When someone says that a man descended from a monkey, and even refers to Darwin at the same time, then there is no doubt - the author of the theory of the origin of species by natural selection turns over at this moment in a coffin, dreaming of rising from the dead, catching the wicked and, say, turn him back into a monkey.
Charles Darwin once argued that humans and monkeys have common roots. Only the monkey is a dead-end branch of evolution, while man has gone much further in his development.
It is interesting what the author of the book "Preservation of the chosen breeds in the struggle for existence" would say if he learned that the latest discoveries allow a completely new look at the question: who descended from whom?
Indeed, just recently, in September 2015, paleontologists from South Africa amazed the world with a sensation, presenting to the public the next "intermediate link" - a fossil man who was named Homo naledi - "man-star" or "star man". This finding allows us to assert that it turns out that millions of years ago the monkey descended from man, and not vice versa!
Star Human Head Reconstruction
Secrets of the Rising Cave
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This story began two years ago. In early autumn, two cavers, Rick Hunter and Stephen Tucker, explored the labyrinths of Rising Cave, located fifty kilometers northwest of Johannesburg, South Africa.
The cave had been thoroughly explored before, but two enthusiasts still managed to find a previously unknown passage, which led the researchers to the cave, where no human foot has ever set foot. In some places, the width of the passage was reduced to 20 centimeters, so it is no wonder that it remained unnoticed for a long time.
However, a more detailed study of the cave showed that a man's foot nevertheless stepped in it, however, millions of years ago. Many human remains were found in the cave.
Over the past two years since the discovery, anthropologists have been able to extract to the surface about one and a half thousand fragments, which in general, like a mosaic, were added to at least a dozen individuals that once lived in this cave.
It is impossible to grab a branch with your foot
And that is not all. The work continues, but a lot can be said from what has been found. The remains are remarkably well preserved thanks to the microclimate of the cave and the fact that wild animals could not enter it. And scientists can already determine what our distant ancestors looked like.
The height of the human star is one and a half meters, and the weight is about 45 kilograms. The brain of Homo naledi had a rather modest volume - 450-550 cubic centimeters - like that of modern chimpanzees. The arms are longer than those of modern humans, and the structure of the fingers suggests that Homo naledi were well suited for climbing trees and sheer cliffs.
That is, everything is almost like that of monkeys, with one exception: the feet of a human star look completely "human", that is, they are intended exclusively for upright walking, and Homo naledi could not grab a branch with their foot, as monkeys do. Another nuance: judging by the teeth, the inhabitants of the cave obviously ate food cooked on fire, which also makes them more intimate with us than with monkeys.
Degraded link?
So where did the idea that the monkey descended from man came from? The fact is that some scientists, studying Homo naledi, put forward the following hypothesis: the man-star, in contrast to all early statements about gradual but inevitable progress, is a degraded link.
That is, being full-fledged people for that distant time, Homo naledi, having separated from some part of the population, retired and began to gradually "slide into the abyss" until they turned into lower primates. Those same monkeys, which later Friedrich Engels gave a great honor, declaring that they were our ancestors, and that labor made a man out of a monkey.
Igor NIKITIN
