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iddle of the 19th century and the foundation of scientific paleoanthropology the antiquity of man human antiquity or in simpler language the age of the human race are names given to the series of scientific debates it involved which with modifications continue in the 21st century these debates have clarified and given scientific evidence from a number of disciplines towards solving the basic question of dating the first human being controversy was very active in this area in parts of the 19th century with some dormant periods also a key date was the 1859 re evaluation of archaeological evidence that had been published 12 years earlier by boucher de perthes it was then widely accepted as validating the suggestion that man was much older than had previously been believed for example than the 6 000 years implied by some traditional chronologies in 1863 t h huxley argued that man was an evolved species and in 1864 alfred russel wallace combined natural selection with the issue of antiquity the arguments from science for what was then called the great antiquity of man became convincing to most scientists over the following decade the separate debate on the antiquity of man had in effect merged into the larger one on evolution being simply a chronological aspect it has not ended as a discussion however since the current science of human antiquity is still in flux contemporary formulations edit further information recent african origin of modern humans modern science has no single answer to the question of how old humanity is what the question now means indeed depends on choosing genus or species in the required answer it is thought that the genus of man has been around for ten times as long as our species currently fresh examples of extinct species of the genus homo are still being discovered so that definitive answers are not available the consensus view is that human beings are one species the only existing species of the genus with the rejection of polygenism for human origins it is asserted that this species had a definite and single origin in the past that assertion leaves aside the point whether the origin meant is of the current species however the multiregional hypothesis allows the origin to be otherwise the hypothesis of recent african origin of modern humans is now widely accepted and states that anatomically modern humans had a single origin in africa the genus homo is now estimated to be about 2 3 to 2 4 million years old with the appearance of h habilis 1 meaning that the existence of all types of humans has been within the quaternary the spread of homo sapiens from the red area over the last 100 000 years represented with geographical areas for neanderthals ocher and early hominids yellow h sapiens replaced other species of the genus homo over a long period of time once the question is reformulated as dating the transition of the evolution of h sapiens from a precursor species the issue can be refined into two further questions these are the analysis and dating of the evolution of archaic homo sapiens and of the evolution from archaic forms of the species h sapiens sapiens the second question is given an answer in two parts anatomically modern humans are thought to be about 300 000 years old 2 with behavioral modernity dating back to 40 000 3 or 50 000 years ago the first question is still subject to debates on its definition historical debates edit discovering the age of the first human is one facet of anthropogeny the study of human origins and a term dated by the oxford english dictionary to 1839 and the medical dictionary of robert hooper given the history of evolutionary thought and the history of paleontology the question of the antiquity of man became quite natural to ask at around this period it was by no means a new question but it was being asked in a new context of knowledge particularly in comparative anatomy and palaeontology the development of relative dating as a principled method allowed deductions of chronology relative to events tied to fossils and strata this meant though that the issue of the antiquity of man was not separable from other debates of the period on geology and foundations of scientific archaeology the first strong scientific arguments for the antiquity of man as very different from accepted biblical chronology were certainly also strongly controverted those who found the conclusion unacceptable could be expected to examine the whole train of reasoning for weak points this can be seen for example in the systematic theology of charles hodge 1871 3 4 for a period once the scale of geological time had become clear in the 19th century the antiquity of man stood for a theory opposed to the modern origin of man for which arguments of other kinds were put forward the choice was logically independent of monogenism versus polygenism but monogenism with the modern origin implied time scales on the basis of the geographical spread physical differences and cultural diversity of humans the choice was also logically independent of the notion of transmutation of species but that was considered to be a slow process william benjamin carpenter wrote in 1872 of a fixed conviction of the modern origin as the only reason for resisting the human creation of flint implements 5 henry williamson haynes writing in 1880 could call the antiquity of man an established fact 6 theological debates edit the biblical account included the story of the garden of eden and the descent of humans from a single couple the story of the universal biblical flood after which all humans descended from noah and his wife and all animals from those saved in the ark genealogies providing in theory a way of dating events in the old testament see genealogy of the bible these points were debated by scholars as well as theologians biblical literalism was not a given in the medieval and early modern periods for christians or jews human origins and the universal deluge debated edit the flood could explain extinctions of species at that date on the hypothesis that the ark had not contained all species of animal a flood that was not universal on the other hand had implications for the biblical theory of races and noah s sons the theory of catastrophism which was as much secular as theological in attitude could be used in analogous ways noah s ark a stained glass window of the earlier 17th century church of saint étienne du mont in paris there was interest in matters arising from modification of the biblical narrative therefore and it was fuelled by the new knowledge of the world in early modern europe and then by the growth of the sciences one hypothesis was of people not descended from adam this hypothesis of polygenism no unique origin of humans implied nothing on the antiquity of man but the issue was implicated in counter arguments for monogenism la peyrère and the completeness of the biblical account edit isaac la peyrère appealed in formulating his preadamite theory of polygenism to jewish tradition it was intended to be compatible with the biblical creation of man it was rejected by many contemporary theologians 7 8 this idea of humans before adam had been current in earlier christian scholars and those of unorthodox and heretical beliefs la peyrère s significance was his synthesis of the dissent 9 influentially he revived the classical idea of marcus terentius varro preserved in censorinus of a three fold division of historical time into uncertain to a universal flood mythical and historical with certain chronology 10 debate on race edit the biblical narrative had implications for ethnology division into hamitic japhetic and semitic peoples and had its defenders as well as those who felt it made significant omissions matthew hale wrote his primitive origination of mankind 1677 against la peyrère it has been suggested in order to defend the propositions of a young human race and universal flood and the native americans as descended from noah 11 anthony john maas writing in the 1913 catholic encyclopedia commented that pro slavery sentiment indirectly supported the preadamite theories of the middle of the 19th century 8 the antiquity of man found support in the opposed theories of monogenism of this time that justified abolitionism by discrediting scientific racism already in the 18th century polygenism was applied as a theory of race see scientific racism blumenbach and buffon a variant racist preadamism was introduced in particular by reginald stuart poole the genesis of the earth and of man london 1860 and dominic m causland adam and the adamite or the harmony of scripture and ethnology london 1864 they followed the views of samuel george morton josiah c nott george gliddon and louis agassiz and maintained that adam was the progenitor of the caucasian race while the other races descended from preadamite ancestry 8 james cowles prichard english quaker ethnologist and defender of biblical monogenism james cowles prichard argued against polygenism wishing to support the account drawn from the book of genesis of a single human origin in particular he argued that humans were one species using the interfertility criterion of hybridity 12 by his use of a form of natural selection to argue for change of human skin colour as a historical process he also implied a time scale long enough for such a process to have produced the observed differences 13 incompatible views of chronology edit the early christian church contested claims that pagan traditions were older than that of the bible theophilus of antioch and augustine of hippo both argued against egyptian views that the world was at least 100 000 years old this figure was too high to be compatible with biblical chronology 14 one of la peyrère s propositions that china was at least 10 000 years old gained wider currency 15 martino martini had provided details of traditional chinese chronology from which it was deduced by isaac vossius that noah s flood was local rather than universal 16 one of the considerations detected in la peyrère by otto zöckler was concern with the antipodes and their people were they pre adamites or indeed had there been a second adam of the antipodes 17 in a 19th century sequel alfred russel wallace in an 1867 book review pointed to the pacific islanders as posing a problem for those holding both to monogenism and a recent date for human origins in other words he took migration from an original location to remote islands that are now populated to imply a long time scale 18 a significant consequence of the recognition of the antiquity of man was the greater scope for conjectural history in particular for all aspects of diffusionism and social evolutionism 19 creation of man in a world not ready edit while extinction of species came with the development of geology to be widely accepted in the early 19th century there was resistance on theological grounds to extinctions after the creation of man it was argued in particular in the 1820s and 1830s that man would not be created into an imperfect world as far as design of its collection of species was concerned this reasoning cut across that which was conclusive for the science of the antiquity of man a generation later 20 archaeological context edit the late 18th century was a period in which french and german caves were explored and remains taken for study 21 caving was in fashion if speleology was only in its infancy and the st beatus caves for example attracted many visitors caves were a theme of the art of the time also 22 waterfall seen from a cave in solothurn switzerland engraving of the later 18th century cave remains proved of great importance to the science of the antiquity of man stalagmite formation was a clearcut mechanism of formation of fossils and its stratigraphy could be understood other sites of importance were associated with alluvial deposits of gravel and clay or peat the early example of the gray s inn lane hand axe was from gravel in a bed of a tributary of the river thames but remained isolated for about a century palaeolithic pierced baton spear thrower from kesslerloch cave thayngen switzerland the three age system was in place from about 1820 in the form given to it by christian jürgensen thomsen in his work on the collections that became the national museum of denmark he published his ideas in 1836 13 postulating cultural change in itself and without explaining a rate of change did not generate reasons to revise traditional chronology 23 but the concept of stone age artifacts became current thomsen s book in danish ledetraad til nordisk oldkyndighed was translated into german leitfaden zur nordischen alterthumskunde 1837 and english guide to northern archæology 1848 24 25 john frere s 1797 discovery of the hoxne handaxe 26 helped to initiate the 19th century debate 27 but it started in earnest around 1810 28 there were then a number of false starts relating to different european sites william buckland misjudged what he had found in 1823 with the misnamed red lady of paviland and explained away the mammoth remains with the find 29 he also was dismissive of the kent s cavern findings of john macenery in the later 1820s in 1829 philippe charles schmerling discovered a neanderthal fossil skull at engis at that point however its significance was not recognised and rudolf virchow consistently opposed the theory that it was very old the 1847 book antiquités celtiques et antediluviennes by boucher de perthes about saint acheul was found unconvincing in its presentation until it was reconsidered about a decade later page showing flint implements from guide to northern archæology 1848 english translation by francis egerton 1st earl of ellesmere from the danish ledetraad til nordisk oldkyndighed 1836 of christian jürgensen thomsen the debate moved on only in the context of further stone tools that were admitted to be made by stone age man found on sites where the stratigraphy could be argued to be clear and undisturbed with remains of animals that were in the consensus of palaeontologists now extinct it was this combination extinct faunal remains human artifacts that provided the evidence that came to be seen as crucial a sudden acceleration of research was seen from mid 1858 when the geological society set up a cave committee besides hugh falconer who had pressed for it the committee comprised charles lyell richard owen william pengelly joseph prestwich and andrew ramsay 30 debate on uniformity and change edit main article uniformitarianism on the one hand lack of uniformity in prehistory is what gave science traction on the question of the antiquity of man and on the other hand there were at the time theories that tended to rule out certain types of lack of regularity john lubbock outlined in 1890 the way the antiquity of man had in his time been established as derived from change in prehistory in fauna geography and climate 31 the hypotheses required to establish that these changes were ...
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