There were upright posture, an increase in the volume of the brain and the complication of its organization, the development of the hand, the lengthening of the period of growth and development. A developed hand with a well-pronounced grasping function allowed a person to successfully use and then make tools. This gave him advantages in, although in his purely physical qualities he was significantly inferior to animals. The most important milestone in human development was the acquisition of the ability to first use and maintain, and then make fire. The complex activity of making tools, obtaining and maintaining fire could not be provided by innate behavior, but required individual behavior. Therefore, there was a need for a significant expansion of the possibility of signal exchange and a speech factor appeared that fundamentally distinguishes humans from other animals. The emergence of new functions, in turn, contributes to accelerated development. Thus, the use of hands for hunting and protection and eating food softened on fire made the presence of powerful jaws unnecessary, which made it possible to increase the volume of the cerebral part of the skull due to its facial part and ensure further development mental abilities person. The emergence of speech contributed to the development of a more perfect structure of society, the division of responsibilities between its members, which also gave advantages in the struggle for existence. Thus, the factors of anthropogenesis can be divided into biological and social.
Biological factors - hereditary variability, as well as the mutation process, isolation - are applicable to. Under their influence, in the process of biological evolution, morphological changes occurred in the ape-like ancestor - anthropomorphosis. The decisive step on the way from ape to man was bipedalism. This led to the release of the hand from the functions of movement. The hand begins to be used to perform various functions - grabbing, holding, throwing.
No less important prerequisites for anthropogenesis were the features of the biology of human ancestors: a herd way of life, an increase in brain volume in relation to the general proportions of the body, binocular vision.
The social factors of anthropogenesis include labor activity, social way of life, development of speech and thinking. Social factors began to play a leading role in anthropogenesis. However, the life of each individual is subject to biological laws: mutations are preserved as a source of variability, stabilizing selection acts, eliminating sharp deviations from the norm.
Factors of anthropogenesis
1) Biological
natural selection against the backdrop of the struggle for existence
genetic drift
insulation
hereditary variability
2) Social
public life
consciousness
speech
labor activity
At the first stages of human evolution, biological factors played a dominant role, and at the last stages, social ones. Labor, speech, consciousness are most closely related to each other. In the process of labor, the members of society were united and the method of communication between them, which is speech, was rapidly developing.
The common ancestors of humans and great apes - small arboreal insectivorous placental mammals lived in the Mesozoic. In the Paleogene of the Cenozoic era, a branch separated from them, which led to the ancestors of modern great apes - parapithecus.
Parapithecus Dryopithecus Pithecanthropus Sinanthropus Neanderthal Cro-Magnon modern man.
Analysis of paleontological finds allows us to identify the main stages and directions historical development man and great apes. modern science gives the following answer: humans and modern great apes had a common ancestor. Further, their development followed the path of divergence (divergence of signs, accumulation of differences) in connection with specific and different conditions existence.
human pedigree
Insectivorous mammals parapithecus:
Propliopithecine, Orangutan
Dryopithecus Chimpanzee, Australopithecus Ancient people (Pithecanthropus, Sinanthropus, Heidelberg man) Ancient people (Neanderthals) New people (Cro-Magnon, modern man
We emphasize that the human genealogy presented above is hypothetical. We also recall that if the name of the ancestral form ends in "pithek", then we are talking about a still monkey. If at the end of the name is “anthrope”, then we have a person in front of us. True, this does not mean that signs of an ape are necessarily absent in its biological organization. It must be understood that the signs of a person in this case prevail. From the name "Pithecanthropus" it follows that this organism has a combination of signs of ape and man, and in approximately equal proportions. Let's give brief description some of the supposed ancestral forms of man.
DRIOPITEK
He lived about 25 million years ago.
Characteristic features of development:
much smaller than a person (height is about 110 cm);
led a predominantly arboreal lifestyle;
probably manipulated objects;
tools are missing.
australopithecines
Lived about 9 million years ago
Characteristic features of development:
height 150–155 cm, weight up to 70 kg;
skull volume - about 600 cm3;
probably used objects as tools for food and protection;
upright posture is characteristic;
the jaws are more massive than in humans;
strongly developed superciliary arches;
joint hunting, herd way of life;
often ate the remains of the prey of predators
Pithecanthrope
Lived approximately 1 million years ago
Characteristic features of development:
height 165–170 cm;
brain volume about 1100 cm3;
constant upright posture; speech formation;
mastery of fire
SINANTROP
Lived probably 1-2 million years ago
Characteristic features of development:
height about 150 cm;
upright posture;
making primitive stone tools;
maintaining the fire;
public lifestyle; cannibalism
NEANDERTHAL
Lived 200–500 thousand years ago
Characteristic signs:
Biological:
height 165–170 cm;
brain volume 1200–1400 cm3;
the lower limbs are shorter than in modern humans;
the femur is strongly curved;
low sloping forehead;
strongly developed brow ridges
Social:
lived in groups of 50–100 individuals;
used fire;
made a variety of tools;
built hearths and dwellings;
carried out the first burials of the dead brothers;
speech is probably more perfect than that of Pithecanthropus;
perhaps the emergence of the first religious ideas; skilled hunters;
cannibalism persisted
Cro-Magnon
Lived 30–40 thousand years ago
Characteristic signs:
Biological:
height up to 180 cm;
brain volume about 1600 cm3;
there is no continuous supraorbital ridge;
dense physique;
developed muscles
Social:
lived in a tribal community;
built settlements;
made complex tools of labor from bone and stone;
knew how to grind, drill;
deliberately buried the dead brothers;
rudimentary religious ideas appear;
developed articulate speech;
wore clothes made of skins;
purposeful transfer of experience to descendants;
sacrificed himself in the name of the tribe or family;
cared for the elderly;
the emergence of art;
domestication of animals;
first steps in farming
MODERN MAN
Lives on all continents
Characteristic signs:
Biological:
height 160–190 cm;
brain volume about 1600 cm3;
having different races
Social:
sophisticated tools;
high achievements in science, technology, art, education
educational: show the inconsistency of the theory of racism
Lesson type: seminar - workshop
Methods: reproductive, partially exploratory, problematic.
Equipment: computer with a projector, presentation, video clip, tables, diagrams, test.
1 Organizational moment 1 min.
2 Discussion of the features of anthropogenesis 30 min.
3. Summing up 2 min.
4. Independent work. 3-4 min.
5. Conclusions 1 min.
6. Reflection 2 min.
7. Introspection. Grading 2-3 min.
8. Video clip 2 min.
During the classes
In the chain, man became the last link,
And the best of everything is embodied in it.
Ferdowsi
1. / Against the background of a video fragment without sound /
Teacher: One of the most intriguing chapters in the evolution of life on Earth is the origin of man. In our day, this branch of the doctrine of evolution has become one of the fastest growing; every decade brings sensational discoveries that make it necessary to significantly supplement, and sometimes even revise the existing ideas. The task of today's lesson is to expand knowledge about anthropogenesis, its present stage.
2. Student: Even in ancient times, man was recognized as a “relative” of animals (Anaksimen, Aristotle). In the first half of the 18th century K. Linnaeus gave him a place in the order of primates of the class of mammals and gave the species name Homo sapiens (reasonable man) / Linnaeus / At the end of the 18th century. Diderot, Kant, Laplace wrote on this subject, and at the beginning of the 19th century. put forward the hypothesis of the natural origin of man / Portrait / in his work "Philosophy of Zoology" He considered the original ancestor of man to be a four-armed highly developed creature that descended from the trees to the ground and gradually turned into a two-armed, capable of upright walking, but Lamarck's anthropogenic hypothesis was not successful , as well as his evolutionary concept in general. A fundamental contribution to the solution of the problem of anthropogenesis was made by Charles Darwin in a special work of 1871 "The Origin of Man and Sexual Selection". Darwin was the first to attempt to scientifically explain the driving forces of anthropogenesis. / Stand / In the subsequent time, a lot of data has accumulated, proving the relationship between humans and anthropoids, not only in morphological, but also in other ways:
A great similarity has been established in the structure of the vocal apparatus (larynx) in humans and chimpanzees;
In the orangutan, the size of the 41st field of the cerebral cortex is significantly increased, and it is this part of the brain that is difficult to differentiate in humans due to developed speech, only higher monkeys and humans have a vermiform appendix of the caecum;
Anthropoid monkeys have the same 4 blood groups;
Puberty occurs relatively late;
The order of dentition in higher apes is similar to that in humans;
Forms of care for offspring are highly developed among anthropoids, the period of childhood is long;
Human and chimpanzee genetic material is 99% identical
Teacher: How did the evolution of man go?
Student: The main stages of anthropogenesis are distinguished:
Dryopithecus- common ancestors of anthropomorphic monkeys and hominids. There is a lot of indirect evidence confirming such an origin. The ability of the human arm to rotate in all directions due to the spherical joint of the humerus could only arise in the tree form. Only humans and primates have the ability to rotate the forearm in and out, as well as a well-developed collarbone. In humans and monkeys, skin patterns are developed on the hands and feet, which are found only in arboreal mammals. They are characterized by an arboreal lifestyle, manipulation of objects and herding.
The oldest australopithecines combined features of apes and humans. The anatomical structure of the pelvis and legs testified to his vertical position. He used sticks, stones, large antelope bones as tools. The public way of life allowed them to resist
against predators and attack other animals themselves. It was they, according to the anthropologist Roginsky, who began the process of losing their coat. From overheating, a person is protected by intense sweating. This device was very effective, but it deprived the body of sodium ions, the lack of which stimulated predation or forced to look for sources of table salt.
skillful man - in 1962, in Tanzania, central Africa, the remains of Australopithecus were found, the brain volume of which was more than 600 cm3 (currently approx. 2000 cm3), but more than that of primitive forms, and most importantly, it made tools. This ancestor of ours was called a skilled man. (pebble culture)
Scientists argue that it is at this stage of anthropogenesis that speech is born, since joint hunting required communication, gestures alone are indispensable.
Homo erectus differed from his predecessors in height, straight posture, human gait. Their hand is more developed, and the foot has acquired a small arch, the spine has received some bends, which balances the vertical position of the torso. Brain volume - see Formation of speech, the most developed lobes of the brain that control higher nervous activity. Collective hunting required not only communication, but also contributed to the development of a social organization that had a clearly human character, since it was based on the division of labor between men - hunters and women - food gatherers and keepers of fire.
Neanderthal– brain volume – see High culture of tool making. Improving speech and tribal relations. Strong, hardy, they are the first to adapt to life in a harsh climate. They have rituals, care for offspring, transfer of experience. They used fire for cooking - they fried meat, sewed skins from clothes, which were cleaned of fat, dried over fire to give them softness and flexibility. It speaks of the development of thinking.
Cro-Magnon - type of modern man. Lived in caves or huts at the very end of the Ice Age. They learned how to make many tools, used throwing devices, and fished with harpoons. They were probably the first to learn how to make needles and sew. They made necklaces from pebbles, shells... In France and Spain, rock carvings were discovered that are more than 30 thousand years old. Drawings of spells, predictions, victory over a predator, and today - hello to us from them.
Teacher: What are the main points in the formation of Homo sapiens?
Student: The formation of a reasonable person is marked by 2 important points:
On the one hand, the formation of the morphological type is being completed.
On the other hand, biological evolution gradually faded and was replaced by social development.
From an evolutionary point of view, the emergence of man is the largest aromorphosis, unparalleled in the entire history of life on Earth. The general regularity was the ever-accelerating pace of anthropogenesis. The phylogenetic development of hominids is a vivid example of "mosaic evolution", characterized by an uneven pace of development of organs and organ systems. The progressive evolution of the brain was preceded by upright posture and the transformation of the pelvic bones and forelimbs associated with it. Feature anthropogenesis - the unidirectionality of evolutionary transformations associated with the gradual development of bipedalism, the growth of the ability to accumulate and practical use of information about environment, improving the collective way of life.
Teacher: What motivated this? What are your points of view on this matter?
Student: The uniqueness of the process of formation of the biosocial nature of man was determined by the peculiar action of the driving forces of anthropogenesis.
There are different opinions on the issue of correlation of biological and social factors of anthropogenesis. Some believe that the driving force of anthropogenesis was the unity of action of biological and social factors. Others are of the opinion that these are facts that acted in parallel, but in the end led to one result. In addition, there are fundamental disagreements on the question of what factors played a leading role in the evolution of human ancestors. In foreign literature, this is exclusively BZS and selection. The falsification of Charles Darwin's views on the BZS as the cause of anthropogenesis was the source of a reactionary trend in bourgeois sociology - social Darwinism.
The English evolutionist philosopher G. Spencer in 1852 put forward the formula “survival of the fittest” as a law of social development, therefore he called for the elimination of victims in the struggle for existence - these are the poor and the sick.
Comte de Gobineau argued that the highest race among all human races is the Aryan race, and supporters of racial hygiene believed that intelligence and moral qualities are determined solely by its hereditary inclinations, therefore social status is due to purely genetic factors.
F. Galton suggested breeding colonial peoples by selecting pairs, and creating a noble elite for Europeans. The racists turned Africa, in the words of K. Marx, "into a protected hunting ground for blacks" and promised the Negroes heaven in heaven instead of hell on earth.
Most modern researchers believe that closer to the truth is the idea of not only a single biosocial nature of the driving forces of anthropogenesis, but also their qualitative change in the process of evolution from the most ancient hominids to modern man. In the early stages of human evolution, there was a selection of individuals more capable of making primitive tools with which they could get their own food and defend themselves from enemies. F. Engels in his work “The role of labor in the process of turning a monkey into a man” wrote: “Labor is the first basic condition for all human life, and, moreover, to such an extent that we must say in a certain sense: labor created man.” At the Australopithecus stage, selection based on individual selective elimination played a decisive role. Gradually, the object of selection became a characteristic property such as herding and the relatively developed forms of relations associated with it. Those who together could withstand adverse environmental factors survived. Individual selection contributed to the formation of upright posture, hand, brain, and group selection improved social organization. Joint actions are called biosocial selection. At the first stages of biosocial selection, there were small groups, and then they expanded to a tendency towards the survival of better organized settlements or tribes. All levels of biosocial selection were interconnected. The speed and scope of morphogenesis in the evolution of hominids was possible on the basis of wide genetic variability. The rate of mutational variability, characteristic of all organisms (on average, 1 x 10 to the power of -5 mutational changes per gene per generation), could not provide enough material for selection when creating a person. Consequently, other, additional sources of variability were necessary for the process of anthropogenesis.
Teacher: And what could it be? Any opinions?
Pupil: claims that the increase in mass and complication of the brain at the entrance to the evolution of hominids was not limited to the improvement of nervous mechanisms, but was combined with endocrine. Using examples, he shows that under the conditions of domestication, a sharp destabilization of many body functions is observed, which is also caused by getting used to a person. One of the most important features of human evolution was that as a result of stress reactions during communication of human ancestors with each other, the entire system of neuroendocrine regulation changed, which in turn caused a wide range of variability in a variety of ways. This source of genetic variability played an essential role in the progressive evolution of hominids. Scientists have long assumed that in progressive evolutionary transformations (in the origin of man) it is not so much the changes in the genes themselves that are important, but the change in their activity. Even a small change in the nucleotide sequence of a single regulator gene can lead to dramatic changes in the activity of many other genes, and this, in turn, can cause radical changes in the structure of the body. Scientists have identified 110 genes whose activity differs in humans and chimpanzees (55 are more active in humans and 55 in our closest relatives). 49 genes were identified, the activity of which changed in the human line (30 genes increased activity, 19 decreased). It is interesting that chimpanzees had only 9% of transcription factors, with half of them having increased activity, and half of them having decreased. By the way, studies on fruit flies also did not show strong changes in the activity of transcription factors. It seems that enhanced expression of many regulatory genes is a specific feature of the evolution of the human line. The meaning of this phenomenon is still not entirely clear.
Teacher: Senkevich once said in a program that nature will never cease to amaze us, because something new is constantly being discovered, something unknown that is not like the previous one or simply changed. And what can be said about man as an integral part of nature and society?
Student : Man is an integral part of nature at all times. Is its appearance changing, can we expect such changes in the future? Consider how evolutionary factors operate in today's society. Firstly, isolation is less and less important, and secondly, the significance of random changes in numbers in human society is sharply weakened. In the 12th-14th centuries, during a plague epidemic, the population could decrease several times within 1-2 years, but now, thanks to the development of medicine, such fluctuations in numbers are not observed. Thus, the importance of population waves as an evolutionary factor also falls. More difficult with the mutation process and natural selection. In England in 1922 only 22% of cases of blindness were hereditary, and in 1952 already 68% of blindness had a hereditary basis. More and more unfavorable mutations are accumulating in populations: many people are now surviving who probably would not have survived before. The population is becoming more and more saturated with mutations also because the level of radioactive radiation has increased, the same thing happens when the biosphere is clogged with chemicals that cause mutations. In a developed society, social patterns act more strongly than selection. It is social - social patterns that determine the success of a person.
Teacher: Yes, social factors have begun to play a leading role at the present stage, but the life of each person is subject to biological laws. It retains all its significance and the mutational process as a source of genotypic variability. To a certain extent, the stabilizing form acts natural selection, eliminating sharply pronounced deviations from the average norm. In the process of social evolution of mankind, more favorable opportunities are created for revealing the individuality of each person, his personal qualities. The social nature of labor made it possible to isolate a person from nature, to create an artificial habitat for himself. Each of us has a unique, unique, m. b. the best, unique.
3. Summing up
Teacher: So, we have considered the features of human evolution. What was the main thing you learned from the information?
Student: 1. Human evolution is an extremely complex, lengthy process: from an animal to a rational person. Along this path, biological factors gradually lost their significance and were replaced by social factors;
2. In human evolution, it is necessary to single out 2 key points, 2 moments. The first and most important of these is the beginning of the manufacture of tools, the transition from the stage of the animal precursors of man to the stage of the most ancient forms that form people.
3. The emergence of man and his further evolution took place through the resolution of acute contradictions. Through the entire period of its formation, the resolution of the most important contradiction between the morphological structure and its activity took place. It was removed mainly in the process of selection and ... ended as a result of the origin of a creature that reached such a level of structure that made possible the unlimited expansion of its activity without any restructuring of its morphological structure.
4. Independent work. Test. Human Origins.
Decide whether the following sentences are correct or incorrect:
1. Man belongs to the class of mammals
2. Coccygeal bone in the human skeleton - an atavism
3. The human appendix is a rudiment
4. Thick human hair - atavism
5. Man and great apes are closely related organisms. 6. Labor activity, social lifestyle, speech and thinking are social factors
7. In the process of becoming a person, there are three stages
8. The driving forces of anthropogenesis are only social factors
Instead of dots, choose the appropriate words:
1. Theory of the origin of man - ....
2. A reasonable person belongs to the detachment ...
3. All people inhabiting our planet belong to the species….
3. A single appearance in a person of signs of an ancestor - ...
4. Speech, thinking, labor are among the factors..
5. Hereditary variability, BZS are among the factors ....
6. The human race originated from ... .. Historically established groups of people, characterized by a common hereditary traits ...
7. The first evidence of the animal origin of man was presented by ...
8. The work “The role of labor in the process of turning a monkey into a man” was written by ...
9. The first tools of labor were able to produce ...
10. The first hearths and dwellings were built ...
11. The chin protrusion is developed in ...
12. Humanity forms three great races...
5. Conclusions. Teacher: What conclusions can be drawn at the end of the lesson?
Student: The formation of a reasonable person can be concluded in the words of the Far Eastern poet S. Shchipachev:
Nature! Man is your creation
And this honor will not be taken away from you,
But he put on his feet from all fours
And labor made an ancestor a man.
S. Schipachev
Student: And with the words of R. Rozhdestvensky, one can conclude that the races are united:
For all the oppressed
hard-burned
Difference in skin color
doesn't count.
In people - black, white, yellow -
red blood is flowing!
R. Rozhdestvensky
6. Reflection: Stimulating students to comprehend the work done
Reflective Algorithm:
“I” (how I felt, with what mood I worked, whether I was satisfied with myself ...)
Have you reached the goal of the study?
What difficulties arose?
7. Work analysis (by students) Grading
Thank you all for your work.
Video fragment proving the unity of the origin of all races (2 min.)
Used Books:
1. Apples of evolution. M.: Det. Lit., 1985
2., Prokhorov around us. M.: From political literature, 1976
3. , Sukhorukova organic world: Optional course. M.: Enlightenment, 1991
It has been a long time since man used only natural shelters for his life. Man evolved, his way of life changed. The first human dwellings appeared, which he built specifically for his residence.
What were the first dwellings made of?
Today, everyone is used to the fact that there is an opportunity to purchase any material for building a house. You can even order material from the other side of the world. Just pay for the services - they will deliver with pleasure. But it was not always so. As there was not always mail, steamships and railways for the transport of goods.
In those distant times in question, the peoples lived apart from each other. There was practically no trade. And, materials for building, dwellings had to use those that were in abundance nearby. Or those that could be adapted for construction without significant effort.
Used construction material influenced the shape of the first dwelling. Therefore, in different parts of the planet, their own special types of human dwellings were formed. Despite their diversity, they also have significant similarities. But these similarities are due to the simplicity of making dwellings. Why complicate when you can make it simple?
In the steppe areas, semi-desert, tundra, dwellings made like huts appeared. They were made from branches of bushes, trees and covered with grass, animal skins and other materials. They were built in North America, Central Asia, Siberia. Such housing was called: wigwam, yurt, chum, and so on.
In semi-desert, desert areas, houses were built from materials that were underfoot. There were no others. This is a well-known material - clay. The walls of buildings were erected from it, vaults were made. If it was possible to find a tree, then the base of the roof was made from it, and covered with reeds, grass or other materials. Such housing was called adobe.
If straw was added to the clay, then such houses were called adobe. Usually these were small structures rectangular or round in plan. Their height was small - the height of a man. Such housing was built in Central Asia, Africa.
In mountainous and rocky areas, stone was used for construction. In fact, what else to build a house here? Walls were built from it. The roof was made of wood or also of stone. An example of such a structure is the Georgian saklya. In addition, caves continued to be made in the mountains. Only for this purpose they cut down cavities in the rocks on purpose.
And over time, such caves looked more and more like ordinary rooms and apartments. For example, in Italy there are entire ancient cities in the rocks. In some areas, entire secret cities were built in caves to protect against invaders. In the Turkish area of Cappadocia, well-preserved underground cities were recently discovered, in which thousands of people could hide and live.
In forest and taiga areas, where there was an abundance of wood, houses were built from it. Here we can mention chopped Russian izba, Ukrainian hut. In Europe, wood was also used for construction. These are the so-called chalets, which in translation means the shepherd's house. In general, the forest in one form or another for construction was used by many peoples of the world in its different parts.
Well, where there was no forest, and a thick layer of ice prevented the clay from reaching, the buildings were made from it. This custom existed in Greenland. There, dwellings were built from dense snow or ice. Such houses were called igloos.
On the other side of the globe, where, unlike Greenland, it was necessary to escape not from the cold, but from the heat, light structures were built. In the deserts of Arabia they lived in tents, and in Africa - in buildings woven from branches. It was not hot in such buildings. They are well ventilated around the clock.
Types of human dwelling depending on lifestyle
The way of life of peoples also had a significant impact on the appearance of his dwelling. In those distant times, there were two ways of life for people. Those who practiced agriculture led a sedentary lifestyle. They lived in their area permanently. And, accordingly, their houses were reliable and massive. Such houses, sometimes even with success, were used to protect against uninvited guests.
Unlike farmers, pastoralists and hunters led a nomadic lifestyle. They had no need to build reliable heavy houses. After all, they had to be moved from place to place from time to time. Therefore, lightweight collapsible buildings were built. A little later, some peoples began to use not only collapsible, but houses moved on wheels.
The cave is probably the most ancient natural refuge of man. In soft rocks (limestone, loess, tuff), people have long cut down artificial caves, where they equipped comfortable dwellings, sometimes entire cave cities. Yes, in cave city Eski-Kermen in the Crimea (pictured) rooms carved into the rock have hearths, chimneys, “beds”, niches for dishes and other things, water tanks, windows and doorways with traces of loops.
This is a chapter from a wall newspaper published by the charity project “Briefly and clearly about the most interesting”. Click on the newspaper thumbnail below and read other articles on topics that interest you. Thank you!
Wall newspaper "Dwellings of the peoples of the world" - a brief "wall encyclopedia" of traditional dwellings of peoples from around the world. The 66 "residential properties" we have chosen are arranged alphabetically: from "abylaisha" to "yaranga". All wall newspapers published by our charity project “Briefly and Clearly About the Most Interesting” are waiting for you on the site. There are also Vkontakte community and a branch on the website of the St. Petersburg parents Littvan, where we discuss the release of new newspapers. Anyone can receive our newspapers free of charge at distribution points in St. Petersburg.
How it all began
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According to the hypothesis put forward by the American archaeologist John Clark, the appearance of long-term sites and dwellings is associated with the lengthening of childhood. While the younger generation is being trained, the mobility of the hominid group is limited. "A young chimpanzee achieves independence between seven and eight years of age, and the transfer of the more complex skills that early hominids possessed must have taken an even longer time," Clarke wrote.
The dwelling provides greater security for the offspring. This is very important for anthropoids, which rarely have more than one offspring. And the problem of predators becomes especially critical during life not on a tree, but on the ground. Child care is best done in a relatively safe place where one parent looks after the offspring while the other gets food. Is it true that some kind of “wind barrier” provides protection? Doubtful... The predator will easily find people hiding behind a flimsy fence by smell.
Another hypothesis developed by the Soviet archaeologist V.Ya. Of course, small prey is eaten literally on the go. But when you managed to get an elephant - you can’t eat it in one sitting and you can’t drag it away. The whole community is invited to the place of prey (whether it is killed by a skilled hunter or an animal that died by its own death) - this is what, for example, modern pygmies do in Central Africa. The meat should not be lost, it should be eaten whole, simultaneously driving away scavengers approaching from all sides. A family of ancient hominids would camp around their prey and feast for days; tools and raw materials for their preparation were brought here; a hearth was being built ... However, no, there were no hearths at that time. And around, perhaps, a certain barrier was put up from branches pressed by stones - either protection from the wind, or from the curious.
It is clear that a very speculative picture is presented above. What gave people the first semblance of a dwelling? Wind protection? From the sun? From predators? From prying eyes? From otherworldly forces? From the rain? From the cold?... Aesthetic feeling of "comfort"? Together?
Be that as it may, modern hunter-gatherers, stopping for a halt - even for one night - often build themselves the simplest shelters.
For starters, it would be nice to find out when they appear - the first dwellings. But it's easy to say! As American anthropologist Jerry Moore writes, "Ideally, each site should be something like the ash-covered ruins of ancient Pompeii: a moment frozen in time." But, alas, Paleolithic Pompeii is unknown to us. And the oldest dwellings were obviously short-lived. Settled life is not for ancient hunters. If the analogy with modern hunting parties is correct, their hideouts were nothing more than fences of twigs and possibly skins, at best crushed down by stones. A few days later, people moved out and left the remains of their dwellings, which fell apart, rotted and, most likely, disappeared without a trace. There was only rubbish thrown by people - scraps, bones, broken tools; possibly recesses in places where supports were dug into the ground. If, as a result of a happy accident, all this was quickly buried under a layer of sediments, a certain “imprint” of a dwelling was obtained, the contours of which, in principle, can be identified by the distribution of cultural remains.
However, such an imprint still needs to be able to read. Research in this direction became possible only after the appearance of a sufficiently advanced excavation technique - one in which a significant part of the area of the ancient site is opened, the ancient "floor" on which people lived is cleared. Any significant finds - bones, tools, etc. - fixed in place and applied to the plan; then the entire ancient “residential complex” is analyzed. Now, by the way the accumulations of artifacts are located, one can try to understand: where the booty was butchered, where the tools were made, where the bones were thrown, and where the dwellings were located - if only they really were here.
It was as a result of the use of such technology that it was possible to discover residential buildings of the Stone Age. Of course, the oldest of them are the most controversial.
early people
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So, the oldest find of this kind was made by the British anthropologist Mary Leakey in 1962. At one of the sites of the Olduvai Gorge (which gave the world Homo habilis - a skilled man), about 1.8 million years old, many stone tools and animal remains were found - ancient giraffes, elephants, zebras, rhinos, turtles, crocodiles ... So, on one from the sites of this site, Leakey's team found a row of stones arranged (laid out?) in the form of a circle. As Mary Leakey wrote, this ring layout is “the oldest structure made by man. It consists of individual lava blocks and is from three and a half to four meters in diameter. A striking resemblance to the rough stone circles built for temporary shelter by modern nomadic peoples. So, Mary Leakey thought she had found the oldest home on earth. The stones, in her opinion, served to strengthen poles or branches stuck into the ground and forming something like a wind barrier or a simple hut.
In another Olduvai locality, famous for the discovery of the skull of the paranthropus Boyes, an oval accumulation of crushed bones and small stone fragments was revealed. It is surrounded by a relatively free space from finds, outside of which there are also fragments of bones and tools. Mary Leakey suggested that this place once was a wind screen that surrounded the central part of the parking lot.
Later, similar finds were made outside of Olduvai.
Is this evidence enough to assert that already one and a half million years ago our ancestors could build the simplest dwellings for themselves? Alas, not all experts agreed with this interpretation. And the older the site, the fewer sets of facts archaeologists have to work with.
The history of human development lasts no more than five million years, but people did not always have such comfortable dwellings as they do today. Surprisingly, primitive people did not see in their dwelling a means of shelter from bad weather or cold, oddly enough, but hominids did not pursue such a goal. If we look at other representatives of the animal world, we will see that they all also have dwellings, even birds make nests, and rodents make minks.
The first type of human dwelling is considered a cave. Caves have been found in many corners of the globe and testify to the fact that life was in full swing in them. Most historians cite fire marks as proof of life in caves; many of them burned for tens, hundreds and thousands of years, warming the inhabitants with their warmth and protecting their dangerous predators. Several dozen people settled in each cave, so they can be called the first communal apartments invented by people. It would seem that the facts indicating that the cave was the dwelling of a primitive man are indisputable, but in recent years a group of historians has appeared who claim that the cave acted as a place of worship. There is evidence of it as a place where dead ancestors and skulls were kept. Often there were cases of building dwellings at the entrance to the cave, but not in themselves.
In support of this assumption, one can cite the irrefutable fact that not every region of the earth has caves, but nevertheless, people settled almost everywhere, including in the steppe zones, where there were no rocks and caves. The same sources tell about the huts, which were located first on the trees, and then lowered to the ground, as the first dwellings. Branches served as a frame, and they were covered with the skins of wild animals. Such dwellings were small - only 2-2.5 meters in diameter. The dwellings of primitive man were not permanent, as people were forced to constantly move from one place to another in search of plant and animal food.
Later, in the era of the glacier, dugouts and semi-dugouts appear. They were already dwellings in the full sense of the word. After the glacier began to recede, large woolly animals, which are the main object of hunting, began to leave after it. It was they who brought the primitive inhabitants of Eurasia to the places of the harsh northern climate. Here people were forced to build permanent dwellings and take refuge in them in the local cold. However, not only in the north, permanent dugouts and semi-dugouts began to appear - they began to be built throughout the ecumene. These dwellings were built depending on climatic conditions for 5 or more years. They stopped being used when the supporting pillars that supported the roof rotted. Now briefly about these types of dwellings.
Semi-dugouts. A tunnel was dug to a depth of half a meter, then thick branches of trees or bones and mammoth tusks were driven into the ground - they acted as walls insulated with skins and foliage. In the center was a hearth lined with stones, and the entire surface of the floor was covered with a thick layer of sand and acted as one large couch.
Dugouts. A pit was built, sometimes up to a meter deep. The walls were no longer made of branches, but of logs. The vault was supported by vertical pillars around the perimeter of the dwelling. The roof was covered with bark of trees, then turf was covered and an earth embankment was made on top in a thick layer. There were no windows, there was only one exit, most often "looking" towards the river. An average of 20-25 people lived in such a room. It is clear that there was no question of any comfort: inside it was dark, stuffy and damp.
Thus, we came to the conclusion: the fact that proves to the whole world that the cave was the dwelling of a primitive man is not entirely accurate. People settled at the entrance to the cave, and the cave itself was used for other purposes. With regards to all kinds of huts, it turned out that it was these buildings that were built by man from the most ancient times, and for some peoples they still act as the main dwelling to this day.
