The scientific concept of Charles Darwin that ancient people came out of the animal world due to natural selection and positive mutations (intellectual qualities and body) has been ridiculed and attacked by critics for a century and a half. However, today this idea, supported by the data of genetics, archeology, cytology and other disciplines, has gained a dominant position in the scientific
substantiating the origin of man.
How it all began
The closest human relative in the modern world is the chimpanzee. It is their genetic data that matches ours by more than 98%. And this seemingly tiny difference made it possible to make a leap from the animal kingdom to space flight and quantum mechanics. According to researchers of the 20th century, the paths of great apes and humans themselves separated about 6-8 million years ago, when the first erect walking arose, forming the hominin family. The earliest fossil representative of this ladder is a creature called the Sahelanthropus. He lived about 6-7 million years ago, walked on two legs and already had progressive features in the structure of the skeleton. Which, however, were still closerto monkeys. Of course, it cannot be said that these were already ancient people. No, but these hominids were the first to descend from the branches of trees and chose life in the savannas of Africa, which significantly changed their way of life, and with it, physiological and social transformations.
Long evolutionary path
Besides Sahelanthropus, archaeologists managed to find a number of other links in the evolutionary chain: Orrorin (who lived 6 million years ago), the well-known Australopithecus (4 million years ago), Paranthropus (2.5 million years). Each of these hominids had some progressive traits compared to the previous ones.
The first ancient man
A real breakthrough in the evolutionary path of our ancestors was the emergence of Homo
habilis (skillful) and Homo ergaster (working), respectively 2.4 and 1.9 million years ago. Their brain volume became dramatically larger than that of their predecessors, and they were the first to use the most primitive tools. However, today in the scientific world there is no consensus about who the first ancient people were in the full sense of the word. Some scientists call the use of tools the general criterion, others - the physiological volume of the brain (which even Homo habilis did not have yet), others - a certain level of social organization. However, it is indisputable that the fully formed first ancient man was called Cro-Magnon. These early representatives of Homo sapiens appeared about 40 thousand years ago in Europe andtime founded the first cities and states. It is interesting that the ancient people known as Neanderthals, despite their highly developed social structure, the use of tools and fire, cultural achievements (in religion), are no longer considered the ancestor of modern people, but are only a dead end branch that died out for reasons that are not entirely clear about 25 thousand years ago. A wide variety of assumptions are made regarding the reasons for their extinction: the inability to endure the next ice age, the displacement from the hunting grounds by the Cro-Magnons, and some even allow the physical extermination of the last Neanderthals.
