CREATION OF MAN
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| Animal Origins - Primate Evolution |
| Let us get back to the question of the origin of man.
Some people still find it hard to believe that we are the result of
evolution. I firmly believe that this is mainly due to the way the
concept of evolution had been misrepresented. Late in the sixties,
the moderator of a church study group in Pondichery ridiculed the
idea of evolution saying that evolutionists believe that “elephants
came from cats”. In Tamil the words rhymed well and people laughed
as he anticipated. |
| First, we must distinguish between what it is, that
the evolutionists say and what is not. For example they do not say
that the dog evolved from the cat, the horse from the cow or man from
monkey. The organism or the being from which an animal or bird or
fish evolved does not exist today. But we have enough scientific evidence
to believe that there was evolution. We get information about the
existence of these forerunners or predecessors from the fossil records,
from the bones and miraculously preserved other signs like footprints.
Modern science has today at its disposal reliable means of determining
the age of these fossils. When scientists study these fossils they
consider as our forerunners only those primates who could walk erect
on two legs. Interestingly enough there is no shortage of such fossils
today. A detailed discussion of these is beyond the scope of this
book but a summary of what we know today could be attempted. |
| Let us begin with a 45 million year old fossil found
from central China around the turn of the millennium. Named Eosimias
or dawn monkey, this species could very well be the common ancestor
for the lower and the higher primates. The higher primates branched
off from the mainline of primates around this time, may be the same
species. Then, 35 million years ago the South American monkeys, 25
million years ago the old world monkeys, 15 million years ago the
gibbons, 10 million years ago the orangottans branched off. Finally
guerrillas and chimpanzees branched off around 8 million years ago. |
| So far, the earliest fossil find of what could be considered
a human ancestor, of a species that walked on two legs, is the millennium
man, so named because the finding was published in December 2000.
The fossil had been dated as being 6 million years old. This one called
the Orrorin Tugenensis as well as all the various species that followed
had their origin in Africa. The rift valley of East Africa is the
place where most of the finds we made. One of the reasons for this
is the fact that the geological process that caused the rift system
exposed conveniently layers of the earth that had been submerged for
millions of years. Lake Turkana and Olduvai gorge areas of East Africa,
the Omo valley, Awash and Hadar regions of Ethiopia and the Sterksfontein
caves in South Africa have yielded plenty of fossils during the second
half of the twentieth century to help our understanding of the long
and tortuous route travelled by our ancestors to bring us to where
we are today. |
| Our Immediate Ancestors |
| We notice in the dozen or so species that lived in
the past six million years gradual changes in structure, shape of
the skull, nature of teeth and most important, the skull cavity or
size of the brain. All these walked on two feet and are distinctly
different from the apes. The species that evolved from the millennium
man could most likely be what is named Ardipithecus ramidus kadabba.
This was found in the middle Awash region of Ethiopia and is dated
to have lived between 5.8 and 5.2 million years ago. Ardipithecus
ramidus ramidus, also of Awash, Ethiopia, dated 4.4 million years
old is obviously the successor to the kadabba man. Australopithecus
anamansis dating 4.3 to 3.8 million years found in the regions around
lake Turkana of Kenya must be the next in the line of succession.
This species evolved into Australopithecus afarensis whose fossils
of the period 3.6 to 2.8 million years are found around Hadar in Ethiopia.
This species included the much-publicised individual ‘Lucy’,
once considered the African Eve. Lucy’s fame was partly due
to the fact that hers was an almost complete skeleton, the only one
of its kind to date. The other factor was that at the time of its
discovery this was the oldest one known. Lucy’s descendants
then evolved into Australopithecus Aethiopicus that lived between
2.8 and 2.3 million years ago. |
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