Man, as a biological being, possesses a number of such traits, which are far from the best suited to the surrounding natural conditions. This allows us to put forward some assumptions about his past.
Introduction. Description of the problem
Did man descend from a monkey?
Let's consider this issue from the point of view of biological continuity and similarity-differences in the tools of adaptation to the environment.
If you pay attention to the chemical parameters of the organisms of monkeys and humans, you can immediately notice that they are quite significantly different. It is widely known that new drugs or cosmetics are tested first on rats and then on rabbits or pigs. But rarely on monkeys. Because the results of tests in monkeys can be very different from the reactions to the same drugs in humans. And in closely related species, the biochemistry is always quite similar.
On the other hand, not a single so-called "transitional link" from monkeys to first humans has been found so far. Skeletons of Australopithecus, Parapithecus and others - Pithecus are often restored from 1-2 bones or even their fragments.
Sorry, but these reconstructions can not be called anything other than fitting the facts.
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How is it determined that this or that bone belongs to "… Pithek"? Compare it with analogs in modern monkeys and humans. If the bone has a significantly different shape, then, therefore, it belongs to the intermediate type.
I repeat once again that until now not a single whole skeleton has been found, either Australopithecus, Parapithecus or any other "Pithecus". So, it is possible that those individual bones (or fragments) belonged to some extinct species that had nothing to do with our branch of development.
In addition, there is a huge leap in the shape of the skull (and all other bones) in the transition from non-standard to cro-magnon. It is quite possible to believe that from the monkeys there was a non-standard. They have a lot of similarities. The structure of the skull, the type of structure of the limbs, pelvis
But Cro-Magnon is not like another species. The Cro-Magnon generally belongs to a different family (not even to the genus, but to the family) of animals. Because within the framework of one species and genus, free interbreeding is possible with obtaining fertile offspring, but this is impossible in humans and monkeys. Blacks in Africa sometimes have sex with monkeys. But no one has ever seen the "mestizos".
And the structure of the skull and the entire skeleton of the Cro-Magnon man is so different from the non-standard man and from all monkeys that it must be admitted that our 2 families diverged in the process of evolution many hundreds of thousands of years ago.
Saying that man descended from a monkey is like saying that a bear descended from a fox. Common ancestors - yes, very likely. But a straight genetic line, thank you.
Assuming that man is not descended from a monkey, what then?
And then we get a certain creature, it is not clear where it came from on our planet. Without ancestors, without related similar species.
With a complex of unique adaptations for survival not found in other species. This is unique vision, and skin, and biochemistry of the organism, and the method of birth of offspring, and everything else …
And it should be noted that any type of animal is necessarily ideally adapted to certain environmental conditions. To the so-called permanent habitat. Those. to some type of biogeocenoses. And we do not observe such a person at all. Modern people live in many localities, but none of them fit perfectly.
Below we will consider in maximum detail the biological adaptations of the ancestors of modern people to survival in biocenoses. In this case, we will assume that man “as is” lived in nature.
That if such an animal arose, then each feature in it is not accidental, but caused by a real vital necessity.
Protection
The first thing that immediately catches the eye and sharply distinguishes humans from monkeys is their bare skin.
More precisely, not even naked, but balding.
Just as the ancestors of modern whales once walked on 4 legs, and then reduced them, so did the first man, previously covered with hair completely on almost all of his body, lost them.
What he lost is indisputable. Occasionally, people have recurrences of facial or entire body hair. In men, the entire chest and arms are often covered with sparse hair.
And in all, without exception, people, all of the skin is supplied with very rare reduced transparent hairs.
All this indicates that the ancestors of the first people were completely hairy.
Why did the hair loss occur?
Apparently, the same is why dolphins, seals, walruses, killer whales, whales, beavers, otters, platypuses, etc.
The answer is a partial transition to an aquatic environment.
In water, the hairline is an obstacle to movement (in beavers and otters, it is greatly shortened). And wet wool, when climbing onto land, gains a lot of moisture and becomes quite heavy, making it difficult to move.
Why did the hair remain on the head, under the armpits, above the eyes (eyebrows and eyelashes), and in the groin?
Why do men grow a mustache and beard?
I don't know the answer to the second question. Even an approximate one.
And at first it is obvious.
The skull is quite fragile and needs additional protection. Brows wick sweat away from the head so they don't get into the eyes. Eyelashes protect the eyes from mechanical dust particles. Armpit hair does not in the least interfere with movement in water and on land. That's why they stayed. The hair in the groin serves as an additional protection and does not interfere with movement in the same way.
When did this “great baldness” occur? After all, this process takes a lot of time. Surely many hundreds of thousands of years, or even a million.
Adaptations to ambient temperature
A person has many sweat glands in his body. First of all, they protect the body from overheating, and secondly, they remove excess unnecessary salts. The person has lost the function of "recognizing" each other by the smell of sweat a long time ago, because the volume and shape of his nose has not changed over the last million years and we distinguish the smells rather mediocre.
This means that our ancestors lived in hot or moderately hot humid climates. In dry conditions, perspiration leads to dehydration.
For example, cats have no sweat glands.
Human protection from cold is completely absent.
Body structure and mode of movement
A person runs well for short distances on rough terrain. He endures long distances, but with difficulty. This is already stress.
A person climbs trees mediocrely due to the adaptation of the feet to running, i.e. atrophy of the grasping function of the toes (if any). And we also don't have claws on our hands that are so convenient for digging into tree bark. They also changed.
On the other hand, people swim well. Much faster than almost all land mammals. This is facilitated by an elongated body shape and bare skin. Swimming, as you know, perfectly develops the muscles of the body. Consequently, the musculature is very well adapted for movement in the aquatic environment.
By the way, maybe a person did not switch to upright walking at all, but simply stretched his legs back in the course of evolution in order to swim better? And because of the combination of swimming with walking on land, a human foot has arisen?
Sense organs
Developed in humans is extremely uneven. On the one hand, excellent vision and good stereo hearing, a very rich set of various taste buds, excellent sense of touch.
On the other hand, almost complete lack of smell …
Human eyes are arranged in a very specific way. We see ideally not in bright daylight, but in twilight. In the evening and at night, our eyes recognize the smallest transitions of brightness and color, shadows, penumbra, barely visible contours …
And during the day, the sun outside the window and the light bulb in the apartment seem to us almost the same. Although the sun shines about 1000 times brighter. The snow-white caps of snow on the tops of the mountains in the distance, and the whiteness of the flower petals under our feet also seem to us equal, although the mountains are 100 times brighter.
In the same way, we recognize shades of color much better if they are unsaturated, dull, inconspicuous.
From this we can conclude that people are either evening-night creatures, or previously lived on a planet revolving around a very dim star. Or, conversely, about a very bright, but at the same time, the planet had one or more moons. We avoided daylight, and used the reflected moon (s) for life. The latter did not carry radiation with it.
Physiologists regularly inform us that according to their research, all humans are morning larks (although almost half or a third are hardened owls).
However, almost all of humanity's favorite time of day is either sunrise or sunset. Those. twilight time.
During the day, a person is overexcited from the amount of light and can actively work. In the evening, very few are capable of this. Evening is a period of relaxation. When all women just love to arrange walks in an interesting company.
In the morning, just a small amount of sunlight falls on bare skin, and the whole body is instantly excited. We try our best to avoid such impact. Either we get up and pull the curtains tighter, or crawl up the bed or take cover with our heads (and continue to sleep). But bright light is very unpleasant for our skin.
The conclusion suggests itself. For human ancestors, bright light was a physiological signal of danger. They avoided him.
By the way, we, too, will never have a halt or a picnic in a bright sunny place. We will definitely find the shade of a tree or arrange it ourselves artificially.
This phenomenon cannot be explained by the conditions of the planet Earth. Solar radiation is dangerous to humans only high in the mountains. But if we assume that our ancestors lived on a planet in a system of two stars: dim and bright, then everything falls into place. The dim light is not dangerous for us. Moreover, it is pleasant and acceptable. And bright - carries radiation. People die from it and therefore must be avoided.
Or we avoided the light of one star, and were content with its lunar reflection.
Our organ of hearing is also not quite common. Unlike many animals living far from seas and rivers, we sooner or later cease to perceive any rhythmically monotonous, often repetitive sounds as an irritant.
That is, we have a special custom filter in our brain.
Its presence, obviously, is easily explained by the need not to perceive the sound of the surf, the splash of water in the river, the sound of rain.
As a rule, we can distinguish the rustle of foliage sharply, because it is not periodic.
Another confirmation that the prehuman is a creature of a near-water environment.
Our bare skin is as sensitive as it is vulnerable. Any sharp stone, any twig, twig or sharp edge of a leaf of cereal or sedge - and immediately a cut.
Falling from a low height - instantly bruised, sprained, fractured.
Overheating in the sun - and burn.
This is very strange by the way!
What kind of survival equipment is this?
Almost exactly the opposite.
Consequently, in any river beds the great man simply could not live! Well, or forever would be covered with all sorts of abrasions and cuts. Just walking predator bait. After all, the smell of blood is quite strong. Animals can feel it from afar …
Fathers, how have I forgotten this!
COMARA!
Gnats, horseflies, gnats and other dirty tricks!
After all, we do not have the slightest protection from all this evil.
The taiga peoples even have such a method of execution. Leave a naked man in the taiga. After a day, others, he turns into a mummy, because mosquitoes simply completely drink him.
What are the riverside conditions ?! In principle, this cannot be!
Moreover, the stones at the bottom of the rivers are always sharp, not rolled. The banks are full of sharp branches and twigs. And there is nowhere to hide from predators. Almost all terrestrial ones know how to swim well, and in the water there are also their own.
On the seashore, the situation is completely different. Salty air kills or scares away all midges over long distances. Pebbles and stones are smooth, well-rolled. Getting hurt about them is pretty hard. There are practically no height differences on the coast. If you really have to fall, then only into the water.
Terrestrial predatory animals are extremely reluctant to climb into salt water, and therefore water is an ideal refuge. And shallow water prevents sharks and other aquatic life from hunting people. You can always escape from them on land. The blessing is not far from sailing.
By the way, when a leg is sprained or seriously bruised, a person cannot walk. But swim - please!
So our skin is ideally suited for living in and around shallow sea waters.
By the way, if you try to draw in water with your nose, then the body will have a strong rejection and discomfort for fresh water. And the salty sea is perceived naturally, without any negatives. As I entered and exited. Our plasma and blood are almost identical in liquid composition to seawater.
There remains only one problem: a person needs to drink a lot, and sea water is not suitable for this.
This means that either people must constantly look for exits to the sea of rivers and streams, constantly migrating (in one place you cannot feed for a long time), or the sea itself must not be so salty. The latter assumption again indicates that the first people were brought to Earth from some other planet. After all, the Earth's seas and oceans were salted many millions of years ago.
The sense of smell in humans is developed, in comparison with most land animals, it is very weak. This fact again points to a near aquatic habitat, where the sense of smell is practically unnecessary.
Moreover, the salty sea air greatly weakens it.
Many scents of flowers, fruits, vegetables and roots are very pleasant to us. This indicates that the first people ate them as an essential part of the diet.
On the contrary, animal smells are either neutral to us or completely disgusting.
Many people are hostile to the smell of fish, and all, without exception, to the smells of decomposing flesh, rotten meat or spoiled eggs (these smells are probably pleasant to scavengers on the contrary).
People can eat oysters and other shellfish raw without disgust. As well as some algae.
Safety
Our children still retain the amazing property of stickiness of the skin of their palms, fingers and feet. No matter how you wash the baby's pens and legs, it's all useless. They are sticky anyway.
This is a very important evolutionary adaptation.
Here in monkeys it is completely absent. Baby monkeys are kept on the mother's fur, clinging to it with all limbs.
And in our children, the skin itself produces sticky substances.
I experimented with my children when pulling them out of the bathroom (children really like this). If the child is not wiped dry with a towel, but the wet "hang" on himself, then the children adhere to the skin almost perfectly. The strength of a 2.5 year old child is enough to hold on and not fall off the dad. Required minimal effort on my part.
By the way, isn't that why women have long hair? If you need to get away from a predator, then children on their backs and into the water. And if the child cannot hold on with his palms, then he grabs the mother's hair.
The grip of little children's hands can be just iron! Sometimes you can't open it! Every parent knows this very well. And this, by the way, is an important evolutionary adaptation! Handles become grasping very, very early. And with age, this mechanism dies off.
It is very possible that the grasping of the hair has been preserved in the first people as an atavistic mechanism since the time when their own ancestors were completely covered with hair.
Newborns instinctively from the first moments of life are able to swim in water holding their breath. And a little later, in infancy, they are able to play with each other under water all the time, occasionally emerging to get air. Later, this ability is lost.
It will be appropriate to note that the first condition that every woman still tries to strictly observe is the safety of her territorial location.
The inhabitants of the savannah, for example, have no such thing as a safe place. All places are equally dangerous.
It's the same in the jungle. All places are approximately the same. The main thing is not to take a place, but to recognize the approach of a predator in time and either hide or run away.
A similar situation is with the inhabitants of tree crowns (monkeys, flying squirrels, etc.). Yes, squirrels breed in hollows, but it is not a permanent habitat. The children have grown up and that's it, you don't need a hollow.
And human women need a safe place!
I believe that location is extremely important if in case of danger you need to grab children and run to the sea to save yourself.
By the way, every woman instinctively loves it when her children (especially small ones) are constantly in close proximity to her (for that reason).
Zebras, elephants or giraffes, for example, do not need this in a herd. They drove the cubs inside the herd and they are safe. It doesn't matter who protects them, mothers or other females. It's the same in a pack of wolves. The she-wolves will guard all the cubs of the pack, absolutely not requiring her own to be near her all the time.
Sex
Have you ever tried having sex in the sea or in the river? Not very good, right? As if a special stop mechanism is turned on, blocking all such inclinations.
Why exactly? Due to the possibility of penetration into the vagina of any infection with sea water?
When bathing, she gets there anyway, and the woman's body has super effective protection against such attacks in the form of an aggressive acidic environment and special bactericidal substances secreted by the glands of the genital organs. Not a single microbe survives an acidic aquatic environment. Everyone dies.
But sperm are unicellular. They also do not tolerate an acidic environment. And for their adoption, the female body secretes special mucous and alkalizing substances. The mucus coats the acidic surface, and the alkaline enzymes make the mucus itself neutral.
This process is impossible in water, because the main type of protection is lost.
The process of ensuring the safety of fertilization is extremely important. After all, one single foreign microbe in the uterus can lead to the death of the whole organism.
From this we again draw the inevitable conclusion. The ancestors of the first people lived not in coastal zones, but on land. And only in the course of evolution did they change the type of habitat.
The method of fertilization has not changed, but a new degree of protection has been added. This is evolutionarily much more profitable than moving to a fundamentally different way.
Nutrition
I have already said above what types of food are pleasant to a person, attracting both by the sight and smell.
Our weak jaws compared to monkeys do an excellent job with such food. Even more. A person is easily able to chew the shell of a mussel or oyster. And also many types of nut shells.
But neither our teeth nor our digestive tract are adapted to eating animal meat. The only exception is a unicameral (as in predators) stomach, the absence of goiter. Meat and fish do not have time to travel the entire length of the human intestinal tract. Already on the way, they begin to decompose by bacteria that produce many toxic harmful substances.
We assimilate plant food perfectly and can eat exclusively from it at least all our lives. Indian weightlifters - vegetarians clearly demonstrate to us that such a diet does not cause the slightest damage to strength.
On the other hand, many people have a craving for mixed meat-vegetarian food (a person tolerates a purely meat diet with great difficulty). Apparently it is also an evolutionary adaptation to feeding in the coastal marine zone. For fruits, nuts and vegetables, there is a season or not, and oysters always help out.
No matter how hard nutritionists try to convince everyone that eating salt is harmful, almost all people add salt to their food. Otherwise, why is it not tasty. Yes, with a lack of movement, salt in the body accumulates in excess. But it is also excreted with sweat in large quantities.
By the way, a very interesting question is why modern monkeys have such powerful jaws? After all, they are the same vegetarians focused on fruits, nuts and berries. Large monkeys rarely eat grass and leaves. Why, then, such a powerful, absolutely unnecessary apparatus?
It seems to me that in monkeys it is also an atavism. Apparently, the ancestors of monkeys in the distant past lived or in conditions where powerful jaws were vital. I cannot think of such conditions on planet Earth! Monkeys don't gnaw coconuts anyway. And at least heaps of soft-bodied fruits in the jungle! After all, there are no fruiting seasons there. Different types of trees bear fruit in different months and food can be obtained continuously throughout the year.
If human jaws are enough for gnawing nuts, then why should monkeys be several times more powerful?
Here is a riddle!
Highlighting
The first thing that should be noted again is that any waste products of the human body contain an extremely large amount of water.
Urine, sweat, tears, saliva, purulent discharge in damaged areas, mucus in the throat (in or separate from saliva)
Even our feces are not dry, but, unlike animals in savannahs or semi-deserts, they are very wet.
It also indicates adaptation to a very humid environment.
Biochemical protection of the body
Oddly enough, but in humans, it is practically zero.
Any wound or cut in the jungle is an infection with some nasty thing.
An anopheles mosquito bite - malaria.
Tick bite - encephalitis.
Ate stale meat - get a full bouquet of intestinal liver and all other parasites.
The only thing left is to envy the sharks. What is harmful to the shark, then in the shark and died!
And on land, everyone knows the extraordinary vitality of felines. Felines rarely get sick in nature, although they do not eat everything that is purest.
And what about a person?
What the little child saw, it dragged into the mouth.
But wait! Indeed, in nature, such a mechanism for the behavior of human cubs is a certain death!
Everywhere, except for the coastal zone, where the salinity of the water kills many types of microorganisms, and the rest are by no means adapted to a parasitic existence in the human body.
Even more!
There is such a reliable way to get rid of worms. Drink sea water every day. Parasites that are not removed by anything else (like a bovine tapeworm) from sea water come out on their own.
Here it is pertinent to note that many women give birth in sea water without any inconvenience, and often even without pain.
Again, we see an ideal adaptation for a specific type of biogeocenosis.
Brain development
Man by nature is omnivorous and extremely polyphagous.
Our ancestors did not have a single organ or any device for hunting big game. So, they were content only with fruits and, with all sorts of small animal fish that they managed to catch.
And a variety of foods entails brain development!
This is not some kind of fish with its primitive: “I ate, you can sleep. I slept, you can eat"
Many dangers have contributed to the development of different parts of the brain.
And to save ourselves from land predators, and to protect children … and not to swim far into the sea, so that they do not eat there …
And help your relatives to survive …
That is, we can confidently say that it was not labor that made a person a person! It was not a monkey who came down from the tree and picked up a stick because, Honest Mother !!!!!, all the bananas ran out on the trees (and this is in the tropics where the eternal harvest is!).
For monkeys to be wiser, THERE IS NOT THE SMALLEST EXCITING MOTIVE !!!
And the first people have such a motive!
The smarter you are, the better you eat and the better your tribe will survive. To do this, grow smarter oh how profitable!
After all, the brain (a variety of behavioral mechanisms, a constant choice of optimal ones, the search for new ones) was the main defense mechanism of the first people!
By the way about tribal survival
Remember such a wonderful evolutionary device as the children's screams Oooh! for the slightest reason.
In the forest, any creature tries to behave as quietly as possible.
In the steppe or in the floodplain of the river - the same thing.
He made a splash - attracted predators - he died and killed his relatives.
But on the seashore, people are already in sight. Nowhere to hide. Ori even shout. Here our children are quiet and do not come by themselves, it seems, never at all. What for? On the contrary, you have to practice yelling!
After all, warning the tribe of potential danger is extremely important.
Children and women instinctively scream in the event of an attack (according to the measurements of scientists, sometimes with a volume equal to the sound of an aircraft turbine engine).
Men have a completely different type of instinct. Pick up something heavy (stick a stone with a club) and urgently all run together to protect children and women.
Isn't that why all men have a hard time with children's cries?
As soon as the child screamed, the dad immediately had an adrenaline rush and the whole body was on alert. After all, the child screams as if he is being killed! You run a bullet into another room, and nothing happened there. The toy rolled back and does not get.
Mom's not like that. She always has a child in sight and the danger mechanism does not turn on if it is not visible.
And dad wants to kill the child himself.
For nothing, after all, a lot of energy was spent on combat readiness.
Here's a good life for firefighters! As soon as a fake call, so immediately disassembly and fine.
And then there are false starts 20 times a day … and nothing can be done!
Conclusion: Screaming, screaming and female screams are the ideal mechanism for ensuring the survival of the tribe in coastal marine conditions. In no other type of biocenosis they are not only inapplicable, even harmful and dangerous.
Continuity of the chain of evolution
The evolution of species has one interesting law. If any species finds an ideal habitat for itself, then it remains to occupy it forever. Others will mutate and change further. Those who are in settlements, those who will go to explore other biocenoses. And the skeleton of the species will still remain the same.
From this point of view, it is very significant that there are no prehuman Cro-Magnon type in the coastal regions on planet Earth! There are conditions, but no proto-people! This simply cannot and should not be!
Even if we assume that from such a life people began to grow smarter and develop sharply, then all the same, some part of the "most stupid" had to remain in their former places. This is an immutable law that applies to all living things without exception!
Nature abhors a vacuum! And nature abhors uniformity!
No ancient settlements or sites have been found in the coastal zones. It is logical to assume that the "most intelligent" went inland.
That is, they freed up space.
But where, excuse me, then primitive ape-like first-people? There are none on the planet Earth! Here
There is only one small tribe of monkeys in Japan (chimpanzees it seems). It has run wild and hunted by collecting shellfish on the coast. But these are not people, they are monkeys! And it's cold there, in Japan, in winter. People would not have survived.
Here it can be argued that it is possible that all coastal monkeys died out as a result of the global flood 12-14 thousand years ago. And the tsunami washed all the bodies into the sea. But then skeletons should have remained in those places where the coastline went far into the sea. And there should have been transitional forms confined to river beds.
After all, all human civilizations have development centers thousands of kilometers from the sea.
And you can go up there from the sea only along the rivers. And fresh water is needed.
Moreover, all the civilizations of ancient people mysteriously arose in zones where you just go to a tree, pick a banana or an orange, and be happy all year round! There are simply no rational prerequisites for "wisdom" in these localities !!!
Outcome
So, I hope I was able to show you that:
1. For human ancestors, the ideal habitat was the coast of the oceans and seas from the equatorial to subtropical zones.
2. That the ancestors of humans themselves, in turn, once descended from other non-coastal primate species. Most likely from the forest.
3. That man was probably brought to this planet by someone in ancient times.
4. The fact that people are still not fully biologically adapted to the peculiarities of the planet Earth, and have not changed the ancient instincts of their behavior.
5. That “labor made a man out of a monkey” is a myth! The monkeys swayed on the lianas while chewing bananas, and they sway. And people had a vital need to grow wiser.
I would also like to note that many peoples have legends about the sea people of mermaids. Good swimmers and helping people, or drowning unwary in the depths of water. Sea people don't like to go out on land. Their homeland, their element is water. Mermaids, with the exception of the fish tail, are completely humanoid. And face and body, as they say. They even know how to sing in a way that attracts a person. And, according to legends, a person could interbreed with them freely! (still only with goblins and that's it, no one else. But goblins in myths are already a kind of man). Mermaids live a simple animal life. With her simple joys and troubles.
Now this people are classified as fictitious creatures. But maybe this is our ancestors? Or, on the contrary, feral people?
D. A. KAMENEV