Wild man. Primitive people and their descendants

Primitive people. What were they like? How did they look and what did they know? Scientists are sure that they have found exhaustive answers to these questions, but is it so? .. In this article we will also find out where wild people live today.

The first wild people on Earth

Ancient people, that is, their very first and most wild species, appeared about 2.5 million years ago. Following the theory of Darwin, they originated from Australopithecines, which are the highest primates. They arose 3.5-2 million years ago in Africa. Southern monkeys, as they called Australopithecus, had a small brain and massive jaws. They could already hold objects such as stones or sticks in their hands and even moved in a straightened position.

In their genes, mutations occurred, resulting in the emergence of two species - Homo erectus (Homo erectus) and a man working.

Homo erectus - people or animals?

Homo erectus is the first wild man to come to Europe. When exactly he did it, it is difficult to say, since historians indicate different dates. These ancient people gathered in small tribes and made elementary actions: they hunted and built themselves primitive huts. They used fire, although they could not get it. More developed socially than their predecessors, they already buried the dead and even worshiped certain kinds of animals.

The appearance of Homo erectus was more like the appearance of monkeys - a low, beveled forehead, a lack of chin. The right arm is more developed than the left one. Nevertheless, their appearance and habits were still like their ancestors - a body covered with wool, of the appropriate size of the arm and leg, communication through gestures and cries.

200 000 years ago in the territory of Europe appeared wild primitive people - Neanderthals. After living a quarter of a million years on Earth, they suddenly disappeared, scientists are still puzzling over this mystery.

Neanderthals: who are they and why did they disappear?

Neanderthals got their name from the cave of Neanderthal, that in Germany, it was there that one of the few skulls of representatives of this genus was found. Today, scientists believe that they are not direct descendants of people, but rather, their relatives. Their gene is present in the DNA of modern man (not found only in Africans) in an amount of 1 to 4%. Today, scientists admit that the Cro-Magnon people, the true descendants of modern man, really did not occur after the Neanderthals, but lived with them simultaneously for about 20,000 years. This indicates that the species could have mixed.

Why did the Neanderthals die out? There are many versions, but none of them found reliable confirmation. Some are sure that the Ice Age is to blame for everything, others - that the genocide was arranged by another wild man - Homo sapiens - as a more enduring and developed intellectually. But the fact remains that the Neanderthals died out, while the Cro-Magnon people were more capable of development.

Cro-Magnon, or Homo sapiens

Cro-Magnon is a common name for the ancestors of modern man. Their development was significantly different from the development of their predecessors, and the appearance has little difference from modern people. Cro-Magnon in the wider concept is more often called Homo sapiens (reasonable person). This is the definition we will use later.

The most complete and early skulls of this species were found in Ethiopia, their age is about 160,000 years. This wild man had almost complete external resemblance to the modern man - the superciliary arches are not very pronounced, the convex forehead and the smooth face. The species was named Homo sapiens adultu, that is, the oldest people on Earth. Thus, Californian scientists found that the first humans appeared on Earth about 200,000 years ago in Africa, and then spread throughout the planet. At the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic (about 40,000 years ago), their habitat range already covered almost the entire planet.

Life of wild people

Despite the fact that nearly 2 000 000 years have passed since the first person appeared on Earth, archaeologists have accurately recreated his life. So, for certain it is known that initially people lived in small communities, because in the harsh conditions of those times alone the person simply could not survive. Even then, everyone had their own rights and responsibilities, and extraction was common. A stick and a sharp stone served as weapons and a miner.

The wild man led a nomadic way of life, constantly moving from place to place in search of food. The camp he arranged near the watering places, which facilitated the hunt for a future dinner. Since there were no necessary tools for building a dwelling, the cave houses and gorges served as community houses. Over time, waste around the cave accumulated more and more, which forced people to move to another.

Even then, the fire was tamed by a man, so he was carefully guarded by him in the caves day and night.

The first city on Earth was built in 3400 BC. He was in South America and was called Real Alto. This city is the same age as the Egyptian pyramids. Interestingly, the houses in the city were built with mathematical precision, as if his plan had been invented and drawn in advance.

How did the wild people dress?

What clothes were worn by ancient wild people and did they carry it at all? About 170,000 years ago, a man first thought about clothes. According to scientists, it was she who helped him to go beyond warm Africa and migrate to places with a colder climate. What is most interesting, to find out this helped study the evolution of ... lice. Louse lice parasitize only on clothing, respectively, their appearance is directly related to the first garments of wild people. Scientists from Florida, having conducted this original experiment, confirmed that the ancient people began to wear clothes not 100, but 170 thousand years ago. In this case, the hairline, which served as a certain protection, people lost more than 100,000 years before. "It's amazing how they could live so long without hair and clothing," says David Reed, head of the science team at the University of Florida.

Initially, the clothes of wild people could serve more as a magical defense against threats from outside than as a defense against the cold. The first materials for the clothing of primitive people are fibers and skins. After they were supplemented by various fastening elements - claws, fangs of animals, feathers.

In the mid-1990s, burials of teenagers were found in the present Vladimir region, the clothes of which resembled the clothes of modern northern peoples. While in the Alps in the 90s an icy figure of the man "Etsi" was found, whose clothes consisted of animal skins, straw and fresh grass.

Wild people today

We are the children of civilization, but on the planet there are still a lot of tribes that have remained at the same, primitive level of development. The majority are wild people of Africa and the Amazon, the time for which has frozen for thousands of years. Consider the most primitive of them.

1. Sentineltsy that live on the island Sentinel between India and Thailand - a fairly large community, numbering about 300 people. They have a unique ability to anticipate natural disasters. With them for a long time trying to contact researchers, but to no avail. They are engaged in fishing, gathering and hunting.
2. Masai. A large and aggressive African tribe with a special custom - they cut and stretch their upper lip from childhood to insert discs into it. Polygamy flourishes in the tribe, which in a small number of men has become necessary.
3. A group of Nicobar and Andaman tribes are cannibals who live by raiding each other. Some, however, have to conduct acts of cannibalism only on holidays, since the "food stock" is replenished very slowly.
4. And finally, the piraha is the least developed and most friendly tribe. The language of the piraha is considered to be the most primitive, since it lacks most of the notation. In addition, the tribe is devoid of its own mythology.

Conclusion

As you can see, the tribes of wild people are still today. They shun modern people and in every way avoid civilization, treating researchers with distrust and aggression. However, gradually they become less and one day they completely disappear from the face of the earth, giving way to civilization.