Mediterranean Sea monkeys frolicked. Asia was not so hospitable everywhere, and people avoided its interior regions because the winters there were harsh and the scorching heat dried up the land in the summer. However, they lived throughout the southern edge of Asia from the Middle East to Java and north all the way to Central China. Africa was probably the densest place to be populated. It is possible that more people lived there than in the rest of the world.
The places that these diverse groups chose to live give a good idea of their way of life. Almost always this is an open, grassy area or copses. This preference can be explained very simply: huge herds of animals grazed there, the meat of which constituted the main part of the human diet of those times. Where there were no gregarious herbivores, there were no people. Deserts remained uninhabited, wet rainforests and the dense coniferous forests of the north, which in general occupied a very fair part of the earth's surface. In the northern and southern forests, it is true, there were some herbivores, but they grazed alone or in very small groups - due to limited food and the difficulty of moving among closely growing trees, it was not profitable for them to gather in herds. It was so difficult for people at that stage of their development to find and kill single animals that they simply could not exist in such places.
Another habitat unsuitable for humans was the tundra. It was easy to get meat there: huge herds of reindeer, bison and other large animals that served as easy prey found abundant food in the tundra - mosses, lichens, all kinds of herbs, low bushes, and there were almost no trees that would interfere with grazing. However, people had not yet learned to protect themselves from the cold prevailing in these areas, and therefore the early homo sapiens continued to live in the areas that previously fed his ancestor, Homo erectus - in the savanna, in tropical woodlands, in the steppes and sparse deciduous forests of the middle latitudes.
It is amazing how much anthropologists have been able to learn about the world of early Homo sapiens, despite the hundreds of thousands of years that have passed since then and the paucity of material found. Much of what played a vital role in the lives of early people disappears quickly and without a trace. Food supplies, skins, sinews, wood, plant fibers and even bones crumble into dust very quickly, unless a rare coincidence of circumstances prevents this. And those few remains of objects made of organic material that have reached us tease curiosity more than satisfy it. For example, here is a sharpened piece of yew wood found in Clacton in England - its age is estimated at 300 thousand years, and it was preserved because it fell into a swamp. Perhaps this is a fragment of a spear, since its tip was burnt and became so hard that it could pierce the skins of animals. But it is possible that this pointed, hard piece of wood was used for completely different purposes: to dig up edible roots, say.
Nevertheless, even such objects of unclear purpose are often amenable to interpretation. As for the yew fragment, logic helps. Without any doubt, people used both spears and sticks for digging long before this tool was made. However, it is more likely that the person spent time and effort to burn the spear rather than the digging tool. In the same way, we have every reason to believe that people who lived in areas with a temperate climate many hundreds of thousands of years ago wrapped themselves in something, although their clothing - without any doubt, animal skins - has not been preserved. It is equally certain that they built some kind of shelter for themselves - in fact, post holes discovered during excavations of an ancient site on the French Riviera prove that people knew how to build primitive huts from branches and animal skins even in the times of Homo erectus.
However, science has some other materials that help us look into the past. The geological deposits of any given period reveal quite a lot about the climate of that time, including temperature and precipitation. By studying the pollen found in such deposits under a microscope, it is possible to determine exactly which trees, herbaceous or other plants were then dominant. The most important thing for the study of prehistoric eras are stone tools, which are practically eternal. Wherever early people lived, they left stone tools, often in huge quantities. In one Lebanese cave, where people lived for 50 thousand years, over a million processed flints were found.
Stone tools
As a source of information about ancient people, stone tools are somewhat one-sided. They say nothing about many of the most interesting aspects of their lives - family relationships, group organization, what people said and thought, what they looked like. In a certain sense, an archaeologist who makes a trench through geological layers is in the position of a man who, on the Moon, would catch transmissions from earthly radio stations, having only a weak receiver: of the host of signals sent into the air throughout the Earth, only one would sound clear and clear in his receiver. clearly - in this case, stone tools. Nevertheless, you can learn a lot from the broadcasts of one station. Firstly, the archaeologist knows that where the tools are found, people once lived. Comparing tools found in different places, but dating back to the same time, can reveal cultural contacts between ancient populations. And comparing tools from layer to layer makes it possible to trace the development of material culture and the level of intelligence of the ancient people who once created them.
Stone tools show that people who lived 250 thousand years ago, although their intelligence deserved the name “reasonable,” still retained much in common with their less developed ancestors, who belonged to the species Homo erectus. Their tools followed a type that had developed hundreds of thousands of years before their appearance. This type is called “Acheulean” after the French town of Saint-Acheuleur near Amiens, where such tools were first found. For the Acheulean culture, a typical tool called a hand ax is relatively flat, oval or pear-shaped, with two working edges along the entire 12-15 cm length (see pp. 42-43). This tool could be used for a variety of purposes - to punch holes in hides, butcher prey, chop or strip branches, and the like. It is possible that the axes were driven into wooden clubs to form a composite tool - something like a modern ax or cleaver, but it is more likely that they were simply held in the hand (perhaps the blunt end was wrapped in a piece of skin to protect the palm).
In addition to a hand ax with two working edges, stone plates were used, which were sometimes serrated. With their help, more delicate operations were performed when cutting a carcass or processing wood. Some groups of ancient people clearly preferred such plates to large axes, while others added heavy cutters to their stone tools for cutting the joints of large animals. However, in all corners of the world people followed mainly the principles of the Acheulean culture, and only Far East a more primitive type of tool with one working edge was used.
Although this general uniformity indicates a paucity of ingenuity, nevertheless the chopper was gradually improved. When people learned to process flint and quartz not only with hard stone chippers, but also with softer ones - from bone, wood or deer antlers, they were able to create handaxes with smoother and sharper working edges (see page 78). In the harsh world of early humans, the improved working edge of the utility ax provided many advantages.
In the cultural layers left by early Homo sapiens, there are other stone tools that indicate developing intelligence and a willingness to experiment. Around that era, some particularly smart hunters discovered a fundamentally new method for making flake tools. Instead of simply pounding on a flint nodule, beating flakes at random, which inevitably involved wasted effort and material, they gradually developed a very complex and efficient production process. First, the nodule was beaten along the edge and on top, obtaining the so-called “nucleus” (core). Then a precise blow to a certain place in the core - and a flake of predetermined size and shape with long and sharp working edges flies off. This method of stone processing, called Levallois (see page 56), speaks of an amazing ability to assess the potential capabilities of the stone, since the tool visibly appears only at the very end of the process of its manufacture.
The hand ax took on the desired shape slowly but surely, and when using the Levallois method, the flake flew off from the flint core, which did not at all resemble any kind of tool, completely ready, like a butterfly leaving the shell of a pupa that outwardly has nothing in common with it . The Levallois method appears to have originated about 200,000 years ago in southern Africa and spread from there, although it may have been independently discovered elsewhere.
If we compare all these various data - tools, a few fossils, a piece of organic material, as well as pollen and geological indications of the then climate - the people of that ancient time acquire visible features. They had tightly built, almost modern-looking bodies, but ape-like faces, although the brain was only slightly smaller in size than the present one. They were excellent hunters and knew how to adapt to any living conditions and climate, except the most severe. In their culture, they followed the traditions of the past, but little by little they found ways to a stronger and more reliable power over nature.
Their world was generally quite welcoming. However, it was destined to suddenly change (suddenly - in the geological sense), and the living conditions in it became so difficult that people, perhaps, have not known either before or since. However, Homo sapiens managed to hold out throughout all the cataclysms, and the test clearly benefited him - he acquired many new skills, his behavior became more flexible, and his intellect developed.
Ris Glaciation 200 thousand years
About 200 thousand years ago, cooling began. Glades and lawns in the deciduous forests of Europe imperceptibly became more and more expansive, tropical rainforests on the Mediterranean coast dried up, and pine and spruce forests in eastern Europe slowly gave way to steppes. Perhaps the oldest members of European groups recalled with fear in their voices that before the wind had never frozen the body and snow had never fallen from the sky. But since they had always led a nomadic life, it was natural for them now to move to where the herds of herbivores went. Groups that had previously had little need for fire, clothing, or artificial shelter now learned how to protect themselves from the cold from more northern groups who had acquired this skill since the time of Homo erectus.
All over the world, so much snow began to fall in the mountains that it did not have time to melt during the summer. Year after year, snow accumulated, filling deep gorges and compacting into ice. The weight of this ice was so great that its lower layers acquired the properties of thick putty, and under the pressure of growing snow layers it began to crawl down the gorges. Slowly moving along the mountain slopes, giant fingers of ice tore out huge blocks of stone from them, which then, like sandpaper, were used to clean the soil down to the bedrock. In summer, stormy streams of meltwater carried fine sand and stone dust far ahead, then the wind picked them up, tossed them into colossal yellow-brown clouds and carried them across all continents. And the snow kept falling and falling, so that in some places the ice fields were already thick. two kilometers, buried entire mountain ranges under them and with their weight forced the earth’s crust to bend. At the time of their greatest advance, glaciers covered more than 30% of all land (now they occupy only 10%). Europe was especially hard hit. The surrounding ocean and seas served as an inexhaustible source of evaporating moisture, which, turning into snow, fed the glaciers that slid from the Alps and Scandinavian mountains onto the plains of the continent and covered tens of thousands of square kilometers.
This glaciation; known as rice , turned out to be one of the most severe climatic traumas that the Earth has ever suffered in the five billion years of its history. Although cold snaps had occurred before, in the days of Homo erectus, the Ris glaciation was the first test of Homo sapiens' resilience. He had to endure 75 thousand years of severe cold, interspersed with slight warmings, before the Earth regained a warm climate for a relatively long period of time.
Many experts believe that a necessary precondition for the appearance of glaciers is the slow emergence of plateaus and mountain ranges. It is calculated that one era of mountain building raised the Earth's land mass by an average of more than 450 meters. Such an increase in altitude would inevitably lower the surface temperature by an average of three degrees, and in the highest places perhaps much more. The decrease in temperature undoubtedly increased the likelihood of glaciers forming, but this does not explain the alternation of cold and warm periods.
Various hypotheses have been proposed to explain these fluctuations in the Earth's climate. According to one theory, volcanoes from time to time emitted colossal amounts of fine dust into the atmosphere, which reflected some sun rays. Scientists have indeed observed a drop in temperature around the world during large eruptions, but the cooling is small and lasts no longer than 15 years, making it unlikely that volcanoes provided the impetus for glaciation. However, other types of dust may have a more significant impact. Some astronomers believe that clouds of cosmic dust may pass between the Sun and the Earth from time to time, shielding the Earth from the Sun for a very long time. But since such clouds of cosmic dust have not been observed within the Solar System, this hypothesis remains just a curious conjecture.
Ice Ages Explained
Another astronomical explanation for ice ages seems more likely. Fluctuations in the angle of our planet's rotation axis and its orbit change the amount of solar heat received by the Earth, and calculations show that these changes should have caused four long periods of cooling over the past three-quarters of a million years. No one knows whether such a drop in temperature could have caused glaciations, but it undoubtedly contributed to them. And finally, it is possible that the Sun itself played some role in the appearance of glaciers. The amount of heat and light emitted by the Sun varies over a cycle that lasts an average of 11 years. The radiation increases when the number of sunspots and giant prominences on the surface of the star increases noticeably, and decreases slightly when these solar storms subside a little. Then everything repeats again. According to some astronomers, solar radiation may have another, very long cycle, similar to the short cycle of sunspots.
But whatever the cause, the impact of climate change has been enormous. During periods of cooling, the global wind system was disrupted. Precipitation has decreased in some places and increased in others. Vegetation patterns changed, and many animal species either became extinct or evolved into new, cold-adapted forms, such as the cave bear or woolly rhinoceros (see pp. 34-35).
During the particularly severe phases of the Rissian Glaciation, the climate of England, where early Homo sapiens had enjoyed warmth and sunshine, became so cold that summer temperatures often dropped below zero. Deciduous forests in the interior and western Europe gave way to tundra and steppe. And even far to the south, on the Mediterranean coast, the trees gradually disappeared, replaced by meadows.
What happened to Africa during this era is not so clear. In some places, the cooling appears to have been accompanied by heavier rainfall, turning the formerly barren areas of the Sahara and Kalahari Desert green with grass and overgrown with trees. At the same time, changes in the global wind system led to the drying out of the Congo Basin, where dense rain forests began to give way to open forests and grassy savanna. Thus, while Europe became less habitable, Africa became increasingly hospitable, and people were able to spread over large parts of this continent.
During the era of the Rissian glaciation, people, in addition, received a lot of new land at their disposal due to the decrease in the level of the World Ocean. So much water was trapped in the giant ice sheets that the level dropped by 150 meters and exposed vast expanses of the continental shelf - an underwater continuation of the continents, which stretches in some places for many hundreds of kilometers, and then drops steeply down to the ocean floor. This is how primitive hunters got millions of square kilometers of new land and they undoubtedly took advantage of this gift from the Ice Age. Each year, their groups penetrated further into the expanses of the newborn land, and, perhaps, set up camps near thundering waterfalls - where rivers fell from the continental shelf into the ocean, wavering far below, at the foot of the cliff.
During the 75 thousand years of the Ris glaciation, the inhabitants of the northern latitudes had to overcome difficulties unknown to early Homo sapiens, who was spoiled by a mild climate, and it is possible that these difficulties had a stimulating effect on the development of human intelligence. Some experts believe that the huge leap in mental development that had already occurred during the era of Homo erectus was explained by the migration of man from the tropics to a temperate climate zone, where much greater ingenuity and behavioral flexibility were required for survival. The first upright settlers learned to use fire, invented clothing and shelter, and adapted to complex seasonal changes by hunting and gathering plant foods. The Ris glaciation, which caused such profound environmental changes, should have become the same test for intelligence, and perhaps even spurred its development in the same way.
Early Homo sapiens maintained his foothold in Europe even in the most difficult times. Stone tools serve as indirect evidence of his continuous presence there, but human fossils that would confirm this could not be found for a long time. It was only in 1971 that two French archaeologists, the spouses Henri and Marie-Antoinette Lumlet (University of Marseille), found evidence that 200 thousand years ago, at the beginning of the Ris glaciation, at least one European group of Homo sapiens was still kept in a cave in the foothills of the Pyrenees . In addition to a large number of tools (mostly flakes), the Lumle couple found a broken skull young man about twenty years old. This hunter had a forward face, a massive supraorbital ridge and a sloping forehead, and the size of the cranium was somewhat smaller than the average modern one. The two lower jaws found there are massive and, apparently, were perfectly adapted for chewing rough food. The skull and jaws are quite similar to the fragments from Swanscombe and Steinheim and give a fairly good idea of a people occupying an intermediate position between Homo erectus and Neanderthal.
Sitting at the entrance to their vast cave, these people surveyed the area, rather bleak in appearance, but rich in game. Along the banks of the river at the bottom of the ravine right under the cave, in thickets of willows and various bushes, leopards lay in wait for wild horses, goats, bulls and other animals coming to drink. Beyond the ravine, the steppe stretched to the very horizon, and not a single tree blocked the hunters’ view of the herds of elephants, reindeer and rhinoceroses, leisurely wandering under the leaden skies. These large animals, as well as rabbits and other rodents, provided abundant meat for the hunting party. And yet life was very difficult. In order to go outside under the blows of the icy wind carrying sand and prickly dust, great physical training and courage were required. And soon, apparently, it got even worse, and people were forced to go in search of more hospitable places, as indicated by the absence of tools in the later layers. Judging by some data, the climate became truly arctic for some time.
More recently, the Lumle couple made another sensational discovery in the south of France, in Lazare - they found the remains of shelters built inside a cave. These primitive shelters, dating back to the last third of the Ris glaciation (about 150 thousand years ago), were something like tents - apparently, animal skins were stretched over a frame of poles and pressed down around the perimeter with stones (see page 73). Perhaps hunters, from time to time settling in a cave, built such tents to hide from the water dripping from the vaults, or families were looking for some privacy. But the climate also played an important role here - all the tents stood with their backs to the entrance to the cave, from which we can conclude that even in this area, near the Mediterranean Sea, strong cold winds blew.
The cave at Lazarb, in addition, contained further evidence of the increasing complexity and versatility of human behavior. In each tent near the entrance, the Lumle couple found a wolf skull. The identical position of these skulls indicates beyond any doubt that they were not thrown there like unnecessary garbage: they undoubtedly meant something. But what exactly remains a mystery for now. One possible explanation is that hunters, when migrating to other places, left wolf skulls at the entrance to their homes as their magical guardians.
Approximately 125 thousand years ago, the long climatic cataclysms of the Ris glaciation came to naught and a new warm period began. It was supposed to last about 50 thousand years. Glaciers retreated to their mountain strongholds, sea levels rose, and northern regions around the world once again became fully suitable for human habitation. Several curious fossils date back to this period, confirming the continuous approach of Homo sapiens to more modern form. In a cave near the town of Fonteschevad in southwestern France, skull fragments were found that are approximately 110,000 years old and appear more modern than the skull of Rissian man from the Pyrenees.
By the time the first half of the warming that followed the Ris glaciation had passed, that is, about 100 thousand years ago, the true Neanderthal appeared and the transition period to him from early Homo sapiens was completed. There are at least two fossils that provide evidence for the emergence of a Neanderthal man: one from a quarry near the German town of Eringsdorf, and the other from a sand quarry on the banks of the Italian Tiber River. These European Neanderthals gradually evolved from the genetic lineage that gave rise first to Iberian man and later to the more modern Fontesevada man. Neanderthals were not very different from their immediate predecessors. The human jaw was still massive and lacking a chin protrusion, the face protruded forward, the skull still remained low and the forehead sloping. However, the volume of the cranium has already fully reached modern levels. When anthropologists to describe a certain evo; Judicial stage they use the term “Neanderthal”, they mean the type of person, region. giving a brain of modern size, but placed in a skull of an ancient shape - long, low, with round facial bones.
Neanderthal brain
It's not easy to rate this brain. Some theorists believe that its size does not mean that intellectual development Neanderthals reached modern levels. Based on the fact that brain size usually increases with increasing body weight, they make the following assumption: if Neanderthals were several kilograms heavier than early representatives of the species Homo sapiens, this already sufficiently explains the increase in the cranium, especially since ultimately we're talking about only about a few hundred cubic centimeters. In other words, Neanderthals were not necessarily smarter than their predecessors, but simply taller and more powerfully built. But this argument seems dubious - most evolutionists believe that there is a direct relationship between brain size and intelligence. Undoubtedly, this dependence is not easy to define. Measuring intelligence by brain size is to some extent the same as trying to evaluate the capabilities of an electronic computer by weighing it.
If we interpret the doubts in favor of Neanderthals and recognize them - based on the volume of the skull - as equal in natural intelligence to modern man, then a new problem arises. Why did brain growth stop 100 thousand years ago, although intelligence has such great and obvious value for humans? Why didn't the brain continue to get bigger and presumably better?
Biologist Ernst Mayr (Harvard University) offered an answer to this question. He thinks that before the Neanderthal stage of evolution, intelligence developed with amazing speed because the smartest men became the leaders of their groups and had several wives. More wives - more children. As a result, subsequent generations received a disproportionately large share of the genes of the most developed individuals. Mayr believes that this accelerated process The growth of intelligence stopped about 100 thousand years ago, when the number of hunting-gathering groups increased so much that fatherhood ceased to be the privilege of the most intelligent individuals. In other words, their genetic heritage - particularly developed intelligence - was not the main, but only a small part of the overall genetic heritage of the entire group, and therefore was not of decisive importance.
Anthropologist Loring Brace (University of Michigan) prefers a different explanation. In his opinion, human culture in Neanderthal times reached a stage where almost all members of the group, having absorbed collective experience and skills, received an approximately equal chance of survival. If speech was already sufficiently developed (an assumption disputed by some experts) and if intelligence had reached such a level that the least able member of the group could learn everything necessary to survive, exceptional intelligence ceased to be an evolutionary advantage. Individuals, of course, were particularly inventive, but their ideas were communicated to others, and the entire group benefited from their innovations. Thus, according to Brace's theory, the natural intelligence of humanity as a whole stabilized, although people continued to accumulate new knowledge about the world around them.
Both of the above hypotheses are highly speculative, and most anthropologists prefer a more concrete approach. In their opinion, the potential of the Neanderthal brain can only be assessed by establishing how these early people coped with the difficulties that surrounded them. Such scientists focus all their attention on the techniques of stone tool processing - the only clear signal coming from the depths of time - and everywhere they notice signs of growing intelligence. The ancient Acheulean tradition of hand axing continues, but becomes more diverse. Double-sided handaxes now come in a variety of sizes and shapes, and are often crafted so symmetrically and carefully that it seems as if their creators were driven by aesthetic motives. When a man made a small ax to trim the points of spears, or made notches on a flake to strip the bark from a thin trunk that was to become a spear, he carefully shaped these tools to best suit their purpose.
The primacy in updating methods of tool processing apparently belongs to Europe. Because it is surrounded on three sides by seas, early Homo sapiens did not have an easy escape route to warmer areas when the Risian glaciation began, and even Neanderthals sometimes found themselves cut off from the rest of the world for periods of time when, during the warm period that followed the Risian glaciation, suddenly there was a cold snap. Dramatic changes in the surrounding world naturally gave impetus to the ingenuity of the inhabitants of Europe, while the inhabitants of Africa and Asia, where the climate remained more even, were deprived of such an incentive.
About 75 thousand years ago, Neanderthal man received a particularly strong push - the glaciers again went on the offensive. The climate of this last ice age, which was called the Würm period, was at first relatively mild: the winters simply became snowy, and the summers remained cool and rainy. Nevertheless, forests began to disappear again - and throughout Europe, right up to the north of France, they were replaced by tundra or forest-tundra, where open spaces overgrown with moss and lichen were interspersed with clumps of stunted trees.
In previous ice ages, groups of early Homo sapiens usually left such inhospitable regions. But the Neanderthals did not leave them - at least in the summer - and obtained meat by following the herds of reindeer, woolly rhinoceroses and mammoths. They were probably first-class hunters, since it was impossible to survive for a long time only on the meager plant food that the tundra provided. Without a doubt, death reaped a bountiful harvest in these northern outposts of humanity, the groups being small and perhaps easily falling prey to various diseases. Far from the harsh border of the glaciers, the number of groups was noticeably higher.
The tenacity with which the Neanderthals held on to the north, and the prosperity of those who lived in areas with a milder climate, were explained, at least in part, by a shift in the art of stone processing that occurred at the beginning of the Würm glaciation.
Nuclei and flakes
Neanderthals invented a new method of making tools, thanks to which a variety of tools made from flakes won a final victory over simple chipped stones. Beautiful tools from flakes had long been made using the Levallois method - two or three ready-made flakes were cut from a pre-processed core, and in some places this method was preserved for a long time. However, the new method was much more productive: many Neanderthals now hammered a stone nodule, turning it into a disc-shaped core, and then hit the edge with a hammer, directing the blow towards the center, and chipped off flake after flake until almost nothing remained of the core. Finally, the working edges of the flakes were adjusted so that wood could be processed, carcasses could be dressed, and hides could be cut.
The main advantage of this new method was that many flakes could be obtained from one disc-shaped core without much effort. With the help of further processing, the so-called retouch, it was not difficult for flakes to be given the desired shape or edge, and therefore disc-shaped cores open a significant era of specialized tools. Neanderthal stone inventories are much more diverse than those of their predecessors. French archaeologist François Bordes, one of the leading experts on Neanderthal stone working, lists more than 60 different types of tools designed for cutting, scraping, piercing and gouging. No one group of Neanderthals had all of these tools, but nevertheless, the inventory of each of them included a large number of highly specialized tools - jagged plates, stone knives with one blunt edge to make it easier to press on it, and many others. It is possible that some sharpened flakes served as spear tips - they were either pinched at the end of a spear, or tied to it with narrow strips of leather. With such a set of tools, people could receive much more benefits from nature than before.
Mousterians
Throughout the north of the Sahara and east to China, such retouched tools become predominant. All tools made in this vast area are called Mousterian (after the name of the French cave Le Moustier, where flake tools were first found in the 60s of the 19th century). Two distinct new types emerge from sub-Saharan Africa. One, called "Forsmith", is a further development of the Acheulean tradition, including small handaxes, various scrapers and narrow knives made from flakes. Forsmith tools were made by people who lived in the same open grassy plains that the ancient Acheulian hunters favored. The second new type, the Sangoan, was characterized by a special long, narrow and heavy tool, a kind of combination of machete and piercing tool, as well as axes and small scrapers. This type, like the Mousterian, marked a decisive departure from the Acheulean tradition. Although Sangoan tools are rather crude in appearance, they were convenient for cutting and processing wood.
During the period from 75 to 40 thousand years BC, Neanderthals managed to establish themselves in many areas that were inaccessible to their ancestors. European Neanderthals were not afraid of the advance of the tundra and mastered it. Some of their African relatives, armed with Sangoan weapons, invaded the forests of the Congo Basin, cutting paths through the lush thickets, which, with the return of the rainy seasons, again replaced the grasslands. Other Neanderthals spread across the vast plains of the west Soviet Union or they crossed the mighty mountain ranges of southern Asia and, entering the very heart of this continent, opened it to human habitation. And some other Neanderthals, finding paths where bodies of water were located not too far from each other, penetrated into areas almost as dry as real deserts.
These conquests of new regions were not migrations in the strict sense of the word. Not even the most enterprising group could have come up with the suicidal idea of packing up their meager possessions and going one and a half hundred kilometers to places unknown to any of its members. In reality, this dispersal was a process that anthropologists call budding. Several people separated from the group and settled in the neighborhood, where they had their own food sources. If everything went well, the size of their group gradually increased and after two or three generations they moved to an even more remote area.
Now the main thing is specialization. The Northern Mousterians were the best clothing designers in the world at that time, as evidenced by the numerous scrapers and end scrapers left from them, which could have been used for tanning hides. The Sangoans probably became sophisticated experts in the forest and may have learned to make traps, since the four-legged inhabitants of the dense thickets did not roam in herds, like savannah animals, and were much more difficult to track. In addition, people began to specialize in certain game - a marked improvement over the "catch what you catch" principle that had been the basis of hunting since time immemorial. Evidence of such specialization can be found in one of the European inventories, which was called the denticulated Mousterian type because it is characterized by flakes with jagged edges. Serrated Mousterian tools are always found in close proximity to the bones of wild horses. Apparently, those who made them were so skilled at hunting wild horses that they were not interested in other herbivores grazing nearby, but concentrated all their efforts on game, the meat of which they especially liked.
Where there were no certain necessary materials, Neanderthals overcame this difficulty by looking for replacements. On the treeless plains of central Europe, they began experimenting with bone tools to replace the corresponding wooden implements. In many areas there was also a shortage of water, and people could not go far from streams, rivers, lakes or springs. However, Neanderthals penetrated very dry areas using water storage vessels - not clay, but made from eggshells. Recently, ostrich egg shells were found along with Mousterian tools in the sun-baked Negev Desert of the Middle East. These eggs, carefully opened, turned into excellent flasks - after filling them with water, the group could calmly set off on a long journey through the dry hills.
Abundance itself Mousterian guns - is already sufficient proof that Neanderthals far surpassed their predecessors in the ability to take from nature everything they needed for life. They undoubtedly greatly expanded man's domain. The conquest of new territories during the time of the Neanderthals took people far beyond the limits to which Homo erectus was limited when, hundreds of thousands of years earlier, he began to spread from the tropics to the mid-latitudes.
However, the failures of the Neanderthals also speak volumes. They did not penetrate into the depths of the tropical rainforests, and, probably, the dense forests of the north also remained practically inaccessible to them. The settlement of these areas required such an organization of the group, such tools and devices, the creation of which was not yet possible for them.
Well, what about the New World? Theoretically, at the beginning of the Würm glaciation, access to the incredible riches of both Americas was open to them. Glaciers again captured the water, and the level of the World Ocean dropped. As a result, a wide, flat isthmus connected Siberia with Alaska, where the familiar tundra, teeming with large game, spread widely. The road from Alaska to the south was at times intercepted by glaciers in western Canada and the Rocky Mountains. Nevertheless, there were millennia when the passage was open. However, getting to the isthmus was very difficult. Eastern Siberia is a mountainous region crossed by several ridges. Even today the climate there is very harsh and winter temperatures reaching record lows. And during the Würm glaciation, it could not help but be even worse.
Apparently, separate brave groups of Neanderthals established themselves in the south of Siberia, where then, in place of the present dense taiga, grass-covered plains stretched, in some places turning into forest-tundra. Looking north and east, these Neanderthals saw endless hills stretching into the unknown. There was a lot of meat there - horses, bison, shaggy mammoths with huge curved tusks, which are so convenient for breaking through the snow crust in order to get to the plants hidden underneath. The temptation to follow the herds there was probably very great. And if the hunters knew that somewhere beyond the horizon lies an isthmus leading to the land of unafraid game, they would probably go there. After all, these were undoubtedly people of the timid ten. Strongly built, hardened by the constant struggle for existence, long accustomed to the possibility of premature death, they were created for daring. But they instinctively knew that they had already entered the grounds of death itself - one brutal winter storm and it would all be over for them. So the Neanderthals never reached America. The New World was destined to remain deserted until man acquired more effective weapons, learned to dress better, and build warmer dwellings.
From the height of modern knowledge, it is very tempting to criticize the Neanderthals for missing such a wonderful opportunity, for not reaching Australia, for retreating to the dense jungle and wilds of coniferous forests. And in many other respects they cannot compare with the people who came after them. Neanderthals never realized the potential of bone as a material for tools, and the art of sewing, which required bone needles, remained unknown to them. They did not know how to weave baskets or make clay vessels, and their stone tools were inferior to the stone tools of those who lived after them. But there is another way to look at Neanderthals. If a hunter who lived in warm England 250 thousand years ago suddenly found himself at a Neanderthal site in ice-bound Europe during the Würm glaciation, he would undoubtedly be amazed and delighted by what his species, the species of Homo sapiens, managed to achieve. He would see people living well in conditions in which he would not last even a few days.
Determining time using the protein clock of an ancient skeleton
To determine the age of a bone, a piece of it is dissolved in hydrochloric acid and the solution is passed through substances that bind amino acids. The acids are then washed out and mixed with a “carrier,” which allows the dextrorotatory molecules to be further separated from the levorotatory ones.
To determine the age of objects found in the earth, archaeologists use methods that are ultimately based on the characteristics of “atomic clocks”, which mark the passage of time by natural and uniform changes in the structure of certain atoms - with each clock having its own changes. If the rate of these changes is known, then their number will indicate how much time has passed since they began.
Simple - but not so simple either, if we talk about Neanderthals. After all, commonly used atomic clocks measure the time between the present day and some point about 40 thousand years ago, or between some point about 500 thousand years ago and the emergence of the Earth. Between these two measurable lengths of time there is a gap that, in particular, accommodates the era of the Neanderthals.
Only very recently have two types of clocks been improved to the point where they can keep time within the gap, helping to unravel some Neanderthal mysteries. One type of clock can date human and animal remains from the Neanderthal era, while another can date Neanderthal tools and flints.
The dating method illustrated in the photographs uses protein clocks to determine the age of ancient skeletal remains. It is based on the process of racemization that occurs within amino acids, that is, those protein building blocks that make up all living organisms. There are 20 amino acids, but they are all characterized by at least one common property - their molecular structure is “left-handed,” that is, the atoms of each molecule are arranged asymmetrically in a direction that, under the conditions of the methodology adopted for analyzing their structure, appears to be left-handed. However, when an organism dies, its amino acid molecules begin to reorient in a right direction. This slow transition into a mirror image, into “right-handed” molecules, is racemization.
In 1972-1973, organic chemist Jeffrey Beida (Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California) published calculations of the rates at which different amino acids undergo racemization at moderate temperatures - one of them mutated at such a rate that half of its molecules changed for 110 thousand years, and this completely covers the entire length of time while Neanderthal man existed on Earth, that is, from 100 to 40 thousand years ago.
Protein clocks bridge the gap in dating early humans - but only if the remains of a once-living organism are studied. These pages describe techniques for dating various types of objects, including stones that were once heated in ancient fireplaces.
Stone dating technique based on thermoluminescence - the emission of light due to the displacement of atomic particles when certain minerals are heated. High temperatures (such as in a Neanderthal fire) cause particles to move closer to the center of the atom, releasing energy in the form of light. As the rock cools, the particles move away from the center of the atom. This gradual movement from the center is what makes up the mechanism of this watch. The archaeologist, studying the stone, heats it up again. The amount of light emitted shows him how long the particles have been moving from the center and, therefore, how much time has passed since this stone was last heated in the flames of a caveman's fire.
Having found and dated a Neanderthal-era bone, scientists are studying its structure to learn what kind of life its owner led, since the arrangement of crystals inside the bone appears to depend in part on the degree of physical activity. This internal structure discovered when examining a section of bone under a microscope with polarizing filters, which arrange the planes of vibration of light waves and create color patterns, the color being determined by the arrangement of the crystals. When the bones of modern wild animals leading active lives are examined in this way, they give a dull purple color, indicating a dense structure of great strength with a random arrangement of crystals. A completely different picture is given by the bones of modern humans and domestic animals, which do not experience such great physical stress. These bones produce turquoise and yellow tones, indicating a lighter, lattice-type crystalline structure.
Ancient soil and climate in prehistoric times
The soil in which the Neanderthal bones rested can provide as much information as the bones themselves, for in its sediments it stores weather reports from Neanderthal times.
Typical in this regard are the excavations in the Mugaret et Tabun cave on the slope of Mount Carmel. Neanderthals lived there for tens of thousands of years. The lower sedimentary layer, which is 100 thousand years old, consists of fine sand (see page 67, left photo). This sand was loose, not dense - which means, geologists say, it was blown by the wind. But the grains of sand retained their irregular shape - which means that the wind was not strong and picked them up somewhere nearby, since grains of sand that fly long distances, as well as those raised by a sandstorm, roll into smooth balls. It follows from this that in those days the distance from the cave to the sea was approximately the same as it is now - about three and a half kilometers. The climate was also most likely similar to modern times and was hot and dry. The Neanderthals who lived there did not have a particular need for clothing.
However, later sedimentary layers give a completely different picture. The layers formed 50 thousand years ago and later contain little sand, but they contain traces of bone matter dissolved by water - evidence that the area was damp. Presumably, muddy plains then stretched out at the foot of Mount Carmel, and the Neanderthals, looking at this dank world, standing at the entrance to the cave, wrapped themselves in skins.
Soil taken from excavations in the Neanderthal cave of Mugaret et Tabun is prepared for laboratory analysis. A glass with a piece of sedimentary rock lying in resin is placed under a vacuum bell. When the air is pumped out, the resin saturates all the pores of the rock piece. It is then fired for several hours and, thanks to the resin, hardens enough that it can be cut and polished for examination under a microscope.
A piece of sedimentary rock from an excavation, impregnated with resin and fired, is cut into plates using a circular, water-cooled knife. Each plate, approximately 0.0008 mm thick, is ground until it is completely transparent. These thin sections are then examined under a microscope. Based on their components - for example, sand, particles of silt or clay (right) - it is often possible to determine what a given area was like in ancient times.
A rock sample from the lowest sedimentary layer in Tabun, which is 100 thousand years old, is loose and light, which means that the soil in the cave was then carried by a dry wind. Sand brought by water has sand grains of different sizes. Their irregular shape and sharp corners indicate that they were not polished by a sandstorm.
The sedimentary rock sample, which is about 50,000 years old, is intersected by a whitish band of calcium phosphate - the remains of bone, possibly from a Neanderthal buried there. The fact that inorganic substance The bones dissolved in water, indicating that in those days the climate here was much more damp.
Before examining the remains of Neanderthal man in the laboratory to gain information about the world in which he lived and his habits, archaeologists search for material for this research by excavating the cave floor - and often they have to search in vain. Anthropologist Steve Copper (Long Island University) has found a way to explore the archaeological potential of a cave without picking up a shovel.
The Kopner method, one of the electrical prospecting methods, is not new in itself. Geologists have long used it to search for minerals and groundwater. But it has not yet been used for archaeological needs.
The copper drives at least four probes into the ground and passes current through them. Wires connect the probes to a meter that shows how much resistance the current encounters at various depths. This data is then compared with meter readings obtained from testing layers of established age at other sites in the same excavation area. Layers of the same age give similar figures. In this way, Copper could quickly explore several nearby caves and, by comparing the results, identify new sites for excavation, similar to those that had already yielded rich material, or even discover places with more ancient layers.
In a limestone cave, anthropologist Steve Copper takes readings from a meter connected to probes between which current is passed. In this way, Copper measures the electrical resistance of the lower layers, which serves as an indicator of their age.
What people lived during the great glaciation? and got the best answer
Answer from Vladimir STEN[guru]
Europe was under ice. This means there are only chocks of Eskimos - as I expected!!! !this is 30 million years ago. . back then there were no people yet, just get it yourself 6. PRIMITIVE MAN IN THE ICE AGE The outstanding event of this ice age was evolution primitive man. A little to the west of India, in an area now under water, mammals suddenly appeared among the descendants of an ancient North American type of lemur that migrated to Asia, becoming the early predecessors of man. These small animals walked primarily on their hind legs and had large brains relative to their size and compared to the brains of other animals. In the seventieth generation of this type of living beings, a new, more developed group suddenly emerged. These new mammals—intermediate ancestors of humans, almost twice as tall as their ancestors and with proportionately larger brains—had barely established themselves when a third major mutation suddenly occurred: primates emerged. (At the same time, as a result of the reverse development of the intermediate predecessors of man, the great apes appeared; from that day to this, the human branch has progressed through gradual evolution, while the great apes have remained unchanged and even regressed somewhat.) 1,000 .000 years ago Urantia was recorded as an inhabited world. A mutation that occurred in a tribe of progressive primates suddenly gave rise to two primitive people- the real ancestors of humanity. In time, this event approximately coincided with the third glacial advance; Therefore, it is obvious that your ancient ancestors were born and raised in a stimulating, challenging and challenging environment. And the only surviving descendants of these Urantian aborigines - the Eskimos - still prefer to live in the harsh northern regions. Humans appeared in the Western Hemisphere only shortly before the end of the Ice Age. However, during interglacial periods they moved west around the Mediterranean Sea and soon spread throughout Europe. In the caves Western Europe Human bones can be found mixed with the remains of both tropical and arctic animals. This proves that man lived in these regions during the last eras of glacial advance and retreat.
Answer from Prince of Wales[guru]
harsh
Answer from Fedorovich[guru]
Snowmen.
Answer from Milena Strashevskaya[guru]
Are we mammoths to live during the Ice Age??
Answer from Protivostoyanie yunge[guru]
crucian carp
The Ice Age has always been a mystery. We know he could shrink entire continents to the size of frozen tundra. We know there have been eleven or so, and they seem to happen on a regular basis. We definitely know that there was an extreme amount of ice. However, there is much more to the Ice Ages than meets the eye.
By the time the last ice age arrived, evolution had already “invented” mammals. The animals that decided to breed and reproduce during the Ice Age were quite large and covered in fur. Scientists gave them the common name "megafauna" because they managed to survive the Ice Age. However, since other, less cold-resistant species could not survive it, the megafauna felt quite good.
Megafaunal herbivores are accustomed to foraging in icy environments, adapting to their surroundings in a variety of ways. For example, Ice Age rhinoceroses may have had a shovel-shaped horn for removing snow. Predators like saber-toothed tigers, short-faced bears and direwolves (yes, the wolves from Game of Thrones actually once existed) also adapted to their environment. Although times were cruel, and the prey could very well turn predator into prey, there was plenty of meat in it.
Ice Age people
Despite the relatively small sizes and little hair, Homo sapiens survived in the cold tundras of ice ages for millennia. Life was cold and difficult, but people were resourceful. For example, 15,000 years ago, Ice Age people lived in hunter-gatherer tribes, building comfortable homes from mammoth bones and making warm clothing from animal fur. When there was plenty of food, they stored it in the natural refrigerators of permafrost.
Since hunting tools at that time consisted mainly of stone knives and arrowheads, sophisticated weapons were rare. People used traps to capture and kill the huge Ice Age animals. When an animal fell into a trap, people attacked it in a group and beat it to death.
Little Ice Ages
Sometimes small ice ages occurred between large and long ones. They were not as destructive, but could still cause famine and disease due to failed harvests and other side effects.
The most recent of these small ice ages began sometime between the 12th and 14th centuries and peaked between 1500 and 1850. For hundreds of years, the northern hemisphere has had damn cold weather. In Europe, the seas regularly froze, and mountainous countries(for example, Switzerland) could only watch as the glaciers moved, destroying villages. There were years without summer, and nasty weather conditions affected every aspect of life and culture (perhaps this is why the Middle Ages seem dark to us).
Science is still trying to figure out what caused this minor ice age. Possible causes include a combination of heavy volcanic activity and a temporary decrease in solar energy from the Sun.
Warm Ice Age
Some ice ages may have been quite warm. The ground was covered with a huge amount of ice, but in fact the weather was quite pleasant.
Sometimes the events that lead to an ice age are so severe that even if the atmosphere is full of greenhouse gases (which trap heat from the sun in the atmosphere, warming the planet), ice still continues to form because if there is a thick enough layer of pollution it will reflect the sun's rays back into the atmosphere. space. Experts say this would turn the Earth into a giant Baked Alaska dessert - cold on the inside (ice on the surface) and warm on the outside (warm atmosphere).
The man whose name recalls the famous tennis player was in fact a respected scientist, one of the geniuses who defined the scientific milieu of the 19th century. He is considered one of the founding fathers of American science, although he was French.
Among many other achievements, it is thanks to Agassiz that we know at least something about the ice ages. Although this idea had been touched upon by many before, in 1837 the scientist became the first person to seriously introduce ice ages into science. His theories and publications on the ice fields that covered most of the earth were foolishly rejected when the author first presented them. Nevertheless, he did not renounce his words, and further research ultimately led to the recognition of his “crazy theories.”
It is noteworthy that his pioneering work on ice ages and glacial activity was a simple hobby. By occupation he was an ichthyologist (studying fish).
Man-made pollution prevented the next ice age
Theories that ice ages recur on a semi-regular basis, no matter what we do, often conflict with theories about global warming. While the latter are certainly authoritative, some believe that it is global warming may be useful in future fight against glaciers.
Carbon dioxide emissions caused by human activities are considered a significant part of the global warming problem. However, they have one strange side effect. According to researchers from the University of Cambridge, CO2 emissions may be able to stop the next ice age. How? Although the Earth's planetary cycle is constantly trying to initiate an ice age, it will only begin if carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are extremely low. By pumping CO2 into the atmosphere, humans may have inadvertently made ice ages temporarily unavailable.
And even if concerns about global warming (which is also very bad) force people to reduce their CO2 emissions, there is still time. We've currently sent so much carbon dioxide into the sky that an ice age won't start for at least 1,000 years.
Ice Age Plants
Predators had it relatively easy during the Ice Ages. After all, they could always eat someone else. But what did the herbivores eat?
It turns out that everything they wanted. In those days there were many plants that could survive the Ice Age. Even in the coldest times, steppe-meadow and tree-shrub areas remained, which allowed mammoths and other herbivores not to die of hunger. These pastures were full of plant species that thrive in cold, dry weather - such as spruce and pine. In warmer areas, birch and willow trees were abundant. In general, the climate at that time was very similar to Siberian. Although the plants were most likely seriously different from their modern counterparts.
All of the above does not mean that the ice ages did not destroy some of the vegetation. If a plant could not adapt to the climate, it could only migrate through seeds or disappear. Australia once had the most long lists various plants, until the glaciers destroyed a good part of them.
The Himalayas may have caused an ice age
Mountains, as a rule, are not famous for actively causing anything other than occasional collapses - they just stand there and stand there. The Himalayas may disprove this belief. They may be directly responsible for causing the Ice Age.
When the landmasses of India and Asia collided 40-50 million years ago, the collision produced massive rock ridges in mountain range Himalayas. This brought out a huge amount of “fresh” stone. Then the process of chemical erosion began, which removes significant amount carbon dioxide from the atmosphere over time. And this, in turn, could affect the planet's climate. The atmosphere "cooled" and caused an ice age.
Snowball Earth
During most ice ages, ice sheets cover only part of the world. Even a particularly severe ice age is believed to have covered only about one-third of the globe.
What is “Snowball Earth”? The so-called Snowball Earth.
Snowball Earth is chilling"grandfather" of ice ages. It's a complete freezer that literally froze every bit of the planet's surface until the Earth froze into a huge snowball floating through space. What little was able to survive the complete freeze either clung to rare places with relatively little ice or, in the case of plants, clung to places where there was enough sunlight for photosynthesis.
According to some sources, this event occurred at least once, 716 million years ago. But there could be more than one such period.
Garden of Eden
Some scientists seriously believe that that same Garden of Eden was real. They say it was in Africa and was the only reason our ancestors survived the Ice Age.
Just under 200,000 years ago, a particularly hostile Ice Age was killing off species left and right. Fortunately, a small group of early humans were able to survive the terrible cold. They came across the coast that is now South Africa. Even though ice was taking its toll all over the world, this zone remained ice-free and completely habitable. Its soil was rich in nutrients and provided plenty of food. There were many natural caves that could be used for shelter. For a young species struggling to survive, it was nothing short of paradise.
The human population of the "Garden of Eden" numbered only a few hundred individuals. This theory is supported by many experts, but it still lacks conclusive evidence, including studies that show that humans have much less genetic diversity than most other species.
How man survived the Ice Age
The last ice age ended 12,000 years ago. During the most severe period, glaciation threatened man with extinction. However, after the glacier disappeared, he not only survived, but also created a civilization.
Glaciers in the history of the Earth
The last glacial era in the history of the Earth is the Cenozoic. It began 65 million years ago and continues to this day. To modern man lucky: he lives in the interglacial period, one of the warmest periods of the planet’s life. The most severe glacial era - the Late Proterozoic - is far behind.
Despite global warming, scientists predict the onset of a new ice age. If the real one comes only after millennia, then the Little Ice Age, which is accompanied by a slight decrease in annual temperatures, could come quite soon.
The glacier became a real test for man, which forced him to invent means for his survival.
Last Ice Age
The Würm or Vistula glaciation began approximately 110,000 years ago and ended in the tenth millennium BC. The peak occurred between 26 and 20 thousand years ago, the final stage of the Stone Age, when the glacier was at its largest.
Little Ice Ages
Even after the melting of massive glaciers, history has known periods of noticeable cooling and warming, which are called climatic pessimums and optimums. Pessimums are sometimes called Little Ice Ages. In the XIV-XIX centuries, for example, the Little Ice Age began, and during the Great Migration of Nations there was an early medieval pessimum.
Hunting and meat food
There is an opinion according to which the human ancestor was more of a scavenger, since he could not spontaneously occupy a higher ecological niche. And all known tools were used to cut up the remains of animals that were taken from predators. However, the question of when and why people began to hunt is still a matter of debate.
In any case, thanks to hunting and meat food, ancient man had a large supply of energy, which allowed him to better endure the cold. The skins of killed animals were used as clothing, shoes and walls of the home, which increased the chances of survival in the harsh climate.
Upright walking
Upright walking appeared millions of years ago, and its role was much more important than in the life of a modern office worker. Having freed his hands, a person could engage in intensive housing construction, clothing production, processing of tools, production and preservation of fire. The upright ancestors of people could move freely in open areas, where their life no longer depended on collecting the fruits of tropical trees. Already millions of years ago, they moved freely over long distances and obtained food in river drains.
Upright walking played an insidious role and yet became rather an advantage: man himself came to cold regions and adapted to life in them, but at the same time could find artificial and natural shelters from the glacier.
Fire
The appearance of fire in a person’s life was more of an unpleasant surprise than a blessing. Despite this, the human ancestor first learned to “extinguish” it, and only later use it for his own purposes. The first use of fire was attested 1.5 million years ago. This made it possible to improve nutrition by preparing protein foods, as well as to remain active at night, which increased the chances of human survival in extreme conditions.
Climate
The Cenozoic Ice Age was not continuous. Every 40 thousand years, people had the right to a “respite” in the form of temporary thaws. At this time, the glacier was retreating and the climate became milder. During periods of harsh climate, natural shelters were caves or regions rich in flora and fauna. For example, the south of France and the Iberian Peninsula served as a refuge for many early cultures.
The Persian Gulf was rich in forests and grassland 20,000 years ago river valley- a truly “antediluvian” landscape. Rivers could flow here that were one and a half times larger in size than the Tigris and Euphrates. The Sahara in certain periods became a wet savannah. Last time this happened 9000 years ago. And this is confirmed by rock paintings depicting an abundance of animals.
Fauna
Huge glacial mammals, such as the woolly rhinoceros and mammoth, became an important source of food for ancient people. Hunting such large animals required a lot of coordination and brought people together noticeably. The effectiveness of “teamwork” has proven itself more than once in the construction of parking lots and the manufacture of clothing.
Language and communication
Language was perhaps the main life hack ancient man. It was thanks to speech that important technologies for processing tools, making and maintaining fire, as well as various human adaptations for survival were preserved and passed on from generation to generation. Hypothetically, in Paleolithic language it was possible to discuss the details of hunting large animals and the direction of migration.
Allörd warming
Scientists are still arguing whether the extinction of mammoths was the work of man or caused by natural causes - the Allerd warming and the disappearance of food plants. When mammoths were exterminated, people in harsh conditions faced death from lack of food. There are known cases of the death of entire cultures simultaneously with the extinction of mammoths (for example, the Clovis culture in North America). However, warming became an important factor in the migration of people to regions whose climate became suitable for the emergence of agriculture.
Elements of spiritual culture were already found in communities of Pithecanthropus (Homo erectus), but Neanderthals had a fully developed spiritual culture. The beginnings of religion, magic, healing, sculpture, painting, dances and songs, musical instruments, spiritualization of nature were characteristic of the Cro-Magnons. Burying the corpses of dead and fallen comrades distinguishes humans from animals. Grief for the deceased speaks of the strength of people’s attachment to each other, of friendship and love. In the burials of ancient people, tools, jewelry, and bones of killed animals are found. Consequently, already in that distant time our ancestors believed in afterlife and equipped their dead for this life. All these questions are well covered in the literature and I will not dwell on them.
The number of people and population density are closely related to the type of culture and the method of food production. The area of territory that is needed to feed three people who obtain their food in different ways is different. For hunter-gatherers, a family of 3 requires at least 10 square meters. km, for farmers who do not use irrigation - approximately 0.5 sq. km, and for farmers using irrigation - 0.1 sq. km. Consequently, with the transition from hunting and gathering to irrigated agriculture, the population must have increased by about 100 times. This is a very important factor that anthropologists clearly do not take into account enough. All ancient technologically advanced civilizations were created by farmers.
However, it should be noted that agricultural civilizations are more vulnerable to sudden climate changes. When the climate dried out, the civilizations of farmers either died or were transformed into the civilizations of nomadic pastoralists. Some may have returned to hunting and gathering again.
The future of humanity
From a group of primates poorly protected from environmental influences, evolution selected our fertile species, which has a unique ability to reproduce, migrate and transform our planet.
Will the evolution of man as a biological being continue? Nowadays, many say: “No. Cultural evolution protected us from biological overloads that eliminated weak, slow and poorly thinking individuals. Now the use of cars, computers, clothing, glasses and modern medicine have devalued the previous, inherited advantages associated with a powerful physique, intellectual abilities, pigmentation, visual acuity and resistance to diseases such as, say, malaria. In every society there is a high percentage of physically weak or ill-built people, as well as people with weak eyesight or skin color and weak resistance to diseases that are not suitable for the climatic conditions of the area in which they live. Physically imperfect people, who 100 years ago would have died in childhood, now survive and give birth, passing on their genetic defects to future generations.
Migration also contributed to the suspension of human evolution. Nowadays, not a single group of the Earth’s population lives in sufficient isolation. long time, necessary for its transformation into a new species, as happened in the Pleistocene era. And racial differences will be smoothed out as the number of mixed marriages between representatives of the peoples of Europe, Africa, America, India and China increases." Yes, this gloomy scenario for the future of humanity is quite real. Human extinction as biological species seems more likely than its further evolution.
However, the development of technology can lead to the emergence of some hybrids - people and mechanisms. Even now, teeth are being safely replaced, and, if necessary, artificial kidneys and an artificial heart are being inserted into the human body. Prosthetic arms and legs are controlled by brain signals. Connecting the human brain to a powerful computer or the Internet can create a monster whose actions are incomprehensible and unpredictable. Hybrids of people and mechanisms (robot people) may well explore other worlds and penetrate into the depths of space. This is the second scenario for the development of humanity and the evolution of creature-mechanisms.
A third scenario is also possible. By the way, it seems to me the most likely. The world's rapidly increasing population is dependent on increased food and energy production. But both require excessive exploitation natural resources of our planet. Increased tillage leads to soil erosion, which reduces fertility, and depletion of fossil fuels poses a threat to energy supplies. Climate change may exacerbate both of these problems. Over-populated and starved of food and fuel, Homo sapiens can see its numbers sharply reduced by war, famine and epidemics. The remaining handful of surviving humans will be returned to hunter-gatherer status. The natural factors of evolution - mutations and natural selection - will begin to operate again. Groups of people will be isolated from each other by long distances, water barriers, language barriers and prejudices. I can say one thing - in this case, the people who will survive and pass on their genes to their descendants will not be residents of multimillion-dollar cities and large cities, not residents of so-called civilized countries, but the aborigines of Australia, the Arctic, residents of tropical rainforests, in whose oral traditions there are references to iron birds, titan-demon wars, etc.