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5. Human ancestors (simian concept and modern theory of anthropogenesis)

Human ancestors (simian concept and modern theory of anthropogenesis)

Zubov A.A.

Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology RAS, Moscow

Zubov A.A., e-mail: physatnrop@iea.ras.ru

Abstract

Article contains a brief description of evolutionary lineage from the ancestral mammals, incl. lnsectivores and primitive Primates, up to the superfamily Hominoidea and the family Hominidae. Anthropologists try to predict for how long our species Homo sapiens will exist, basing in this prognosis on the comparison with some other, closest taxa, for instance with Australopithecus afarensis, which lived on Earth for nearly 1 million years. It turns out that Homo sapiens, which exists so far for about 200,000 years, seems to have still considerable time to live, but these calculations might be having no sense at all, because new social factors of development could, on one hand, prolong the time of survival, or, on the other hand, shorten it. About 40 million years ago the suborder Anthropoidea came into being, first representatives of which possessed traits of both apes and Prosimii, and were the ancestors of modern Hominoidea, incl. family Hominidae and genus Homo. First Hominids appeared about 7 million years ago and are represented in fossil records by genera Orrorin and Sahelanthropus. Special attention is paid in this article to the place of Man in general classification of living beings. Humans and the great apes differ in their morphology at a family level. There is a controversy now about the relationship between Man and African great apes. Genetic data do not agree with the morphologic classification. First of all Chimpanzees prove to be closer to Homo and have to be classified within this genus as a subgenus Homo (Pan). This phenomenon may be due to different genetic basis of the morphological and genetic markers. Of course, the resemblance between Man and Chimpanzee turns out to be closer than it has long been assumed. The experiments, made by American scientists, showed that Chimpanzee and Gorilla are able to communicate with Humans at a level of 4-5 year-old children, using the deaf-and-dumb alphabet and special equipment. So it was thought that it could be possible to convert an ape into man by a special training. However, there are many natural obstacles to this experiment, first of all morphophysiological stage of brain development, a result of long evolutionary history.

Keywords

apes, family Hominidae, species Homo sapiens, classification of living beings

Цит.: Zubov A.A. Human ancestors (simian concept and modern theory of anthropogenesis) // Moscow University Anthropology Bulletin (Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta. Seria XXIII. Antropologia), 2009; 4/2009; с. 25-33