Pi te can tro pov. Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus are named

It led to the fact that modern man entered a new round of his history. Comparing the first subspecies of people and the modern inhabitant of the Earth, one can be amazed at what path has been taken, and how much has been achieved in a relatively short period of time for history.

The emergence of the term

To answer the question of who the Pithecanthropes are, you should get to know the term itself better. It was invented in the 19th century by Ernst Haeckel. The time of the term fell on such a period in science when there were not yet a large number of fossil finds that could give more detailed and accurate characteristics of the first people. However, even then, scientists gradually came to the conclusion that man is the ancestor of long-extinct animals. Haeckel decided to describe him, but he had to be named somehow. He decided to combine the words "man" and "monkey", so that it was clear that something in between was meant. It should be noted that it was this German scientist who insisted that the ancestors should be sought in the southeastern part of Asia.

Confirmation of the theory of Ernst Haeckel

Ernst Haeckel was right. His words were able to confirm and prove the Dutch scientist Eugene Dubois. He went on a scientific expedition to the swamps of Indonesia to find the very middle link that connected man and monkey. The first four years of his search were unsuccessful, however, luck smiled at him too. He found a skull, a hip bone, and two molars on Eva Island. The creature whose remains he found combined the properties of both man and monkey. Dubois decided on his own to name his discovery - the ape-man erectus.

After that all scientific world celebrated his victory. Many expeditions were organized to Eva Island, where scientists found the remains of about 20 adults. Since the last century, scientists have regularly encountered Pithecanthropus bones around the world.

Many finds on a territorial basis belong to Africa. This is not surprising, because most of the remains of the ape-man were found there. In 1955, a fragment of the skull and jaw of a hominid was found in Algeria, which was very reminiscent of Pithecanthropus. Along with this, the remains of animals were found: a giraffe, an elephant, a rhinoceros. Interestingly, stone tools were also found.

Who are Pithecanthropes?

The word pithecanthropus in translation from the Greek language and the decomposition of the word into two components means "man" and "monkey". A synonym for this term is the phrase "Javanese man". So who are the Pithecanthropes? Pithecanthropus is a subspecies of humans that, according to some opinions, is recognized as a cross between Australopithecus and Neanderthals on the evolutionary ladder. Scientists have estimated the time gap of the existence of this type of people at 1 million 700 thousand years.

Modern scientists consider this subspecies of people as a local replacement for Homo erectus, which is located on the territory South-East Asia. This subspecies did not produce immediate ancestors. modern man.

Boy from Turkana

Turkan is a beautiful lake located in Kenya. The area was extensively excavated in 1968 under the supervision of Richard Leakey. In 1984 west coast lakes gave the scientific world a unique sample - the skeleton of a boy about 12 years old. It is established that the boy lived about 1 million 600 thousand years ago! The skull and jaw bones were similar to the bone structure of Neanderthals, but all the other bones were like those of a modern person. Interestingly, his height was 170 cm, and this despite the fact that he was only 12 years old!

The eastern birch of Lake Turkan pleased scientists with the findings of pithecanthropes. In 1982, due to the large number of Pithecanthropus remains found, a postage stamp was issued with their image.

Finds around the world

Pithecanthropes are ancient people who left traces of their existence all over the globe. Europe also boasts a number of discoveries. Scientists have found the lower jaw, which most likely belonged to a young and strong man. The find was made near Heidelberg, Germany. In all respects, this find was ranked among the finds of the remains of Pithecanthropes. In Hungary, in 1965, a massive occipital bone was found, which also belonged to Pithecanthropus. In Nice (France), scientists discovered a whole Pithecanthropus site called Terra Amata. Large ones were found there. They were made up of branches, which rested on one strong pillar covered with skin. The dwellings were very spacious, and reached 15 m in length and 5 m in width. Inside the dwelling, one could find the remains of hearths made of many stones. By the way, this find is the earliest evidence that they knew how to handle fire. By the period of decline of the existence of this species, fire was used by them everywhere. Perhaps this was influenced by climate change in the direction of cooling.

As for the time chain, it should be said that the first Pithecanthropus lived in Africa about 1.7 million years ago. At first, they did not want to leave their homes, but for about 1.2 million years they have been actively moving into the territory of Eurasia. And only about 700,000 years ago, Pithecanthropes visited Europe.

Appearance

The Neanderthal Pithecanthropus was over 1.5 m tall. Like a modern man, the Pithecanthropus walked on two legs, but due to the structural features of the skeleton, its gait resembled a "waddle". If we take into account general structure, then the ancient man of this subspecies was very similar to modern man, with the exception of the bones of the skull, which retained multiple archaic elements: a sloping forehead, a massive lower jaw, large teeth, protruding superciliary arches. Due to the fact that the chin protrusion was not found, it is generally accepted that he could not speak, but he could make sounds and communicate with them. Also, the very structure of the brain has become noticeably more complicated compared to previous species. Australopithecus Pithecanthropus had a rapidly developing brain, although some of the head sections grew unevenly.

Pithecanthropus labor

Australopithecus, Neanderthal, Pithecanthropus - they are all representatives of ancient people, but developed in their own period of time, and achieved different progress. Pithecanthropus is considered the closest in many parameters to modern man than the other two subspecies.

Pithecanthropes managed to make a hand ax - a piece of flint, which is chipped on both sides and is a rough and massive tool. It is approximately 20 cm long and weighs 0.5 kg. The ax has a rather traced shape, the working part and the handle are well separated. Having found an ax, it is difficult to confuse it with an ordinary stone of a bizarre shape, which is typical for many tools of other subspecies of ancient people. It is this tool that is most often found in the villages of Pithecanthropes, but it is not the only one. They have piercers (for piercing something) and scrapers (for working with wood and bone) made of flint. They also made wooden tools, which, however, are poorly preserved to this day due to the natural properties of wood. However, the tools that fell into the peat layer have survived sufficiently to study them.

In Germany, a Pithecanthropus yew spear was discovered, which was intended to kill an elephant. The length of this tool is 215 cm, while the sharp end is fire-treated for better strength. Since studies have shown that the center of gravity is in the lower part of the gun, they used it, most likely, as a pike, and not a throwing device. Also, scientists often find clubs and diggers that were used in everyday life.

Pithecanthropus life

It was simple, ordinary and primitive, but very dangerous. It is known that these human ancestors lived in villages. They created something like families, but their huge dwellings indicate that the family was different from the modern one. Several generations lived in the dwelling for many years in a row. At the same time, there was no special division into who was whose partner. Of course, if someone defended his female and showed aggression, then she was not touched.

Pithecanthropus, which was rather primitive, still knew how to hunt and get food for himself and his family. they made tools that helped them kill large and strong representatives of the animal world. Most of the life of the male representative of Pithecanthropus was spent hunting. The women stayed in the dwellings, sat with the children, prepared potions to treat the returning hunters.

The opinion of modern scientists

To date, scientists are not inclined to really recognize Pithecanthropus as the ancestor of modern man. For the scientific world, this subspecies of people is an isolated, but quite developed group of people who were lucky enough to survive until the appearance of the first modern people.

Nevertheless, research and excavations continue, and perhaps something new will be found that will confirm or refute the opinion of today's researchers.

Summing up some results, it is worth noting that the Pithecanthropus, whose photo can be found in a history textbook, was a human ancestor. But it is important to understand that he was far from the ancestor of man in his modern guise. Pithecanthropes were just an intermediate link that occupied its temporary niche and developed in accordance with the conditions environment and your own needs. It should be understood that discoveries are made almost every year, so it is not known what will become known to us in the future about who the Pithecanthropes are and how this will change our understanding of human ancestors.

Until now, scientists have not had many remains of primitive people. On this moment archaeologists managed to find a large number of remains of ancient people. The most ancient are found on the African continent. In this regard, it is generally believed that it was on this hot continent that the evolution of mankind may have originated, the evolution that ultimately led to the appearance of the present person. 3.5-1.8 million years ago, humanoid creatures, which were called Australopithecus - southern monkeys, already roamed the vast expanses of the African continent. They already had a certain brain, and large jaws necessary for animals, besides, they could move like a person on two legs, and they could not only hold a stick in their hands, but also use it “correctly” as a tool.

Based on the finds, scientists suggest that the first tools appeared about two and a half million years ago. These were primitive tools made of sticks and stone. You can’t do much with them, but you could kill an animal, skin it, or dig up root crops. Those primitive people who managed to learn how to make a primitive tool of labor were called in science "handy man" (homo habilis). Now they are considered the first representatives of the human race.

This "Handy Man" could move on his hind legs, and his "hands" could not only use tools, but also make them. So far, these people have not been able to speak. All of them Speaking was reduced to "sign language" like monkeys. The diet of their food was both vegetable and animal meat, which they had at the expense of hunting.

Pithecanthropus tools

Their "society" was not large, their groups consisted of a small number of individuals. Several males, several females with cubs.

A little later, about one million years ago, a new type of ancient man appeared, this is “homo erectus” - a straight man. In science, he was called Pithecanthropus - this is already an ape-man. This man was still very animal-like. His body was all covered in wool. He had a low forehead, and superciliary arches that protruded strongly forward. And the brain was already closer to the person. It was quite large, approaching the size of the brain of a modern person. Pithecanthropus, as well as the early representatives of mankind, could make tools from stone, these tools could greatly facilitate his life in ancient world. They could kill animals, cut meat, skins, dig the ground and much more.

Work, as is commonly believed, makes a person. So it happened with Pithecanthropus. The development of "ancient craftsmanship" contributed to adapting to various climatic conditions our planet. Their remains were found in various regions of the Earth. Due to the formation of glaciers, the planet has the opportunity to migrate not only to animals, but also to “people.” So they appeared even on the American continent.

The ancient sites of pithecanthropes, as a rule, were located near rivers, lakes and other bodies of water, where there were many animals. They hunted, as a rule, large animals such as deer. People hunted in groups, then the prey was divided among all members of the herd.

Primitive pithecanthropes already knew fire. The fire allowed them to keep warm in the cold season, protected them from predators. They also began to “cook” food on the fire, which they had hitherto eaten raw.

Such a way of life demanded "collectivism" from them. Their teams should be fairly close-knit. This led to the transfer of knowledge from the elders to the younger generation, from parents to their children. However, despite this, Pithecanthropus could not advance further on the evolutionary ladder. Development was very slow. They "died" in their original state.

Pithecanthropus is the name given to the most ancient people (1 million years old) found on about. Java. Subsequently, Javanese Pithecanthropus, Sinanthropus (China), Heidelberg Man (Europe) and a number of other "species" ancient people were united under the name Homo erectus - Homo Erectus. In the early Pleistocene (1.6 million years ago), the “handy man” was replaced by the “upright man” - Homo erectus, who was formerly called Pithecanthropus; It was at this time that Australopithecus completely died out. Approximately 1.2-1.0 million years ago, Homo erectus went beyond Africa and populated southern Asia and Europe, and disappeared 400 thousand years ago, making room for Homo sapiens.

None of the finds of the remains of the most ancient hominids caused such controversy and did not attract such attention as the find made by the Dutch anatomist and physician E. Dubois on the island of Java in 1891-1893. Inspired by Haeckel's prediction of the existence of a "transitional link" between ape and man - Pithecanthropus, the young doctor abandoned his teaching career in order to dream of finding the missing link. He became a ship's doctor on a warship and went to Sumatra. Sailors rarely got sick, and Dubois could busy himself with exploring the caves. However, the Sumatrans - local residents - avoided the caves, believing that evil spirits settled there, and Dubois decided to look for traces of Pithecanthropus along the riverbeds in Java, where there were many bone remains of animals along the river valleys.

In 1891, he found a third upper molar, but decided that it belonged to a monkey, although the shape of the tooth, its length and protrusions were purely human. In 1892, in the valley of the river. Solo near the village of Trinil, he continued to excavate at the site of the discovery of the tooth and found a skullcap, probably belonging to the same creature as the tooth. Heavy bone due to mineralization had a dark color. At 15 m from the occurrence of the skull, Dubois found a femur. It was a human bone, not an ape. The length of the bone was 45.5 cm, from which it followed that the height of the creature was 170 cm. The skull cover in shape and size occupied an intermediate position between a man and an anthropoid ape. The forehead was low, sloping, with supraorbital ridges, like those of monkeys. The occipital region of the skull is flattened from above. The cavity of the brain skull during the reconstruction was equal to 900 cc. On the inner surface of the skull, Dubois noticed the imprint of Broca's area, which is usually associated with the development of speech. The cast of the cranial cavity showed that in its structure it is much closer to the human than to the simian type, but has primitive features. The lower frontal lobe and parietal lobe are less developed than in modern humans. The femur is nearly straight, not curved like in humans, and the popliteal fossa is convex rather than flat. The owner of the femur had a less perfect gait than a man, but walked on two legs, straightened up.

In 1896, Dubois published a book in which he named his discovery Pithecanthropus erectus, an upright ape-man. Haeckel called the proposed transitional link "ape-man dumb", but, judging by Broca's zone, he was not dumb. On the copy donated to Haeckel, Dubois wrote "To the Inventor of the Pithecanthropus".

Arriving from Java, Dubois showed his find to prominent scientists - A. Kiss, V. Woodworth, R. Virchow. Many researchers did not accept the explanation of the find as a "missing link". So, Virchow believed that the bone remains belonged to a giant gibbon, and Keess believed that these were the remains of a degenerate person, who was also hit on the skull, since the skull cover was too flat. In addition, the growth of pathological bone substance was found on the femur.

In 1895, the International Zoological Congress was held in the Netherlands, at which Pithecanthropus was in the spotlight. Twenty eminent professors put to a vote the question of whether the find belonged to a person, an intermediate creature or an ape. Opinions were divided, however, the femur was attributed to the human by most scientists, and the teeth and skullcap were attributed to an intermediate creature. It seemed to some that this was the lowest type of person, to others that it was a transitional form, a third of scientists believed that this was a dead end branch of ancient people. Some believed that the skullcap and femur belong to different individuals. After 10 years, Dubois, tired of the struggle, began to hide his find from everyone. At the end of his life, he himself decided that she really belongs to a giant gibbon. No tools with Pithecanthropus bones have been found.

In 1936, the young geologist G. Koenigswald decided to continue the search for Pithecanthropus in Java. Koenigswald was born in the USA, trained in Germany and went to work in the tropics of Southeast Asia in the same places where Dubois worked. Soon he found rough-hewn tools with flakes-blades. Koenigswald explored the place Mojokerto near the city of Sangiran. From 1936 to 1941, he discovered the remains of a fossil man - three skulls and three lower jaws. One of the skulls from Mojokerto was a child's, this skull was the first of the discovered remains and immediately attracted attention by the similarity of the skull cover with that of Dubois the Pithecanthropus. The cranium of the Dubois find gave the impression of extraordinary primitiveness due to a powerful supraorbital ridge, a very low vault and a sharp flattening of the parietal bones, and a strongly sloping forehead. These features bring the skull closer to the skulls of modern great apes, however, the brain capacity is large and amounts to 900 cc, approaching the lower limit of the variation of this feature in modern humans. The femur was in stark contrast to the cranium, almost indistinguishable from the modern human femur. These contradictions became the sources of discussions around the Dubois find. The "Child from Mojokerto", found by Koenigswald, is represented only by a powerful brain box. In Sangiran, Koenigswald found a fragment of the lower jaw with premolars and molars, the skull cap of an adult female, the parietal bones and a fragment of the occipital part of the skull of a young man, fragments of the skull of an adult male, and two fragments of the lower jaw with teeth. The combination of the primitive structure of the skull with the progressive type of the lower limb in Pithecanthropus is in complete agreement with modern ideas about the features of the evolution of higher primates. Morphological features associated with the transformation of the type of locomotion, the transition to upright posture, outstripped the development of the skull and brain. A striking example of this is Australopithecus, in which a small and primitive brain was combined with a bipedal gait and a completely human structure of the limbs.

In Pajistan, broken stones were scattered along the bottom of a dried-up riverbed. It was a collection of early Paleolithic tools belonging to Pithecanthropus. For the most part, Pajistan tools are very massive, roughly processed and are axes - choppers or more finely processed

A great achievement of advanced science in late XIX V. there were finds of the remains of even more highly organized creatures than Australopithecus.

These remains date back to the entire Quaternary period, which is divided into two stages: the Pleistocene, which lasted until about the 8th-7th millennium BC. e. and covering pre-glacial and glacial times, and modern stage(Holocene). These discoveries fully confirmed the views of the leading naturalists of the 19th century. and the theory of F. Engels on the origin of man.

The first to be found was the most ancient of all known now primitive man - Pithecanthropus (literally "monkey man"). Pithecanthropus bones were first discovered as a result of persistent searches, which lasted from 1891 to 1894, by the Dutch doctor E. Dubois near Trinpl, on the island of Java.

Going to South Asia, Dubois set as his goal to find the remains of a transitional form from ape to man, since the existence of such a form followed from evolutionary theory.

Dubois's discoveries more than justified his expectations and hopes. The skullcap and femur found by him immediately showed the great significance of the Trinil finds, since one of the most important links in the chain of human development was discovered.

In 1936, in Mojokerto, also in Java, the skull of a baby Pithecanthropus was found. There were also bones of animals, including, as is believed, several more ancient, Lower Pleistocene times.

In 1937, local residents brought the most complete Pithecanthropus skull cover with temporal bones to the Bandung geological laboratory from Sangiran, and then other remains of Pithecanthropus were found in Sangiran, including two more skulls. In total, the remains of at least seven individuals of Pithecanthropus are currently known.

As its very name indicates, Pithecanthropus (monkey-man) connects the ancient highly developed apes of the Australopithecus type with the primitive man of a more developed type. This significance of Pithecanthropus is most fully evidenced by the skulls found in Trinil and Sangiran.

These turtles combine specific simian and purely human features. The former include such features as the peculiar shape of the skull, with a pronounced interception in the anterior part of the forehead, near the orbits, and a massive, wide supraorbital ridge, traces of a longitudinal ridge on the crown, low skull vault, i.e., sloping forehead, and a large thickness cranial bones.

But at the same time, Pithecanthropus was already a completely bipedal creature. The volume of his brain (850-950 cc) was 1.5-2 times larger than that of contemporary great apes. However, in general proportions and the degree of development of individual lobes of the brain, Pithecanthropus was closer to anthropoids than to humans.

Based on plant remains, including excellently preserved leaves and even flowers found in sediments directly overlying the Trinil bone layer, Pithecanthropus lived in a forest of trees that still grow in Java, but in a somewhat cooler climate that exists now at an altitude of 600-1200 m above sea level.

Citrus and laurel trees, fig trees and other subtropical plants grew in this forest. Together with the Pithecanthropus, the Trinil forest was inhabited by a wide variety of animals of the southern belt, the bones of which survived in the same bone layer.

During the excavations, the horns of two species of antelope and a deer, as well as teeth and fragments of the skulls of wild pigs, were found most of all. There were also bones of bulls, rhinos, monkeys, hippos, tapirs. There were also the remains of ancient elephants, close to the European ancient elephant, predators of the leopard and tiger.

It is believed that all these animals, whose bones were found in the Trinil deposits, died as a result of a volcanic catastrophe. During the volcanic eruption, the wooded slopes of the hills were covered and burned with a mass of hot volcanic ash.

Then the rain streams made deep channels in the loose layer of ash and carried the bones of thousands of dead animals into the Trinil valley; this is how the bone layer of Trinil was formed. Something similar happened during the eruption of the Klut volcano in eastern Java in 1852.

According to eyewitnesses, the large navigable Brontas River, which went around the volcano, swelled and rose high. Its water contained at least 25% volcanic ash mixed with pumice. The color of the water was completely black, and it carried such a mass of fallen wood, as well as the corpses of animals, including buffalo, monkeys, turtles, crocodiles, even tigers, that the bridge that stood on the river, the largest of all the bridges on the planet, was broken and completely destroyed. the island of Java.

Together with other inhabitants of the tropical forest, the Pithecanthropus, whose bones were found in Trinil, apparently became a victim of a similar catastrophe in ancient times. These special conditions, with which the Trinilian finds are associated, as well as the finds of bones of pithecanthropes elsewhere in Java, explain why there were no signs of the use of tools by pithecanthropes.

If the bones of Pithecanthropus were found in temporary sites, then the presence of a tool would be very likely. In any case, judging by the general level physical structure Pithecanthropus, it should be assumed that he already made tools and constantly used them, including not only wooden ones, but also stone ones.

Indirect evidence that Pithecanthropus made stone tools is provided by coarse quartzite items found in the south of Java, near Patjitan, together with the remains of the same animals whose bones were found near Trinil in the same thickness of deposits with the bones of Pithecanthropus.

Thus, it can be concluded that with Pithecanthropus and creatures close to him, the initial period in the formation of man ends.

It was, as we have seen, the remotest time when our ancestors led a herd life and were just beginning to move from the use of ready-made objects of nature to the manufacture of tools.

Niramin - Sep 5th, 2016

Pithecanthropus (or ape-man) existed on our planet 1.0 - 1.8 million years ago. Followers of Darwin's theory recognize him as a link between the great ape and modern humans. However, recently there is more and more evidence that pithecanthropes are not our ancestors, it was an independent species that completely died out 26 thousand years ago.

The first remains of Pithecanthropus were discovered in Indonesia in 1891 and caused a real sensation in scientific community. The tibia from the island of Java was clearly human, and the skull looked more like a monkey. At first, scientists refused to admit that these remains could belong to one creature, but new skeletons found confirmed this.

The Pithecanthropus cranium differed significantly from the human one: the cranial bone was several times thicker than that of our contemporaries; the forehead was flat, the jaw protruded sharply forward, and the supraocular ridges were thick and rough. The brain volume of pithecanthropes was smaller than that of humans, but much larger than that of monkeys. The main feature of the structure of their body, according to which they can be attributed to humans, was the tibia. They indicate that Pithecanthropes walked upright, which is not characteristic of the great ape.

The lifestyle of Homo erectus (as Pithecanthropus is often called) consisted mainly of constant searches for food. They were gathering and hunting large mammals. The tools of labor were more advanced than those of their ancestors: hand axes were invented instead of choppers, and piercers, scrapers and spears also came into use. Pithecanthropes knew how to build dwellings using branches and skins of dead animals, and also gradually learned to use fire.

Photo: Pithecanthropus - reconstruction.

Video: Pithecanthropes of Java. Retrieving Link #19