The Antiquity and Ancestry of Man
The history of human culture, in which the history of science is an important, reveals at first a very slow growth with roots in the remote past.
In his various biological aspects man shows evidence of descent from ancestor related to the great apes.
Many facts suggest a vast area in south central Asia north of the Himalayan mountains as the place where the human stem arose.
The time when our ancestors became really human probably could not be stated definitely, even if all the circumstances were known, for the change must have been a very gradual one.
However, it certainly was completed before the beginning of the Pleistocene.
The geological epoch, following the Pliocene and preceding our own Recent Epoch, was distinguished by extraordinary cooling of the earth.
Four times great ice sheets spread southward over lands of the northern hemisphere, and four times they related.
During each of these Ice Ages, distinctive mammals appeared, some of gigantic proportions, and their skeleton, buried by dust storms or in the sediments of the swollen of the warm interglacial ages, enable geologist to recognize deposits laid down in any one age.
On other evidence, geologists estimate the length of these ages in years and the whole epoch is believed by American authorities to have lasted a million years ending about twenty-five thousand years ago.
Very early in the Pleistocene primitive men were living in widely separated localities, probably migrants escaping competition with more progressive races at home.
The most primitive of these is the Trinil man (Pithecanthropus) of Java. He was very ape-like, but recent discoveries (1937) shown anatomical features that distinctively human.
There is however no evidence of distinctively human behavior. It is different with Peking man (Sinanthropus), who inhibited caves eastern China at about the same time.
He had larger brain, and he made tools and fire, - activities as distinctively human as articulate speech.
When he learned a kindle a fire from sparks that flew as he chipped flints to make his crude implements, he made the first application of a physical principle to human needs.
Perhaps earlier in time, but with more modern features the Piltdown man (Eoanthropus) was established in southeastern England in the Pliocene or earliest Pleistocene.
A somewhat later type, of Mid-Pleistocene age, the Neanderthal, pursing the great beasts, overran Europe during the second interglacial period. Around their camp fires they made the first completely flaked flint implement, the hand ax- tool characteristic of the Old Stone Age, Paleolithic.
They in turn, gave way during the last Ice Age, perhaps 150,000 years ago, to modern man Homo sapiens, represented by the Brunn and Co-Magnon races.
The latter left in numerous cave dwellings implements of flint and bone and drawing and sculptures, showing fine powers or observation and great manual dexterity.
The Antiquity and Ancestry of Man
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Paleomedicine
Paleomedicine
Evidence of disease and injuries among ancient humans and other animals is incomplete for epidemiological purposes, but more than sufficient to establish the general notion of their abundance.
Therefore, we would able to determine when uniquely human responses to the suffering caused by disease and injury began.
In other words, at what stage did human beings begin to practice medicine and surgery?
Clues to the existence of paleomedicine must be evaluated even more cautiously than evidence of disease.
For example, the “negative imprints” that appear to be tracings of mutilated hands found in Paleolithic cave paintings may record deliberate amputations, loss of fingers to frostbite, magical symbols of unknown significance, or even some kind of game.
Early humans may have learned to splint fractured arms or legs to alleviate the pain caused by movement, but there is little evidence that they learned to reduce fractures.
Moreover, well healed fractures can be found wild apes.
Thus, the discovery of healed fractures and splints does not necessarily prove the existence of prehistoric orthopedic surgeons or bone setters.
Perhaps the most striking proof of ancient surgical skill appeared in the form of trepanned skulls discovered at Neolithic sites in Peru, Europe, Russian and India.
Although this operation is sometimes mistakenly referred to as “prehistoric brain surgery,” trepanation consists of the removal of a disk of bone.
Anthropologists have discovered that contemporary tribal healers perform trepanations for both magical and practical reasons.
Prehistoric surgeons may also have had various reasons for carrying out this difficult and dangerous operation.
Paleomedicine
Evidence of disease and injuries among ancient humans and other animals is incomplete for epidemiological purposes, but more than sufficient to establish the general notion of their abundance.
Therefore, we would able to determine when uniquely human responses to the suffering caused by disease and injury began.
In other words, at what stage did human beings begin to practice medicine and surgery?
Clues to the existence of paleomedicine must be evaluated even more cautiously than evidence of disease.
For example, the “negative imprints” that appear to be tracings of mutilated hands found in Paleolithic cave paintings may record deliberate amputations, loss of fingers to frostbite, magical symbols of unknown significance, or even some kind of game.
Early humans may have learned to splint fractured arms or legs to alleviate the pain caused by movement, but there is little evidence that they learned to reduce fractures.
Moreover, well healed fractures can be found wild apes.
Thus, the discovery of healed fractures and splints does not necessarily prove the existence of prehistoric orthopedic surgeons or bone setters.
Perhaps the most striking proof of ancient surgical skill appeared in the form of trepanned skulls discovered at Neolithic sites in Peru, Europe, Russian and India.
Although this operation is sometimes mistakenly referred to as “prehistoric brain surgery,” trepanation consists of the removal of a disk of bone.
Anthropologists have discovered that contemporary tribal healers perform trepanations for both magical and practical reasons.
Prehistoric surgeons may also have had various reasons for carrying out this difficult and dangerous operation.
Paleomedicine
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
What is Culture?
What is Culture?
In the scientific sense “culture” does not mean unusual refinement or education, but the whole of social tradition.
The expert put it as “capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.”
Culture includes all these capabilities and habits in contrast to those numerous traits acquired otherwise, namely by biological heredity.
Passing from one social group to another we at once discover differences that can not be due to anything but social convention.
An American who travels in England finds that afternoon tea is a fixed institution and that cars drive on the left side of the road; in Denmark every one is riding a bicycle; in Madrid, cafe patrons sit outdoors to sip their coffee and and are pestered by itinerant bootblacks and peddlers of lottery tickets. These are not American phenomena, but represent minor cultural differences.
If we travel to the Orient or put ourselves in imagination into ancient Greece, the disparity becomes much greater.
Every human being, however, has traits which he does not get from his society. Australian elders can teach a boy to throw a boomerang but they can not permanently alter his chocolate skin by smearing paints on it.
Skin color and other physical traits are inherited but by biological heredity.
An Australian child brought up by a white rancher tends sheep instead of throwing boomerangs at kangaroos; he may learn to write as do white children, and to drive an automobile.
But no matter how much he associates with whites the color of his skin the shape of his skull and the width of his nose remain unaffected because they can come to him only from his parents.
Thus every human being has a social and a racial (biological) inheritance. The two may be in some measure related, but they are different.
What is Culture?
In the scientific sense “culture” does not mean unusual refinement or education, but the whole of social tradition.
The expert put it as “capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.”
Culture includes all these capabilities and habits in contrast to those numerous traits acquired otherwise, namely by biological heredity.
Passing from one social group to another we at once discover differences that can not be due to anything but social convention.
An American who travels in England finds that afternoon tea is a fixed institution and that cars drive on the left side of the road; in Denmark every one is riding a bicycle; in Madrid, cafe patrons sit outdoors to sip their coffee and and are pestered by itinerant bootblacks and peddlers of lottery tickets. These are not American phenomena, but represent minor cultural differences.
If we travel to the Orient or put ourselves in imagination into ancient Greece, the disparity becomes much greater.
Every human being, however, has traits which he does not get from his society. Australian elders can teach a boy to throw a boomerang but they can not permanently alter his chocolate skin by smearing paints on it.
Skin color and other physical traits are inherited but by biological heredity.
An Australian child brought up by a white rancher tends sheep instead of throwing boomerangs at kangaroos; he may learn to write as do white children, and to drive an automobile.
But no matter how much he associates with whites the color of his skin the shape of his skull and the width of his nose remain unaffected because they can come to him only from his parents.
Thus every human being has a social and a racial (biological) inheritance. The two may be in some measure related, but they are different.
What is Culture?
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