Where did the first man appear on our planet? This question has been troubling scientists since the time of Charles Darwin. No less the question of where the first man appeared is of interest to many curious inhabitants. However, this topic is not as simple as it might seem at first glance. The fact is that if you start to understand it in order to adequately answer the question of where the first man appeared, it turns out that there is still no final and generally accepted opinion among archaeologists or anthropologists. Who is considered human? Which of the links in the evolutionary chain suddenly became a man, leaving his own parent at the stage of monkeys? After all, evolution is not at all
one-step act, but long and very slow transformations. The second difficulty with the question of where the first person appeared lies in the criteria themselves - how to separate a person in general, on what grounds? By upright posture, opposing the thumb, by the use of tools, or, after all, by the size of the brain? Let's try to sketch an extremely brief picture of the path of Homo sapiens.
Where did the first humans appear?
Answer -in Africa, apparently. According to modern researchers, the lines of modern great apes and the immediate ancestors of humans separated about 8-6 million years ago. It was then that the first upright hominids appeared on the planet. Their earliest fossil representative is the sahelantrum creature. He lived about 6-7 million years ago and already walked on two legs. Of course, it is hardly possible to call him only on this basis
the oldest man. The rest of his features were still similar to those of apes, but the fact that they had already descended from the branches significantly changed their lifestyle and directed evolution in the right direction. Sahelanthropus was followed by Orrorin (about 6 million years ago), Australopithecus known to all (about 4 million years ago), Paranthropus (2.5 million). These are far from all the links found by archaeologists and dating from this long period, but only some representatives of the chain. It is important that each of these hominids had certain progressive features compared to their predecessors. Homo habilis (skillful man) and Homo ergaster (working), which appeared 2.4 and 1.9 million years ago, were the first hominids that were already really close to the modern type of people. Like all previous links, these ancestors of today's people lived in Africa - the cradle of mankind. And finally, the really indisputable people are Homo sapiens, who appeared only 40 thousand years ago. Interestingly, this type of person also originated in Africa, but at that timeAt the same time, Europe was already inhabited by people! People who, according to modern scientists, appeared already in Europe,
however, over time, they disappeared from the face of the Earth and are not direct descendants of modern humanity, but only a dead end branch of evolution. We are talking about the famous Neanderthals, who became extinct for reasons that are not entirely clear about 25,000 years ago.
Where did the first people appear? The history of the emergence of ancient civilizations
Be that as it may, it was Homo sapiens who was destined to eventually settle from Africa to all the continents of the planet. Since that time, people have not undergone significant biological changes. However, an important event was the so-called Neolithic revolution. This is the process of transition from an appropriating economy to a reproducing economy, that is, the emergence of agriculture and cattle breeding. The new forms of management turned out to be much more effective, allowing the tribes to significantly increase their numbers, create an excess product of labor, giving rise to social stratification. Ultimately, these processes led to the emergence of the first civilizations and states that arose in Mesopotamia.
