The Human Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, namely the study of human origins, is a science very recently mainly because of two "taboos" that have hindered in the past, even within the scientific community, the research and dissemination. Questioning the biblical account of Genesis, that is the story of Adam and Eve, and suppose that man derived from monkeys that could not cause a real culture shock.
It was an Apulian the first who "ventured" to publish his belief on the origin of man from monkeys and that is why we put on his skin. He was born in Tauranga in the province of Lecce in 1585 and was named Giulio Cesare Vanini. Medical and Monaco, in 1616 published a paper in which, inter alia, advancing the above argument: three years later, in Toulouse in France, was convicted of heresy and the cutting of the tongue at the stake.
Something begins to move towards the end of '700, the Enlightenment, and above 800. The study of the remains of extinct prehistoric animals and worked flints found mixed with them had already assumed the presence of men "antediluvian" molto antichi, finchè, nel 1856, fu trovata in Germania, insieme ad altre poche ossa, una stranissima calotta cranica umana.
Apparteneva ad un uomo molto diverso da noi che prese il nome del luogo in cui fu trovato, la valle (thal) di Neander, cioè di Neanderthal. Quasi contemporaneamente Darwin pubblicava le sue nuove teorie sull’evoluzione della specie. Nonostante le scontate reazioni negative che questi due fatti e altre successive scoperte provocheranno, era nata, sia pure in ambiente molto ristretto, la nuova scienza che indaga sulle nostre origini e che oggi con mezzi sofisticatissimi e attendibilissimi intravede le nostre radici fino a tempi “profondi” milioni di anni.
German The discovery showed a man with some more strong similarities with apes, but it was still a man!
need to find a true "pithecanthropus (Pitecusa: monkey - Antropos: humans) that is an ape-man that constitute the missing link joining ol'anello, whatever you want between us and other primates.
Science is like good food: it increases the appetite!
Towards the end of the 800 is an astonishing fact. A young Dutch physician, Eugene Dubois, impressed by the anatomical similarities between man and the gibbon, is convinced that these ancient specimens latter gave rise to human offspring. In 1887 he directed in Java because only island inhabited by gibbons and orangutans, and free offers helped dig some of his countrymen. Start early enough to find bones and teeth after four years very interesting and a cap that seems a chimp until it discovers the femur demonstrating its upright position.
He found just what I wanted and called "her" man Pithecanthropus erectus (erect ape man). In practice he had found what we call Homo Erectus although some scientists today still do not consider him a man. Today we know that the settlements of the gibbons have nothing to do with the presence of fossils of this type.
little more than forty years after the remains were found in China's famous Peking Man perfectly similar to those of Dubois and unfortunately went missing during the Second World War.
paleoanthropology finally had irrefutable documents on the origins of "bestial" man in the audience and yet still remained strong resistance primarily theological in nature.
again in 1925, in the "free" United States, a natural science teacher was sentenced to pay a fine of $ 100, which at that time was money, "for having taught in a criminal manner that man descended from a lower order of animals. "
In fact paleoanthropology will remain a field reserved for a few insiders and results will be known only by the public educated and attentive for most of the 900. A state of things at the bottom of almost understandable given that the 1960 men known primal you could count on the fingers of one hand and its fragments, the only scientific evidence on the evolution "natural" human, they were so "heavy" to be able to yes and no fill a couple of cartons.
In 1924, South Africa was also discovered the skull of a young "Australopithecus" which means southern ape. It was bipedal like us and had characteristics intermediate between apes and man. This is the first of a series of pre-human characteristics very different from each other all found in Africa and therefore all called Australopithecus.
Since 1911 a large African region began to attract the attention of paleontologists, that is, students of fossil animals: it is the famous Rift Valley, a large depression over three thousand kilometers long on the east side of the continent that invests' Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania until you get to Mozambique. Over the last twenty million years, this vast territory rich in volcanoes, di laghi e di paludi ha creato condizioni non solo ideali per lo sviluppo della vita ma anche particolarmente favorevoli per la fossilizzazione.
A cominciare dal 1930 i paleontologi Luois Leakey e Mary sua consorte, attirati dagli interessanti affioramenti risalenti a circa due milioni d’anni fa nella gola di Olduvai in Tanzania, si dedicarono ad una esplorazione approfondita della zona che portò nel 1959 alla scoperta di un pre-umano molto robusto da loro denominato Australopithecus Boisei.
Nel 1961 realizzano un’altra clamorosa scoperta: il cranio molto più evoluto del precedente, tanto da presumere la sua appartenenza ad una nuova specie umana, la più antica che si conosca. Eleven years later, another discovery of this species much more complete, this time in Kenya, confirms that the first humans lived about 1.8 million years ago and had a cranial capacity 50% higher than the australopithecines, so would suggest even the beginning of the use of the word. He also discovers that he worked in housing and then had reached a cultural level rather complex. It will be called Homo habilis.
The Rift Valley becomes "the Eldorado of paleontologists and paleoanthropologists. Since the early 60's are organized, especially by the Anglo-Saxons, with large shipments of deployment men and equipment and the results are gratifying: in addition to the aforementioned second homo habilis and many other important findings is discovered in Ethiopia in '74 the now famous Lucy, Australopithecus then the oldest dating back more than 3 million years ago (first name Australopithecus afarensis) and nel'78 Laetoli in Tanzania in a number of bipedal footprints on volcanic ash of extreme interest and the ripe old age of 3.5 million years.
He also expressed some Homo Erectus much older than those we have already experienced in Java and China, it seems almost certain that these, too, like all the others mentioned above have originated in Africa.
Along with the rich documentation of new bone, the Rift Valley has given us an equally interesting and abundant repertoire of tools made of polished stones that have allowed to discover a surprising fact: the first roughly worked stones date back to about 3 million years ago , then prior to the appearance of the first man occurred 500,000 years later!
This shows that some species of pithecanthropus, which we considered to be still monkeys had achieved a surprising level of social and cultural.
The abundance and diversity of the bone remains of Australopithecus found in the Rift Valley and most recently in South Africa resulted in a very complex evolutionary picture punctuated by various genealogical branches that were quickly extinguished.
Their standing could not allow such a speed as to escape the big predators of the savannah: it is assumed that they managed to keep them at bay by throwing stones and using sticks of course remain in compact groups. All animals are terrified of stone-throwing.
E 'already certain that more than a million years ago even the lions, who also live in packs, fearing hominids. Even today, just the mere presence of a child to ward off the lions of the Masai herds.
and Homo sapiens? Based on the evidence collected have existed, according to scholars, both appeared in two subspecies, for a change in Africa. The first in time, homo sapiens neanderthalensis already mentioned, arrived in Europe in a period dating from ill-defined, presumably, to about 200,000 years ago and is extinct for 35,000 years, and the other homo sapiens sapiens to which we belong, appears in the Middle East 100,000 years ago from, as stated above, from Africa, leaving his first tracks in Europe 70,000 years ago almost e. .. we are the only ones not to be closed or better not be "autoestinti yet."
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