Chapter 2 Chapter 1: From the Apes

Humans are the most spiritual animals in the world.Exploring the origin of human culture first involves the issue of the origin of human beings.For thousands of years, people have made many guesses about their own origins. Since ancient times, some people have discussed that it was not the beginning of the world. There are also ancient legends about monkeys turning into humans, which even exist in the creation myths of certain ethnic groups, such as Tibetans. There is a legend similar to that known to all women and children.In ancient Chinese literature, there are also some sayings that apes turned into humans, but they cannot be compared with modern scientific theories about the origin of humans.

In the middle of the 19th century, the founder of the theory of evolution and the famous British biologist Charles Darwin (1809-1882 A.D.), published two famous works, using the principle of biological evolution to prove that human beings originated from the extinct ancient apes, and established the human race. Originated from the scientific theory of ancient apes.Darwin did not discuss how the ancient ape became a human, but Engels gave a scientific explanation for this issue.In the article "The Role of Labor in the Transition from Ape to Man", Engels put forward the famous assertion that "labor creates man himself", and clarified the decisive role of labor in the transition from ape to man.Due to changes in the climate and environment, apes that live in trees instead of living on the ground formed simple labor in the process of searching for food, prompting the differentiation of the forelimbs into hands and the differentiation of hind limbs into feet, and finally stood up and walked upright. Crowds have taken a decisive step on the long road to creating themselves as human beings.

After walking upright, the ape-man's field of vision was greatly expanded, his brain was gradually developed, language was produced through communication, and his labor became more and more creative.The sign of this kind of creative labor is the making of tools, which is impossible for any higher animal except humans.Therefore, the ability to create tools is also the most important sign that distinguishes humans from apes.Mastering tool-making skills is the most concentrated expression of human wisdom, and it is also one of the fundamental driving forces for the continuous development and progress of human society.

According to paleoanthropological research, the direct ancestor of human beings is Ramapithecus, which survived 14 million to 8 million years ago.Ramapithecus is a "forming man" who has learned to use simple tools and may have rudimentary language communication.Several batches of Ramapithecus fossils have been discovered in Kaiyuan and Lufeng, Yunnan, my country, and the survival time is about 8 million years ago.The fossils and cultures of Australopithecus (slender species) are considered to be the earliest human remains found so far.Australopithecus is no longer a true ape. It can not only walk upright, but also make rough tools. Its earliest age can reach 5 million years ago.In my country, tooth fossils that may belong to Australopithecus have been found in Jianshi, Hubei, Badong, and Nanning, Guangxi, providing important clues for exploring the origin of humans in Asia.

Anthropologists divide the process of human development and evolution into four stages: (1) Australopithecus (early Homo erectus) started to walk upright and was able to make simple stone tools. It is generally believed that the age of survival is 3 million to 2 million years ago; (2) Homo erectus (late Homo erectus), started to use fire and was able to make more complicated Paleolithic tools, and the age is about 2 million to 300,000 years ago; (3) The ancients (early Homo sapiens), physically close to modern people, invented artificial fire technology and were able to make standard stone tools for different purposes, about 300,000-50,000 years ago;

(4) Newcomers (late Homo sapiens), mastered the artistic skills of sculpture and painting, and began to make decorations, dating from about 50,000 years ago. The ancient human fossils and cultural relics of Homo erectus, ancient man and new man stage found in my country are quite rich. They have been found in Beijing, Yunnan, Sichuan, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan, Hubei, Anhui, Guangdong, Guangxi, Inner Mongolia and Liaoning. Find the footprints left by our ancient ancestors, the most famous of which are Yuanmou Man, Lantian Man, Peking Man, Dingcun Man and the cave man fossils.More sites contemporaneous with these ancient inhabitants have been found, and more than 200 Paleolithic sites are widely distributed in the vast land of North China, Northeast China, South China and Southwest China.

Existing archaeological excavations show that in our ancient oriental world, humans lived as early as 1.7 million years ago, represented by the Yuanmou Man in Yunnan, who belonged to the early Homo erectus.The Yuanmou people had begun to use stone tools, and a large amount of charcoal and burnt bones were also seen, which may indicate that fire had begun to be used at that time.About 1 million to 750,000 years ago was the era when people in Lantian, Shaanxi lived. At this time, stone tool technology developed and the types of stone tools began to be fixed, but they were still relatively rough.From 700,000 to 230,000 years ago, it was the era when the famous Beijingers lived.Peking Man fossils were discovered in the Longgushan Cave in Zhoukoudian, Beijing. Over half a century of intermittent excavations have yielded as many as 40 individual human bone fossils.There are many kinds of stone tools in Beijing people, and their uses are relatively clear. There are a few relatively exquisite small stone tools and a certain number of bone tools, and clear evidence of fire use has been found.

The human fossils of the early Homo sapiens stage discovered in my country mainly include Dali people in Shaanxi, Dingcun people in Shanxi and Xujiayao people about 100,000 years ago. They lived in the middle of the Paleolithic age and used stone tools extensively. , mastered more complex stone tool processing technology.Human fossils belonging to the stage of late Homo sapiens mainly include cavemen in Beijing and Zhiyu people in Shanxi. They were residents of the late Paleolithic age. They began to use more advanced indirect strike methods to process small stone tools. They invented bows and arrows. A great step forward in the development of creative labor.

Anthropologists have proved based on the research of unearthed human fossils that humans began to form different races between 50,000 and 10,000 years ago after they separated from the ape group for more than 2 million years. This is the origin of the three major populations living in different regions today. That is, the so-called Mongoloid race (yellow race), Europa race (white race), and Negro race (black race).According to research reports, the Mongoloids living in the east of the world may have formed in the dry grasslands and semi-deserts of Central and East Asia.The skulls of early Homo sapiens fossils Dali Man began to show Mongoloid traits, while Shanding Cave Man, a late Homo sapiens fossil, has obvious Mongoloid morphology, that is to say, Dali Man and Shanding Cave Man are both of the yellow race Ancient China is an important birthplace of the yellow race.