It's no secret that, according to modern scientific classification, man belongs to the animal kingdom. We are part of the hominid family and represent the human race.
Man is an animal
The first signs that a huge change was coming in the animal kingdom arose about seven million years ago, and perhaps even earlier, when the "human" line split from the chimpanzee line. It is generally accepted that it happened very simply - our ancestor got up on his hind legs and walked. Thus, hominids acquired their main feature - bipedalism, that is, walking on two legs. True, the primitive man did not give up the habit of climbing trees soon. Over millions of years he continued to evolve: his appearance, habitat, living conditions, skills, and so on, changed, and so on. until in the late Paleolithic era, about 40 thousand years ago, the Cro-Magnon, the ancestor of modern man, appeared on the territory of Europe. Thanks to the latest archaeological finds, it became clearthat our ancestor won the right to exist in a severe struggle - literally not to life, but to death - with his contemporaries: with a physically stronger Neanderthal, with the so-called Denisovan man, in many ways similar to a Neanderthal. and with a tiny man - a resident of the island of Flores.
Mysterious Denisov people
The scientific world learned about the existence of Denisov's man quite recently, after the publication in 2010 of materials about the remains of a new species of primitive people found in mountain Altai. Scientists have never seen anything like this before. The remains were found in Denisova Cave, which is no less than 50 thousand years old. This cave, located near the city of Biysk, in the valley of the Anui River, has been considered a source of unique historical finds for 30 years, comparable in importance to the artifacts of Ancient Egypt. In the process of excavation, archaeologists found out that for many millennia there was a primitive man's site, the "Room" 110 meters long and 270 square meters in area consists of several interconnected voids inside the rock and, apparently,once was a very comfortable place for our ancestors to live.
The most significant archaeological objects have been found in the cave in recent years. A real sensation awaited scientists when they extracted the bones of an ancient man, previously unknown to science, from the 11th cultural layer. At first, these were the phalanx of the little finger of a girl and the molar tooth of an adult, and a little later - two more artifacts. According to scientists, the Denisovans lived in northern Asia about 30-50 thousand years ago. In ancient times, they formed a single tribe with the Neanderthals, but later they left Africa, and the Denisovans went east, while the remaining Neanderthals moved west.
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Clever cannibals
The world learned about the existence of Neanderthals in the middle of the 18th century, when during construction work in the Neanderthal Valley in Germany, workers accidentally dug up bones similar to human beings. Frightened diggers immediately called the police, but the police, after carefully examining the remains, found them very strange and asked for help from a local literate who taught natural sciences at the school. The teacher showed the find to specialists, and it immediately became a sensation in the scientific world. The ancient man, whose remains lay in clay for thousands of years, fit perfectly into the theory of Charles Darwin. occupying the empty space between Homo sapiens and a monkey. Scientists have found out. that the Neanderthal looked pretty intimidating. Not yielding to us in height and size of the skull, all covered with wool, he had a thick neck. long arms, broad chest and short strong legs. Yes, this could not be called a handsome man: there is practically no forehead and chin, small eyes look out from under the powerful brow arches, and a wide fleshy nose rises above the thick lips. Nevertheless, this man knew how to make a fire and hunt large animals, used stone tools and buried the dead in graves, laying them in the fetal position. Moreover, the Neanderthal even wore necklaces and played the prehistoric "flute." In general, he would have been a completely worthy representative of the human race, even if he was unprepossessing in appearance, if he had not turned out to be … a cannibal.used stone tools and buried the dead in graves, placing them in the position of an embryo. Moreover, the Neanderthal even wore necklaces and played the prehistoric "flute." In general, he would have been a completely worthy representative of the human race, even if he was unprepossessing in appearance, if he had not turned out to be … a cannibal.used stone tools and buried the dead in graves, placing them in the position of an embryo. Moreover, the Neanderthal even wore necklaces and played the prehistoric "flute." In general, he would have been a completely worthy representative of the human race, even if he was unprepossessing in appearance, if he had not turned out to be … a cannibal.
Once upon a time, Neanderthals and modern people had a common ancestor - Pithecanthropus, but our lines diverged about 500 thousand years ago, meeting only 410 thousand years later in the Middle East. And 40 thousand years ago, the Neanderthals suddenly disappeared altogether from the face of the Earth, leaving behind only the remains covered with dust for centuries. Even mammoths walked on our planet longer, becoming extinct only about 10 thousand years ago.
The Hobbit People of Flores Island
In the book by John R. R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings", based on which the film of the same name is staged, tells about the adventures of hobbits - smart little men from the fabulous Middle-earth. It seems that scientists have found confirmation that creatures similar to hobbits existed in reality. These primitive people, the descendants of Pithecanthropus, set off on a long and dangerous journey from Africa to Southeast Asia about two million years ago, and on the way they even had to overcome the ocean expanses to get to the island of Flores off the coast of Indonesia. Here the homo florenciensis, as scientists called them, firmly established themselves and became the undivided masters of the island for hundreds of thousands of years. The Hobbits felt so comfortable in these places,that they lived up to the era of the Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals and actually became their neighbors in a communal apartment called the Earth. Being on the island in complete seclusion, in the process of evolution, the homo florenciences turned into dwarf people about a meter tall, with long arms and small muscular bodies, practically devoid of hair. The face was dominated by a large flat nose, tiny eyes were deeply set, and jaws with large teeth protruded strongly forward, and the chin was almost absent. The inhabitants of the Flores Island differed from modern pygmies in their small brain size, approximately like that of chimpanzees, which completely changed the idea of scientists about the size of this organ as the main factor in the development of ancient people. The islanders made stone tools, owned fire and, despite their small stature,successfully hunted various animals. But about 14 thousand years ago, the hobbit people suddenly disappeared from the island, possibly dying in a volcanic eruption or as a result of extermination by the larger Cro-Magnons. Be that as it may, among the local residents there are still legends about the dwarf people Ebu Gogo, who lived on the island until the 16th century, when the first Europeans appeared here.
Savages among us
So what is modern man like? Let's go back to the Neanderthals. Science has proven that Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals coexisted in the same area for about 50 thousand years. Naturally, for quite understandable reasons, there was an interpenetration of these two species. However, science has found out that we had different foremothers, and mixed "marriages" practically did not affect the DNA of a modern person. Still Svante Pääbo. a professor at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, found out. that modern human DNA contains between one and four percent of Neanderthal genes. And according to other scientific data, for example, in the DNA of the inhabitants of New Guinea - about five percent of the DNA of a Denisovan person. So it turns out that we are all, to one degree or another, descendants of bloodthirsty primitive savages,even if the line of our direct Cro-Magnon ancestors passed its own, seemingly, independent path of evolution. Modern science leaves us with a wide range of hypotheses about who we are and where we came from. In this field there is a place for both supporters of the theory of Darwinism and admirers of the ideas of Aristotle and G. Leibniz. K. E. Tsiolkovsky and others, who believed that life, including intelligent life, could be brought to Earth from space. Moreover, modern archeology has thousands of ancient artifacts that testify to the visit of our planet by space aliens. To believe this, it is enough to read the books of Erich von Daniken. Leibniz. K. E. Tsiolkovsky and others, who believed that life, including intelligent, could be brought to Earth from space. Moreover, modern archeology has thousands of ancient artifacts that testify to the visit of our planet by space aliens. To believe in this, it is enough to read the books of Erich von Daniken. Leibniz. K. E. Tsiolkovsky and others, who believed that life, including intelligent life, could be brought to Earth from space. Moreover, modern archeology has thousands of ancient artifacts that testify to the visit of our planet by space aliens. To believe in this, it is enough to read the books of Erich von Daniken.
By the way, where did the Neanderthals go? Maybe they accidentally entered another dimension - after all, there are a great many such dimensions around us, according to string theory? And just imagine: suddenly one day these ancient people will find a way out back, and the first sentinels will suddenly appear out of the morning fog, carefully moving with clubs in their hands, gazing intently with their small eyes at the unfamiliar landscape.
Magazine "Secrets of the XX century" № 39. Sergey Sukhanov
