The origin of man and the stage of anthropogenesis

The origin of man and the main stages of anthropogenesis have been the subject of dispute for many centuries. Among all theories of the origin of the rational man, the most substantiated and the most developed to date is Darwin's theory, which has already been "superstructured" with new facts and statements.

It's no secret, and Darwin also points out that at the initial stages of anthropogenesis biological factors played a leading role in the life of man, the formation of his habits, his attitude to the world around him. In the future, social factors begin to acquire an increasing importance, therefore the main stages of anthropogenesis can not be considered uniform and characterized only by a temporary interval. The most important thing at every stage is qualitative changes.

The stages of anthropogenesis had their own driving forces, and in the initial stages, as we have already said, the biological component was the vanguard, and then the social one. So, biological factors include: struggle for survival, natural selection, mutational processes, combinative variability, gene drift, isolation, gene flow, population waves. The social factors of evolution include labor, the social way of life, articulate speech.

There are three main stages of anthropogenesis:

1. The oldest people (archanthropes). Appeared archanthropines about one million years ago. Outwardly, the archanthropines were remotely similar to the modern man, but they were distinguished by a powerful overbrow arc, a prominent chin, a low and flattened forehead protruding from the back of the head. The volume of the brain was from seven hundred and fifty to nine hundred cubic centimeters, and its structure was more primitive than in later forms. The archanthropists engaged in hunting, lived in caves and used fire.
2. Ancient people (paleanthropines). Appeared about two hundred thousand years ago. Externally paleanthropines had almost the same signs as archanthropines, however, the brain volume increased almost twofold, and the musculature became more developed. Paleanthropines had an attempt to articulate speech. If we compare in general the physical development of the archanthropes and paleanthropines, the latter were considerably inferior in physical terms.
3. Modern people (neanthropines). They had high growth, the brain volume increased, the shape of the skull bones changed. They were engaged in hunting and gathering, could transmit to each other primitive sounds. They built a house, created the first rock paintings, knew how to sew clothes.

The first two stages of anthropogenesis led by naturalists had a natural selection, because it gave an opportunity to survive to people with pronounced social qualities. At the neanthropic stage, a person learned to use fire, build artificial shelter, and make primitive clothes. As a result of such transformations, the degree of dependence of a person on external conditions has significantly decreased. Further, social factors become leading, which are gaining more turns. In the progress of humanity, the laws of social existence began to play a leading guiding role. Qualitatively new stages of anthropogenesis are the main difference of human development. Later such changes led to the emergence of nationalities - the territorial, linguistic, economic and cultural community of people that developed in the course of historical development. A higher level is a nation - a stable community of people that has a common economic development, territory, speech, mental characteristics that manifest themselves in the culture and way of life of the people.

The stages of human anthropogenesis are a long and complex path to the formation of a reasonable person who has social skills and a high level of psychoemotional actions. To date, not all the questions of anthropogenesis have been studied, many of them represent a riddle and are waiting for their disclosure.