Our first ancestor was not quite human: what do we know about him

In evolution, there have been many different species that have lived, died, and reproduced with our species, Homo sapiens, but

Were they human?

The researchers wanted to understand whenthe evolution of our ancestors can no longer be attributed to people, but they can be called monkeys walking on two legs, and when we became people. This is harder to figure out than it looks, says Tanya Smith, an evolutionary biologist at Griffith University.

The oldest fossil of modern manoutside Africa is half of the jawbone, as well as his stone tools. They date back to around 180,000 years old. This pushes back the first human migration out of Africa by 60,000 years.

More than 100 years ago, scientists beganclassify fossils according to whether they looked more like humans living today than ancient hominins. The latter include an ape-like Australopithecus, nicknamed Lucy, who lived several million years ago.

In order to make this division, the scientists turnedthe attention to brain size, the use of tools, are distinctive human abilities that earlier australopithecines did not have. But since these studies, other fossils have been found that have refuted some of these assumptions.

So what do we know about our ancestors today?

To understand everything, it is necessary to clarify that we, humans, are Homo sapiens.The concept of "man" is interpreted as a human being or a member of the human race, Homo sapiens.But contrary to Macquarie's dictionary, from the point of view of history, man was called a completely different creature. 

If we go back a few dozenthousand years, then other two-legged primates walked the Earth, which were very similar to modern people. Among them were our closest relatives, Homo neanderthalis, better known as the Neanderthals, and a group that some consider to be the lineage of the Neanderthals, the Denisovans.

Skeletons show that Neanderthals were muscular and slightly shorter than us, but had larger brains.The portrait of the Denisovans was more ambiguous, as few fossils remain.We don't know much about Neanderthal behavior, but it's clear that they weren't as stupid and clumsy as they are sometimes portrayed. 

They created tools and art objects, as well as inventing symbols that had nothing to do with food consumption. 

"You can find pierced teeth, maybe it'swas made to wear jewelry,” says Professor Smith. She noted that scientists do not know if this behavior originated within groups of Neanderthals or was copied when they came into contact with Homo sapiens.

Previously, there was a strong opinion that onlyHomo sapiens created art and painted abstract images. But archaeologists have proved the failure of this hypothesis. There are traces of Neanderthals and Denisovans even in the genome of modern humans. These are the remnants of crosses that have taken place over the centuries.

When and where did modern humans evolve?

Our species, Homo sapiens, evolved in a region in southern Africa about 300,000 years ago, according to a new study. But not everyone agrees with this.

According to Smith, the evolution of our species is not a family tree with branches dividing into two or more species, some of which end in a dead end.It's more like a tangled river that has a few streams that diverge, flow a little bitGenetic information is the same – it mixes in some populations, then splits, then mixes again and separates again. 

This has led some researchers to believe that the three types of humans should be considered the same species, says evolutionary biologist João Teixiera at the Australian National University.

“Genetic evidence supports the fact that Neanderthals and Denisovans are at least part of the human family,” Teixiera said.

Over the decades, more and more members have been added to the genus Homo, such as Homo floresiensis, perhaps better known as the hobbit, and Homo naledi.So the earliest Homo is the very first man, in a sense.But there are contradictions here as well. 

The oldest fossil that has been includedin the genus Homo, 2.8 Ma. This is Lady Gueraru in Ethiopia. But many disagree with this assessment. There is an opinion that it is correct to attribute to the genus Homo the remains of creatures that already had cultural practices, such as burying their dead, and also present the use of symbols. But the behavioral evidence is patchy.

Oldest known human burial site inAfrica was found by an international group of archaeologists. It dates back to about 78 thousand years ago. It is known that from that period people began to use tools, but it is not known whether they used fire or whether they had any ritual meaning in the burial. Much later, archaeologists obtained some evidence of behavior that can be compared with modern man.

The probable first person, according to the professorSmith, was Homo erectus. These short, stocky people were an important part of human evolutionary history. Estimates vary, but it is believed that they lived from about 2 million to 100 thousand years ago and were the first people to leave Africa and penetrate into Europe and Asia. They used abstract symbols, for example, engraved images of a shell, which today are about 500 thousand years old.

Some believe that Neanderthals, Homo sapiens, and Denisovans descended from H. erectus populations in different parts of the world: Neanderthals in Europe, H. sapiens in Africa, and possibly Denisovans in Asia.

So the very first person found?

Not quite, because there is an older Homo than H. erectus. This is Homo habilis, or a skilled person. It is named so because its fossils were found next to many stone tools.

It appeared approximately 300,000 years beforethe earliest known H. erectus, and its placement in the genus Homo has been controversial, to say the least. Some researchers suggest that it is so ape-like that it should be classified as an older australopithecine. In this case, it should be deprived of the Homo particle in the name. 

Homo habilis lived a couple of million years ago. Fossilized remains from around that time are a rarity. All excavated finds represent thousands of different small pieces.

It is rare to get a complete set of information aboutone representative. Usually, archaeologists have a small part of the skull, arm, pelvis and a couple of teeth, but it is not clear how and with what to fuse them. Archaeologists have full-fledged remains of only one type of people - upright.

Scientists agree that there are many different aspects that make us human, but not all of them appeared at the same time throughout evolution.

Vertical walking usually comes first, thenit is possible to use stone tools, and after that - an increase in the volume of the brain. So far in history there is no absolute boundary between humans and apes. Professor Harris agrees that Homo erectus was probably the first human by modern standards.

There was a big evolutionary leap at the turnfrom 2 to 1.8 million years ago. Then there was the transition to Homo erectus. This Homo behaved relatively like us, using stone tools and for the first time began to explore different territories.

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