Science: Dec 7, 2012

To understand the man of the 21st century, we must understand our past - where we come from, our biological evolution, cultural development, major historical forces and chance. All these factors have played a role in the formation of what we are now, and will continue to play an important role in training where we will next.

This article examines the importance of flexibility and change are, why humans have survived, but Neanderthals did not. The answer lies partly in the "Out of Africa" theory, as we focus on the biological and environmental factors that may have conditioned our evolution and define the genetic potential of our culture and current lifestyle.

Homo neanderthalensis Homo sapiens vs.

As recently as 50,000 years ago, there were up to four different types of human beings living in the same time:

• Homo sapiens (human)
• Homo neanderthalensis
• Homo floresiensis (The Hobbit)
• perhaps even Homo sapiens idaltu

When humans moved into the Middle East, Homo erectus disappeared, and when they move in Europe, Neanderthals disappeared. It is hard to believe that it would be a coincidence scalable. So what has enabled man to be successful they are, and not one of the three that existed around 50,000 years? Why us and not the Neanderthals?

To answer this, let's look at what we have shared with Neanderthals and that was exclusive to humans.

What we shared with Neanderthals

• DNA: Svante Paabo of the Max Planck Institute has completed a draft of Neanderthal DNA suggests that our common ancestors date back 300,000 to 500,000 years.

• Tools: evidence shows that prior to about 70,000 years, we shared the ability to make simple tools with Neanderthals. Examples include axes and spears stabbing.

• Language: Ralph Holloway University of British casts or endocasts used inside the skull to determine the capacity of the brain. Casts of the inside of the Neanderthal cranium showing the shape and structure of the brain suggest that the frontal lobe and parts of the brain responsible for speech are almost exactly the same as in humans. This suggests that Neanderthals probably had language.

• Maintenance: burial and evidence of healed fractures suggest that Neanderthals also showed empathy for those in their group.

• Culture: The existence of Neanderthal burials also suggests a level of knowledge and culture.

What was different?

• Physiology: CT of Neanderthal teeth suggest shorter than ours childhood and therefore less time to learn before they mature to be a contributor to the tribe. Endocasts Ralph Holloway suggests that the high dome of our brain allows more developed parietal and temporal lobe and thus a more complex language, greater ability to store and recall memory, cognition better overview and a greater ability to working with spatial locations of the Neanderthals. In a life that relies heavily on the location of food sources, these differences are essential.

• Tools: John Shea of Stony Brook University suggests that Neanderthal tools were too big to be tools of projectiles. Combine that with the conclusion that Neanderthal remains show a high number of bone fractures consistent with those cowboys rodeo and we can assume that Neanderthals were hunters who would kill their prey pack in close combat. There is also no evidence for evolution tool among Neanderthals. Their tools remain constant in geography and through the millennia. Meanwhile, there is evidence to show that some 70,000 years our tools evolved considerably. They became more complex. Humans have heating rocks to reduce the size of the flakes, and run lighter and more durable spears, while Neanderthals were more likely to break or lose their spears in close combat. This difference would have allowed humans to hunt a wider range of animals with greater security, and achieve a better success rate.

• Diet: human beings remained in Africa and pushed to the brink of extinction by climate change and substantial basis. Evidence that climate change can be found in the geological record. Humans retreated towards the outer edges of Africa, it has become increasingly difficult to find food. The researchers believe that the number of breeding individuals were as low as 600-6000. It was during this period that the first evidence of humans to find food in the ocean appears. The increasing diversity of the diet could be an important part of why humans have succeeded where Neanderthals failed. Michael Richards of the Max Planck Institute analyzed the chemical signature of the food remains in the bones of Neanderthals. His work shows that no matter where Neanderthals lived, their diet was almost exclusively meat, there were very few plants and no marine food eaten. This plan would have forced Neanderthals to consume about 5000 calories per day from a source close to food (usually large herbivores), and to find such a quantity of food was a considerable burden on the lifestyles of men Neanderthals.

• Culture: The expanded regime of human beings would have meant they spent less time worrying about their next meal. This extra time in their day, combined with their ability to trade, could lead to an increase in their ingenuity which in turn led to the development of tools and culture. Around 70,000 years ago, at the same time as tools for humans were evolving, we also see evidence of the use of red ocher, shells with holes (possibly for jewelry), and Trade between the groups. Celeste Biever, in an article in New Scientist magazine, explains the work of a group of American and Dutch economists suggests that Neanderthals were not negotiated, while humans have done. This led to the exchange and improvement ideas that could have played a role in our evolutionary leap. This theory is also explained in Rational Optimist Matt Ridley The.

Climate change

A key period of our development - one that allowed us to be the last one standing humans - is the period between 140,000 and 60,000 years ago. Stay in Africa during this period means that humans have had to learn to live with climate change, and although it seems to have had a devastating effect on the population, so true progressive who survived thrived. Climate change forces us to learn how to change our diet, our tools and our culture - in order to survive, we learned to trade and share ideas with people outside our tribe. Systems theory tells us that the most flexible of any system of control of the system, and it seems that we have left Africa as the beast most flexible in the world.

As we entered the Middle East, Homo erectus disappeared and we entered Europe the Neanderthals disappeared too. It is suggested that they were simply unable to compete with Homo sapiens, whose evolutionary experience left a little more flexibility in the environment than their competitors.

Daniel Lieberman of Harvard University suggests that humans were prolific and produce offspring, armed with cutting-edge tools, culture and food, have been better able to keep them alive. Our population has exploded in Europe in number of Neanderthals were down.

Approximately 28,000 years ago, there was only one species left - humans. Humans covered the globe and since then have continued to evolve considerably. The man walked on the moon and we may even created our own geological era - the Anthropocene. We made moving through the struggle. He may be on the brink of our own extinction we have gained greater flexibility and tools of trial and error, refinement, replication, storage and transmission of information or tools evolution itself.

So far so good ...

Out of Africa

Evidence of skeletal remains throughout Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Europe show that there were probably a number of movements in Africa, but one of the most interesting for us, c ' is that of modern humans around 60,000 years ago.

At this time, we went from a period of significant climate change in Africa and regular. As a result, the breeding population could be as low as 600-6000 couples scattered around the outside edge of Africa. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) studies suggest that a group of people managed to cross the Red Sea in Africa and the Middle East.

The combination of low breeding numbers and having to cross the Red Sea has created a bottleneck that has resulted in a human population genetic diversity much less than that of the chimpanzee.

Science

Friday, December 7, 2012

Flexibility and Blind Luck: Mastering the Tools of Evolution

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