1. Ape.
Apes lived in the middle of Quaternary in the geological age, about 500,000 to 600,000 years ago. The appearance of ape-man is a qualitative change in the development from ape to man. Apes are the earliest humans. Although there are many remains of ancient apes among the apes, they have made and used the roughest stone tools for productive labor, which is the dividing line between man and animals. "What are the characteristics that distinguish human society from apes? It is labor. " "Labor begins with making tools."
The ape-man fossils are very precious. So far, only five or six cases have been found in the world. Namely: Beijingers and Lantian people in China; Javanese ape-man in Indonesia; Atlas ape-man from Africa, Algeria and Morocco; Sardinian ape-man in Tanzania; Heidelberg ape-man in Germany.
Here are some information about Beijingers and Lantian people found in China.
Beijingers lived about four or five hundred thousand years ago.
/kloc-since 0/929, China scientists have discovered rare and very rich fossil materials about Beijingers in the archaeological excavations in Zhoukoudian, southwest of Beijing, in the limestone caves where Beijingers live. Among them are skulls, jawbones, teeth and limbs belonging to about 40 people; A large number of stone tools and some bone tools; Fossils of many ancient animals, and ash deposits left by apes with fire.
From the investigation of Peking man fossils, it can be seen that Peking man's image is between ape-man and human, and it is completely human on the whole, leaving some characteristics similar to those of ancient ape-man on the head and face. They are direct evidence that they evolved from apes.
People in Beijing have begun to use stone tools and bone tools. On some unearthed stone tools that look like "stones", you can see traces of artificial attack and use. Beijingers can make tools, so they are promoted from ordinary animals. Because, "no ape hand has ever made even the most clumsy stone knife." The appearance of the oldest tools made and used by Beijingers was a great progress at that time and a powerful weapon for people to conquer nature.
Another weapon that Beijingers use to conquer nature is fire. Fire can be used for heating, barbecue and defense against wild animals. Man's understanding of fire has gone through a process from necessity to freedom. At first, I was afraid to escape from forest fires caused by lightning in nature; Later, I gradually realized the nature of fire and mastered and used it. Judging from the remains of Peking man's fire, the layers of ashes are thick, indicating that they draw fire from nature and burn around the clock. They can't make a fire by hand yet. From the use of fire to the invention of artificial fire, human beings have to go through a long process of practice and understanding.
Inferred from the above materials, Beijingers lived a primitive social life, with dozens of people in groups, each holding stone tools and sticks, collecting wild fruits and hunting animals collectively, living in caves at ordinary times and knowing how to use fire and cooked food-this was the general picture of production activities and social life at that time.
1964, scientists in China discovered an ape-man skull, maxilla, mandible, teeth and other fossils in Lantian, Shaanxi, and named them Lantian ape-man. The fossils of Lantian ape-man are basically the same as those of Beijing ape-man, but the skull is thicker. Combined with the study of stratigraphy and paleontology, it is proved that they lived earlier than Peking man, about 500 thousand to 600 thousand years ago, which is the earliest among the discovered apes.
2. The ancients.
If forest apes evolved for millions to tens of millions of years before they developed into the first generation of human beings-the ape-man stage, then since then, young humans have made great strides because they can make tools and start real labor.
About 65438+ 10,000 ~ 200,000 years ago, primitive humans advanced from the ape-man stage to the ancient stage. The ancients have been distributed in Asia, Africa and Europe. Paleontological fossils have been found in China, south and north. In the south, there are "Maba people" in Guangdong and "Changyang people" in Hubei. In the north, there are "Dingcun people" in the Fenhe River basin of Shanxi, and "Hetao people" in Ningxia and Inner Mongolia. Judging from the ancient skull fossils, it has made great progress than ape-man, with thinner bone wall and larger brain capacity; However, compared with modern people, the brow bone is still very prominent, indicating their primitive.
In the long-term struggle with nature, human beings have accumulated experience and improved production tools. The stone tools made by the ancients have been relatively fine, and they can make good tips and blades. The types and uses of devices are becoming more and more clear, and there are already chopping devices, sharpening devices and scraping devices. Hunting experience is getting richer and richer. They have mastered the laws of animal activities and know that they can use the terrain to catch wild animals and collectively hunt large animals. It could be arson. By this time, the mother-child relationship had been known, and the primitive clan organization had sprouted.
3. Newcomer.
With the development of labor, the physique of the ancients gradually improved and developed into a new person. Newcomers lived about 65438+ ten thousand years ago. Newcomers are the direct ancestors of modern human beings. Physically, the newcomers also include modern people.
Newcomers are not only widely distributed in Asia, Africa and Europe, but also in the United States and Australia. They have begun to settle in various places.
In China, the fossils of new human beings include cavemen found at the top of Zhoukoudian Peking man's mountain in 1933. 1956 Ziyang people discovered in Sichuan during the construction of chengdu-chongqing railway; 1958 Guests and Liujiang people discovered in Guangxi.
Based on the fossil materials of new humans, we can see that their physique is not much different from that of modern people, and their brains are exactly the same size as modern people. In the new stage, productivity has further developed. Stone tools are more exquisite, and there are composite tools-throwing guns and shuttle tags tied to wooden sticks. Exquisite spicules show that they can sew clothes. They hunt and fish. Primitive art-painting, sculpture, decorations, etc. It has already been produced.
There are racial differences in the new era, such as skin color, hair color, hairstyle, blinking, nose height and so on. This is mainly due to the long-term settlement and the influence of different natural and geographical environments, resulting in some differences in appearance characteristics.
Labor turned apes into people. With people, there is society, and from then on, people have sociality. When human beings enter the class society, they have class nature.
The last essential difference between man and other animals is that animals only use external nature and change nature by their own existence; On the other hand, people change and dominate nature through their purposeful and conscious activities. "Thought and so on are subjective things, and doing or acting is subjective to objective things, which is a special initiative of human beings. This kind of initiative, which we call' conscious initiative', is a feature that distinguishes people from things. "
How did this unique human initiative come into being and develop? Some famous biologists, including Darwin, only saw that man evolved from animals because of their class status and idealistic world outlook. When you get here, you can't go any further. They can't see the essential difference between people and animals, and they don't understand the conscious initiative of people different from animals and the historical process of their emergence and development.
"Labor creates man himself". In the long historical process, due to labor, apes gradually developed into adults; Consistent with this process, under the impetus of labor, the brain of apes gradually developed into the brain of human beings, resulting in language and thinking, thus the conscious initiative of human beings gradually emerged and developed.
After the ape descended to the ground, when walking on the ground, he got rid of the help of his forelimbs and gradually walked upright, with the division of labor between brothers and sisters. In order to pick fruits, dig roots and catch some small animals as food, they use their forelimbs more, and sometimes they use branches and stones as "tools". These activities, at first, were just instinctive activities, and later in the long-term life process, they were repeated and became habits. Later, I gradually learned to hit another stone with one stone as a tool. It is in this long-term labor handed down from generation to generation that the forelimbs of ancient apes developed into human hands. "The hand is not only an organ of labor, but also a product of labor." At the same time, the hind legs of apes also developed into human feet, and then the brains of apes gradually developed into human brains.
According to scientific data.
The brain capacity of apes is about 350 ~ 650 ml.
The brain capacity of Lantian ape-man is about 780ml.
The average brain volume of Beijingers is 1075 ml.
The average brain volume of modern people is 1400 ml.
From the study of Peking man fossils, we can see that Peking man's head still retains many anthropoid features, such as flat forehead, raised eyebrows, protruding snout and no chin. But the limbs, especially the upper arm, are closer to modern people. In other words, the limbs, especially the arms, of the ape-man developed rapidly.
In the long-term development process from apes to humans, not only the brain volume gradually increases, but also the internal structure of the brain tends to be complex, and the proportion of each area of the cerebral cortex has also changed. The hand area, language area and thinking related area have all expanded, and the whole brain has become more perfect.
What is the fundamental driving force to promote the development of ape brain into adult brain? It is the practice of production struggle and labor.
Due to labor and the division of labor between brothers and sisters, primitive humans gradually walked completely upright. The upright posture makes the spine support the head, broadens the field of vision, promotes the development of various senses in the head, and enables the brain to receive more information, thus creating conditions for the brain to further develop and expand into a sphere.
Due to labor, eating several fruits has developed into various plants, as well as meat and cooked food. The nutrients input into the body are more and more diversified, which makes the brain marrow more nutritious and provides the necessary material conditions for the development of the brain marrow.
Due to labor, human practical activities are developing in depth and breadth. Therefore, the "image" reflected by the five functions of eyes, ears, nose, tongue and body is also constantly strengthening, which promotes the increase of brain volume and the complexity of brain structure.
What needs special mention is the emergence of language and its influence on the development of brain marrow.
Language comes from and is accompanied by labor. Primitive humans need cooperation in hunting, collecting plants, making stone tools and other activities. "It has reached the point where we have to say something to each other", so there is a language with certain syllables and certain content. At first, the language was naturally very simple. Later, with the continuous development of labor, it was gradually improved and enriched. In the process of language development, the vocal organ of ancient apes-throat has gradually transformed into human throat. Language is a tool for expressing ideas. Because of the appearance of language, people can exchange experiences with each other, so they get more indirect experiences. Before writing appeared, language played an important role in the spread and accumulation of human knowledge, so it also played an important role in understanding and transforming the world. "In the history of mankind, spoken language is one of the forces that help people get rid of the animal kingdom, form a society, develop their own thinking, organize social production, fight against natural forces, and make our progress today."
With the development of language and the enrichment of vocabulary, people's thoughts are progressing in depth and breadth, and the brains of thinking organs are more developed. Engels put it this way: "First, labor, then language and labor together, become two main driving forces. Under their influence, the ape's brain gradually became a human brain; Although the latter is very similar to the former, it far exceeds the former in size and perfection. " The "degree of perfection" here refers not only to the morphological structure of the brain, but also to the functional function of the brain-thinking ability.
In the process of continuous labor practice, thinking ability is gradually developed. The mind is an organ of thinking, just like a processing factory. Labor practice constantly provides raw materials for it, and thought is the "product" after processing. "Countless external phenomena are reflected in a person's mind through the five senses of eyes, ears, nose, tongue and body, starting with perceptual knowledge. If the materials of this perceptual knowledge accumulate more, it will make a leap and become rational knowledge. This is thought. " Then, engage in new production practice activities. Driven by the infinite cycle of "practice, cognition, re-practice and re-cognition", human brain is constantly developing and improving, and human conscious initiative is also constantly improving and developing.
Labor promotes brain marrow, thus promoting the development of people's thinking ability; The development of human brain and the progress of thinking ability have a negative effect on labor and promoted the further development of labor. Engels pointed out: "Brain marrow, the senses that serve it, the increasingly clear consciousness, and the development of abstract ability and reasoning ability, in turn, play a role in labor and language, providing more and more new impetus for their further development."
Moreover, people are always social people, and the improvement of people's thinking ability is the product of a society. "Because the hand, vocal organs and brain work together not only in everyone, but also in society, talents have the ability to carry out more and more complex activities and propose and achieve higher and higher goals."
To sum up, we can know that the human brain, a very delicate "processing factory", is not "born" or "created by God", but evolved from an ape to a human being under the impetus of labor. It took1.200 million years for the brain of forest apes to develop into that of human beings. Plant evolution process
Plants are a big category in the biological world. Generally there is chlorophyll, no nerve, no feeling. There are algae, ferns, bryophytes and seed plants, which are divided into gymnosperms and angiosperms. There are more than 300,000 species. Plants 2.5 billion years ago, the earliest plants in the history of the earth belonged to fungi and algae. These primitive ferns and algae became the ancestors of plants on the earth. With the change of the natural geographical environment on the earth, the plant kingdom itself is also moving and developing in constant contradictions. The dominant type in a certain geological period was replaced by another more evolved plant in the development process. At this time, the plant kingdom has undergone a qualitative change and entered a new stage of development. The natural extinction of some groups is often accompanied by the formation of new groups, and the development process of plant kingdom is constantly changing from low to high, from simple to complex.