Biologist Robert Cieri talks about what actually helped man become the crown of creation.
“Homo sapiens is a species of the genus People (Homo) from the family of hominids in the order of primates, the only one currently living.” This is how Wikipedia modestly begins its story about the crown of creation, gradually unwinding the plot about the birth of a unique creature, whose large brain and neat jaw determined its royal position in the animal world. Now, if you ask anyone “what makes a person a person?”, you will certainly get the answer: “the ability to think, feel, create...”. Someone will even remember the pearls of Marxist ideology, according to which it was labor that made a man out of an ape and was the decisive factor in the process of evolution of Homo Sapiens.
Well, the arguments are very interesting. Especially if you don’t take into account the smart dolphins, whose intelligence is perhaps not inferior to ours, the cunning sea otters that have learned to deftly use stones to crack shells and get shellfish, and many other equally smart and hardworking mammals. However, despite their undoubted merits, for some reason these animals do not travel with us on the subway today...
Source: Dolphin Kiss/Flickr
Trying to resolve the contradictions of scientific hypotheses and find the true cause of human evolution, scientists are testing more and more new versions. Thus, a group of American researchers became interested in the question of why the so-called “creative revolution”, which marked a kind of cultural surge in the life of our Cro-Magnon ancestors, occurred only 50 thousand years ago, despite the fact that the anatomy of ancient people approached the anatomy of modern humans much earlier - about 200 thousands of years old (numerous human fossils indicate that the skeletons of people dating back to this time, compared to earlier samples, have thinner bones, large skulls with vertical flat foreheads and small jaws - almost like we have today).
How did this happen? Why did ancient man, who approached us anatomically so long ago, begin to think like us today only after 150 thousand years of evolution in our body? How and on what basis did our ancient ancestors suddenly discover in themselves the desire to create, create beautiful objects (not only useful ones!), endow phenomena with symbolic meaning and convey their impressions in rock paintings?
According to researchers who published their work in Current Anthropology last year, the reason for the creative boom is to be found in the ability to cooperate, which evolved in humans along with biological changes.
You can't learn anything from someone if you can't get along with them, says Robert Cieri, lead author of the study and a PhD candidate in biology. “If you want to be able to teach and work together, if you want to learn, you must be tolerant.
It's hard to argue. But still, what makes a person human and why have we suddenly become so soft and fluffy? According to Cieri, changes in testosterone levels in the body of Homo Sapiens played a huge role in this. According to the scientist, the evolution of the craniofacial part of the skeleton can tell about the decrease in the amount of this hormone in the human body. The fact is that morphogenic features and osteogenic changes in bone tissue largely depend on mediators and hormones that mediate aggressiveness, social dominance and other dominant behavior patterns. Individuals with large amounts of aggressive male hormones (androgens) have larger, more prominent faces, while individuals with reduced levels of androgens have more refined facial features (this mechanism, by the way, is part of the sexual dimorphism that determines the anatomical differences between women and men).
Robert Ciery, Craniofacial Feminization, Social Tolerance, and the Origins of Behavioral Modernity. Photo: David Brill
To confirm his hunch, Cieri and his colleagues compared an impressive number of human skeletons, fossil and modern, right down to those belonging to hunter-gatherers and farmers of the 20th century. The analysis showed that the skulls, which are about two hundred thousand years old, are not exactly the same as those of our sophisticated ancestors who appeared fifty thousand years ago: the evolution of the skulls shows a gradual reduction in the brow ridges and a decrease in the size of the face. And this, in turn, confirms Sieri’s hypothesis about the gradual decrease in the level of the male hormone of aggression in the human population.
Robert Ciery, Craniofacial Feminization, Social Tolerance, and the Origins of Behavioral Modernity. Photo: David Brill
Cieri does not explain why testosterone has decreased. This may have been influenced by other social factors. For example, a 2011 study by Canadian scientists showed that men who became fathers have lower levels of testosterone compared to the reserves of this hormone in men without children. Researchers see this as a necessary physiological change in a growing person who has acquired responsibility for a defenseless child. It is possible that this mechanism formed the basis for the gradual decrease in the level of the militant hormone in the Homo Sapiens population. However, there are other points of view. Thus, paleoanthropologist Richard Klein considers population densification in certain areas of the earth, for example, in river valleys, as the root cause of change. It was at these points of a denser population, according to the researcher, that the need for cooperation and regulation of one’s instincts arose.
However, evolution is unlikely to be limited to one or two reasons. A whole range of different factors probably influenced what happened. But in all this confusing maze of causes and consequences, one thought remains truly valuable: we became human when we were able to control our aggression. It was when testosterone ceased to dominate people that their daily interactions gradually led to the development of common ideas, the emergence of art, and a decrease in the hostility found in earlier eras.
People have always believed that the reason for the success of the species was their exceptional intelligence. But maybe the secret to success lies not in the intelligence of individuals, but in the human ability to cooperate with each other and become smarter in developing together. Of course, you shouldn’t write off intelligence,” says Sieri, laughing. “However, group intelligence can be successful as long as everyone in the group is smart enough.”
Good conclusion. And very timely. Perhaps, right now, when the level of testosterone in the world is off the charts, it is worth remembering how and why we became human. It seems that Canadian science fiction writer Peter Watts had this in mind in his novel False Blindness:
When the fate of the world hangs in the balance, you want to take an especially close look at the man whose career began by collaborating with the enemy.
Based on materials from: “Before We Painted Like Picasso, We Had to Share Like Gandhi,” Nautil.us.
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What makes a person a person 8th grade
Additional materials on social studies Added: 06/21/2018, 18:22
Video presentation by Abulova B.T.
