Primitive people probably also noticed their resemblance to monkeys. But, acquiring an increasingly civilized appearance, a person tried not to perceive a chimpanzee or a gorilla as his likeness, because he quickly realized himself as the crown of creation of the almighty creator.
When theories of evolution appeared, suggesting the initial link in the origin of Homo sapiens in primates, they were met with incredulity, and more often with hostility. Ancient monkeys, located at the very beginning of the pedigree of some English lord, were perceived at best with humor. Science has now identified the direct ancestors of our species, dating back over 25 million years.
Common ancestor
To say that man descended from a monkey, from the point of view of modern anthropology - the science of man, of his origin, is considered incorrect. Man as a species evolved from the first people (they are usually called hominids), which were radically differentbiological species than monkeys. The first great human - Australopithecus - appeared 6.5 million years ago, and the ancient monkeys, which became our common ancestor with modern anthropoid primates, about 30 million years ago.
Methods for studying bone remains - the only evidence of ancient animals that have survived to our time - are constantly being improved. The oldest ape can often be classified by a jaw fragment or a single tooth. This leads to the fact that more and more new links appear in the scheme of human evolution, complementing the overall picture. In the 21st century alone, more than a dozen such objects were found in various regions of the planet.
Classification
The data of modern anthropology are constantly updated, which makes adjustments to the classification of biological species to which a person belongs. This applies to more detailed divisions, while the overall system remains unshakable. According to the latest views, man belongs to the class Mammals, order Primates, suborder Real monkeys, family Hominid, genus Man, species and subspecies Homo sapiens.
Classifications of the closest "relatives" of a person are the subject of constant debate. One option might look like this:
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Squad Primates:
- Half-monkeys.
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Real monkeys:
- Talsiers.
- Broad-nosed.
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Narrow-nosed:
- Gibbon.
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Hominids:
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Pongins:
- Orangutan.
- Bornean orangutan.
- Sumatran orangutan.
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Hominins:
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Gorillas:
- Western gorilla.
- Eastern gorilla.
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Chimpanzee:
- Common chimpanzee.
- Pygmy chimpanzee.
- People:
A reasonable man
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Origin of monkeys
Determining the exact time and place of origin of monkeys, like many other biological species, occurs like a gradually emerging image on a Polaroid photograph. The finds in different regions of the planet supplement the overall picture in detail, which is becoming clearer. At the same time, it is recognized that evolution is not a straight line - it is rather like a bush, where many branches become dead ends. Therefore, it is still a long way to build at least a segment of a clear path from primitive primate-like mammals to Homo sapiens, but there are already several reference points.
Purgatorius - a small, no larger than a mouse, animal lived in trees, eating insects, in the Upper Cretaceous and Paleogene period (100-60 million years ago). Scientists put him at the beginning of the chain of evolution of primates. It revealed only the rudiments of signs (anatomical, behavioral, etc.) characteristic of monkeys: a relatively large brain, five fingers on the limbs, lower fecundity with no seasonality of reproduction, omnivorousness, etc.
Beginning of hominids
Ancient apes, the ancestors of anthropoids, left traces starting from the late Oligocene (33-23 million years ago). They still havethe anatomical features of the narrow-nosed monkeys, put by anthropologists at a lower level, are preserved: a short auditory canal located outside, in some species - the presence of a tail, the absence of specialization of the limbs in proportion and some structural features of the skeleton in the area of the wrists and feet.
Among these fossil animals, proconsulids are considered to be among the most ancient. The features of the structure of the teeth, the proportions and dimensions of the cranium with an enlarged brain section relative to its other parts allow paleoanthropologists to classify proconsulids as anthropoid. This species of fossil monkeys includes proconsuls, kalepithecus, heliopithecus, nyanzapithecus, etc. These names were formed most often from the name of geographical objects near which fossil fragments were found.
Rukvapitek
Most of the finds of the most ancient bones of paleoanthropologists are made on the African continent. In February 2013, paleoprimatologists from the United States, Australia and Tanzania published a report on the results of excavations in the Rukwa River Valley in southwestern Tanzania. They discovered a fragment of the lower jaw with four teeth - the remains of a creature that lived there 25.2 million years ago - this was the age of the rock in which this find was discovered.
According to the details of the structure of the jaw and teeth, it was established that their owner belongs to the most primitive anthropoid apes from the familyproconsulides. Rukvapitek was the name of this hominin ancestor, the oldest fossil great ape, because it is 3 million years older than any other paleoprimates discovered before 2013. There are other opinions, but they are connected with the fact that many scientists consider the proconsulids to be too primitive creatures to define them as true humanoids. But this is a matter of classification, one of the most controversial in science.
Driopithecus
In the geological deposits of the Miocene era (12-8 million years ago) in East Africa, Europe and China, the remains of animals were found, which paleoanthropologists assigned the role of an evolutionary branch from proconsulids to true hominids. Dryopithecus (Greek "drios" - tree) - the so-called ancient monkeys, which became a common ancestor for chimpanzees, gorillas and humans. The places of the finds and their dating make it possible to understand that these monkeys, outwardly very similar to modern chimpanzees, formed into a vast population, first in Africa, and then spread across Europe and the Eurasian continent.
About 60 cm tall, these animals tried to walk on their lower limbs, but mostly lived in trees and had longer "arms". The ancient dryopithecus monkeys ate berries and fruits, which follows from the structure of their molars, which had a not very thick layer of enamel. This shows a clear relationship of driopithecus with humans, and the presence of well-developed fangs makes them an unequivocal ancestor of other hominids - chimpanzees and gorillas.
Gigantopithecus
In 1936, paleontologists accidentally fell into the hands of several unusual monkey teeth, remotely similar to human ones. They became the reason for the emergence of a version about their belonging to beings from an unknown evolutionary branch of human ancestors. The main reason for the appearance of such theories was the huge size of the teeth - they were twice the size of the teeth of a gorilla. According to the calculations of specialists, it turned out that their owners had a height of more than 3 meters!
After 20 years, an entire jaw with similar teeth was discovered, and the ancient giant monkeys from a creepy fantasy turned into scientific fact. After a more accurate dating of the finds, it became clear that huge anthropoid primates existed at the same time as the Pithecanthropus (Greek "pithekos" - monkey) - ape-men, that is, about 1 million years ago. The opinion was expressed that they were the direct predecessors of man, involved in the disappearance of the largest of all the monkeys that existed on the planet.
Herbivorous Giants
Analysis of the environment in which fragments of giant bones were found, and the study of the jaws and teeth themselves, made it possible to establish that bamboo and other vegetation served as the main food for Gigantopithecus. But there were cases of discovery in caves, where they found the bones of monster monkeys, horns and hooves, which made it possible to consider them omnivores. Giant stone tools were also found there.
From here followed a logical conclusion: Gigantopithecus - an ancient anthropoid ape up to 4 meters tall and weighing about half a ton - is anotherunrealized branch of hominization. It has been established that the time of their extinction coincided with the disappearance of other anthropoid giants - African Australopithecus. A possible reason is climatic cataclysms that have become fatal for large hominids.
According to the theories of the so-called cryptozoologists (Greek "cryptos" - secret, hidden), individual individuals of Gigantopithecus have survived to our times and exist in areas of the Earth that are difficult for people to access, giving rise to legends about the Bigfoot, Yeti, Bigfoot, Almaty and so on.
White spots in the biography of Homo sapiens
Despite the successes of paleoanthropology, there are gaps up to a million years in the evolutionary chain, where the first place is occupied by the ancient apes, from which man descended. They are expressed in the absence of links that have scientific - genetic, microbiological, anatomical, etc. - confirmation of the relationship with previous and subsequent types of hominids.
There is no doubt that gradually such white spots in the history of human origin will disappear, and sensations about the extraterrestrial or divine beginning of our civilization, which are periodically announced on entertainment channels, have nothing to do with real science.
