Essential stages of the Incarnation

 Incarnation

Numerous finds prove the evolution of man from non-human ancestors. In the natural system of organisms with the semi-monkeys (eg Maki) and the real monkeys (New World and Old World monkeys), humans belong to the modern primates.

The Incarnation lasted many millions of years and is therefore divided into corresponding stages of the Incarnation.

Development of the male animals (primates) in the Tertiary

(Paleogene and Neogene)

At the beginning of the Tertiary (today scientifically divided into Paleogene and Neogene) around 70 to 65 million years ago, the ecological conditions in many parts of the world changed, in turn, due to changes in the climate, especially temperature and precipitation. It created huge deciduous forests that displaced the prevailing up to that time coniferous forests. In the deciduous forests countless insects developed, which fed on the pollen as well as leaves and fruits.

At that time, the first primates, which split off from the insectivorous group of animals, also developed. The first primates were tiny monkeys the size of a mouse lemur that found plenty of nourishment and protection from predators in the canopy of deciduous forests. They initially fed on insects.

In the course of the tertiary, they experienced the following changes: they steadily increased in size and soon had to use other food sources. As such, leaves, the bark of young branches and especially the fruits offered themselves. In adaptation to the branch world of the tree biotope, the position of the eyes on the head changed. The initially sidelong eyes moved forward in the course of millions of years. This enabled spatial depth perception and Gestalt perception as well as estimation of distances by overlapping the fields of view of both eyes.

When moving on the branches, which served as narrow catwalks, had those forms a read advantage, which initially spread the thumb and later could embrace the branches. Thus, in these primates at a very early stage of their development, the grip hand. When eating, the monkeys often took a seated posture. The front extremities were free for other activities. So they could z. B. lead the food to the mouth with your hands. In the course of further development, the dentition changed and it developed a larynx with vocal cords.

Ancestors of apes and humans

Fossil finds from the Middle Tertiary (Miocene) indicate the development of the ancestors of apes and humans.

From an Egyptian site near the El Fayum oasis comes a fossil skull that already bears similarities to present-day apes. He bears the scientific name Aegyptopithecus (Premencer).

Scientists suspect that monkeys of this species were tree dwellers who lived in the Oligocene about 30 million years ago. The closed eye capsule indicates that it is a monkey skull. The dentition has a certain resemblance to the modern apes. The body weight should have been about 5 kg. From East Africa come several finds of a primate group, which lived in the early Miocene about 20 million years ago.

She received the scientific name Proconsul. The name derives from a chimpanzee of the London zoo, who was the darling of the visitors and named Consul. It was believed that the fossil finds could be ancestors of the chimpanzees.

The dentition of Proconsul is very similar to that of the chimpanzee. As well as the skull, other bones, including an almost complete skeleton, were found, conclusions can be drawn on the lifestyle of these 10 to 12 kg monkeys. They lived on trees in the tropical rainforest, feeding on fruits, leaves and the bark of thin branches. There is no doubt about the relationship of the Proconsul finds to the present African apes. As their ancestors they are not considered, although they are considered the oldest African apes.

Geologically younger than the Proconsul monkeys is a group of fossil apes, the dryopithecins. They are close to the proconsul forms. They moved in trees, shuffling on the ground, walking on all fours.

Other fossil finds from India and Pakistan, some from Kenya (East Africa) were named Ramapithecus. These finds are likely to be between 14 and 10 million years old (mid to late Miocene). Due to some anatomical features, such as short jaw, small canines, some researchers believed in the 1960s, to be able to put the first interpreted as fossil apes in the ancestral series of man.

New findings from this group of forms and more precise comparisons led to the Ramapithecinen in the orangutan leading ancestor series. As human ancestors, the finds of Ramapithecus are out of the question. Aegyptopithecus, Proconsul, Dryopithecus and Ramapithecus are considered fossil apes.

New finds brought new insights

Over the past two decades, scientists have succeeded in adding a wealth of new details to the image of human descent. Especially in East Africa, they discovered hundreds of fossils, which are certainly from hominids (man -like), who lived 4 to 1.5 million years ago. These beings call the researchers Australopithecines. Translated, that means as much as southern monkeys.

The Australopithecines did not live in the jungle like the ancestors of the great apes, but in an area that resembles a tree-topped or savannah. They walked upright. Compared with the people living today, they were relatively small, but in the construction of the skeleton there are great similarities. Her skull, with its strongly fleeing forehead, had a brain volume of 400 to 700 cubic centimeters and a very large jaw with broad molar crowns. It is believed that they ate vegetable food.

The Australopithecines give us a model of forms that could be considered ancestors of man.

There are currently several species of the genus Australopithecus, including:

 - A. afarensis,

 - A. robustus,

 - A. boisei,

 - A. africanus and

 - A. aethiopicus.

In no other area of ​​the world have so far been found fossils of hominids of such an advanced age and variety as in East Africa. This justifies the assumption that the cradle of humanity is to be seen in East Africa. It is currently unclear whether the australopithecins have already manufactured devices. Therefore, they are not considered "real people" at the moment, although their physique and upright gait would allow for that assessment. Her intellectual capacity should not have been lower than that of today's chimpanzees.

Development to the man of the present

Homo habilis

The first skeleton remains of a Homo habilis (Monkey Man) was discovered in 1960 in Olduvai (East Africa). At that time he was still counted among Australopithecines. This was also done with other similar findings, especially since the brain skull volume was not significantly larger.

Only in the 1980s and after the fossil bone remains also simple stone tools, so-called scree, were discovered, Homo habilis is widely recognized as the oldest species of the genus Homo.

In many cases, the production of bone and stone implements with the incarnation is brought into a causal relationship, because it was previously not observed that other creatures in the wild use objects to edit or change other natural objects purposefully. Even the chimpanzees make such changes only with the body's own means, so with the hands, the fingernails or the teeth.

Equally important are social relationships. Some researchers even consider this higher than the use of natural objects as devices. The people lived in hordes and were hunters and gatherers. The age of the present finds is between 1.9 and 1.6 million years. They all come from East Africa (Tanzania, Kenya and southern Ethiopia).

There are several hypotheses about the relationship between Australopithecines and Homo habilis, but there are still no clear findings. Homo habilis lived like the Australopithecines in the savanna. He fed on plant and animal food. It is still unclear whether he already hunted larger animals or the predators made the prey in dispute or whether he consumed what the predators left from their prey (scavenger theory). The brain skull volume of Homo habilis was 510 to 750 cubic centimeters, slightly larger than that of Australopithecinen, the dentition somewhat smaller. The torso and limb skeleton is - apart from the smaller size - largely similar to that of the recent man.

Homo erectus

The next group of human beings that follows Homo habilis in time is Homo erectus. He initiated the further development to the man of the present. His German name changed several times, but for the most part she is today Urmensch or early man. If Australopithecine and Homo habilis fossils have been found only on the African continent and mostly south of the equator, researchers have recovered the remnants of Homo erectus on all continents, except in America and Australia.

The oldest findings of Homo erectus come from Africa and have an age of 1.5 million years. Fewer are fossil skulls and skeletal parts from China and Indonesia. Among the oldest Central European finds include the lower jaw of the wall and the skull remains of Petralona (Greece), Vertesszöllös (Hungary) and Bilzingsleben in Halle. Numerous remains of skulls were excavated in the 1930s near Beijing (China), which are believed to be approximately 350,000 years old.

The skull of Homo erectus still had a low, but in comparison to Homo habilis already more strongly arched forehead and a continuous bone roof over the eye sockets. The brain skull volume was between 775 and 1250 cubic centimeters. The facial skull was large and the jaw vigorously developed. The change in the skull of this group of forms over the course of 500,000 years can be clearly seen. The brain skull became bigger and rounder. The bony prominences ("muscle marks") formed back. The facial skull with the jaw became smaller.

The devices of Homo erectus were multifarious. The shape of some stone tools reveals the possible application. The excavations of some sites suggest that these people have already used the fire. Thick layers of ash are proof that the fire must have burned at the same spot for hundreds of years. It will probably

 - as a heat source,

 - for the preparation of food,

 - for the treatment of natural objects and

 - have served as protection against predators.

It promoted the cohesion of the hordes and contributed to the further cultural-technical development.

Site in Bilzingsleben

One of the most important sites of Homo erectus in Europe is that of Bilzingsleben near Halle. There a resting place was uncovered in the 1970s, on which the remains of several oval and round dwellings were discovered, as well as fire pits and workplaces. In addition to skull scraps of Homo erectus, the researchers found numerous animal bones, which come from bison and aurochs, wild horses and deer, bears and wild boars and even steppe rhinos and forest elephants. Many bones had been smashed to reach the medulla. The human being of Bilzingsleben has not only purposefully manufactured implements and used the fire, but also carved bones, signs that we still can not interpret today.

Homo sapiens neanderthalensis

The findings of Homo sapiens neanderthalensis (also called Altmensch) are usually referred to as Neanderthals. The name goes back to a find that the Elberfeld teacher FUHLROTT made in 1856 in a cave in the Neandertal near Dusseldorf. It was a skullcap and skeletal bones, which he described as the remains of a fossil man.

His statements were then questioned by many scholars. Today there are about 150 sites in Europe, Asia and Africa with fossil remains of more than 300 individuals. There is no sharp line between the late Homo erectus forms and the early Homo sapiens forms. From the time 300 000 to 200 000 years ago, numerous finds are available, which are still made by some researchers to the Homo-Erectus forms, by others to the Homo-sapiens forms. According to the shape of their skull, some finds more than ancestors of the Neanderthals, others come as an ancestor of the glacial modern humans in question.

The Neanderthals do not form a uniform group of forms. There are three subgroups today:

 1-) Pre-Neanderthals,

 2-) Early Neanderthals and

 3-) Later Neanderthals.

The skull of the late Neanderthal man was long and wide, but relatively low. His brain skull volume corresponded to the average of the people living today, ie about 1 450 cubic centimeters. Typical for him are the large eye sockets and the strong Überaugenwülste in front of the fleeing forehead. The lower jaw still has no chin projection.

As a characteristic device of the Neanderthal man was for a long time the hand ax. There are now a variety of other devices, u. a. also lances, whose tips were hardened in the fire.

This group of people lived between 130,000 and 35,000 years ago. The Neanderthal had a squat figure with a broad face. He was a hunter of big animals like bison, mammoth, horse. Since there was a cold period in Europe at the time, it is believed that he lived in caves and cottage-like dwellings and under rocky roofs. He could already make fire. The Neanderthals lived in hordes. These communities were relatively well-settled and socially shaped by the division of labor between the sexes.

Homo sapiens

Already many millennia before the late Neanderthal people lived, which are attributed to the Homo sapiens sapiens. The scientists also refer to this form as the anatomically modern human being, because he does not differ significantly in his physique from the human of the present. It is the glacial modern man.

It is believed that it has displaced the Neanderthal from Central Europe, because all fossil finds of people from this region, which are younger than 30 000 years, come from the glacial modern man. He settled large areas of Africa, Europe and Asia. He also came to Australia, Oceania and North America. His brain skull volume is about 1 200 to 1 700 cubic centimeters, and thus corresponds to both the Neanderthal man as well as the living (recent) man. The skull is thinner than in the Neanderthals, as overall the skeleton looks graceful. It lacks the Überaugenwülste. The small facial skull acts like an attachment to the large and high skull capsule. At the lower jaw there is a chin projection.