Cro-Magnon - was a person in the modern sense of the word, of course, more primitive, but still a person. The era in which the Cro-Magnon man lived falls on the period from the 40th to the 10th millennium BC. The first finds of the Cro-Magnon man skeleton were made in 1868 in the south-west of France in the Cro-Magnon cave. So, about 40,000 years ago, in different areas of the globe, a series of cultural shifts took place in completely new directions. The events of a person's life begin to develop along a different path and at a different, accelerated pace, and the main driving force becomes a man himself.
The number of achievements, changes in the social organization of the life of the Cro-Magnon was so great that it was several times greater than the number of achievements of Australopithecus, Pithecanthropus and Neanderthal combined. The Cro-Magnons inherited from their ancestors a large active brain and a fairly practical technology, thanks to which, in a relatively short period of time, they made an unprecedented step forward. This manifested itself in aesthetics, the development of communication and symbol systems, tool-making technology and active adaptation to external conditions, as well as in new forms of social organization and a more complex approach to their own kind.
All Cro-Magnons used one or another stone tools and were engaged in hunting and gathering. They achieved many astonishing achievements, settled in all geographic areas suitable for habitation. Cro-Magnons created the first primitive forms firing pottery, built kilns for this and even burned coal. In the skill of processing stone tools, they surpassed their ancestors, learned to make all kinds of tools, weapons and devices from bone, tusks, deer antlers and wood.
All areas of Cro-Magnon activity were improved compared to their ancestors. They made better clothes, built hotter fires, built larger dwellings, and ate a much more varied diet than their predecessors.
Among other things, scientists have found that the Cro-Magnons had another important innovation - art. The Cro-Magnon man was a caveman, but with one difference: his unkempt appearance hid developed intellect and complex spiritual life. The walls of his caves were covered with painted, carved and scratched masterpieces, very expressive and full of immediate charm.
The Cro-Magnon differed from its predecessors in physiological characteristics. First, his bones are lighter than those of his ancestors. Secondly, the Cro-Magnon skull is similar in everything to the skull of modern people: a clearly defined chin protrusion, a high forehead, small teeth, the volume of the brain cavity corresponds to the modern one. Finally, it has the physical features necessary for the formation of complex speech. The arrangement of the nasal and oral cavities, the elongated pharynx (the part of the throat just above the vocal cords), and the flexibility of the tongue gave it the ability to form and produce distinct sounds far more varied than those available to early humans. However, modern man had to pay a high price for the gift of speech - of all living beings, he alone can suffocate, choking on food, since his elongated pharynx also serves as the vestibule of the esophagus.
Straight gait was destined to become first the rule, and then a necessity. In the meantime, more and more different types of activities fell to the share of hands. Already among monkeys there is a certain division of functions between arms and legs. The hand serves primarily for picking up and holding food, as some lower mammals do with their front paws. With the help of their hands, some monkeys build their nests in trees or, like chimpanzees, canopies between branches to protect themselves from the weather. They grab sticks with their hands to protect themselves from enemies or throw fruits and stones at them. And although the number and general arrangement of bones and muscles are the same in ape and man, the hand of even a primitive savage was capable of performing hundreds of operations inaccessible to a monkey. No monkey hand has ever made even the crudest stone tool.
When processing stone, wood, skins, when making fire, people's hands developed. Especially important was the development of the thumb, which helped to firmly hold both a heavy spear and a thin needle. Gradually, the actions of the hand became more and more confident and complex. In collective work, the mind and speech of people developed.
The beginning of domination over nature expanded the horizons of man. On the other hand, the development of labor necessarily contributed to a closer cohesion of the members of society. As a result, emerging people had a need to say something to each other. Need created an organ for itself: the undeveloped larynx of the monkey was slowly but steadily transformed, and the organs of the mouth gradually learned to pronounce one articulate sound after another.
When did the type modern man, which is commonly referred to as Homo sapiens? All the oldest finds in the Upper Paleolithic layers date back in absolute terms to 25,000–28,000 years ago. The formation of Homo sapiens led to the coexistence of the late progressive forms of Neanderthals and the emerging small groups of modern people for several millennia. The process of replacing the old species with the new one was rather long and complicated.
The growth of the frontal lobes of the brain was the main morphological feature that distinguished the emerging modern humans from the late Neanderthals. The frontal lobes of the brain are the focus of not only higher mental, but also social functions. The growth of the frontal lobes expanded the scope of higher associative thinking, and with it contributed to the complication public life, the diversity of labor activity, caused a further evolution of the body structure, physiological functions, and motor skills.
The brain volume of a “reasonable person” is twice as large as that of a “skillful person”. He is taller and has a straight figure. "Reasonable people" speak coherent speech.
In appearance, "reasonable people" who lived in different countries, differed from each other. Natural conditions such as the abundance or lack of sunny days, harsh winds carrying clouds of sand, very coldy have left their mark on appearance of people. Their division into three main races began: white (Caucasian), black (Negroid) and yellow (Mongoloid). Subsequently, the races were divided into sub-races (for example, yellow - into Mongoloid and Americanoid), areas with a population of transitional races formed on the borders between races (for example, on the border between Caucasoid and negroid race the transitional Ethiopian race appeared). However, physiological differences between different races are not significant; from a biological point of view modern humanity belongs to the same subspecies of the species Homo sapiens. This is confirmed, for example, genetic research: The difference in DNA between races is only 0.1%, and the genetic diversity within races is greater than interracial differences.
Thus, the process of evolution explains the presence of similarities in the external and internal structure of humans and mammals. We briefly list them: the presence of a head, torso, limbs, hairline, nails. The skeletons of both humans and mammals are made up of the same bones. The location and functions of the internal organs are similar. Like mammals, humans feed their young with milk. But a person has significant differences, which will be discussed further.
Modern people
The earliest representatives of neoanthropes were called cro-magnons due to the fact that their bone remains (several skeletons) were first found in 1868 in a cave near the village of Cro-Magnon in France. The later neoanthropes are modern people that still exist today.
The generalized name of modern people who replaced all their predecessors in the period 40-30 thousand years ago - neoanthropes .
Scientists believe that neoanthrope, or a man of the modern type, arose in the Eastern Mediterranean, in Western Asia and in the southeast of Europe. It was here that numerous bone remains of intermediate forms between Neanderthals and early fossil forms were found. Homo sapiens - Cro-Magnons . In those days, all these territories were occupied by dense broad-leaved forests, rich in a variety of game, various fruits (nuts, berries) and succulent herbs. Under these conditions, it is believed that the last step on the way to Homo sapiens. The new man began to actively and widely spread around the planet, making large migrations across all the continents of the Earth.
Cro-Magnons are the first people, i.e. direct representativesHomo sapiens. They were characterized enough tall(about 180 cm), a skull with a large cranium (up to 1800 cm 3, more often about 1500 cm 3) , the presence of a pronounced chin, a straight forehead and the absence of brow ridges. The presence of a chin protrusion on the lower jaw indicated that the Cro-Magnons were capable of articulate speech.
Cro-Magnons lived in communities of 15-30 people. Caves, tents made of skins, dugouts served as their dwellings. They lived in a tribal society, began to tame animals and engage in agriculture.
The Cro-Magnons had a developed articulate speech, dressed in clothes made of skins, and were engaged in pottery. In Dolni Vestonice in Moravia, the world's oldest pottery kiln was found, which was used by the Cro-Magnons.
The Cro-Magnons had funeral rites. Household items, food, jewelry were placed in the grave. The dead were sprinkled with blood-red ocher, a net was put on their hair, bracelets were put on their hands, flat stones were placed on their faces and buried in a bent position (knees touching the chin).
The appearance of the Cro-Magnon was no different from the appearance of a modern person.
The Cro-Magnon man was characterized by a significant development of the parts of the brain associated with labor activity, speech and responsible for behavior in social life. Along with stone tools, he widely used bone and horn, from which he made needles, drills, arrowheads and harpoons. The objects of hunting were horses, mammoths, rhinos, deer, bison, arctic foxes and many other animals. Cro-Magnon was also engaged in fishing and gathering fruits, roots and herbs. He had a fairly high culture, as evidenced not only by tools and household items (he knew how to make leather, sew clothes and build housing from the skins of animals), but also various drawings on rocks, cave walls, stone and bone sculptures made with great skill.
Wall painting in a Cro-Magnon cave (left) and his tools:
1 - horn harpoon; 2 - bone needle; 3 - flint scraper; 4-5 - horn and flint dart tips
By the time of the appearance Homo sapiens representatives of the genus Homo were already characteristic of almost all morphological features, characteristic for Homo sapiens: upright posture; development of hands as organs of labor activity; proportionate, more a slim body; lack of hairline. Height increased, the front part of the skull decreased, and the brain part became very large. There was not only a powerful increase in the mass of the brain, but also its qualitative change: the frontal lobes of the brain and areas associated with speech, social behavior and complex activities received great development.
All these transformations were not purely biological aromorphoses, as in other animals. They are largely due to the creation of a special, cultural environment and the strongest action social factors. Among them are the development of a social way of life and the application of the accumulated life experience of ancestors; labor activity and the creation of a hand as an organ of labor; the emergence of speech and the use of the word as a means of communication and education of a person; development of mental abilities that stimulate the improvement of labor and speech; the use of fire, which helped to scare away animals, protect themselves from the cold, cook food, and also spread around the globe. social labor and the manufacture of tools provided a special, human way of development of the species, distinguished by social (social) relations, the division of labor, the emergence on this basis of trade, art, religion, science and industrial production.
The emergence of man is the largest aromorphosis in the evolution of the organic world, unparalleled in quality in the entire history of the Earth. It was characterized by special patterns and specific features that are unique to anthropogenesis.
Having mastered the culture of making perfect tools, the reproduction of food, the arrangement of dwellings, the creation of clothing, Homo sapiens, unlike all other types of organisms, has become special, biosocial being , secured itself from adverse natural conditions by creating a special - cultural environment. As a result, there was no need for further evolution of man in the direction of transforming him into another, more perfect form. This is how the evolution of modern man as a biological species stopped. It continues only within the already formed species (mainly along the path of polymorphism of morphophysiological characters in different groups and human populations).
The emergence of the neoanthrope did not occur through a simple accumulation of new properties in the body, but in close unity with the process of becoming of all mankind, and social existence (living together, communication, speech, labor, collective activity) was one of the essential properties of anthropogenesis. Under these conditions, a qualitatively new creature with biosocial properties appeared on Earth, which creatively transforms the world with the help of its mental and cultural abilities and social production. Outside of society, formation is unthinkable Homo sapiens How special kind. The specific stability of the neoanthrope is precisely due to the "transformation" of a person into a representative of humanity.
The appearance of man is an outstanding event in the development of wildlife. With the emergence of human society at the stage Homo sapiens about 40 thousand years ago, the creative role of natural selection lost its significance for humans
Cro-Magnons(Fig. 1) are the immediate ancestors of modern humans. This species, according to scientists, appeared more than 130 thousand years ago. Archaeological finds indicate that the Cro-Magnons lived for more than 10 thousand years in the neighborhood with another kind of people - the Neanderthals. In fact, Cro-Magnons have no external differences with modern people. There is another definition of the term "Cro-Magnon". In a narrow sense, this is a representative of the human race who lived on the territory of modern France, they got their name from the place where researchers first discovered a large number of remains of ancient people - the Cro-Magnon Gorge. But more often, Cro-Magnons are called all the ancient inhabitants of the planet. During Upper Paleolithic this species dominated most of the land surface, with a few exceptions - in places where Neanderthal communities still remained.
Rice. 1 - Cro-Magnon
Origin
Unanimous opinion about how it appeared kind of Cro-Magnon not among anthropologists and historians. There are two main theories. Most scientists believe that this species appeared in the eastern part of Africa, and then spread through the Arabian Peninsula throughout Eurasia. Adherents of this theory believe that the Cro-Magnons later divided into 2 main groups:
- Ancestors of modern Hindus and Arabs.
- Ancestors of all modern Mongoloid peoples.
As for the Europeans, according to this theory, they are representatives of the first group, who migrated about 45 thousand years ago. Archaeologists have found a huge amount of evidence in favor of this theory, but still the number of scientists who adhere to alternative point vision does not decrease with age.
IN recent times there is more and more evidence of the second version. Scientists who adhere to this theory believe that Cro-Magnons are modern Caucasians and do not belong to this species Negroids and Mongoloids. A number of scientists insist that the first Cro-Magnon man appeared on the territory of modern Ethiopia, and his descendants settled in northern Africa, the entire Middle East, Asia Minor, most of Central Asia, the Hindustan Peninsula and all of Europe. They insist that the Cro-Magnons are practically in full force migrated from Africa more than 100 thousand years ago, and only a small part of them remained in the territory of modern Egypt. Then they continued to develop new lands, the ancient people reached France and the British Isles by the 10th century BC, passing through the Caucasus Range, crossing the Don, Dnieper, Danube.
culture
Ancient Cro-Magnon Man began to live quite large groups, which was not observed in the Neanderthal. Often, communities numbered 100 or more individuals. Cro-Magnons, inhabiting Eastern Europe, sometimes lived in dugouts, such a dwelling was a "discovery" of that time. Caves and tents were more comfortable and spacious compared to similar types of Neanderthal dwellings. The ability to speak articulately helped them understand each other better, they actively cooperated if one of them needed help.
The Cro-Magnons became more skillful hunters and fishermen, these people first began to use the "driving" method, when a large animal was driven into a pre-prepared trap, and there inevitable death awaited him. The first similarities of fishing nets were also invented by the Cro-Magnons. They began to master the harvesting industry, dried mushrooms, and stocked up on berries. They also hunted birds, for this they used snares and loops, while often ancient people did not kill animals, but left them alive, designed primitive cages for birds and admired them.
Among the Cro-Magnons, the first ancient artists began to appear, who painted the walls of the caves with different colors. You can see the work of ancient masters in our time, for example, in France in the Montespan cave, several creations of ancient masters have survived to this day. But not only painting developed, the Cro-Magnons sculpted the first sculptures from stone and clay, and were engaged in engraving on mammoth tusks. Very often, ancient sculptors sculpted naked women, it was like a cult, in those days it was not harmony that was valued in a woman - ancient sculptors sculpted women with magnificent forms. And also sculptors and artists of antiquity often depicted animals: horses, bears, mammoths, bison.
The dead tribesmen, the Cro-Magnons were buried. In many ways, modern rituals resemble the rituals of those years. People also gathered, also cried. The deceased was dressed in the best skin, they put jewelry, food, tools that he used during his lifetime. The deceased was buried in the fetal position.
Rice. 2 - Cro-Magnon Skeleton
Leap in development
The Cro-Magnons developed more actively than the Neanderthals assimilated by them and the common ancestors of both types of Pithecanthropus. Moreover, they developed in many areas, a huge number of achievements were made by this particular species. The reason for such an intensive development is Cro-Magnon brain. Before a child of this species was born, the development of his brain completely coincided with the intrauterine development of the brain of a Neanderthal. But after birth, the baby's brain developed differently - there was an active formation of the parietal and cerebellar parts. The Neanderthal brain after childbirth developed in the same directions as that of a chimpanzee. The Cro-Magnon communities were much more organized than the Neanderthal communities, they began to learn spoken language, while the Neanderthals never learned to speak. Development proceeded at an incredible pace, Cro-Magnon tools- these are knives, hammers and other tools, some of which are still used, since, in fact, no alternative has yet been found for them. The Cro-Magnon man actively adapted to weather factors, their dwellings began to vaguely resemble modern houses. These people created social circles, built a hierarchy in groups, distributed social roles. Cro-Magnons began to realize themselves, think, reason, actively explore and experiment.
The emergence of speech among Cro-Magnons
Just as there is no unity among scientists on the issue of the emergence of the Cro-Magnon, so there is no unity with respect to another question - "how did speech originate among the first rational people?"
Psychologists have their own opinion on this matter. They argue, with an impressive evidence base, that Cro-Magnons adopted the experience of Neanderthals and Pithecanthropes, who had some rudiments of articulate communication.
Linguists of a certain kind (generativists) also have their own theory, supported by facts. However, it cannot be said that only generativists support this theory, many prominent scientists are on their side. These scientists believe that there was no inheritance from previous species, and the appearance of articulate speech is the result of some kind of brain mutation. Generativists, trying to get to the bottom of the truth and find confirmation of their theory, are looking for the origins of the proto-language - the first human language. So far, the disputes do not subside, and not one of the parties has exhaustive evidence of its correctness.
Differences between Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon
Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals are not so close species, moreover, they did not have a single ancestor. These are two species between which there was competition, skirmishes, and, possibly, local or general confrontation. They could not help but compete, as they shared the same niche and lived side by side. There are many differences between the two types:
- body constitution, size and physiological structure;
- skull volume, cognitive abilities of the brain;
- social organization;
- general level of development.
Studies conducted by scientists have shown that there is a significant difference in DNA between these two species. As for nutrition, there are also differences here, these two species ate differently, generalizing, we can say that the Cro-Magnons ate everything that the Neanderthals ate, plus plant foods. An interesting fact is that the body of Neanderthals did not absorb milk, and the basis of the diet of Neanderthals was the meat of dead animals (carrion). Cro-Magnons, on the other hand, only in rare cases, in cases where there were no other options, ate carrion.
Rice. 3 - Cro-Magnon skull
In the scientific community, disputes do not stop about whether these two species could interbreed with each other. There is plenty of evidence that they could. For example, it cannot be ruled out that in the structure and constitution of the body of some modern people, echoes of Neanderthal genes are sometimes traced. The two species lived in close proximity, mating certainly could have taken place. But scientists claiming that the Cro-Magnons assimilated the Neanderthals are opposed in disputes by other scientists, among whom there are famous people. They argue that after interspecific crossing, fertile offspring could not be born, that is, for example, a female individual (Cro-Magnon) could become pregnant from a Neanderthal, could even bear a fetus. But the born baby was weak to survive, and even more so to give life to his own offspring. These conclusions are supported by genetic studies.
Differences between Cro-Magnon and modern man
There are both minor and significant differences between modern man and his Cro-Magnon ancestor. For example, it was found that the average brain size of an earlier subspecies of humans was slightly larger. This, in theory, should indicate that the Cro-Magnons were more intelligent, their intellect was more developed. This hypothesis is supported by a small part of pundits. After all, a larger volume does not always guarantee a better quality. In addition to the size of the brain, there are other differences that do not cause sharp disputes. It is proved that the ancestor had more dense vegetation on the body. There is also a difference in height, it is noticed that over time and evolution people have become taller. The average height of the two subspecies differs significantly. Not only height, but also the weight of the Cro-Magnon was less. In those days, there were no giants weighing over 150 kilograms, and all because people could not always provide themselves with food, even in the required volumes. Ancient people did not live long, a person who lived to be 30 years old was considered an old man, and cases when a person experienced a 45-year milestone are generally rare. There is an assumption that the Cro-Magnons had better eyesight, in particular, they saw well in the dark, but these theories have not yet been confirmed.
Cro-Magnons are the inhabitants of the late Stone Age, who in many ways resembled our contemporaries. The remains of these people were first discovered in the grotto of Cro-Magnon, located in France, which gave them their name. A lot of parameters - the structure of the skull and features of the hand, the proportions of the body and even the size of the brain of the Cro-Magnons are close to a modern type of person. Therefore, the opinion has taken root in science that it is they who are our direct ancestors.
Appearance Features
Researchers believe that the Cro-Magnon man lived about 30 thousand years ago, while it is interesting that for some time he coexisted with the Neanderthal, who later finally gave way to more modern representative primates. For about 6 millennia, according to scientists, these two varieties of ancient people simultaneously inhabited Europe, sharply conflicting over food and other resources.
Even though Cro-Magnon appearance little inferior to our contemporaries, muscle mass was more developed. This was due to the conditions in which this person lived - the physically weak were doomed to death.
What are the differences?
- The Cro-Magnon has a characteristic chin protrusion and a high forehead. In the Neanderthal, the chin is very small, and the superciliary ridges were characteristically pronounced.
- Cro-Magnon man had the volume of the brain cavity necessary for the development of the brain, which was not the case with more ancient people.
- The elongated pharynx, the flexibility of the tongue, and the peculiarities of the location of the oral and nasal cavities allowed the Cro-Magnon man to receive the gift of speech. The Neanderthal, according to the researchers, could make several consonant sounds, his speech apparatus allowed him to do this, but he had no speech in the traditional sense.
Unlike the Neanderthal, the Cro-Magnon had a less massive physique, a high skull without a sloping chin, wide face and narrower eye sockets than modern humans.
The table shows some features of Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons, their difference from modern man.
As can be seen from the table, the Cro-Magnon man, in terms of structural features, is much closer to our contemporaries than to the Neanderthal man. Anthropological finds indicate that they could interbreed with each other.
Geography of distribution
The remains of a Cro-Magnon type of man are found in various parts of the world. Skeletons and bones have been found on the territory of many European countries: the Czech Republic, Romania, Great Britain, Serbia, Russia, as well as in Africa.
Lifestyle
The researchers managed to recreate the lifestyle model of the Cro-Magnons. So, it is proved that it was they who created the first settlements in the history of mankind, in which they lived in fairly large communities, including from 20 to 100 members. It was these people who learned to communicate with each other, possessed primitive speech skills. The way of life of the Cro-Magnons meant the joint conduct of business. Largely due to this, they managed to achieve impressive success in the hunting and gathering economy. So, hunting in large groups, together, allowed these people to get large animals as prey: mammoths, aurochs. Such achievements to one hunter, even the most experienced, of course, were beyond his strength.
In short, the lifestyle of the Cro-Magnon largely continued the traditions of the Neanderthal people. They also hunted, used the skins of dead animals to make primitive clothing, and lived in caves. But independent buildings made of stones or tents made of skins could also be used as dwellings. Sometimes they dug original dugouts, sheltering from bad weather. In the matter of housing, the Cro-Magnon man managed to make a small innovation - nomad hunters began to build light disassembled huts that could be easily erected and assembled during parking.
Community life
The structural features and lifestyle of the Cro-Magnon make him in many ways similar to a modern type of person. So, in the communities of these ancient people there was a division of labor. Men were engaged in hunting, together they killed wild animals. Women also took part in the preparation of food: they collected berries, seeds and nutritious roots. The fact that decorations are found in the graves of children testifies: the parents had warm feelings for their descendants, grieved for an early loss, tried to take care of the child at least posthumously. Due to the increased life expectancy, Cro-Magnon people got the opportunity to pass on their knowledge and experience to the next generation, to be more attentive to raising children. As a result, infant mortality has also declined.
Some burials differ from others in rich decorations, an abundance of utensils. Researchers believe that noble members of the community, respected for some merit, are buried here.
Tools of labor and hunting
The invention of the harpoon is the merit of the Cro-Magnon man. The lifestyle of this ancient man changed after the appearance of such weapons. Affordable efficient fishing has provided complete food in the form of sea and river inhabitants. It was this ancient man who began to make snares for birds, which his predecessors were not yet able to do.
On the hunt, the ancient man learned to use not only strength, but also ingenuity, building traps for animals many times larger than him. Therefore, obtaining food for an entire community required much less effort than in the days of its predecessors. The corralling of herds of wild animals, mass raids on them was popular. Ancient people learned the science of collective hunting: they frightened large mammals, forcing them to flee to those areas where it was easiest to kill prey.
Cro-Magnon man managed to step up the ladder of evolutionary development much higher than his predecessor, the Neanderthal. He began to use more advanced tools, which allowed him to gain advantages in hunting. So, with the help of spear throwers, this ancient man was able to increase the distance traveled by the spear. Therefore, hunting has become safer, and prey - more plentiful. Long spears were also used as weapons. The tools of labor became more complex, needles, drills, scrapers appeared, as the material for which the ancient man learned to use everything that came to his hand: stones and bones, horns and tusks.
A distinctive feature of Cro-Magnon tools and weapons is a narrower specialization, careful dressing, and the use of a variety of materials in production. Some products are decorated with a carved ornament, indicating that the ancient people were not alien to a peculiar understanding of beauty.
Food
The basis of the Cro-Magnon diet was the meat of animals killed during hunting, primarily mammals. In those days when these ancient people lived, horses, stone goats, deer and tours, bison and antelopes were common, and they served as the main source of food. Having learned to fish with harpoons, people began to eat salmon, which in abundance rose through the shallow water to spawn. Of the birds, according to anthropologists, the inhabitants of antiquity could catch partridges - these birds fly low and could well become a victim of a well-aimed spear. However, there is a hypothesis that they were able to extract waterfowl. Meat stocks, according to scientists, the Cro-Magnons kept in glaciers, the low temperature of which did not allow the product to deteriorate.
Vegetable food was also used by the Cro-Magnons: they ate berries, roots and bulbs, seeds. In warm latitudes, women fished for shellfish.
Art
The Cro-Magnon man also became famous for the fact that he began to create objects of art. These people painted colorful images of animals on the walls of the caves, carved anthropomorphic figures from ivory and deer antlers. It is believed that by drawing animal silhouettes on the walls, ancient hunters wanted to attract prey. According to researchers, it was during this period that the first music and the earliest musical instrument appeared - a stone pipe.
Funeral rituals
The fact that the lifestyle of the Cro-Magnon has become more complicated compared to his ancestors is also evidenced by a change in funeral traditions. So, in the burials they often find an abundance of jewelry (bracelets, beads and necklaces), which indicate that the deceased was rich and noble. Attention to funeral rituals, covering the bodies of the dead with red paint allowed researchers to conclude that the inhabitants of the ancient Stone Age had some rudimentary beliefs about the soul and the afterlife. Items were also placed in the graves. household utensils, food.
Achievements
Cro-Magnon lifestyle in harsh conditions ice age led to the fact that these people had to take a more serious approach to tailoring. According to the finds rock paintings and the remains of bone needles - the researchers concluded that the inhabitants of the late Stone Age knew how to sew primitive clothing. They wore jackets with hoods, pants, even mittens and shoes. Often, clothes were decorated with beads, which, according to researchers, was a sign of honor and respect among other members of the community. It was these people who learned how to make the first dishes, using burnt clay for its manufacture. Scientists believe that during the time of the Cro-Magnons, the first animal was domesticated - a dog.
The era of the Cro-Magnons is separated from us by a thousand years, so we can only guess how exactly they lived, what they used for food and what orders reigned in the settlements. Therefore, there are many controversial and controversial hypotheses that have not yet found serious scientific evidence.
- The discovery of a child's jaw of a Neanderthal baby, mutilated stone tool, led researchers to think that Cro-Magnons could have eaten Neanderthals.
- It was Cro-Magnon man who caused the extinction of the Neanderthals: more than developed species displaced the latter in areas with an arid climate, where there was practically no prey, dooming them to death.
The structural features of the Cro-Magnon man in many respects bring him closer to a modern type of person. Thanks to the developed brain, these ancient people were new round evolution, their achievements both in practical and in spiritual sense truly great.
It is no coincidence that everyone unanimously also calls the Cro-Magnon man "modern man." (Meaning, of course, the modern Caucasoid.) The name "Cro-Magnon" is arbitrary: it comes from the place Cro-Magnon in France, where the first such skeleton was found. There is no biological reason not to call a Cro-Magnon an early Caucasoid - or you and me, a late Cro-Magnon. If the question of the direct origin of Negroes from Neanderthals is not yet very confident (more confidently - about the origin of Australoids from them; we are personally sure of both), then there is no doubt. Each representative European nations and even some others (later) can say: Cro-Magnon is my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather.
This was understood already at the dawn of anthropology. The great German anthropologist Alexander Ecker (1818-1887) in the 60s years XIX century discovered skulls of the "northern type" in the graves of southern Germany and established their identity with the skulls of modern Germans. Skulls of a pure "northern type" throughout Scandinavia and Northern Germany were also discovered by the greatest Swedish anthropologist Anders Retzius (1796-1860). It was on the basis of these numerous craniological series that it was suggested that the modern "northern type" in its structure goes back to the Cro-Magnon type of Paleolithic Europe. The classic of the French anthropological school, Armand de Quatrefage (1810-1892), even called the ancient Cro-Magnon a blond in the modern sense of the word. Ideally upright, very high ( average height 187 cm) and large-headed (brain size from 1600 to 1900 cm?), they, like us, had a straight forehead, a high cranial vault, and a sharply protruding chin. Over time, having discovered the fingerprints of ancient sculptors on clay figurines of the Paleolithic era, scientists have established their complete racial identity with the modern Caucasoid.
The data of craniology is a most serious argument, as much has already been said above. Therefore, the data of science on the distribution of the Cro-Magnon skull around the globe deserve not only trust, but also special attention and thought.
As Eugen Fischer wrote in his work “Race and the Origin of Races in Man” (1927): “One of the most reasonable hypotheses is as follows: the Nordic race originated from the Cro-Magnon race, the builders of megaliths, dolmen burials in Scandinavia, Denmark, etc. According to the named hypothesis , the Nordic race arose as a result of the modification of the Late Paleolithic race in the North as the places inhabited today were freed from ice. Here the Nordic race arose, at the same time it acquired its typical qualities. This is the best explanation for the origin of the Nordic race." Let us leave in this passage the question of the place of the ethnogenesis of the Cro-Magnon for further discussion (as it is still beyond the competence of anthropologists) and accept the main thing: the Caucasoids settled the North precisely as modifications of the Cro-Magnon.
Were they already then divided into racial subtypes? Did the subtypes already begin to separate themselves by language? There is no doubt that sooner or later this happened. This is quite reasonably stated by the teachings of Darwin: the consequence of natural selection is the divergence of signs. This means that one parent species can give rise to several new species. This is what the waves of migrations from North to South, which were carried out by the Cro-Magnons periodically throughout the entire observable historical and prehistoric retrospective, also speak of. Figuratively speaking, the Cro-Magnons until the twentieth century of our era "quanta" were sprayed to the South, East and West from their northern ecological niche as it fills up.
But they did not call themselves Cro-Magnons, of course. What were the names of the expansive "quanta"? They are called by different sources in different ways, and we will omit the names of many forgotten ones today. In the Middle Ages, New and Modern times, for example, these were Germans, Spaniards, English, French, Dutch, Belgians, Russians. In more distant times - Franks, Vikings, Goths, Normans, Lombards. Before them - Germans, Celts, Huns, Scythians, Slavs. Before them - the Etruscans, Proto-Hellenes, Proto-Italics. Before them, the Indo-Aryans, before them - the Proto-Iranians, before them - the Hittites ... They all spoke languages Indo-European group, but during the time that has elapsed from "quantum" to "quantum", managed to change to the complete impossibility of mutual understanding.
Always “from top to bottom”, always from North to South, one after another, waves of mass migrations (“invasions”), represented by new descendants of the Cro-Magnon, rolled one after another. At the same time, the late wave often rolled over the early one; a fratricidal war broke out, all the more terrible because the warring parties no longer saw brothers in each other, because time and miscegenation with oncoming races and peoples sometimes changed their appearance and language beyond recognition. The brother did not recognize and did not understand the brother. One “quant” spoke Hittite, another spoke Sanskrit, a third spoke Zendi and Avestan, a fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh spoke Greek, Latin, Finnish, Slavic… Language barriers have already become rigid, and racial subtypes are the result of miscegenation. - already formed: how was it to restore kinship? In those days, after all, it never occurred to anyone to measure skulls in order to solve this problem!
The skulls were measured in modern times - and gasped: the descendants of the Cro-Magnon, it turns out (judging by the proto-Nordic skulls in the burials), reached Central Africa, India, Oceania and Polynesia, not to mention Siberia, the Urals, Altai, Kazakhstan, China, Central Asia, the Pamirs and the entire Mediterranean, including North Africa and Western Asia. Etc.
Today, these descendants have a variety of names, speak different languages, do not understand each other and are not considered kinship. But they all came from the Great North Platform, all have a common ancestor - the Cro-Magnon.
WHERE DID THE NEANDERTHALS GO
AS EVERYONE knows, Neanderthals once inhabited all of Europe, except for Scandinavia and northern Russia: their remains are found in England, Germany, France, Italy, Yugoslavia, southern Russia (in Scythian mounds), etc. These are autochthons, old-timers of Europe. They were found in Central and Southeast Asia, and in Southern Siberia, in China, in the Crimea, in Palestine, in Africa (up to distant Rhodesia) and on the island of Java. For the time being, we will not touch on the question of how they got there or where they came from. Different experts date the age of the Neanderthal differently: according to some data, he is 50-100 thousand years old, according to others, less reliable, as much as 200, 250 and even 300 thousand years. For now, it is enough for us to take into account the thesis: “Anthropologists state the presence in the mentioned period of anthropogenesis in Europe of three variants of fossil people: 1) Neanderthals; 2) people of the modern type; 3) intermediate forms”, specifying that by modern man we mean Cro-Magnon, and by intermediate forms - a hybrid of the first two, and by no means a “transitional link”.
The first Neanderthal was found near Düsseldorf in 1856. In 1997, researchers from the University of Munich analyzed the DNA of the remains of this very first Neanderthal. The age of the find was determined at 50 thousand years. A study of 328 identified nucleotide chains led paleontologist S. Paabo to the conclusion that the differences in genes between Neanderthals and modern humans are too great to consider them relatives. This idea was confirmed by the studies of M. Ponce de Leon and K. Zollikofer (University of Zurich), who compared the skulls of a two-year-old Neanderthal and a small Cro-Magnon corresponding in age. The conclusion was unequivocal: these skulls were formed in completely different ways.
In the appearance of the Neanderthals there were features very different from the Cro-Magnons, but even today characteristic of the Negroid and Australoid race: a chin pushed back, large brow ridges, and very massive jaws. The Neanderthal had a larger brain than the Cro-Magnon, but a different configuration. The imperfection and small size of the frontal lobes of the brain were brightened up by the presence of convolutions, indicating a certain development mental capacity. In interspecific struggle, such a brain did not become an advantage over Cro-Magnon, but there is hardly any reason to oppose Neanderthals to the species homo sapiens in general, since they undoubtedly had a mind. And the structure of their palate, lower jaw, lower left frontal lobe of the brain (the speech zone of modern man) is such that it allowed Neanderthals to speak, although not too rich phonetically, due to the lack of a chin protrusion. The average height of men was 1.65 m, women were 10 cm shorter. At the same time, men weighed about 90 kg due to very strongly developed muscles and heavy, strong bones.
The whole corpses of Neanderthals (like the corpses of mammoths) have not been preserved, since they were not found in the soils of permafrost. There are only skeletons. Therefore, we cannot judge the color of their skin today for sure. In popular pictures and school manuals, Neanderthals are usually depicted as white-skinned upright creatures covered with sparse hair. But this coloring is not based on anything. A number of scientists today put forward the much more plausible hypothesis that Neanderthals were black. This is evidenced by both the geographical localization of the Neanderthals closest to us in time, who lived mainly in Central and South Africa and Java, and the color of those modern races that are reasonably considered descendants of the Neanderthal: Negroids, Australoids, Dravidians, etc. Enough " repaint "a Neanderthal from a school table in black - and we will face a creature with all persuasiveness that is extremely similar in appearance to the named races. Not only the skin and appearance, but also many other things, for example, the structure of the tibia and ankle bones (whose articular planes indicate the habit of squatting for a long time, which is not characteristic of Caucasians) makes Neanderthals related to modern inhabitants of the South of the Earth. It is very characteristic that among the remains of the Cro-Magnons found in the grottoes of Grimaldi (Italy), the so-called "Grimaldians", there are two skeletons, characterized by some scientists as Negroid, by others as Neanderthal.
Neanderthals, like Cro-Magnons, were human, they were radically different from the animal world. Although people are biologically completely different, much inferior to the Cro-Magnon man. But still, the Neanderthals created their own culture, called the Mousterian (Chelian and Acheulian): stone and bone axes, scrapers, pointed points, although not in such a wide range as the Cro-Magnons, who created two dozen stone and bone "instruments". Neanderthals also knew fire, already 40 thousand years ago they honorably buried their dead according to a primitive rite, honored afterworld practiced hunting magic. At the same time, primitive ornaments appeared: pendants made from animal teeth. Scientists believe, however, that they could adopt the custom of decorating themselves from the Cro-Magnons. In any case, this is no longer characteristic of anyone in the animal kingdom. But the Neanderthals, unlike the Cro-Magnons, did not leave works of art (rock paintings, sculptures made of bone and baked clay).
The relationship between Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons was not idyllic. At the sites of Neanderthals, carefully crushed and gnawed bones are found not only of large game, but also bones of Cro-Magnons, that is, the ancestors of modern people, that have been processed in the same way. And vice versa: crushed bones of Neanderthals were found at Cro-Magnon sites. The two protoras waged an irreconcilable war among themselves, a war of annihilation, "to be devoured," as the Bible would put it. What kind of war was accompanied, as fossil skeletons irrefutably testify, by racial mixing, most likely violent.
For about ten thousand years, a fierce confrontation between two protoras on the same territory lasted; but by the end of this period (about 40,000 years ago), the Cro-Magnons drove the Neanderthals out of Europe almost completely. Thirty thousand years ago, their remnants still survived in the Gibraltar region, in the Pyrenees and the mountains of Dalmatia. But in general, the “race of the vanquished” rolled back further south, to Western Asia and the Mediterranean, where the confrontation continued for many more millennia.
As has already been quite reliably established, Cro-Magnons did not and could not have descended from Neanderthals. But they could mix with them (we emphasize and confirm this once again) by “improving the breed”. Moreover, both on their own initiative and in addition to it, depending on the outcome of a particular interracial skirmish. If the men who were captured were threatened with the fate of being eaten, the fate of women could be completely different. The study of the Tasmanians, "stuck" in the Stone Age until their disappearance in XIX century, showed that the intertribal relations of the Paleolithic people, in addition to diplomacy, trade and war, certainly include the abduction of women. The breed of Neanderthals unambiguously improved during miscegenation, the Cro-Magnon breed just as unequivocally worsened, but one way or another, the process was so intense, long and mutual in nature that it led, as already mentioned, to the formation of new ethnic groups and even races of the second order.
A prominent Russian scientist Yu. D. Benevolenskaya in her article “The problem of identifying sapiens and Neanderthal lineages in the early stages of evolution” (Courier of the Petrovsky Kunstkamera. Issue 8-9, St. Petersburg, 1999) writes: “The hypothesis of the evolutionary transformation of Neanderthals into neoanthropes more and more gives way to the idea of the displacement of the first by a modern type of man, which was accompanied by miscegenation between them.
Another outstanding domestic anthropologist A. A. Zubov in the article “Problems of intraspecific taxonomy of the genus homo in connection with modern ideas about the biological differentiation of mankind (Modern anthropology and genetics and the problem of races in humans. M., 1995) also indicates: “We can talk about "network" nature of the evolution of the genus homo at all stages of its evolution. It is important to note that the “network” could include different evolutionary “floors” that interacted with each other and made their genetic contribution to the common, unified fund of the diversity of the evolving homo genus.”
In other words, representatives of the “higher” human levels had sexual intercourse with representatives of the “lower”, Neanderthal levels, as a result of which they gave birth to mestizos, then numerically isolated to the level of entire peoples and races, which gave rise to the general evolutionary diversity of the genus homo.
The famous American biologist Anthony Barnett in his book “The Human Race” (M., 1968) also testifies that “humans of the modern type appeared at about the same time, if not earlier, than the Neanderthal man, and developed in parallel. Intermediate types between modern humans and Neanderthals could be the result of either interbreeding or early phases of Neanderthal divergence from the lineage that led to modern man."
In all likelihood, the zone of miscegenation should be considered all territories, including Europe, where at one time or another both protoras lived simultaneously - Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons. Hybrid forms then continued to exist everywhere and give offspring, interbreeding more and more with the dominant type - in Europe, the Cro-Magnon became such 40 thousand years ago. At the same time, according to Darwin's theory, the signs of mixed forms as not provided for by natural selection (nature) in each generation were increasingly replaced by the dominant signs of the Caucasoid, being perceived over time as an atavism. As a result, Neanderthal features among white Caucasians, although they are found to this day, are only occasionally. The closer to the south, the more often they are, and in the zone of Western Asia and the Mediterranean either become dominant or appear as hybrid ethnic groups, which can be considered, for example, Semites, Ethiopians, Egyptians, Maghrebians, etc. Metisation is whimsically selective: if Ethiopians have black skin and Caucasoid facial features, while Semites, on the contrary, often have Negroid (Neanderthaloid) facial features with white or olive ("mulatto") skin, etc.
There is nothing surprising in the fact that entire hybrid peoples arose in the named zone, because it was here that the final of the Great Neanderthal War was played out for at least ten thousand years, and two protoras, locked between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlas Mountains, continued to sort things out until then. , until they completely dissolved in each other and broke up into fancifully combined, but, moreover, quite homogeneous secondary races and ethnic groups. (At the same time, the dominant type disappeared as such, and the possibility of returning to it - reversion - became generally excluded, although periodically both original types necessarily appear, but only singly and fragmentarily.)
This, in particular, is narrated by the finds of archaeologists D. Garrod and T. McKone, made at the beginning of the 20th century in Palestine on Mount Carmel in the caves of Goat (Skhul) and Pechnaya (Tabun). The remains of ancient people were found there, separated in time by about ten thousand years: the ancient ash in the Furnace Cave is 40 thousand years old, and in the Goat Cave - 30 thousand years. During these ten thousand years, the population that inhabited this area underwent tremendous changes: a purely Neanderthal appearance gradually accumulated an increasing number of characteristic Cro-Magnon features. The inhabitants of the Skhul cave closest to us in time have the greatest number of Cro-Magnon characters (including an average height of 175 cm), while remaining, moreover, a hybrid.
Later, the conclusions made during the study of the Skhul and Tabun caves were fully confirmed by new finds in the same geographical area and in the same time layers of the soil. Namely, in the 1930s. on Mount Kafeh near Nazareth, the remains of six Neanderthals were found with such characteristic Cro-Magnon differences as a high vault of the skull, a rounded nape, etc. Similar finds were then made in the caves of Yabrud (Syria), Howa-Fteah (Libya), Jebel-Irhoud (Morocco) , Shanidar (Iraq). In 1963, a Japanese expedition found in Israel the skeleton of a whole Neanderthal, but ... as tall as a Cro-Magnon man (170 cm). And so on.
As we already know for sure, the Cro-Magnon man did not descend from the Neanderthal. He fought him to the death, completely cleared Europe of him (partially mixing with the enemy, but then squeezing out his residual features drop by drop for tens of thousands of years), but he failed to repeat this feat in Western Asia and the Mediterranean. Here, it was in this region that the first "melting pot" in history arose, in which both the "south-fast" Cro-Magnon echelons and the Neanderthals who fled from them, but failed to escape, found their death and new life.
Does this mean that today only hybrid, intermediate or secondary forms remain from the ancient Neanderthals, that they all completely dissolved into a stronger race of winners or simply died out, giving way to other races?
No, there is no reason for such pessimism.
The Atlas Mountains stopped the weary pursuers, who found in the blessed climate of the Mediterranean their cherished ideal, bequeathed by genes and tribal traditions: they had nowhere and no reason to strive further. But the persecuted, saving their lives, seeped through the mountain barrier and gradually populated all of Africa and not only it. As a result, each protoras entrenched itself in its range: the Cro-Magnons, who became Caucasians, at home, mainly in Europe; Neanderthals, who became Negroids and Australoids, - in their country, mainly in Africa, then in southern India (where they were forced out in the 2nd millennium BC by the descendants of the Cro-Magnons, the so-called "Andronovites" - the future "Indo-Aryans"), in Australia, Tasmania etc.; and the first mixed race in the world - at home, in Asia Minor and the Mediterranean. This happened about 30 thousand years ago.
