How to explain primitive man to children
Sometimes we wonder how we can teach children about primitive man
Human evolution studies, in particular, the origin of human beings. All humans belong to the same species, which has spread from its birthplace in Africa to almost every part of the world. Its origin in Africa is proven by the fossils that have been found there.
The term 'human' in this context refers to the genus Homo. However, studies of human evolution often include other hominins, such as australopithecines, from which the genus Homo is thought to have diverged (split) some 2.3 to 2.4 million years ago in Africa. The first Homo sapiens, ancestors of modern humans, evolved around 200,000 years ago.
For centuries it was known that humans and apes were related. At their core, their anatomy is similar, despite many superficial differences. This was the reason why Buffon and Linnaeus, in the 18th century, grouped them together in the same family. Charles Darwin's theory of evolution states that this basic structural similarity stems from the group's common origin. Apes and humans are close relatives, and they are primates: the order of mammals that includes monkeys, apes, lemurs, and more.
Great apes live in rainforests. It is believed that human evolution began when a group of apes started living more in the savanna. The savanna is more open, with trees, shrubs, and grasses. This group, the australopithecines, began walking on two legs. They started using their hands to carry things. Life in the open was different, and there was a great advantage to having larger brains. Their brains grew larger, and they began making simple tools. This began at least 5 million years ago. We have fossils from two or three different groups of walking apes, and one of them was the ancestor of humans.
Homo Sapiens
The biological name for "human" is Homo. The modern human species is called Homo sapiens. "Sapiens" means "thinking." Homo sapiens means "the thinking man.".
Paleoanthropology studies ancient human fossils, tools, and other signs of early human life. It began in the 19th century with the discovery of a "Neanderthal man" skull in 1856.
By 1859, zoologists had long known that humans are, in their anatomy, similar to the great apes. There are differences, too: humans can speak, for example. But the similarities are more fundamental than the differences. Humans also possess characteristics with a much older history, dating back to early vertebrate life.
Darwin: The Theory of Evolution
The idea that species are caused by evolution had been proposed before Darwin, but his book provided much evidence, and many were persuaded by it. The book was On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, published in November 1859. In this book, Darwin He wrote about the idea of evolution in general, rather than the evolution of human beings. "Light shall be shed on the origin of man and his history," was all Darwin wrote on the subject. However, the implication of the theory was clear to readers at the time.
Several people discussed human evolution. Among them were Thomas Huxley and Charles Lyell. Huxley convincingly demonstrated many of the similarities and differences between humans and apes in his 1863 book, Evidence Regarding Man's Place in Nature. By the time Darwin published his own book on the subject, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, the idea of human evolution was already well established. The theory was controversial. Even some of Darwin's followers (such as Alfred Russel Wallace and Charles Lyell) disliked the idea that humans had evolved their impressive mental capacities and moral sensibilities through natural selection.
Since the 18th century, scientists have thought that great apes were closely related to humans. In the 19th century, they speculated that humans' closest living relatives were either chimpanzees or gorillas. Both live in tropical rainforests in central Africa. In fact, chimpanzees are closer to us. Biologists believed that humans share a common ancestor with other African great apes and that fossils of these ancestors would be found in Africa, which they have been. It is now accepted by virtually all biologists that humans are not only similar to great apes, but are in fact great apes.
This was confirmed by late 20th-century studies of protein and gene sequences in apes and humans. These studies showed that humans share approximately 95 to 981 TP3T sequences with chimpanzees. This is a much closer relationship than with any other animal species and fully supports the ideas put forward in the 19th century by Darwin and Huxley.
«"The genetic and archaeological evidence currently available is generally interpreted as supporting a recent origin of modern humans in East Africa. However, this is where the close consensus on the history of human settlement ends, and considerable uncertainty clouds any more detailed aspects of the history of human colonization.".
Characteristics of the new hominids
Primates have diversified into habitats such as trees and shrubs. They have many characteristics that are adaptations to this environment. These are some of those traits:
- Shoulder joints that allow high degrees of movement in all directions.
- Five fingers on the upper and lower limbs with opposable thumbs and large toes; the hands can grasp, and usually the large toes as well.
- Nails on the toes (in most species).
- Sensitive touch pads at the ends of the digits.
- Eye sockets surrounded by bone.
- A tendency towards a reduced snout and a flattened face, attributed to a reliance on sight at the expense of smell.
- Complex visual system with binocular (stereoscopic) vision, high visual acuity, and color vision.
- Brain with a well-developed cerebellum for good balance.
- Large brain in comparison to body size, especially in apes (monkeys and Old World apes).
- Enlarged cerebral cortex (brain): learning, problem solving.
- Reduced number of teeth compared to primitive mammals;
- Well-developed cecum: plant digestion.
- Two pectoral mammary glands.
- One offspring per pregnancy.
- Long gestation and development period.
- Tendency towards an upright torso that leads to bipedalism.
Not all primates have these anatomical features, nor are all features exclusive to primates. Primates are frequently highly social, living in groups with flexible dominance hierarchies.
In future posts we will give you more tips on how to organize the teaching of primitive man
