Ancient monkeys, from which a man came

Primitive people probably noticed their resemblance to monkeys . But, getting more and more civilized appearance, a man tried not to perceive a chimpanzee or gorilla as his likeness, because he quickly realized himself as the crown of creation of the almighty creator. When the theories of evolution appeared that presupposed in primates the initial link of Homo sapiens origin, they were met with incredulity, but more often with hostility. Ancient monkeys, located at the very beginning of the ancestry of some English lord, were perceived at best with humor. Today, science has determined the direct ancestors of our biological species, which lived more than 25 million years ago.

Common ancestor

To say that a person has descended from a monkey, from the point of view of modern anthropology - the science of man, about its origin, is considered to be incorrect. Man as a species evolved from pervoleday (they are called hominids), which were a fundamentally different biological species, rather than monkeys. The first australian - Australopithecus - appeared 6.5 million years ago, and the ancient monkeys, which became our common ancestor with modern human ancestors, were about 30 million years ago.

Methods of studying bone remains - the only surviving evidence of ancient animals - are constantly being improved. The oldest monkey can often be classified by a fragment of the jaw or one tooth. This leads to the fact that in the scheme of human evolution all the new links appear, supplementing the overall picture. Only in the 21st century, more than a dozen such objects were found in different regions of the world.

Classification

The data of modern anthropology are constantly updated, which introduces corrections to the classification of biological species to which a person belongs. This applies to more detailed units, the overall system remains unshakable. According to the latest views, a person belongs to the class of Mammals, the order of Primates, the suborder of the true monkey, the family of the Hominid, the genus Man, the species and the sub-species of the Homo sapiens (Homo sapiens).

Classification of the nearest "relatives" of a person is the subject of constant disputes. One of the options might look like this:

• Order Primates:
  • Semi-poor people.
  • Real monkeys:
    • Long-haired.
    • Broadbred.
    • Grasshoppers:
      • Gibbon.
      • Hominids:
        • Pongins:
          • Orangutan.
          • Bornean orangutan.
          • Sumatran orangutan.
      • Hominins:
        • Gorillas:
          • Western gorilla.
          • East gorilla.
        • Chimpanzee:
          • Ordinary chimpanzee.
          • Dwarf chimpanzee.
        • People:
          • A reasonable man.

Origin of monkeys

Determining the exact time and place of origin of monkeys, like many other species, occurs like a gradually appearing image on a polaroid image. Findings in different parts of the world complement the overall picture, which becomes more and more clear. It is recognized that evolution is not a straight line - it is more like a bush, where many branches become dead-end. Therefore, before the construction of at least a segment of the clear path from primitive primatopod mammals to Nomo sapiens is still far away, but there are already several reference points.

Purgatorius - small, no larger than a mouse, lived on trees, feeding on insects, in the Upper Cretaceous and Paleogene period (100-60 million years ago). Scientists put it at the beginning of the chain of evolution of primates. He only revealed the beginnings of signs (anatomical, behavioral, etc.) peculiar to monkeys: a relatively large brain, five fingers on the limbs, less fertility with a lack of seasonal reproduction, omnivorous, etc.

Home hominids

Ancient monkeys, ancestors of the anthropoid, left traces, beginning with the late Oligocene (33-23 million years ago). They still retain the anatomical features of the monkey-eared monkeys, set by the anthropologists to a lower level: a short ear canal located outside, in some species - the presence of the tail, the lack of specialization of the limbs in proportion and some features of the structure of the skeleton in the wrists and feet.

Among these fossil animals, one of the most ancient are proconsulids. The peculiarities of the structure of the teeth, the proportions and dimensions of the cranium with an enlarged brain section relative to its other parts allow the paleoanthropologists to class proconsulides into humanoid. This type of fossilized monkeys includes proconsuls, kalepithecas, heliopithecas, nyazapithecas, etc. These names were formed most often from the name of geographical objects near which fossil fragments were discovered.

Rukapithecus

Most finds the oldest bones paleoanthropologists do on the African continent. In February 2013, a report was published by paleo-primatology scientists from the United States, Australia and Tanzania on the results of excavations in the Rukva River valley in southwestern Tanzania. They found a fragment of the lower jaw with four teeth - the remains of a creature that lived there 25.2 million years ago - just this was the age of the rock in which this discovery was discovered.

According to the details of the structure of the jaw and teeth, the ownership of their possessor to primitive anthropoid apes from the family of proconsulids was established. Rukvapitek - this is the name of this ancestor of hominids, the oldest fossil anthropoid ape, because it is 3 million years older than any other paleoprimates discovered before 2013. There are other opinions, but they are related to the fact that many scientists regard proconsulids as too primitive creatures to define them as real humanoid. But this is a matter of classification, one of the most ambiguous in science.

Dryopithecus

In the geological deposits of the Miocene epoch (12-8 million years ago), remains of animals were found in East Africa, Europe and China, to which scientists-paleoanthropologists assigned the role of an evolutionary branch from proconsulids to real hominids. Driopithecus (Greek "drios" - tree) - so named ancient monkeys, which became a common ancestor for chimpanzees, gorillas and humans. The sites of the finds and their dating make it possible to understand that these monkeys, outwardly very similar to modern chimpanzees, formed into a large population first in Africa, and then spread across Europe and the Eurasian continent.

Growing about 60 cm, these animals tried to move on the lower limbs, but mostly lived in trees and had longer "hands". The ancient monkeys of the driopithecus ate berries and fruits, which follows from the structure of their molars, which had a not very thick layer of enamel. This shows the apparent relationship of the driopithecus with man, and the presence of well developed canines makes them an unequivocal predecessor of other hominids - chimpanzees and gorillas.

Giantopithecines

In 1936, several unusual monkey teeth, remotely similar to human ones, accidentally fell into the hands of paleontologists. They became the reason for the emergence of the version of belonging to their beings from the unknown evolutionary branch of the human ancestors. The main reason for the emergence of such theories was the enormous size of the teeth - they were twice the size of the gorilla's teeth. According to the calculations of specialists it turned out that their owners had growth above 3 meters!

After 20 years, a whole jaw with similar teeth was discovered, and the ancient monkeys-giants from the eerie fantasy turned into a scientific fact. After a more accurate dating of the finds, it became clear that the huge anthropoid primates existed at the same time as the Pithecanthropus (the Greek "Pitekos" - the monkey) - ape-humans, that is, about 1 million years ago. It was believed that they are the direct predecessors of man, involved in the disappearance of the largest of all the monkeys that existed on the planet.

Herbivorous giants

An analysis of the environment in which fragments of gigantic bones were found, and the examination of the jaws and teeth themselves, made it possible to establish that bamboo and other vegetation served as the main food for gigantopithecines. But there were cases of detection in caves, where they found the bones of monkey monsters, horns and hooves, which allowed them to be considered omnivores. There were also huge stone tools.

Hence the logical conclusion: gigantopitek - an ancient humanoid monkey up to 4 meters in height and weighing about half a ton - is another unfulfilled branch of hominization. It is established that the time of their extinction coincided with the disappearance of other anthropoid giants - African Australopithecus. A possible cause is climatic cataclysms, which have become fatal for large hominids.

According to the theories of the so-called cryptozoologists (Greek cryptos - secret, hidden), individual gigantopithecines survived to our times and exist in hard-to-reach areas of the Earth, creating legends about the "snowman", Yeti, Bigfoot, the Alma-Ata, and so on.

White spots in the biography of Homo sapiens

Despite the success of paleoanthropology, in the evolutionary chain, where the first place is occupied by ancient monkeys, from which a man has occurred, there are failures lasting up to a million years. 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 man's origin will disappear, and sensations about the extraterrestrial or divine beginning of our civilization, which are periodically disclosed on entertainment channels, have nothing to do with real science.