Theory of the origin and settlement of man. The settlement of ancient people on modern maps The direction of the settlement of Homo sapiens
Today, the number of inhabitants of the Earth exceeds 7 billion people, and the most rapid growth in numbers began to occur only in the century before last. Now it is difficult to imagine that at the dawn of civilization the planet was inhabited by a few tribes of primitive hunters, who gradually settled throughout the territory suitable for habitation.
Most archaeologists and historians today agree that the homeland of the ancestors of modern man was equatorial Africa. On this continent, more than two million years ago, the human race emerged from the animal world, as evidenced by numerous paleontological finds. Africa is the only continent where scientists have discovered almost all the transitional forms from the primitive human being to its modern form. From here began the journey of man to other continents.
There is, however, evidence that suggests that in ancient times there were several centers of civilization on the planet. For example, the remains of representatives of one of the oldest human species were found on the territory of Eurasia. But these finds have little in common with the characteristics of the branch from which modern humanity comes. It is quite possible that in this case it would be more correct to talk not about the second independent center of the emergence of Homo sapiens, but only about a series of waves of settlement, stretching over many thousands of years.
Archaeological and geological studies suggest that 70 thousand years ago an extremely strong volcanic eruption occurred on the planet. The consequence of this event was climate change and a sharp decline in animal numbers. In search of food, people were forced to settle over very vast territories.
The first large wave of migration, which began 60 thousand years ago, was directed towards Asia. From here man came to Australia and the islands of Oceania. About 40 thousand years ago, people appeared in Europe. After another five thousand years, man reached the Bering Strait and found himself on the territory of America, the complete settlement of which took about 20 thousand years.
The long-term settlement of mankind across all continents led to the formation of several large groups distinct from each other, called races. Being very distant from each other, these groups gradually became isolated, and their representatives acquired characteristic external features. The isolation of peoples also affected the characteristics of their culture.
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The message of genetic scientists that all humanity descended from one foremother has recently been confirmed once again. The study of the Xq13.3 gene made it possible to assume that “foremother Eve,” who possessed all the genes of Homo Sapiens, met Adam approximately 200 thousand years ago.
Africa is the ancestral home of modern people
The most ancient representative of the Homo sapiens species lived on Earth about two million years ago. This recent conclusion by scientists contrasts with the conclusion of other researchers that the Homo sapiens species is no more than 200 thousand years old. These experts believe that the genus Homo arose and evolved quite quickly. Its ancestor was an isolated group of African hominids. These are two debated hypotheses - the polyregional one and the “foremother Eve” hypothesis. Proponents of both theories agree that human ancestors originated in Africa, and human migration from the African continent began approximately a million years ago.
In accordance with the “foremother Eve” hypothesis, the modern species of Homo Sapiens quickly adapted to a changing environment and, as a result, replaced other subspecies. "Eve" lived approximately 200 thousand years ago. The polyregional theory states that the genus Homo arose two million years ago and gradually spread throughout the planet. Evolution took its course, and groups of the human race that lived in cold lands acquired a denser build and lighter hair. Among the people who inhabited the steppes, preference was given to individuals with a developed upper eyelid, which protected the eyes from wind and sand. And those who lived in a hot, humid climate began to be distinguished by dark skin color and a “cap” of curly hair, which could protect against the harmful effects of the scorching sun. This is how races appeared on Earth - established groups of people united by common hereditary characteristics.
Peoples of the earth
In those days, representatives of Homo lived in a few isolated communities. To obtain food and survive, such communities needed to control fairly large territories, which provided natural barriers to the rapid growth of human numbers. Even the transition from hunting and agriculture to cattle breeding also did not provide the opportunities necessary for the sharp growth of settlements. Contacts with representatives of other settlements were practically absent, since the presence of a neighbor meant, first of all, the presence of a direct competitor and a threat to the survival of the community. Thus, groups of people that settled over large territories developed in isolation over very long periods of time, quite sufficient for them to develop their own languages of communication, specific rules of behavior, beliefs, traditions, that is, unique cultural characteristics. Thus, peoples began to emerge as communities distinguished by language, culture and traditions. That is, those characteristics that are not inherited.
Today, a person’s belonging to a particular nation is determined not only and not so much by the geographical place of his birth or residence, but by the upbringing and cultural heritage that this person carries within himself.
The generally accepted story of the origin of life on Earth is outdated. Two scientists, Peter Ward and Joseph Kirschvink, offer a book that brings together all the findings of the latest research. The authors show that many of our previous ideas about the history of the origin of life are incorrect. First, the development of life was not a leisurely, gradual process: cataclysms contributed to the formation of life more than all other forces combined. Secondly, the basis of life is carbon, but what other elements determined its evolution? Third, since Darwin we have thought in terms of the evolution of species. In fact, there has been an evolution of ecosystems - from undersea volcanoes to tropical forests - that have shaped the world as we know it. Drawing on their decades of experience in paleontology, biology, chemistry, and astrobiology, Ward and Kirschvink tell a story of life on Earth that is so fantastic that it is difficult to imagine, and at the same time so familiar that it is impossible to ignore.
Book:
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Human settlement around the globe
Many of the climate changes described above occurred during the period of human exploration of the earth's territories. About 35 thousand years ago the last evolutionary leap took place, and modern man was finally formed. Step by step, modern people settled the planet. Slowly but persistently they explored new regions. Not in one century. This human advance into new areas was unlike the European colonization of North America, when, over the course of a couple of centuries, virgin forests and prairies gave way to cultivated fields and cities of glass and concrete. This conquest was slow. Even remote island Australia was discovered by Homo sapiens 35 thousand years ago. However, at that time there were still places where no human had set foot: Northern Asia and both Americas.
The first - in the Paleolithic about 30 thousand years ago - were big game hunters who came to the vast territory that we today call Siberia. They brought already mastered methods of survival in a harsh climate: stone tools. These Eastern Siberian objects are different from those in use by European settlers of the time and are definitely influenced by Southeast Asian cultures. Their main craft was hunting large animals, as can be judged by the way they processed large stone spearheads.
The arrival of the first people in Siberia coincided with a period of slight warming that followed a cold interval, which could have been the reason for the development of a generally unfriendly area. However, soon after their arrival it became colder again, and 25 thousand years ago another long ice age was still ongoing on Earth.
In Western Europe and North America, huge ice sheets moved inexorably southward, covering entire regions with 1.6 km of ice. In Siberia, however, it was so dry that ice did not form. People continued to gradually move east across this treeless, frozen territory. Since there were very few trees, skins and horns were used to build shelters; even the bones of mastodons and mammoths, the largest prey, were used. These people, by necessity, became excellent big game hunters.
Humanity also reached Beringia (a paleogeographic region where in the past there was an isthmus connecting Asia and North America), this probably happened 30-12 thousand years ago. Continental ice, which covered large areas of North America, reached its maximum during that period. The increase in glaciers led to a decrease in sea levels, and vast expanses of land were exposed, providing the opportunity for intercontinental migration for both animals and humans. When the ice finally began to melt, sea levels rose again. 14,000 years ago, the continental glaciers that covered most of Canada and much of what is now the United States were in the process of slowly but steadily melting under the influence of gradually rising temperatures.
Soon, however, the melting accelerated due to another important event. Numerous icebergs that accumulated in the oceans off the east and west coasts of North America between 18,000 and 14,000 years ago generated cold winds and cooled water, which also maintained a cold climate on land. But at a certain point, gradual melting led to the fact that the ice that had been growing on land stopped flowing into the seas in the form of broken icebergs. Winds along the coasts warmed, and ice on land began to melt even faster.
The melting glacial front must have presented quite harsh terrain, as the retreat of the ice was characterized by relentless winds. The wind was so strong that it created high deposits of sand and various debris, which turned into deposits called loess soil. In addition, the wind carried seeds, and soon the unstable soils near the boundaries of the glaciers, despite everything, were covered with the first plants. At first these were ferns, and then more developed forms. Willows, junipers, poplars and various shrubs were the plants that began to transform the effects of the long-term glacial regime. Afterwards, other plant communities spread. For example, in the milder conditions of the west, spruce forests predominated; in the colder midlands, tundra plants and permafrost dominated. One way or another, the glacier retreated everywhere, and everywhere it was followed by the tundra, followed by a spruce forest.
The large spruce tracts of North America were interspersed with areas of grass and shrubs. Such a landscape was in no way like the dense forests that remained in some places in the north-west of North America - there was then neither dense undergrowth nor rotting windbreaks that could make such a forest completely impenetrable for large animals and humans.
South of the North American glacier, even during the Ice Age, diverse ecosystems persisted: forest-tundra, grassy steppe, desert - and a variety of plants that supported huge herds of giant mammals. When the Ice Age ended and the climate in many regions of the Earth became much milder, human communities began to grow rapidly.
Ten thousand years ago, humans successfully colonized every continent except Antarctica, and adaptation to different environments led to the formation of species variants that we today call human races. For a long time it was believed that such an obvious racial characteristic as skin color was an adaptation solely to the amount of solar heat and light. Recent research has shown that much of what is called racial traits may simply be the result of sexual selection rather than a desire to conform to the environment. However, other adaptation processes also occurred, many of which are not evident in body morphology.
Africa has always been valued for its abundance of large mammals. Nowhere on Earth is there such a diversity of large herbivores and carnivores as on this continent. Nevertheless, this paradise was no exception, it only corresponded to the norm - until quite recently, all the pastures of the temperate and tropical regions of the globe were similar to Africa. Unfortunately, due to one unusual phenomenon, a significant number of large mammal species have declined sharply over the past 50 thousand years.
Of course, the disappearance of large animals is primarily of interest to those who study extinction events, but special attention should be paid to the fact that the death of large animals leads to much larger consequences for ecosystems than the extinction of smaller organisms. The end-Cretaceous extinction event was significant not because many small mammals died, but because very large land dinosaurs disappeared. It was their departure that rebuilt all habitats on land. Likewise, the extinction of most large mammal species around the world over the past 50,000 years is an event whose meaning we are only beginning to fully understand today, and whose consequences will have implications for millions of years into the future.
Of particular note is the Late Pleistocene period, approximately 15–12 thousand years ago, when many species of large mammals in North America became extinct. At least 35 genera, and therefore at least the same number of species, have disappeared. Six of them lived everywhere on the planet (for example, horses, which became extinct in the Americas, but continued to exist in the Old World). Most extinct species belonged to numerous taxonomic groups - 21 families and seven orders. The only characteristic that united all these very diverse and genetically distant species was large size, although this characteristic was not present in all extinct organisms.
The most famous, textbook example of animals that disappeared as a result of that extinction were representatives of the proboscis order - mastodons and gomphotheres, as well as mammoths. All of them were close relatives of modern elephants. The most common was the American mastodon, whose range occupied the entire non-glacial territory of the mainland, from coast to coast. It was the most numerous species in the forested regions of the eastern part of the continent. Gomphotheres - creatures unlike any of the existing ones - were widespread in South America, although their remains were apparently discovered in Florida. Mammoths that lived in North America included two species: Columbian mammoths and woolly mammoths.
Another famous group of large herbivores that lived in North America during the Ice Age were the giant sloths and their close relatives the armadillos. In total, seven species in this order became extinct; only one genus of armadillos survived in the southwest of the North American continent. The largest representative of this group of animals was the giant sloth, which, unlike modern sloths, lived on the ground and not in trees. The smallest of these animals were the size of a black bear, and the largest were the size of a mammoth. The remains of medium-sized giant sloths are often found in tar pits in the Los Angeles area, the last of which, the equally famous Shasta sloth, was the size of a large bear. Another representative of the same group, the glyptodont, looked incredibly impressive. It had a heavy shell, reminiscent of a turtle. The genus of armadillos also became extinct, only the nine-banded armadillo survived.
Artiodactyls and odd-toed ungulates also became extinct. Of the equids, the horse should be mentioned - ten species have disappeared, and tapirs - two species. There were even more losses among artiodactyls: in North America during the Pleistocene era, 13 genera belonging to five different families became extinct, including: two genera of peccaries, one genus of camels, two genera of llamas, as well as mountain deer, elk, and three genera of pronghorn antelope. , saiga, bush ox and musk ox.
It is not surprising that such losses among herbivores led to the extinction of predators. For example, the American cheetah, the saber-toothed cat, the saber-toothed tiger, the giant short-faced bear, the Florida cave bear, two kinds of skunks, and one kind of dog disappeared. This list can also include smaller animals, including three genera of rodents and the giant beaver, but they were exceptions - almost all extinct animals were large.
The North American extinction coincided with a dramatic restructuring of the plant kingdom. Large areas of the Northern Hemisphere have changed their vegetation appearance: in place of highly nutritious willows, aspens and birches, there are not very nutritious spruce and alder groves. For some time, even where spruce (a nutrient-poor tree) had always dominated, there were still places with more nutritious plants. When the number of nutritious plants began to decline due to climate change, herbivores still continued to eat them, thereby further reducing the number of such plants. Perhaps this led to a decrease in the size of animals, which depended on the amount of plant food. During the late Pleistocene, relatively passable spruce forests and more nutritious plant communities quickly gave way to dense forests with less diversity of plant species and less nutritional potential. In eastern North America, spruce trees gave way to large, slow-growing oaks, pecans and southern pines, and the Pacific Northwest became covered with huge forests of Douglas fir Pseudotsuga menziesii). These types of forests, compared to the Pleistocene vegetation they replaced, are unsuitable for large mammals.
The extinction did not only affect North America. North and South America were isolated from each other for some time, and therefore their faunas developed in their own special ways until the Isthmus of Panama was formed about 2.5 million years ago. Many large and unusual animals evolved in South America, including the enormous armadillo-like glyptodonts and giant sloths - both groups later migrated to North America and spread there. Also living on the South American continent were giant pigs, llamas, huge rodents and several marsupials. When the intercontinental land bridge was formed, active interchange between faunas began.
South American large mammals also experienced extinction immediately after the end of the Ice Age. In the interval of 15–10 thousand years ago, 46 genera disappeared. In percentage terms, the extinction in South America was even more devastating than on the North American mainland.
Australia suffered even more, but slightly earlier than America. Since the time of the dinosaurs, Australia has been isolated by the ocean from other areas of the earth's land, so it was cut off from the main development processes of mammals that occurred on other continents during the Cenozoic era. Australian mammals followed their evolutionary path, resulting in numerous marsupials, many of large size.
Over the past 50 thousand years, 45 species of marsupials belonging to 13 genera have disappeared from the Australian fauna. Of the 49 species of large (heavier than 10 kg) marsupials that lived on the Australian continent 100 thousand years ago, only four survived, and other animals did not penetrate into Australia from other continents. Victims of the extinction include large koalas, several species of diprotodons (hippopotamus-sized animals), several large kangaroos, giant wombats, and a group of marsupials that had deer-like features. Predators (also marsupials) also went extinct, such as creatures that resembled a lion and a dog. Fossil cats that became extinct relatively recently were discovered on islands off the Australian coast. Large reptiles also disappeared, for example, the giant monitor lizard, the giant land turtle, the giant snake and even several species of large flightless birds - all of them were representatives of the so-called Australian megafauna. Those large creatures that were able to survive are either able to run fast or are nocturnal - this is an interesting observation made by our great friend Tim Flannery.
All the described cases of extinction - in Australia and the Americas - occurred simultaneously with the colonization of these territories by humans, and these were also periods of significant climatic changes. There is reliable evidence indicating that the first people arrived in Australia 50-35 thousand years ago. Most of Australia's large animals became extinct between 30,000 and 20,000 years ago.
Events developed slightly differently in those regions where people had settled for much longer - in Africa, Asia and Europe. In Africa, a small extinction of mammals occurred 2.5 million years ago, and later the scale of animal losses, compared to other regions, was very small. The mammals of North Africa, in particular, were affected by climate change that resulted in the formation of the Sahara Desert. In East Africa, the extinction was very small, but in South Africa, strong climate changes approximately 12-9 thousand years ago caused the death of six species of large mammals. In Europe and Asia, the consequences of the extinction were also not as serious as in Australia and America: mammoths, mastodons and woolly rhinoceroses died.
Thus, the Pleistocene extinction can be summarized as follows:
First of all, the extinction affected large land animals; smaller forms and almost all marine fauna were not subject to extinction;
Over the past 100 thousand years, large mammals of Africa showed the greatest survival rate - only 14%, the percentage of losses among mammal genera in North America - 73%, in South America - 79%, in Australia - 86%;
Extinctions were sudden for every major group of land animals, but the timing of extinctions varied across continents; carbon dating methods make it possible to more or less accurately determine that some species of large mammals may have become completely extinct over periods of 3 thousand years or even faster;
Extinctions were not the result of the invasion of ecosystems by new forms of animals (other than humans); It has long been believed that many extinctions were triggered by the emergence of new, more developed creatures, but this position is not true for the Ice Age extinction, since during periods of death of specific animals in the regions of their habitat, new forms did not appear. Numerous data suggest that the cause of the described extinction (a series of extinctions on different continents) was man. Other researchers persistently argue that the cause was changes in plant food resources that arose in response to climate change at the end of the Pleistocene glaciation. Much of the discussion surrounding this extinction revolves around determining the main cause: some believe it was humans, others believe it was an unstable climate.
Whatever the reason, it is necessary to recognize the fact of a significant reorganization of land ecosystems that occurred during this period on all continents, with the exception of Africa. Today, Africa is gradually losing its giant mammals - although they are trying to preserve their herds in national parks and reserves, it is there that they become easy prey for poachers.
The end of the existence of megafauna is not fully determined. When we look at the Pleistocene extinction of large mammals, it seems like it happened just a moment ago. Accurate dating of intervals that last 10 thousand years is not yet possible for our technologies if we apply them to periods that occurred thousands and millions of years ago. From today's perspective, the end of the period of mammalian megafauna appears protracted, but in the future it may seem rapid and sudden.
The surviving large mammals today are a group of species at risk of extinction, and many other mammals are also at risk. If the first phase of the modern mass extinction resulted in the death of large mammals, then at the moment plants, birds and insects are in immediate danger, because the ancient forests of the Earth are gradually being replaced by fields and cities.
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Homo erectus, who came from Africa, gradually spreads onto the surface of the Earth, capturing the temperate zone in the period from 1.5 million to 650 thousand years before our time. The discovery in Totavel (Eastern Pyrenees) on July 22, 1971 of the skull of a man approximately 20 years old, as well as other remains, allowed the reconstruction of this Homo erectus, known as Totavel man. Its skeleton resembles that of a modern human, although it is more massive.
First hominids of the species homo erectus, who probably came from Africa 1.5 million years ago, settled in southern Europe. Many found remains dating back to 100 thousand years before our time indicate the appearance of Neanderthals ( homo sapiens). And finally, about 40 thousand years ago, Cro-Magnons (homo-sapiens-sapiens), the direct predecessors of Europeans, populated the entire continent.
For a millennium, Europe looked very different from what it does today. For a long time, glaciers covered the north of Europe right up to the borders of modern Belgium, the British Isles form one whole with the mainland, and sea levels are much lower than today.
The melting of glaciers, which occurred 15–10 thousand years BC. e., gives Europe its modern outlines and places it, except for the regions of the Far North, in the temperate climatic zone. A man who had previously lived by fishing, hunting and collecting fruits and berries took up farming and cattle breeding. Were these changes, which some call revolution, brought to the continent from Mesopotamia? Or did Europe most likely have its own civilization or Neolithic cultures?
By 3500 BC. e., when writing appeared in the Middle East, and the first pyramids were erected in Egypt, Europe was inhabited by farmers using stone tools.
A method of smelting metals from ore (bronze metallurgy), discovered in Egypt approximately 3000 BC. e., extends to areas in the Aegean Sea basin and towards the Indus Valley. It would take about two thousand years for bronze metallurgy to spread throughout Europe. This happened differently in different regions. The technique of making objects from bronze penetrates from Anatolia to Greece and Spain, then to Bohemia, the Rhine Valley and Italy, and finally to England, Ireland and the Scandinavian countries.
Did the slow spread of bronze lead to an even greater isolation of regional cultures that were already noticeably different?
Homo sapiens appears during the last glaciation 35-40 thousand years ago. He is tall, has a straight forehead, a flat face with a developed chin.
The traits already contain the polymorphism that later formed the basis of racial diversity. His home indicates that the Cro-Magnons lived in families. Man of this period processes stones and bones, using them to hunt deer and mammoths.
Analysis of craniometric (that is, related to measurements of the skull) indicators of modern humans indicates that all people living on Earth today descended from a relatively small group of individuals who lived in Central Africa 60-80 thousand years ago. As the descendants of these people spread around the globe, they lost some of their genes and became less and less diverse. In a paper recently published in the journal Nature, the hypothesis about a single center of origin of modern man was confirmed by the analysis of not only molecular genetic data, but also phenotypic data (in this case, the size of the skull).
More and more data collected in recent years indicate that “modern” man formed in equatorial Africa 150-200 thousand years ago. Its spread across the planet began approximately 60 thousand years ago, when a relatively small group of people moved to the Arabian Peninsula, and from there their descendants gradually began to spread throughout Eurasia (moving primarily east along the coast of the Indian Ocean), and then throughout Melanesia and Australia.
The process of human settlement of our planet, according to this hypothesis, should have been accompanied by a decrease in the initial stock of genetic variability. After all, at each stage, it is not the entire “parental” population that sets off on its journey, but some small part of it, a sample that could not possibly include all the genes. In other words, there should be a founder effect—a sharp decrease in overall genetic diversity with the formation of each new group of migrants. Accordingly, as humans spread, we should discover the gradual disappearance of a number of genes, the depletion of the original gene pool. In reality, this can manifest itself in a decrease in the level of genetic variability, and the further from the source of settlement, the greater the degree. If the center of origin of the species (in this case Homo sapiens) not one, but several, then the picture will be completely different.
The hypothesis of a single center of origin for modern humans was recently confirmed by molecular genetic data collected as part of the international Human Genome Diversity Project (HGDP). Genetic diversity in human populations did decline with distance from Central Africa, the presumed center of human origin (see, for example, Ramachandran et al. 2005). However, it remained unclear whether this effect could be detected by referring to phenotypic characteristics, for example, the anatomical features of modern humans.
Andrea Manica from the Department of Zoology at the University of Cambridge (UK) together with colleagues from the Department of Genetics of the same university and the Department of Anatomy of the Saga Medical School (Japan) took on the solution to this problem. The material was based on skull measurements (craniometric indicators) collected all over the world. A total of 4,666 male skulls from 105 local populations and an additional 1,579 female skulls from 39 populations were analyzed. Data on male skulls are taken as a basis as they are more representative. Skulls older than 2 thousand years were not included in the analysis to avoid measurement errors associated with poor preservation of ancient bones.
The results of the study confirmed the hypothesis of a single center of human origin. With distance from central Africa, the variability of the main dimensional parameters of the skull decreased, which can be interpreted as a decrease in the initial genetic diversity. Additional difficulties of the analysis were associated with the fact that as man mastered new climatic zones, certain traits turned out (or did not turn out to be) useful and, accordingly, were supported or not supported by selection. This climatic adaptation also affected the size of the skull, but the use of special statistical methods made it possible to isolate this “climatic” component and not take it into account when analyzing the dynamics of the initial variability.
In parallel, in the same work, the degree of genotype heterozygosity was assessed for 54 local populations of modern humans. For this purpose, we used data on microsatellites (DNA fragments containing repeats), also collected as part of the HGDP program. When plotted on a map, these data show a distribution very similar to that revealed by phenotypic traits. As one moves away from a person's center of origin, heterozygosity (a measure of genetic diversity) decreases, as does phenotypic diversity.
Source: Andrea Manica, William Amos, François Balloux, Tsunehiko Hanihara. The effect of ancient population bottlenecks on human phenotypic variation // Nature. 2007. V. 448. P. 346-348.
See also:
1) Why man left Africa 60 thousand years ago, “Elements”, 06/30/2006.
2) The earliest history of mankind revised, “Elements”, 03/02/2006.
3) Journey of Mankind. The Peopling of the World. Bradshaw Foundation (see freely available map with animation showing the route of early man's dispersal from Africa).
4) Paul Mellars. Why did modern human populations disperse from Africa ca. 60,000 years ago. A new model (full text: Pdf, 1.66 Kb) // PNAS. 06/20/2006. V. 103. No. 25. P. 9381-9386.
5) Sohini Ramachandran, Omkar Deshpande, Charles C. Roseman, Noah A. Rosenberg, Marcus W. Feldman, L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza Support from the relationship of genetic and geographic distance in human populations for a serial founder effect originating in Africa ( full text: Pdf, 539 Kb) // PNAS. 2005. V. 102. P. 15942-15947.
6) L. A. Zhivotovsky. Microsatellite variability in human populations and methods for studying it // VOGiS Bulletin. 2006. T. 10. No. 1. P. 74-96 (there is a Pdf of the entire article).
Alexey Gilyarov
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Let me explain popularly about genetic drift. Suppose there is some large population, for example, 100,000 individuals of one species (let it be a person, but with the same success it could be a white hare, a hoodie, a forest geranium...). If we take a small random sample of 10 individuals from this large population, then obviously not all the genes present in the parent population will end up there, but those that do will, in the event of successful reproduction and an increase in the size of the daughter population, will be reproduced in many copies. If you take some other small sample from the parent population in parallel, then other genes may accidentally get there, which will also be reproduced in a large number of individuals if some new population arises from this sample. Accordingly, differences may arise between such daughter populations isolated from each other (which will also manifest themselves in the external appearance of individuals), which are not the result of natural selection (i.e., not adaptive, not adaptive), but obtained simply due to some random combination of circumstances. This phenomenon was independently discovered by Wright (who gave the name “genetic drift”), and by our compatriots, Dubinin and Romashov, who called it “genetic-automatic processes.” Populations of terrestrial animals and plants from remote oceanic islands often originate from literally a couple of individuals. Of course, The founder effect and genetic drift are especially pronounced in this case.
Human settlement of the American continent occurred no earlier than 25 thousand years ago. People crossed there from the very northeastern part of Asia along the “bridge,” a piece of land (Beringia) that then connected Eurasia to America. Then, 18 thousand years ago there was the last strongest glaciation (ice from the north reached south to latitude 55) and it completely cut off people who moved to the American continent (descendants of Asians) from contacts with the parent population. The formation of Indian culture began.
All xenophobes and nationalists of all stripes (it doesn’t matter whether they prefer the Aryan race, or Negroids, or Mongoloids) must be disappointed. Modern man descended from a very small group of people, with "Eve" being black. All of us people living on Earth are VERY CLOSE RELATIVES. For example, the genetic differences between different groups of chimpanzees living in different areas of Central Africa are much more significant than the differences between representatives of different races of Homo sapiens. The loss of genetic (and, as shown in the article discussed, phenotypic) diversity as we move away from our common homeland - Africa, is another powerful evidence in favor of the hypothesis of a single center of origin for modern humans. As in the case of humans, depleted genotypes resulting from the passage of the population through the bottle-neck (a stage of extremely low numbers) also exist in other groups of animals. For example, among all cats, the cheetah occupies a special place. All cheetahs are also very close relatives, which cannot be said about lions, tigers, lynxes and domestic cats. I apologize for the verbosity, but I hope everything is clear now.
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Dear Alexey Gilyarov,
It so happened that I read your note and the note “SENSATIONAL FIND REFUTED THE THEORY OF THE “EXIDUS FROM AFRICA”” (http://www.inauka.ru/evolution/article74070.html) in a row.
There we are talking about the discovery in China of a skeleton about 40 thousand years old, which, on the one hand, is similar to a modern person, and on the other hand, is clearly different from the African phenotype.
These data, in my opinion, are in obvious contradiction with the materials in your note, and it would be interesting to know how you can resolve this contradiction.
On the other hand, data on the genetic variability of the African genotype may have not only a “historical” but also a “bio-geographical” nature - for example, it can be assumed that Africans, IN PRINCIPLE, due to some local geographical or climatic reasons, are more active there is a process of genetic mutations which, in particular, manifests itself in phenotypic diversity. If such a (as yet undiscovered) process actually takes place, then, in theory, the thesis that the “more diverse” African genotype is a confirmation of the “seniority” of Africans should be corrected.
Personally, it seems to me that the state of affairs in the theory of human origins is somewhat similar to the situation with the taxonomy of chemical elements before the advent of the periodic table. The problem then was that scientists tried to “naturally” arrange all the KNOWN data “in a row”, leaving no room for the UNKNOWN ones, and THEREFORE they didn’t get anything useful. Likewise, the presence of conflicting theories of human origins, based on firmly established facts, suggests that EACH of these theories does not leave “gaps” for facts that are YET UNKNOWN - and is therefore incorrect.
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Dear Mikhail, unfortunately, in the note you are referring to, neither the source (the name of the journal and the coordinates of the article) nor even the names of the researchers in English transcription are given. Therefore, I cannot find the original publication about the Chinese find with which it all began, and it is simply impossible to judge from a journalistic text written without any understanding of the issue. So, if you find the coordinates of the original (and not secondary) publication, report it on the site! It is likely that this is not Homo sapiens at all, but some other representative of the hominid. If earlier for decades they talked about missing links in human paleontology, now there is even an excess of them. In any case, all major anthropologists agree that there was a period on Earth when several hominids CO-EXISTED at once, i.e. several types of ancient “people” (quotes - since people are understood in a broad sense, including, for example, Neanderthals, who coexisted with Homo sapiens in Europe for a long time, but then died out). So the remains of the “ancestors” are mostly representatives of lateral lines (who later became extinct), and not at all the real ancestors of Homo sapiens.
As for the assumption about some particularly high rates of mutation in African human ancestors, there is no basis for it. Still, let's follow Occam's rule and not create entities beyond the need.Answer
An early modern human from Tianyuan Cave, Zhoukoudian, China
(Late Pleistocene | Neandertals | mandible | postcrania | paleopathology)Hong Shang*, Haowen Tong*, Shuangquan Zhang*, Fuyou Chen*, and Erik Trinkaus
================As for Occam's razor... This is a VERY good technique, but you need to use it carefully, otherwise you can cut off what is clearly necessary :))
In the example with the periodic table, Mendeleev committed a very serious “violation” of this principle - and he turned out to be right.
Comparing the maps you provided with the maps of the settlement of Homo Sapiens (or at least with the dates of the settlement of Asia and Europe), I see an obvious contradiction. If we proceed from the theory of genetic drift, then the later a particular territory was populated, the less gene variability there should be. According to available data, Europe was settled later than Asia, and therefore should be "darker" than Asia. Or, more generally speaking, the cards you provided SHOULD have been “spotty”. But on them we see a “continuous gradient” - as if settlement from Africa went from south to north (Africa-Europe), and then from west to east (Europe - Asia). Don't such inconsistencies confuse you? If these maps were shown to me and no additional explanation was given about what was shown there, I would see there a clear indication of the manifestation of some planetary geophysical phenomenon and would ask what the situation is like in another part of the world (i.e. in America).
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Thank you very much for the link. Unfortunately, only abstract is open, from which you can learn a little. I’ll try to log in from the university computer, maybe I’ll get the whole text. As for your comments about the settlement of Europe and Asia, I cannot fully justify the author’s point of view. You need to ask them this. Look at the cards
which are referenced on Elements (particularly with animation!). People went to Europe quite early (but already from Asia). Yes, and in PNAS there are completely open works (if this is not the very last year). There are still inconsistencies, of course. This is not surprising, since just recently we knew nothing at all. The progress in knowledge that has been achieved literally over the last 10-20 years is surprising.Answer
I hope to see a review of this article in Elements.
Thank you very much for the animated map - this is exactly what I was looking for for a long time.
Have you ever come across maps (static or animated) on which archaeological evidence of people’s technological progress (stone tools, dwellings, etc.) would be plotted in chronological order? Or maybe there are resources somewhere that could be used to build such a map?
http://site/news/430144
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Yes, I read this article at one time. Unfortunately, it does not quite accurately correspond to the topic of discussion.
It says that the theory of displacement by the latest human ancestors (3rd wave of expansion, about 100 thousand years ago) is not true, and genetic data indicate that biologically we humans are descendants of all immigrants from Africa, starting around 2 million years ago.
If we take this fact into account (and I see no point in arguing with it), then I can well agree with the statement that a group of people from Africa settled in China a couple of million years ago, and by the time Homo Sapiens appeared, they had changed so much , which was no longer at all like her African ancestors. Maybe it was this group that gave rise to the synanthropes, and those, in turn, gave rise to the modern Chinese and Asians.
In fact, from my point of view, the issue is NOT whether Neanderthals could have interbred with Cro-Magnons, or whether representatives of the 3rd wave could have interbred with representatives of earlier "waves of expansion." All this, from my point of view, has NO significance in relation to the problem of the appearance of mind on Earth, since it relates to the evolution of the body, but not consciousness.
But what REALLY matters is finding out the reasons for the CULTURAL BLAST.
By “cultural explosion” we mean a SHARP time boundary (approximately 40-50 thousand years ago), after which people began exponential progress in technology, culture and environmental development. Actually, we can assume that Homo sapiens (i.e., the modern bearer of consciousness) appeared exactly then - about 50 thousand years ago, and not 150, and especially not 800 thousand years ago. From this point of view, all our ancestors (including the representatives of the 3rd “wave of expansion” mentioned everywhere) who lived before this “fatal point” have nothing in common with us in terms of their level of consciousness, although they are biologically “virtually identical” to us. I gave arguments in favor of this assumption in another discussion (see?discuss=430541). And no analysis of the DNA of MODERN people, unfortunately, will answer the reasons for this “gap in consciousness.”
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: By “cultural explosion” we mean a SHARP time boundary (approximately 40-50 thousand years ago), after which people began exponential progress in technology, culture and environmental development.
How was the absolute value of the level of technology, culture and environment assessed? Is there somewhere an illustration of a graph on which estimates of this level are plotted based on known facts, and from which one could draw a conclusion about the exponential growth at that time, and the point of its beginning, if there was one? Is there an analysis somewhere of changes in environmental conditions or other factors that could act as incentives to increase this level? Finally, it would be interesting to read what the incentives are for raising this level now. :-)
: Actually, we can assume that Homo sapiens (i.e., the modern bearer of consciousness) appeared exactly then - about 50 thousand years ago, and not 150, and especially not 800 thousand years ago. From this point of view, all our ancestors (including the representatives of the 3rd “wave of expansion” mentioned everywhere) who lived before this “fatal point” have nothing in common with us in terms of their level of consciousness, although they are biologically “virtually identical” to us. I gave arguments in favor of this assumption in another discussion (see?discuss=430541). And no analysis of the DNA of MODERN people, unfortunately, will answer the reasons for this “gap in consciousness.”
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>How was the absolute value of the level of technology, culture and environment assessed?...
Read the discussion to which I provided a link. The issues you raised were partially discussed there; in particular, I presented an indirect method with which one could quantify the rate of development of consciousness (i.e., get a visual graph, and not general reasoning). On this chart, if you plot it, the “starting point” will be quite clearly visible.
As for the “cultural explosion” itself, this is a fairly well-known fact. It’s just that after this time limit, the tools became more elegant and more perfect, the drawings became more realistic, everyday and cultural objects became more diverse, and, most importantly, over these 50 thousand years we “got” from a stone knife to spaceships (this also applies to the question of development of the environment). And ALL of our ancestors over a similar period of time only slightly improved the stone knife. Read the discussion - it probably answers most of the questions that first come to mind.
> Is there an analysis somewhere of changes in environmental conditions or other factors that could provide incentives to increase this level?
In the same discussion, I tried to show that, firstly, these conditions must be VERY specific (namely, they must imply a very strict evolutionary selection for the degree of development of consciousness, which we never observe in real living nature), and, in -secondly, during the period of time under consideration (40-50 thousand years ago) there were no conditions on Earth at all that suggested an increased rate of speciation. That is, based on logic and known facts, the human mind simply SHOULD NOT have appeared on our planet. But it did appear, and it makes you wonder about missing facts or incorrect assumptions underlying the logical analysis.
>> And no analysis of the DNA of MODERN people, unfortunately, will answer the reasons for this “gap in consciousness.”
> Firstly, is he really trying to answer _this_ question? As far as I understand, it doesn't concern him at all.
That's the point, it really "doesn't concern you at all"! But in the literature related to the problem of the emergence of people, there is a persistent substitution of concepts. There an equal sign is put between biological evolution (i.e. OBSERVED changes in the genotype and phenotype) and the evolution of consciousness. Researchers simply refuse to recognize the fundamental difference between these phenomena.
> Secondly, the fact that it does not show any fundamental break exactly about 50 thousand years ago is already part of the answer to this question. :-)
This is TOO crude a tool to be used to find such differences. It's like measuring bacteria with a student's ruler.
And then, if the emergence of human consciousness was the result of some small modification of the genome, then an analysis of the DNA of modern people will not show AT ALL when this modification occurred and whether it occurred in principle, because it is present in ALL people, and it is simply impossible to understand that this is precisely a modification of the “pre-human” genome.
> Wasn't the transition from bacterial colonies to single-celled ones no less of a rupture? Wasn't the transition from unicellular to multicellular organisms no less of a break? And so on.
These questions are also very interesting, but, firstly, they relate specifically to BIOLOGICAL evolution and, secondly, they have a fundamental difference from the question of the emergence of consciousness, because happened much more “naturally”, i.e. over fairly large periods of time (millions of years) and by trial and error. And, besides, they were not associated with such a completely unnecessary thing for survival as Reason.
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How dare people work with statistics... On the territory of Russia (except for the edge of Kamchatka, it seems) there is not a single fence of skulls, but then they boldly paint over its territory into a very specific temporary settlement zone!
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As one moves away from a person's center of origin, heterozygosity (a measure of genetic diversity) decreases, as does phenotypic diversity.
In other words, the further from Africa, the more stable the heterozygous and phenotypic characteristics are, i.e. the entire set of characteristics went through a longer and more careful selection and the sample became stable, which means that in these regions people are older than in Africa, where they are still very, very young, and so they change every year, like children when they grow up.
And in Africa, people lived, more precisely, on a line parallel to the equator, approximately at the latitude of North Africa, where glaciers periodically drove them. From there they then, not all of them, returned home as the weather warmed up. That’s why birds fly to nest in the North, also home, just like people. In Kenya, where they have been digging so enthusiastically since the discovery of "Lucy", there are simply unique conditions in the form of a shift of the continental plate. They dig not where they “lost” it, but under the “lantern”. All these remains of “ancient human ancestors” may well have nothing to do with us. By the way, genetic analysis has already knocked the Neanderthal out of the Darwinian pack, but how they just recently forced him on us as half-brothers! Africa, as the ancestral home of humanity, was apparently chosen for reasons of parity of civilizations and political correctness. Most likely there were several Adams, “of the same type.” Six basic mutations, out of 200 known today, are believed to be present in all men on Earth. Does this just indicate a common ancestor or does it indicate the conditions of their origin that are common to all? And are these markers of mutations? It is possible that this is really a “registration sheet”, but what and why? I cannot accept the explanation that nature created a useless zone, this is not in its traditions. Maybe 6 matches is the registration code of our “post office” - Earth? Ha ha!
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In fact, if you look at the maps included in the article under discussion, you can clearly see that “something is happening” in the African region, and the intensity of this something decreases as it moves away from the center (i.e. Africa). However, this phenomenon can be explained in several ways, and the simplest of them (in accordance with Occam’s principle) is that at the “epicenter” there is some MODERN geophysical phenomenon that is reflected in biological processes, in particular, in the frequency of mutations of human genome.
This hypothesis can be easily tested - it is enough to do the same “temporary scanning” of genes not only in humans, but also in other species that lived in Africa with him and have approximately the same distribution on the planet. If a similar picture is observed in them, it means that the matter is in geophysical processes, but if only in humans, it means that either the hypothesis is incorrect, or additional factors must be taken into account.
On the other hand, a molecular clock, although it does not give the exact time of occurrence of a mutation, whether you like it or not, it shows the SEQUENCE of mutations. Those. if in Africa this mutation STILL does not exist, but in Asia it ALREADY exists, it means that the mutation appeared AFTER this species appeared in Asia, and it is difficult to argue here. As far as I understand, it was judging by the SEQUENCE of a number of mutations that we came to the conclusion that we originated from Africa. Political correctness has nothing to do with it - roughly speaking, it’s just counting on your fingers.
Personally, what annoys me in all discussions about the origins of man is the fact that the conversation is conducted exclusively around the structure of the skull, skeleton or chromosomes, i.e. around something that can be dug up, measured, broken down and weighed. It's like judging a person's intelligence by the size and style of his clothes. More than size 50 is reasonable, less is not. There is a breast pocket - a sapiens, no - a monkey.
Reasonability is, first of all, an INFORMATIONAL phenomenon. And the ability to process information is NOT reflected in the skeleton, nor in the structure of the skull, nor in the _currently known_ features of the genome structure. Although biologists have already realized that the genetic sequence itself does not mean anything - what is important is HOW genes “interact” in the process of operation of a LIVING organism, and one cannot even dream of judging this from fossil DNA. So at the moment the entire “genetic history” of intelligence is not worth a penny. It just gives a rather rough picture of who came into this world after whom.
If we judge the emergence of this INFORMATION ABILITY (intelligence) in people by the ONLY reliable (but, unfortunately, indirect) material sign - objects of material culture, tools and rock paintings, then it turns out that intelligence arose SIMULTANEOUSLY throughout the ENTIRE planet approximately 40 years ago. 50 thousand years ago, i.e. among ALL people who at that time were settled over an area of thousands of kilometers from Africa to Australia. If we recognize this fact, then all “scientific” theories of the appearance of people instantly go down the drain, and we find ourselves faced with a very unpleasant choice - the intervention of “higher powers” or alien intelligence.?discuss=430541), I proposed a “reasonable compromise” - “random “viral introduction of “mind genes”, but it also doesn’t look very convincing. Although, from my point of view, this is the best that can be offered at the moment, if one firmly adheres to the materialistic point of view.
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That’s right, the count is just on the fingers, more precisely on point mutations of the nongenic zone of the Y chromosome. But there is one point! If we take, say, Egypt, the Middle East or Southern Europe as the conditional point of origin of the “most ancient mutation” - M168, then the strategic plan for the seizure of planet Earth by progressive humanity in the form of arrows on the map is drawn just as correctly. The fact is, for example, that 10-15% of non-Africans do not have the M89 (Arabian) mutator. And if we take as a basis the “exodus” through the Red Sea to the Arabian Peninsula, then everyone should have this “snip”. The genetic database at the time of the study included only about 50 thousand data, from, as you understand, 3 billion men on earth. Is this a sufficient sample? Don't know. I think no. But it already shows that the version of the thousand-year swim across the Red Sea is not accurate. The Australian aborigines have the last mutation M9, i.e. for almost 40 thousand years there were simply no others. The Indians also have M3 and there is also silence. How can the route of movement in time be drawn from the assumption - one snip per 5 thousand years. All these studies are conducted only in the USA. The USA is an ideologist of globalism. The most important principle of globalism is “all people are brothers.” It is also important that there is no elder among them. The only places more ideal than Africa would be Australia, Antarctica, and Atlantis. But it won't fit. Who suggested the idea of placing the ancestral homeland of man in Africa? Yes, still the same Mr. Darwin. "Monophilist", damn it. Neanderthal man (Nomo sapiens) was included in the linear chain of development of modern man (Nomo sapiens sapiens) with the rights, generally speaking, of a progenitor. This was recorded in Bol.Sov.Enz. black, damn it, “in Russian.”
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Dear Mikhail! There is no unambiguous picture of settlement based on the study of mutations. With the same success, the starting control point can be placed, for example, in Spain or Egypt, or even the Middle East. The picture will be the same. A "relatively small group of individuals" crosses Gibraltar into Africa, retreating before the glacier. It receives a basic mutation, and then splits into a southern migration, along the west coast of Africa, periodically “splitting off”, say, along rivers, deep into the continent. And to the east - along the Mediterranean coast to Egypt, where it again divides into the South African, migrating up the Nile, and the Middle East. Up to this point, everyone has the same mutations. Then part goes to the Middle East (the M89 mutation is missing), and the other part, spinning around the Arabian Peninsula, receives it. You can continue further as planned today. The picture of mutations is the same. We also need to take into account global historical processes. Conquests of Macedon, Rome, Arab and Crusades, Mongol and others. They could very seriously correct the pattern of inheritance of mutations through the male line. There are many other points and ambiguities. Point mutations (snips) are strictly sequentially recorded or can occur within an interval (retrospectively). For example, repetitions of markers in the so-called. haplotypes can change in any direction. What is the nature of "snips"? Why do they arise? What, finally, is recorded in the nongenic zone of the Y chromosome, what information? After all, it is recorded and presented quite strictly with minor but stable corrections. In general, it is too early to make global generalizations.
I would like to note one more interesting point in passing. It turns out that Slavic haplotypes do not have Mongolian sources. Considering that the Y chromosome is clearly transmitted through the male line in an end-to-end manner, this means that there are no Mongols among the Slavic ancestors (within a reasonable time interval). So, “no matter how much Russian you scratch, you won’t find a Mongol.” What a gift to Fomenko, who proves, if I understand him correctly, that the Mongol yoke is a fiction! Funny, is not it?Answer
Dear Vagant,
I don't quite understand the increased attention paid to genetics in historical research. Well, we found out that Genghis Khan tried his best and today there are 2 million of his descendants running around the world, so what of this? Perhaps a line in the Guinness Book of Records, a curious fact, but nothing more. And as for the Slavs and Mongols - maybe they actually managed to take samples from those whose ancestors did not interbreed with the Mongol-Tatars. Again, so what? Does this cancel historical chronicles and excavation results? An interesting addition to existing data, and nothing more. It is quite possible that the Tatars simply took “their” children to the Horde, and, accordingly, we should not look for Mongolian genes among the Slavs, but Slavic genes among the descendants of the Horde. It turns out to be a funny slogan - “Russia is the homeland of the Tatars!” :) But personally, these “genetic excavations” are completely uninteresting to me.
But what is really interesting is the mystery of the appearance of Reason on our planet. And here the question of whether intelligence first appeared in one place and from there spread across the planet, or independently - in several places, is fundamentally important, including from a genetic point of view.
If the carriers of intelligence appeared in only one place (the theory of monocentrism), then this allows us to explain why all people represent one biological species and have approximately the same level of consciousness. At the same time, it does not matter at all where exactly it appeared for the first time and what paths it expanded. But this theory does not explain how the Mongoloids and Caucasians appeared, since there is no evidence of the transformation of Africans into these races (there are no transitional forms). In addition, archaeological evidence does not support the “conquest” of Asia and Europe by Africans. However, the same problem arises if we accept that the mind arose in any other, but only center.
If the polycentrists are right, and intelligence appeared in several places on the basis of the “local population” (and this is precisely what is confirmed by archaeological data!), then it is completely incomprehensible how the creatures, clearly different in genotype, which gave rise to the peoples of Africa, Asia and Europe, managed to transform into the same species. And it is even more unclear what could have caused such a transformation. This fundamentally contradicts everything that is known in genetics today. But maybe what we know is not all that really exists?
In addition, there is the problem of space-time. Judging by archaeological data, the transformation of Homo Sapiens into Homo Sapiens Sapiens occurred about 50 thousand years ago. A reliable indicator of this transformation is the “cultural explosion” - a change in household items, tools, and the emergence of painting and art. People at that time occupied a vast territory - from Africa to Australia. And, apparently, this transformation occurred almost instantly - over several thousand years. What kind of Genghis Khan had to walk along the coast so that everyone would simultaneously have “genes of consciousness”?
Thus, today we have the situation “Wherever you throw it, there’s a wedge everywhere.” And the genetic search for the “historical homeland” pursues only one goal - in no case to allow the public to think about the problems mentioned above. After all, if a solution is “found,” then you can declare that all problems have disappeared and simply ignore their existence. Instead of a painful search for answers to difficult questions, there is a link to “the latest scientific data,” which, despite their accuracy, in fact, does not prove or explain anything.
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Dear Mikahail! You even increased the bar to 50 thousand years. I remember being taught that this happened 35-40 thousand years ago. But that's not the point. It is important that some kind of abrupt “reincarnation” really happened or something. Then who (or what?) came out of Africa 80 thousand years ago? What should I call him? It is clear that this is not Homo sapiens sapiens yet, but there must be some kind of neoanthrope. If this is not a Neanderthal, then who? No answer! Geneticists say it's none of our business. But there are simply no sites of other neoanthropes aged 80-100 thousand years. The general “Eve” is generally attributed to 140-160 thousand years. Who is she then? She and “Adam” could mate, since there is a “common” offspring, which means they are one species. But this is already closer to the point of intersection with the last archanthropes. Is it possible that the mutations under study, common to everyone, are those “toggle switches” that turned on the mind, and arose as a result of a planet-wide cataclysm, regardless of place of residence and origin? There are still more questions for geneticists than answers. A hypothesis is just a hypothesis. It’s just that they’re “promoting” it too much.
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For me personally, there is no doubt that every living organism (roughly speaking, capable of reproducing independently) is a “receiver” of one or another “subtle fields”, about which Western science knows nothing so far. In my opinion, we are just on the threshold of opening these fields. Maybe they will be able to be detected and described by instruments in another 100-200 years. But for now, for “orthodox scientists” they are a strict taboo - like everything that cannot be included in the existing scientific paradigm.
In fact, there is more than enough evidence that biological organisms - from single-celled organisms to humans - constantly “listen” to their external environment. The most interesting and convincing argument in favor of this is the treatment of diseases using very weak millimeter radiation (a few to tens of microwatts per sq. cm), which does not have ANY thermal effect on tissues and, moreover, has a clearly resonant character. The theory of this effect has not yet been constructed, although the effect itself has been known for almost 30 years and thousands of people have been cured by this method. I talked about this in order to show that living beings have very complex mechanisms that work at the molecular genetic level, which are responsible for the “perception” of radiation coming from the surrounding space. Moreover, these mechanisms are so sensitive and selective that they can receive signals that are much lower than the level of thermal noise (which is also nonsense for orthodox physicists who are not familiar with the intricacies of living systems). And from here it’s already a stone’s throw to “receiving” signals carried by STILL unknown ultra-weak, and therefore not measured by hardware, fields.
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The history of mankind is being erased from our memory and only the efforts of scientists can bring us closer to it. The origins of man have occupied the minds of researchers for hundreds of years. Theologians argue that man came into being as a result of an act of divine creation; paranormal investigators talk about our extraterrestrial origins; anthropologists present evidence of the origin of man in the process of evolution. Supporters of this or that theory provide their evidence of correctness. The materials I publish tell about the conclusions made by anthropologists, archaeologists, geneticists, biologists and representatives of other scientific fields. I would like to point out that these are people who have spent thousands of hours behind microscopes; dug up tons of earth; transported to laboratories, examined and compared hundreds of thousands of fossil bones of our ancestors. Do you want to ask if I am the same Charles Darwin who laid the foundations of modern evolutionary theory? No, we're just namesakes...