James Watson, American biologist, Nobel laureate
Nicholas Wade has written a bold, flawless, profound book that summarizes all the latest and most relevant scientific data on the origin of man.
Lionel Tiger, Professor of Anthropology, Rutgers University
The best book I have ever read, an incomparable book about the origins of mankind.
Edward Wilson, professor emeritus at Harvard University, author of The Existence of Meaning
This is a wonderful work that summarizes all the most important and relevant research in the field of genetics and anthropology. Also well written.
The Scientist
What is Dawn of Man: The Untold History of Our Ancestors about?
The book helps modern man to understand himself by restoring the history of the origin of our species from the very beginning, from a single common ancestor. It is known that until recently, the first steps of mankind were shrouded in darkness - 5 million years of human evolution and 50,000 years of the prehistoric era remained a mystery to everyone. Only in the last decade, completely new data have been discovered by genetic scientists. This became possible primarily due to the completion of work on determining the DNA sequence in the human genome.Scientific expert journalist Nicholas Wade shares with readers the unique information recorded in the DNA of the human genome, which helps us in the study of our common past.
The book will be of interest to all those who are interested in anthropology, research in the field of genetics and history.
Why Dawn of Man: The Untold History of Our Ancestors is worth a read
- Nicholas Wade follows the path of evolution and introduces the reader to historical events and facts: when the human branch separated from the chimpanzee branch, the appearance of language, the exodus of the first modern people from Africa, the war with the Neanderthals, settled and domestication, the emergence of society and religion.
- In the book, the author describes the discoveries made in the most recent years, cites the results of scientific research and discoveries that have become undeniable scientific breakthroughs.
- The book is ranked 12th in the Paleontology section and is also one of the 100 Anthropology Books on Amazon.
about the author
Nicholas Wade — science journalist, He received his Bachelor of Science degree from King's College, Cambridge University. He writes for Nature, Science, New York Times on defense, space exploration, medicine, engineering, genetics, molecular biology, ecology, and politics. Author of several books. Laureate of the National Society of Writers - Science Popularizers Award "Science in Social and Political Journalism".
Interpreter Nikolai Mezin
Scientific editor Sergei Yastrebov
Editor Julia Bystrova
Project Manager I. Seryogina
Correctors S. Chupakhina, M. Milovidova
Computer layout A. Fominov
Cover design Y. Buga
Cover photo iStock
© Nicholas Wade, 2006
This edition is published by arrangement with Sterling Lord Literistic and The Van Lear Agency LLC
© Edition in Russian, translation, design. LLC "Alpina non-fiction", 2016
All rights reserved. The work is intended solely for private use. No part of the electronic copy of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including posting on the Internet and corporate networks, for public or collective use without the written permission of the copyright owner. For copyright infringement, the legislation provides for the payment of compensation to the copyright holder in the amount of up to 5 million rubles (Article 49 of the LOAP), as well as criminal liability in the form of imprisonment for up to 6 years (Article 146 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
1. Genesis and genetics
It has been said many times with certainty that the origin of man will never be known. Ignorance succeeds in instilling confidence more often than knowledge, and usually not those who know a lot, but those who know little, most confidently declare that this or that problem will never be solved by science.
Moving back along the timeline, we see that in the first century or two of human history, there is no shortage of evidence of its existence. But then everything changes dramatically. At the turn of 5000 years, written monuments disappear, giving way to wordless artifacts dug out of the ground. In the next 10,000 years, we see them less and less, and after 150 centuries, at the time of the emergence of the first human settlements, the artifacts practically disappear. Up to this point, people led a nomadic life, feeding on hunting and gathering. Nothing was built and almost no lasting creations were left behind, except for a few stone tools and amazing rock paintings in the caves of Europe.
Rewinding another 35,000 years, we will reach a point where human ancestors have not yet left the borders of their homeland in northeast Africa, but have already shown the first signs of modern behavior. If we assume that the history of modern man begins from there, then it turns out that written sources illuminate only the last 10% of its length, the rest of history seems to have disappeared into darkness.
Let's go further back in time to the early days of our biological species, 5 million years ago, when the first ape-like creatures, distant ancestors of mankind, separated from the species that also gave rise to chimpanzees. The only material trace of the era in which evolution from ape to man took place is a few stone tools.
It would seem that it will not be possible to know this time any deeper: 5 million years of human evolution and 50,000 years of the prehistoric era are hidden in darkness. However, in recent years, a completely new archive of data has opened up to scientists. This is a chronicle written in the DNA of the human genome, in its various versions scattered around the planet. Genetics has long helped in the study of the past, but has been especially successful since 2003, when scientists finished sequencing the DNA in the human genome.
But how does the genome tell us so much about the past? As a repository of hereditary information in constant change, the genome is like a document that is endlessly rewritten. But the genome, changing, retains information about all the "drafts", which contain a chronicle of millions of years. Thus, the genome can tell us a lot about different time layers. It has evidence going back more than 50,000 years to the genetic Adam, the man whose Y chromosome is in every male living on earth today. At the same time, the genome can provide clues to mysteries only two centuries old (for example, to answer the question: did Thomas Jefferson have illegitimate children with his slave mistress Sally Hemings).
The genome helps scientists see a new, much clearer picture of human evolution, nature and history. A stunningly detailed picture emerges from the pitch darkness.
The new reading of human history is based on the foundation laid by paleoanthropology, archeology, anthropology and many other sciences. It is considered new because all these traditional areas of knowledge today use genetic information and genetics is gradually gathering them together.
This book describes a number of aspects of human evolution, nature and ancient history, highlighted by discoveries in genetics in recent years. Readers who are far from this field of knowledge will probably be surprised at how much diverse information the new historical approach contains. There is no video recording of a monkey gradually turning into a human, but this process can be reconstructed as a sequence of significant events. There are no maps showing the migration of the first people from their ancestral home, but scientists can draw up the route by which our ancestors left Africa and their further movement around the planet. One can even trace the emergence of some social institutions that arose among people in the transition from a nomadic lifestyle based on hunting and gathering to modern complex social systems.
Information from the genome allowed paleoanthropologists to determine when a person lost his thick body hair and when he gained the gift of speech. The genome helped solve the long-standing archaeological mystery of the coexistence of the Neanderthal and modern man: did they live in peace and interbreed or feuded until the weakest was completely destroyed? Genetics has revealed to anthropologists the emergence of various cultural practices, such as herding or cannibalism. And even comparative-historical linguistics has been enriched, albeit indirectly, by the information that DNA gives us: the history of language is now being reconstructed using genealogical tree-building techniques developed by biologists for gene mapping.
In the question of the population of primitive people that existed 50,000 years ago and gave rise to all the peoples that now inhabit the Earth, the methods of paleoanthropology and archeology are powerless to reveal something about our ancestors who disappeared without a trace. But geneticists, exploring the human genome, discover the most amazing facts. They can estimate the size of this group of first people. They can say exactly where in Africa they most likely lived. They can name the date, albeit a very approximate one, of the emergence of human language. And even sooner or later they will be able to restore the sound of the parent language.
The first man-made clothes
Few examples show more clearly the ability of genetics to penetrate into the most amazing nooks and crannies of the human past than the recent discovery of the historical period when the first tailored clothing appeared. Primitive people probably dressed in animal skins for millions of years, covering themselves with them like a cloak, but man-made clothing is a relatively recent invention. Archaeologists cannot establish when it arose, since both the tissues and the bone needles with which it was sewn together are very short-lived.
In the autumn of 1999 in Leipzig, the son of anthropologist Mark Stoneking brought a note from school saying that a student in the class had been infected with lice. Stoneking, an American scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, read the note with all the attention of a worried parent. However, as a geneticist who has long been interested in the origin of man, he drew attention to the passage in the text that said that the louse cannot live without the heat of the human body for more than 24 hours.
1. Follow the drawings to see how a person has changed. Write down the difference between modern man and his ancestors.
In modern man, the forehead has become higher(higher or lower) because the volume has increased brain. The jaws of people who have learned to keep the fire, decreased (decreased or increased), since there was no need to chew on pieces of raw meat.
2. Highlight in blue those qualities that were more necessary for animals - the ancestors of man, in green - for ancient people, in red - for modern people. 
3. What keeps us from exhibiting animal habits?
upbringing, traditions of society, law
4. What made man able to get his own food?
Thanks to courage, dexterity, the ability to negotiate with other people and act together.
5. Circle in red those tools that you could make or find in 1 hour, in blue - in 1 day, in green - you could not do without training. Write which of these tools were used by the ancestors of man, ancient people and people of the modern type in the prehistoric period.
6. Show with arrows the features of Homo sapiens that distinguish him from the most ancient man. Sign the drawings.
7. Why do you think modern man has a sharper chin than his ancestors?
A person no longer needs to tear large pieces of meat, including raw meat, with his jaw.
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Slides captions:
AT THE DAWN OF HUMANITY The work of a student of grade 4a, GBOU secondary school No. 491 Krasnokutsky Alexander St. Petersburg
WHEN ANCIENT PEOPLE APPEARED Primitive people appeared on Earth about 2 million years ago
GROUPS OF ANCIENT PEOPLE In the harsh and dangerous conditions of those times it was impossible to survive alone, and primitive people lived in small groups. Each person had their own duties and rights, all the food they got was common, people defended themselves from predators together, and together they resolved controversial issues.
THE FIRST TOOLS OF LABOR The first tools of labor (a sharp stone and a stick) helped to improve the difficult life: with the help of a stone it was possible to butcher killed prey, and a pointed stick was used in hunting, and it was possible to dig up roots with it.
FOOD The question of food has always been very acute, people depended on nature. After all, during a drought it is impossible to find berries, and fires can drive away all animals from the camps. The ancient man often changed his habitat, the tribe moved from place to place in search of food. Primitive people tried to arrange parking places closer to the water, because it was easier to attack the herds of animals that came to the watering hole.
LIVING With the help of primitive tools it was still impossible to build a dwelling on their own, so ancient people chose caves and gorges already created by nature. Even fire, tamed by man and carefully guarded day and night, did not save from dampness in the caves. But, despite such difficult living conditions, ancient people got sick much less than our contemporaries.
RESPECT In order to hunt together to protect themselves from predators, people lived in tribes. Within each tribe, certain customs and rules of behavior developed. People began to take care of children, did not offend the weak. Thus, the first norms of morality, the basis of human society, were laid. However, these rules did not apply to members of other tribes.
MIND Since the ancestors of man had a mind, the successful experience of each became the property of the whole society. Social experience has become the main condition for human development
On the topic: methodological developments, presentations and notes
Presentation for the lesson of the surrounding world "At the dawn of mankind" Grade 4
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Club "Key and Dawn". Work with a fragment of the painting by J. Bassano "God is angry with Adam."
Classroom (4 hours) practical lesson, game. Work in the Museum House. Work with a fragment of the painting by J. Bassano "God is angry with Adam." Reading words by syllables. Onomatopoeia....
