“As we confront our origins we face a major paradox.

The being, who through the

power of his mind and imagination has come near to mastery over the forces of
external nature as they confront him on this planet, and who has already begun to
extend his dominion over parts of outer space, is man himself” (Grahame Clarke,
world prehistory).

The idea of evolution has been discussed and debated by various scholars for
centuries now like the Greek philosopher Anaximander and Charles Darwin, trying to
put forward the idea that we, the ‘mighty, intelligent and not-so-easily-defeat able
humans’ have actually evolved from an ape looking animal and that other than being
self-absorbed and thinking that we were the only hominid species present, we need
to also focus on other kind of similar species that are now extinct, for which they
were mocked and attacked by the people who believed in the church centric view of
creation by god. By doing so we are trying to locate evolution in the ever long story
of prehistory and history. Focusing on the Pleistocene and trying to understand the
various species that were in place to present the homo sapiens as the result of
evolution and the various geological, cultural and social factors that helped in this
process.

The evolutionary process is based on natural selection. One can consider the
emergence of the first humans in terms of adaptive evolutionary change. Mutations
are the original source of variation in a population where hominids were adapting to
new environmental conditions forming a hominid tree. We humans are the
subspecies of a larger group of hominid family that has gradually evolved and come
to be what we are today. 5mya we faced major environmental changes that also
became one the most important causes for the evolution.

The climatic changes were a backdrop for an accelerating in the appearance of

modern humans. Humans came on the stage during early millennia of the
Pleistocene. The Pleistocene world was a world of contracting ice caps, climatic
fluctuations, marked changes in sea level and changes in oceanic circulation. This was
a critically important time, when Homo erectus evolved in Africa and moved out of
the tropics into Asia and Europe.

Moving forward with our discussion on evolution of man, we know that the story of
human evolution began in Africa, mostly in East Africa in the Afar triangle and
through the Rift valley. approx 4mya in eastern Africa members of genus
Australopithecus made their appearance in the fossil record, during the lower
Paleolithic age which led us to the assumption that in this story of human evolution,
there are 2 genera- austral and homo.
The discovery of zinjanthropus bosei by mary and Louis leaky in olduvai George,
tanzania which is dated back to 1.8 mya led to the revolutionary change in our
knowledge about hominid ancestors.

Autralo lived in Africa, were bipedal, their brain size appeared only slightly larger
than modern chimpanzees and had teeth that looked somewhat like ours.

Two species that were recognized during the 1920s were austral africanus (gracile
form) and robustus (massive form). The major difference between both of them is
there chewing mechanisms including their structure of jaws, cheeckbones as they
were adapted to a diet that contained tough plant foods. Both these species were
very strong, they hunted small animal.

a question that arises is if austral were a toolmaker. There has been a debate on this
issue the bones of austral afarensis which were more ape like thin tips and short
thumb but robust had a mobile thumb and much broader tips that states that we
cannot rule out the possibility of them being the toolmakers however, no consensus
has been arrived till date.

Paleoanthro argue about the relationship of the austral and early homo. It is believed
that our species might have derived from a gracile australi.

Louis leakey found a different fossil than austral and named it homo habillus or the
handy man of the lp. We find the remains of homo habillus in Ethiopia and Lake
Turkana.

The cranial capacity of homo habillus is greater than that of austral although they
have legs shorter than them. Richard leakey found a cranium of a hominid near lake
turkana that eas larger than homo habillus, so he named it homo rudolfensis.

scholars generally agree that homo habillus were the first toolmakers. The main
difference that we see bw austral and h habillus is that of culture. According to
Richard leakey, culture can be said to be the human adaptation where they learn
social skills, customs and kinship. As Gordon childe says tool is a social product and
humans are social beings.

There stone tools belong to the oldowan industry and have been classified into 5
modes- simple chopping tools, bifacial hand axes, large core tools, narrow stone
blades and microlith tech indicating that they were skilled hunters. There has been a
debate as to if they used to hunt game animals or not.
The evidence of cultural evolution comes from eastern Africa where we find choppers, flake tools
and the image of daily life can be seen. Archeologists have identified riverside living floors of these
humans which they call it ‘central places’, a site where humans returned to sleep, fabricate tools,
cook food, and engage in wide variety of social activities. The existence of a central place is an
evidence of intense social and family life which in turn also suggests the development of language
however that is debatable. Confined to tropical Africa where they had to work as a community,
share resource maps and work together to solve problems for which they do require a relatively
complex lag and existence of social org.

The homo habillus hunted and scavenged and developed a habit of meat eating
however they were not skilled hunters as we can find the bones of only small animals
from the olduvai site. They were more of a scavenger than a hunter. We can also say
that they had flexible food habits- shifting from hunting to scavenging to gathering.

The next stage of evolution of humans is identifies as homo erectus. Based on fossil
evidences louis leakey estimated that they live 1.5 mya to 300,000 ya. Many scholars
believe that the specimens assigned to homo erectus in fact represents homo
erectus and homo ergaster. The fossils of homo erectus has been found in range
beyond Africa- in asia and in Europe. Homo ergaster expanded its range from Africa
to other parts of the world and then evolved to homo erectus.

Homo erectus was first discovered in java Indonesia in 1891 and 1892 which was
named as pithecanthropus erectus which also coincided with the discovery in china
near peking which was named as sinanthropus which was later subsumed under
erectus. However the richest evidence available to us is from northern Kenya.

The skeleton of h erectus was modern, a little broader than the average human
today, the head and face were still primitive and the brain size was larger than
habillus but smaller than sapiens. The chin was poorly developed.

As this group of species used to live on land as well as trees, it gave them an
advantage to oscillate their habitat from grasslands to forests. They had the ability to
control fire, to make tools for hunting and have a more easy access to food. tools
helped them to diversify their diet and a large brain size led to the development of
language that helped them in problem solving. After migrating from Africa, h erectus
went everywhere, to mountains, river valleys, deserts, etc displaying the ability to
adapt to different environments.

H erectus were the first species to use fire, first indication of extended childhood and
systematic hunting that shows there cultural transition. There tool making technique
represents the acheulean culture, using large hand axes. However the earliest h
erectus belonged to the oldwan culture which syggests that there might have been a
transition to the acheulean one. Acheulean handaxes required a lot of precision and
mastery alomg with high level of cognitive ability for the conceptualization of the end
product and these tools were used for chopping, cutting, piercing and pounding that
made it effective for butchery and preparing plant food

the beginning of the middle Paleolithic age , we see the coming of a new species
known as the Neanderthals or the cave man, where we find the first fossil of this
species in the neander valley inside a cave. After finding the fossil of Neanderthals, a
new controversy began where it was believed that Neanderthals represents a group
of extinct species that is different from ours.

They lived in the cold period of middle and late Pleistocene covering Europe and asia.
It is believed that the species became extinct when the climatic conditions went
under significant changes.

The fossils of Neanderthals suggest that they were robust and powerful and could
perform physical activities beyond our ability. They have an absent chin, large check
bones, large front teeth, protruding lower face, short but powerful stature and
cranial capacity within the range of modern humans.

There has been a debate on neanderthal’s language skills. Some believe that the
Neanderthals could speak as fluently as we do whereas others believe that they did
not have the vocal apparatus to speak.

While focusing on the cultural aspect of their existence, it is believed that there tools
belong to the Mousterian tool industry, made by the levellois technique where they
started focusing on the flake tools and these different tools were made in response
to the seasonal pattern of living, there tools were made up of bones, horns and
woods other than stone, they lived by hunting game animals and gathering, had a
small nomadic social group living in cave and rock shelters. They were also the first
set of species that used to bury their dead in purposefully excavated graves that
marks a symbolic and social advance of some religious belief. We find a burials/ in
the French excavation sites.

Coming to the last stage- the upper Paleolithic society closer to understanding the
modern man- homo sapiens. There has been a serious debate about the origin of
homo sapiens and various scholars have presented with two models:

Out of Africa model states that homo sapiens evolved in one place (tropical Africa)
and then migrated to diff parts of the world. But fossil found in Europe opposes this
throw which brings us to the next model; the multiregional theory which states that
homo erectus spread to different parts of the world and then evolved to archaic
homo sapiens and then into the modern man.

During the up age new, complex society developed where the people were equipped
with better tools and there was a sign of intellectual culture, they became part of a
band society. They were not isolated from each other and could pool up their ideas.

The up society consists of aurignacian, the soultrean and the magdalenians cultures.
These societies were better equipeed and had divergent social tradition. These
societies were savage and had developed exquisite tools where there were tools for
fishing, the use of composite tools, tools that could be used from distance, tools used
for making other tools and so on.

Another important cultural phenomena during up was the extensive use of art. Most
of the art during the up period comes from the Magdalenian culture where most of
the paintings wer of animals suggesting th dominance of animals in human life. There
has been a debate as to if these arts and paintings represent anything or if they are
painted only for pleasure purposes- art for the sake of art. However later findings of
cave art challeneged this notion of art for pleasure as they represented the complex
thought processes of humans. According to Robert wenke- paleo art helps us to
understand the artist and gives a review on the society.

Three approaches have been developed to understand art-totem approach where

humans used animals as totem and started worshipping them; sympathetic magic art
where paintings represent some time of ritual for ensuring good hunt or fertility or
for destruction of harmful animals and mystical symbolism where symbols were
painted for luck.