The development of humans and the emergence of orientation

Every culture makes its own story of how it all began and what significance is of the origin. But in recent years, astrophysicists have delivered us some new and scientific versions. Most experts today think that time and space started more than 13 billion years ago and developed. However, they argue about how this should have happened andwhat forces worked. The prevailing theory of the universe assumes that this was only a point of infinite density at the beginning. This point had an infinitely small extension before it had expanded at the speed of overlight.

Cosmological models and their limits for human history

The rival theory of the universe, on the other hand, claims that this has been expanding since a previously existing universe. Both schools agree that our universe is still expanding and changing. Some assume that it will continue to expand until the end of time. that the stars will eventually go out and will end infinitelyspread darkness and cold. The others claim that our universe will also collapse and explode again in one cycle. This will start a new universe and continue the cycle from the beginning and end.

The emergence of landmarks on earth

It’s hard to understand these theories if you haven’t completed years of training in higher mathematics. Luckily, however, our question does not force us to use and start so early. How should there be East or West, as long as there were no directions at all and neither did the laws of nature. What should East and West mean if our sun hasn’tand our planet had not yet taken shape. This happened 4.5 billion years ago and marks an important point in the development of our home planet. We could perhaps speak of the East and West once the Earth’s crust had formed and was stable.

The need of human awareness for spatial concepts

At least as soon as the continents had taken up their current situation and consolidated. With which we are already moving in the period of the last millions of years and of modern geological times. But even these considerations do not hit the point and do not fully grasp the nature of the question. In the sense of the question of our text, East and West can only mean somethingif we add another ingredient. Human beings are necessary to give meaning to the concepts of direction and orientation. Without an observer, geographical designations remain empty terms without real meaning for the world.

Difficulties in defining man

Paleoanthropologists who explore early humans prefer to argue about their finds and interpretations as historians. Her research area is young and rapidly developing and constantly bringing out new insights. New discoveries are always turning established truths upside down and enforcing a rethink. If two paleoanthropologists were to be locked in a room, they wouldProbably relied on with three theories on human evolution. As soon as the door had fallen behind them, they would have been outdated and outdated again. The constant change in knowledge makes this field so exciting and at the same time so difficult to summarize.

The characteristics of the skilled person

The line between people and prehumans can only be blurred and cannot be drawn exactly. Some paleoanthropologists think that as soon as we discover prehistoric monkey species that could walk upright, we should also speak of humans. Judged by fossil hip and toe bones, some East African monkeys have thus six or seven million years agostarted. Most experts, however, are of the opinion that with such a definition, the bar is too low. The classification, which has become the biological standard, determines the human species by two linked criteria. On the one hand, due to the increase in the volume of the brain from 400 to 500 to around 630 cubic centimeters.

Lifestyle and nutrition of early humans

Our brain has about twice the volume compared to these early ancestors and predecessors. On the other hand, by evidence that upright monkeys have hit stones against each other to make tools. To create the simplest tools and thus to actively shape and change your environment. Both trials began among two-legged East African monkeys about 2.5 years agomillions of years and changed everything. Louis and Mary Leakey, the famous excavators in the Tanzania gorge, called these creatures skilled man. These creatures had a pretty big brain and tools used them regularly.

The end of an era and dating methods

When this skilled man walked the earth, East and West did not have much importance for him. First, because these creatures lived exclusively in the forests of East Africa and no regional variations had yet developed. Second, because the formulation walked over the earth is probably more of a euphemistic turn for its actual locomotion. the skillfulPeople had toes and joints like us and they were sure to walk upright. But her long arms suggest that they spent quite a lot of time in the trees and slept. They were probably special monkeys, but nothing more and nothing less than that.

Methods and uncertainties of age determination

The traces left by their stone tools on animal bones show that this person fed both meat and plants. But apparently he also lived quite far down the food chain and was often prey. Some paleoanthropologists represent the theory that people are hunters in their own way and killed their own food. In her opinion, this one wasMan skillfully and brave enough to kill wildly with nothing other than sticks. Others, on the other hand, consider him more convincing than leftovers, who followed the real predators. who lived from what they left and no longer ate after the meal.

Evolutionary Development Models

Traces that this person left with his tools on animal bones have been examined and analyzed microscopically. It was found out that they came there at least before those of the hyena teeth and secured access to the meat. For 25,000 generations, groups of this man romped around in this little corner of the world and swung through the trees. they beat themselvesStone tools rightly chanting and begot youngsters for the continued existence of the group. Then, sometime ago around 1.8 million years ago, they disappeared from the scene and were no longer seen. And, as far as we can judge, quite suddenly and without a long transitional phase for development.

Physical changes of the new human species

However, the exact dating of finds is one of the difficulties and problems in the study of human evolution. In many cases, we are dependent on unstable radioactive isotopes being found in the rock layers that contain fossil bones or tools. whose decay times are known, so that the finds can be dated by the ratiodetermined between these isotopes. However, these datings may contain errors that are in the range of a few tens of thousands of years and are unsafe. Therefore, if we say that the world of this man suddenly came to an end, it suddenly can encompass a few as well as some 1000 generations. When Charles Darwin in the 1840s and 1850s about the process ofhe thought about natural selection, he assumed that this was carried out by gradual accumulation.

The boy of Turkana and its meaning

In the 1970s, however, biologist Stephen Jay Gould claimed that evolution was not a result of small steps over a long period of time. But that any events trigger a cascade faster and accelerate the process. Evolutionary biologists today disagree about which is the more suitable model and which theory fits better. whetherStep-by-step changes or evolution through jumps better depict and describe reality. However, the thought model of rapid changes seems more suitable to explain the disappearance of this early man. About 1.8 million years ago, the climate in East Africa became drier and fundamentally changed the landscape.

The energetic costs of a large brain

Open savannas were created where the forests used to have been in which the skilled people lived. And this is exactly where new types of monkey people took their place and took over the territory. I don’t want to give this new monkey person a name here, but just for the moment they have larger brains. on average about 800The brain of this new species had cubic centimeter volume and had grown significantly. They also lacked the long, chimpanzee-like arms, which probably means they spent most of the time on the ground. They were also larger and had a more robust physique for life in the plain.

Birth problems and rearing as a result of intelligence

A 1.5 million year old skeleton found in Nariocomes in Kenya was a child about 1.50 meters tall. This find is known as a boy from Turkana and gives us an insight into the growth of this species. It was part of a child who, if it had grown, would have grown about 1.80 meters tall in adulthood. His bones were not only longer, but alsoless robust than those of the former skilled person. What can be concluded is that this boy and his contemporaries have more relied on their mental abilities and their tools. than on crude strength and physical strength in overcoming the challenges of daily life and survival.

The evolutionary advantage of intelligence

Most of us think being skillful and clever is of course an advantage and always better. If so, why did the former man, when he already had the potential to develop in this direction, have been working around half a million years. Before he suddenly turned into a larger creature with a larger brain and changed its shape. theThe most likely explanation is probably the fact that there is nothing in the biological world for nothing. And it is time-consuming to keep a large brain alive and provide enough energy. Our brain accounts for about two percent of our body weight and acts small in relation to the mass.

Climate change as a driver of human development

However, consumes up to 20 percent of the energy we consume in total and need for our metabolism. Large brains bring other problems with themselves for the body and the development of the living being. The skull must grow so that it can absorb it and provide protection for the sensitive organ. And he got so big that today’s women have trouble babiesto press through the birth canal. They avoid the problem by giving birth to their children immature and allowing them to continue to grow outside the body. If our babies stayed in the womb until they could keep themselves like the offspring of other mammals, their heads would be too big.

Adapting to changing environmental conditions

To get out of the body and allow a natural birth without endangering life. Still, risky births, years of breeding, and big brains burning one-fifth of the food we ingested must have been quite right for us. In any case, better than using the same energy to train claws, more muscles or large teeth.Intelligence is a bigger plus than any of these alternatives and offers more advantages in the fight for survival. On the other hand, it seems more questionable why a genetic mutation that led to a larger brain a few million years ago brought so many benefits to ape humans back then. That the greater energy expenditure was worthwhile and the mutation was able to prevail in the group.

The victory of intelligence over physical strength

But that must have been the case, otherwise the development would not have been so successful. Because higher intelligence and greater skill would not have been at least so useful that the higher energy required to maintain the grey cells could be compensated. Then the clever monkeys would have been less successful than their less gifted relatives and theirclever heredity quickly disappeared from the group. Perhaps the weather was to blame for everything and the change in environmental conditions drove development forward. When the rain stopped and the trees where the ape people had lived began to wither and disappear. Could the more failed and possibly also more sociable changed individuals have a head startbefore their more ape-like relatives.

The global spread of modern humans

Instead of retreating from the open grasslands, the wiser monkeys found ways to survive and persevere right there. And during a blink of an eye on the developmental timeline, a handful of altered individuals spread their genetic makeup throughout the stock. They supplanted the predecessor, who thought more slowly, was smaller and loved the forest, and for his survivalthis change marks a decisive step in the history of human development and adaptation. The ability to innovate has become the key to survival in a changing world. Thus, the foundation stone was laid for the later spread of man across the entire globe.