Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons. The emergence of human races - Knowledge Hypermarket

Who are the Cro-Magnons? These are fossil people, completely similar in appearance and development to modern man. They lived 40-10 thousand years ago in Europe. At the same time, they coexisted together with Neanderthals for at least 7 thousand years. Their first skeletons and tools from the Upper Paleolithic era were found in 1868 in France in the Cro-Magnon cave.

It should be noted that such a term as "Cro-Magnon" implies several concepts at once:

1. These are people whose remains were found in the Cro-Magnon grotto and lived on Earth about 40-30 thousand years ago.

2. These are the people who inhabited Europe during the Upper Paleolithic.

3. These are all people who lived on the globe during the Upper Paleolithic period.

It must be said that there is also such a thing as neoanthropes. It implies the common collective name of Homo sapiens, that is, a reasonable person. It includes both Cro-Magnons and modern people. That is, you and I are neoanthropes who completely replaced the paleoanthropes (Cro-Magnons) 30 or 40 thousand years ago. And the first neoanthropes appeared on Earth about 200 thousand years ago in Africa.

But let's not look so far, but let's go back to more recent times. Fossils of Cro-Magnons have been found in Africa at Fish Hoek and Cape Flats. Their age was estimated at 35 thousand years. In Europe, as already mentioned, in 30 thousand years. In Asia, the age of the remains was 40-10 thousand years. In New Guinea 19 thousand years.

Cro-Magnon settlement

The ancient people reached Australia. They lived there beautifully 20-14 thousand years ago. But in America, near Los Angeles, a settlement was found, whose age dates back to 23 thousand years ago. But there are also later settlements from 11 to 13 thousand years ago.

In the excavation sites, experts found the remains of individuals of different sex and age. At the same time, ancient people were buried in accordance with the funeral rites of that distant era. From modern people in their morphological structure, they differed very little. However, the bones of skeletons and skulls were more massive. This is the opinion, at least, that anthropologists have come to.

Where did the modern human species originate?

Currently, experts are asking questions: which of the ancient people can be considered the ancestors of modern man and in what historical period did they appear? The first traces of people like us were found in Africa. These finds have an age of 200 to 100 thousand years. One of the finds was made in Herto in Ethiopia in 1997. There, paleontologists from California discovered remains 160 thousand years old.

In South Africa, in the Clazies River, the discovered remains are 118 thousand years old. An 82,000-year-old skull was found in Border Cave in northeastern South Africa. Remains were also found in Tanzania, Sudan. They are characterized by the fact that fossil human skulls in their form very much resemble the skulls of modern people. They do not have a sharply protruding nape, large superciliary arches, and a sloping chin. At the same time, the volume of the brain is extremely large. Similar finds were found in the Middle East in the Qafzeh and Skhul caves.

Rock paintings in a cave

As a result of the efforts of paleontologists, it turned out that 40 thousand years ago, people who had a modern appearance lived in Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia. In America, they appeared much later, about 11-12 thousand years ago. But there are archaeologists who call the time period 30 thousand years.

Thus, it turns out that the first Cro-Magnons saw the light in the southeastern regions of Africa approximately 200 thousand years ago. At first, they settled on a hot continent, and then came to the Middle East. It happened 80-70 thousand years ago. Having settled in the Middle East, they moved to Europe and Asia, mastering the southern, and then the northern regions. We got all the way to Australia, and after that we ended up on the lands of America.

Our direct ancestors were the exact opposite of the Neanderthals. They had long limbs, height up to 180 cm, proportional bodies, well-developed lower jaws and an elongated skull. Subsequently, people of the current civilization, whose age is 7 thousand years, went from them.

Nowadays, there is an opinion that the modern kind of people is the crown of biological evolution, which has been transformed into social evolution. However, many do not agree with this. That is, biological changes continue to this day. It's just that very little time has passed yet to talk about any physical transformations. But as we all know, single Cro-Magnons have changed significantly in appearance, thanks to the appearance of races.

Cro-Magnon burial

Cultural achievements of the Cro-Magnons

Our direct ancestors differed from their predecessors not only in physical features. They also had a more highly developed culture. First of all, it concerns the tools of labor. They made them from stone, horn and bone. Moreover, initially, blanks were prepared in droves, and then they were processed and the necessary tools were obtained. Invented a bow with arrows and spears. At the same time, it should be noted that the level of culture practically did not differ among the ancient people who inhabited different parts of the planet. They tamed a wolf, which became a domestic dog.

But the main thing, of course, is rock art. In the caves from Britannia to Baikal, beautiful examples of rock paintings have been preserved. In addition to them, figurines depicting animals and people were also found. They are made of limestone, bones and tusks of mammoths. Knife handles were carved, and clothes were decorated with beads, painted with ocher.

Our ancient ancestors lived in communities. They numbered from 30 to 100 people. Not only caves served as housing, but also dugouts, and huts, and tents. And this already points to the settlements. They dressed in clothes that were sewn from skins. Communicated with each other through developed speech.

The main cult was the cult of hunting. This is indicated at least by the fact that many images of animals are complemented by arrows and spears. That is, at first the prey was killed in the drawings, and only then they went on a real hunt.

Among the Cro-Magnons, funeral rites were widely practiced. This primarily indicates that the ancient people thought about the afterlife. Jewelry, hunting tools, household items and food were placed in the graves along with the deceased. The bodies were sprinkled with blood-red ocher and sometimes covered with the bones of dead animals. Dead bodies were usually buried in the fetal position. That is, in what position the embryo was in the womb, in the same position it left for another world.

Ceramic figurine Vestonice Venus

Cro-Magnon culture is characterized as Perigor culture. It is subdivided into earlier châtelperon and later Gravettian culture. The latter subsequently moved to Solutrean culture. An example of the Gravettian culture is Vestonica Venus found in the Czech Republic in 1925. This is the oldest ceramic figurine, 11 cm high and 4 cm wide. An ancient kiln was also found in which clay handicrafts were fired, turning them into pottery.

In conclusion, it should be said that in the days of fabulous antiquity, a woman appeared in southeast Africa, from whom the whole human race went. This woman is designated as mitochondrial Eve by mitochondrial DNA, inherited only through the female line. What kind of woman this is, and how she ended up in hot Africa is unknown. But the beautiful creature was radically different from other women and laid the foundation for the human civilization that now dominates the blue planet..

Alexey Starikov

About 40 thousand years ago, neoanthropes- people of the present appearance, but more massive than modern people. Neoanthropes, or new people (from the Greek peoz. the newest person) is a generalized name for people of the current species (Home sapiens), fossils and now living.

The inhabitants of Europe, who are often referred to as the current species, who lived in the Upper Paleolithic era (from 50 to 20 thousand years ago) are called Cro-Magnons. The name of these people was given by a find in the grotto of Cro-Magnon in the valley of the river. Weser in France. There, in 1868, scientists discovered 6 human skeletons, ancient coals from fires, flint tools and sea shells, in which holes were made. The discovery that was found in the Cro-Magnon grotto was the first, after which a serious study of the ancient people of the modern type began, therefore all fossil neoanthropes are called Cro-Magnons.

The physical type of Cro-Magnons is characterized by the following features:

• tall (for men - above 180 cm);
• skull with a large brain region;
• elevated rounded cranial vault;
• extensive, straight, wide forehead without continuous supraorbital ridge;
• less developed face than most fossil hominids;
• protruding chin.

The Cro-Magnons had a perfect culture, which is called the Upper Paleolithic. In Europe, the most famous cultures of the Upper Paleolithic are called Aurignac, Solutre and Madeleine, after the names of the places in France where the main finds were made.

Cro-Magnons made a real technological revolution in stone processing. Long and narrow plates were broken off from the prismatic core, from which various tools were then made. The Cro-Magnons began the development and study of new materials and fossils - bones and horns, which are sometimes called the plastics of the Stone Age. They had huge differences, for example, they had lightness, plasticity and ease of processing. With the advent of bone needles, awls and piercings, fundamentally new possibilities appeared in the processing of skins and in the manufacture of clothing. Animal bones of impressive size also served as material for the dwellings of ancient hunters and fuel for hearths. The technical equipment of people has grown - spear throwers, bows and arrows have appeared.

Cro-Magnon people almost ceased to depend on natural shelters such as caves and rock shelters, as well as other structures. They actively developed, engaged in extensive construction of dwellings where they needed - this created additional opportunities for long-distance migrations and the development of new lands. Only among the Cro-Magnons for the first time art appears - rock art, figurines made of bone and stone. The first drawings on the walls of the caves depicted animals, and only later in ancient painting and plastic art do plots appear, in which a person becomes a participant.

At that time, such a direction as - Art, apparently of magical significance, was actively studied and developed. Images of animals are accompanied by signs of arrows and spears, designed to facilitate the upcoming hunt. As a result, we can say that modern man, in the guise that he has in the modern world, has largely acquired all the qualities and experience precisely from the Cro-Magnon. Even in ancient times, this species was actively searching for food, shelter, studied new fossils, and developed. It was this active development that contributed to the further improvement of civilization.

Where did the world so understandable to us come from, how did it fit in with the completely different world of the Neanderthals? Many biological features of the oldest Upper Paleolithic people suggest that they came to Europe from tropical regions.

Long limbs, high stature, elongated body proportions, large jaws, elongated braincase are similar in modern tropical populations and Cro-Magnons. The latter differ only in the large size of the bones, the strong relief of the skull, and coarser features. But, if the Cro-Magnons were aliens, where did they come from? How did they interact with the natives - Neanderthals? According to the version most justified now, the modern human species was formed in Africa between 200-160-100 and 45 thousand years ago. Between 80,000 and 45,000 years ago, a limited number of people left East Africa at the Bab el-Mandeb or, less likely, the Isthmus of Suez. They began to settle first along the southern shores of Eurasia - up to Australia - and then to the north, in areas inhabited by Neanderthals, whose possible fate was mentioned above.

From the Upper Paleolithic era to the present, evolutionary changes did not have time to accumulate in sufficient quantities (it is often said that biological evolution stopped with the advent of the modern human species, giving way to social evolution, but the facts indicate the continuation of biological evolution today, just the time scale is insufficient for the appearance significant changes in morphology). Differences between groups of populations that have appeared since that time are usually called racial. A separate section of anthropology is devoted to them - race (cf.

BC e) they settled in Europe, and lived simultaneously with the last representatives of the Neanderthals.

The beginning of the Upper Paleolithic era includes the so-called Paleolithic revolution- the transition to a more advanced technology for the production and use of tools, which occurred about 40 thousand years BC. During this period, there was an explosive flowering of human intellectual and cultural activity associated with the wide spread of people of a modern physical type, who replaced the ancient types of people. Bones were first found in the Cro-Magnon Grotto in France.

It is surprising that for tens of thousands of years, pre-Cro-Magnon humanity has not undergone any changes. At the same time, according to modern ideas, the formation of features of the Cro-Magnon skeleton requires isolation and a huge number of years.

Evolutionary anthropologists believe that the Cro-Magnon population was between 1 and 10 million people, and in 100 thousand years they should have buried about 4 billion bodies with related artifacts. A significant part of the burials of these 4 billion should have been preserved. However, only a few thousand have been found.

Another ambiguity is the extinction of the Neanderthal. One of the dominant hypotheses about the causes of its extinction is its displacement (i.e., destruction) by Cro-Magnon, a competitor for an ecological niche, which occurred about 30 thousand years ago.

Cro-Magnon food

It has been established that the diet of a person of the late Paleolithic era (40-12 thousand years ago), who lived in Europe, consisted of wild fruits, vegetables, deciduous plants, roots, nuts, and lean meat. The results of anthropological studies unequivocally show that in the course of human evolution, a large role was played by a diet containing little fat, very little sugar, but including a large amount of fiber and polysaccharides. The cholesterol content of bushmeat approximates that of livestock meat, but bushmeat contains an almost ideal ratio of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids. Late Paleolithic people consumed a lot of animal protein at the expense of meat, which contributed to physical development and rapid puberty, but not longevity. An analysis of the remains of ancient people revealed characteristic diseases caused by malnutrition, in particular, beriberi, and their life expectancy averaged 30 years.

One way or another, due to the fact that meat food prevailed in the Cro-Magnon diet, they were more stately than their descendants (and ancestors), who preferred plant foods.

Cro-Magnon culture

Religion

From the end of 40 thousand BC. the heyday of the Matriarchy also began - associated with the Cro-Magnons and known mainly from excavations in Europe. The worship of the mother goddess was not just a local cult, but a global phenomenon. material from the site

Cave painting (rock)

During the life of the Cro-Magnons, there is a flourishing of cave (rock) painting, the peak of which was reached in 15-17 thousand BC. (gallery of cave drawings of Lascaux and Altamira).

A fresco in Altamira depicts a herd of bison and other

Cro-Magnon man