When paleoanthropologists are asked at what point the genus Homo emerged from the great apes and what can be considered a defining moment in this process, they usually begin to talk long and vaguely about a variety of concepts.
The idea that “labor made a man out of a monkey”, it turns out, has long been questioned, since in this case the answer to the main question must be sought in the moment of the appearance of the first tools of labor. And then it turns out that among those whom we arrogantly call "humanoid", at a certain point in time they are like two drops of water similar to the tools of our ancestors. And if there are no biological remains of the creature next to the chipped stone, it is almost impossible to establish who the owner of the “product” was - a great ape or a representative of the genus Homo.
Quartz biface. 1 million - 300 thousand liters. n / CC BY-SA 3.0 / Didier Descouens / Quartzite Biface
The discrepancies begin with Australopithecus. Some scientists believe that they were the direct ancestors of modern man, others believe that it was a sister dead end branch of evolution.
But, according to general data, six to seven million years ago there were some animals that in all respects resembled modern apes. Then some of the animals from this group separated into the sapient line. It is not completely clear whether the Australopithecines (this is how you can call a large evolutionary group of hominids, whose chronological period (as a genus) is determined from 4.2 to 1.8 million years ago) was bipedal and could use tools. Some believe that the first primitive tools of the pebble type appear in the Australopithecines about 3,300,000 years ago. Other scientists insist that this is already a product of the Homo genus. The further fate of Homo sapiens is even more blurred.
Gorilla cracks a nut with a stone / AP Photo / Anjan Sundaram
Anatoly Derevianko, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Scientific Director of the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, explains: “Australopithecus are our predecessors, but not yet people. From them came Homo habilis, Homo erectus and other species, but who exactly was our direct ancestor, no one knows. Most scholars assume erectus. However, at some stage, modern humans and great apes were at the same stage of development. Therefore, I advocate that great apes should be included in the genus Homo. On the other hand, I understand perfectly well that the tools that were made by both great apes and humans are the same in form, but not in essence. Chimpanzees cracking nuts with a stone can chip away. But they never use this pinch further for their own purposes. Rather, it’s acting on an intuitive level.”
In the 19th century, people received blood transfusions from bonobos (Pan paniscus) chimpanzees without preliminary preparation - this was quite possible from a medical point of view, since our blood groups are the same.
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There have been several attempts to teach sign language to great apes. Successful experiments are connected again with chimpanzees: the first was trained by Washaw - she learned 350 signs from Amslen - American Sign Language. One of the most notorious was the project "Nim" - the chimpanzee got its name as a pun on the name of Noam Chomsky - an outstanding linguist who argued that language is inherent only in humans. However, here the opinions of scientists differed. The zoopsychologist Herbert Terres, who raised Nimes, claimed that at different moments of training, his vocabulary reached a thousand words. Other researchers talked about 125 words. Critics pointed to the obvious inability of monkeys to memorize words, build sentences, lag behind human children, who by the age of five already know up to two thousand designations.
Chimpanzee holding a stick / Depositphotos / Clivia
And nevertheless, the number of identical signs inherent in both humans and our parallel branch - great apes - is quite large: these are facial expressions, social behavior, binocular vision, color discrimination, body structure, the ability to maintain it in an upright position, and others. Therefore, some paleoanthropologists have long been talking about the expansion of the genus Homo.
“This is more of a humanistic act than a scientific one,” explains Anatoly Derevyanko. Opponents of this idea quite rightly believe that we, humans, with great apes are divided by an abyss. From the point of view of the modern view - indeed. But seven million years ago, we were very similar. Now great apes are actively destroyed, as they are classified as predators. However, if we equate them with the genus Homo, from the point of view of all international laws, killing them will be prohibited. The extension of human laws to our closest relatives will contribute to their survival in natural conditions."
Anna Urmantseva