The first few decades of the 20th century were the heyday of optimism in the Edwardian era, and brains and advanced ideas were thought to have finally made us what we are now. Therefore, in the field of anthropology, this popular social worldview shows that the initial driving force of human evolution is not bipedal walking, but enlarged brain. In the 1940s, the world was bound by the charm of technology, so the hypothesis of "man, tool maker" became popular. KennethOakley of the Natural Museum in London, England, created this hypothesis. He proposed that making and using stone tools, rather than weapons, was the driving force of our evolution. When the world was in the shadow of World War II, it emphasized the darker division from apes to human beings-using violence against their companions. RaymondDart, an Australian anatomist, first put forward the concept of "man, the murderer's ape", which has been widely supported, probably because it gave an explanation (even an excuse) for the terrorist events in the war.
Later, in the 1960s, anthropologists regarded the hunter-gatherer lifestyle as the key to human origin. Several research groups have studied the technical hominids, especially in Africa, the most famous of which is Kunsan (mistakenly called Bushmen). Thus, there is a person who lives in harmony with nature, respects nature and uses the image of nature in a complicated way. This kind of imagination of human nature is very consistent with the popular environmentalism at that time. Anthropologists are impressed by the complexity and economic security of the mixed economy of hunting and gathering, but only emphasize hunting. 1966, the University of Chicago held an important anthropological conference called "Man, Hunter". The overwhelming high-profile among the participants is that hunting makes people.
Although these hypotheses claim that the main driving forces of human evolution are different, they have one thing in common, that is, Darwin's set of valuable human characteristics was established at the beginning of mankind, that is, the earliest members of the Anthropocene still believed that they had some bipedal walking, technology and enlarged brains, so they were cultural animals-which was different from everything else in nature-at the beginning. In recent years, anthropologists have realized that this is not the case. In the 1970s, they proposed that the various characteristics of human beings did not originate at the same time, but emerged gradually. There is a transition period from apes to humans. The symbol of the beginning of the transition period is to walk upright on two feet, and the symbol of the completion is to start making tools, so that society is formed, and consciousness and language sprout before making tools. The creatures or "predecessors" in this period belong to Anthropoceae in taxonomy and are the initial stage of human evolution system.
In fact, it can be seen from archaeological records that Darwin's hypothesis has no suitable and concrete evidence. If Darwin's "Bao" theory is correct, then we can expect to see bipedal walking, technology and enlarged brain appear at the same time from archaeological records and fossil records. But we haven't seen such a situation. So one aspect of prehistoric records is enough to prove that this hypothesis is wrong: that is, there is no record of stone tools found.
Stone tools are not like bones, which are difficult to fossilize. Stone tools are actually indestructible. Therefore, prehistoric records are mostly stone tools, which are evidence of the development from the simplest technology to the complex technology.
The earliest examples of such tools-rough stone chips, scrapers and machetes made by hitting several stone chips with pebbles-appeared in records about 2.5 million years ago. If the molecular evidence is correct, the earliest human species appeared about 7 million years ago, then our ancestors could walk on two feet until they started making stone tools, almost 5 million years apart. Whatever evolutionary dynamics led to bipedal apes has nothing to do with the ability to make and use tools. However, many anthropologists believe that the appearance of stone tools 2.5 million years ago was consistent with the expansion of the brain.
The expansion of the brain and the time of making stone tools are different from the time of human origin, which on the other hand urges anthropologists to reconsider the issue of human origin. Therefore, the latest hypothesis comes from biology rather than culture. This is the healthy development of anthropology, not only because the ideas we have formed can be verified by comparing with the ecology and behavior of known animals. In this way, we don't have to deny that Homo sapiens has many special qualities. On the contrary, we look for the origin of those characteristics from the strict biological relationship.
From this understanding, anthropologists pay attention to the origin of bipedal walking when explaining the origin of human beings. Even if anthropologists are concerned about this single event, it is of great significance to study it deeply. As OwenLovejy of Kent State University said, "The evolution from quadruped walking to bipedal walking is a great change you can see in the anatomy of evolutionary biology." In a popular article in 1988, he said: "This great change can be found in many bones, which pulls the muscle distribution of bones and the movement of limbs." Studying the pelvis of humans and chimpanzees is enough to confirm this view: the pelvis of humans is short and wide, and it is basin-shaped, while the pelvis of chimpanzees is narrow and long, and their limbs and trunks are also very different.
The formation of bipedal walking is not only a major biological change, but also a major adaptation change, so that we can confidently say that all bipedal apes are "people." This is not to say that the earliest bipedal ape species had some degree of technology, wisdom or any cultural quality of human beings. In my opinion, bipedal walking has great evolutionary potential-liberating upper limbs so that they can be used to manipulate tools one day-and its importance can be seen from the name we call him "man". Of course, these people are not like us, but they can't be like us without the adaptation of walking on two feet.