The first people...

[The Great Architect]

From whence did we (the human species) emerge? Didn't the first humans come from Africa? My knowledge of this is shaky, at best. Do people who believe in God, and people who believe in evolution, agree on anything? Regarding the origin of species, I mean.

 

[Sunstone]

So far as I can recall, it seems that Homo sapiens first arose in Eastern Africa, perhaps as far back as 200,000 - 250,000 years ago. The earliest Homo sapien fossils, however, come from what is now Ethiopia and date back about 160,000 years.

Around 40,000 years ago, there was a strange awakening called the Great Leap Forward. This is when Homo sapiens suddenly began diversifying their culture. Nothing changes anatomically -- the Homo sapiens of 40,000 years ago are anatomically the same as the Homo sapiens of 160,000 years ago -- but now, all of a sudden, we are creating elaborate tool kits along with paintings, carvings, sculptures, music, and so forth. The caves of France and Spain begin to get painted from about this time. The oldest Australian Aboriginal rock carvings also seem to date from about this time.

I'm surprised no religious person as yet has suggested that the Great Leap Forward is when God gave us a soul -- for it would seem obvious that is when Homo sapiens became the sort of conscious, thinking creature it is today.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Around 40,000 years ago, there was a strange awakening called the Great Leap Forward.

By whom? (just curious)

 

[Sunstone]

By whom? (just curious)

I don't know who coined the phrase. I know Richard Dawkins has used it in at least one of his lectures that I've listened to over the net, and I've seen it in print here and there.

 

[ChristineES]

According to my Physical Anthropology class, the oldest "human" found was an austrolopithicus found in Africa. They also found some footprints that proved they were able to walk upright. Their guess is that it died out some 1.5 million years ago.

 

[The Great Architect]

According to my Physical Anthropology class, the oldest "human" found was an austrolopithicus found in Africa. They also found some footprints that proved they were able to walk upright. Their guess is that it died out some 1.5 million years ago.

And from there... did humanity progress to the next stage of evolutionary development?

Has somebody thought of a way to include Adam and Eve (I mean, in terms of the evolutionary progression)? Or, is it impossible to combine the two strains of thought?

Is there an explanation of the evolutionary process, that includes Adam and Eve?

 

[Sunstone]

Is there an explanation of the evolutionary process, that includes Adam and Eve?

The closest I've heard to something like that is the notion that at some time during the course of evolution, God gave the first souls to the first two people to have souls, named Adam and Eve.

 

[doppelganger]

By whom? (just curious)

Among Anthropologists it is known as the "Upper Paleolithic Revolution" and is sometimes referred to as "The Great Leap Forward," though that's confusing because of the Chinese Communist Party's industrial program of the same name. It's also sometimes called the "Creative Explosion."

 

[doppelganger]

According to my Physical Anthropology class, the oldest "human" found was an austrolopithicus found in Africa. They also found some footprints that proved they were able to walk upright. Their guess is that it died out some 1.5 million years ago.

Australopithecus species are not human. They are classified as hominids and an early form of hominid beginning to show some "human" characteristics including some evidence of bipedalism.

 

[kai]

i read somewhere that mans ability to manipulate fire and consume cooked meat gave an added intake of the needed proteins etc that boosted the use of the human brain, could be rubbish i don't know has anyone else heard of this theory

 

[Sunstone]

i read somewhere that mans ability to manipulate fire and consume cooked meat gave an added intake of the needed proteins etc that boosted the use of the human brain, could be rubbish i don't know has anyone else heard of this theory

There is more than one guess about where the needed protein for larger brains came from. As of now, I think it's pretty much a mystery.

 

[kai]

There is more than one guess about where the needed protein for larger brains came from. As of now, I think it's pretty much a mystery.

well theres one clue that might help the solving of that mystery IE cooking food that was inedible in a raw state what do you think? plausible ?

 

[doppelganger]

well theres one clue that might help the solving of that mystery IE cooking food that was inedible in a raw state what do you think? plausible ?

The neolithic revolution was accompanied by the emergence of domesticated food crops that were high in protein and took off especially well in places where higher protein grain crops were domesticated alongside legumes.

If you want to now a TON of details about diet and its role in the emergence of human civilizations, I highly recommend Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel.

 

[kai]

ok doppleganger but food crops are not much good if you cant cook i was thinking of a bit further back like eating meat cooked over a fire

 

[doppelganger]

ok doppleganger but food crops are not much good if you cant cook i was thinking of a bit further back like eating meat cooked over a fire

I didn't say otherwise. Just pointing out that it doesn't have to be meat consumption for your cooking theory to be plausible, and in terms of the available evidence, the earliest civilizations tended to explode around the domestication of high protein food crops rather than animals. I'm just adding a little more supporting detail for your theory that protein consumption and cooking were part of the contribution to bigger brains. It might be a feedback loop - more protein leads to bigger brains which leads to better solutions for obtaining more protein and so on . . .

 

[kai]

i see where you are coming from doppleganger


Advent of cooking may have promoted further encephalization by reducing digestive energy required. Finally, in what will be controversial to raw-fooders, Aiello and Wheeler, after arguing that the first major increase in encephalization was due to increased consumption of animal foods, next propose that the second major increase in brain size (with the appearance of archaic Homo sapiens) was due to the appearance of cooking practices. (Archaic Homo sapiens coincides with a timeframe of roughly 100,000 to 400,000 years ago.)

source
Relationship of Dietary Quality/Gut Efficiency to Brain Size

 

[sandy whitelinger]

By whom? (just curious)

From Human evolution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Until about 50,000–40,000 years ago the use of stone tools seems to have progressed stepwise: each phase (habilis, ergaster, neanderthal) started at a higher level than the previous one, but once that phase had started further development was slow. In other words, one might call these Homo species culturally conservative. After 50,000 BP, what Jared Diamond, author of The Third Chimpanzee, and other anthropologists characterize as a "Great Leap Forward," human culture apparently started to change at much greater speed: "modern" humans started to bury their dead carefully, made clothing out of hides, developed sophisticated hunting techniques (such as pitfall traps, or driving animals to fall off cliffs), and made cave paintings.[28] This speed-up of cultural change seems connected with the arrival of behaviorally modern humans, Homo sapiens. As human culture advanced, different populations of humans began to create novelty in existing technologies. Artifacts such as fish hooks, buttons and bone needles begin to show signs of variation among different populations of humans, something that had not been seen in human cultures prior to 50,000 BP. Typically, neanderthalensis populations are found with technology similar to other contemporary neanderthalensis populations.

 

[Valjean]

I doubt that such a sudden cultural explosion was the result of better nutrition. Hominids had been around for a couple million years. If they were chronically malnourished they'd have had plenty of time to adapt physiologically to whatever diet they were managing to obtain.
I also don't see a relationship between protein intake and larger brain size, though a high-protein diet in children is known to produce a larger body size in general.

I suspect one or more major structural neurological changes, likely beginning with reduplication mutations, resulting in: A. Language -- enabling an unprecedented ability to store, transmit and manipulate knowledge, and, B. Proliferation of mirror neurons -- giving hominids vastly improved learning abilities plus, perhaps more importantly, the ability to actively teach, which is not found in other primates.

I think the challenges brought in by the vicissitudes of the Pleistocene climate changes and the concomitant great migrations were major factors as well. This new species suddenly moving into new environmental regions could produce a significant island effect, for example.

 

[ChristineES]

Can someone tell me the length of time between the age of the earliest hominids, austrolopithicus fossils, and the Homo Erectus fossils? Wasn't there a big gap of time between them?

 

[Sunstone]

Can someone tell me the length of time between the age of the earliest hominids, austrolopithicus fossils, and the Homo Erectus fossils? Wasn't there a big gap of time between them?