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The human brain has grown as a result of the extinction of large animals

 


A new paper by Dr. Miki Bendall and Professor Ran Barkai of the Faculty of Archeology, Tel Aviv University, gives a unique and unified explanation of the physiological, behavioral and cultural evolution of mankind from its first appearance. Proposed about 2 million years ago, until the Agricultural Revolution (around 10,000 BC).

According to the treatise, humans grew up as large animal hunters and eventually became extinct. As they adapted to hunt small, fast prey animals, humans developed higher cognitive abilities. This is also evident in the most obvious evolutionary change, the increase in brain volume from 650cc to 1,500cc. To date, no unified explanation has been proposed for the major prehistoric phenomena of humans. The novel theory was published in the Quaternary Journal.

In recent years, there is evidence that humans have been a major contributor to the extinction of large animals, and as a result, had to adapt to hunting smaller games, first in Africa and later in all other parts of the world. It is accumulating more and more. In Africa 2.6 million years ago, when humans first appeared, the average size of land mammals was close to 500 kg. Just before the start of agriculture, this figure dropped by more than 90% to tens of kilograms.

According to researchers, the reduction in game size and the need to hunt small, fast animals forced humans to show cunning and boldness-demanding an increase in the amount of the human brain, and later language. Evolutionary process that enables the development of the exchange of information about where the prey is. Theory argues that all means served one purpose: saving the body’s energy.

Researchers have shown that, throughout most of their evolution, early humans were top predators specializing in big-game hunting. Representing most of the biomass available for hunting, these animals provided humans with high fat levels, an essential source of energy, and enabled higher energy returns than small games. In the past, six species of elephants lived in Africa, accounting for more than half of the biomass of all herbivores hunted by humans. First evidence from East Africa shows that Homo sapiens appeared only in a particular area after a significant reduction in the number of elephant species. Comparing the sizes of animals found in archaeological cultures representing different types of humans in East Africa, Southern Europe and Israel, researchers found that in all cases the prevalence of animals weighing over 200 kg was significantly higher. Decreased volume of the human brain.

“We correlate the increase in the amount of the human brain with the need to be smarter hunters,” explains Dr. Bendall. For example, the need to hunt dozens of gazelle instead of one elephant puts long-term evolutionary pressure on human brain function, and humans consume far more energy in both motor and thinking processes. was doing. Hunting small animals that fly very fast requires physiology adapted for tracking and more sophisticated hunting tools, as they are constantly threatened by predators. Cognitive activity is also enhanced because rapid tracking requires rapid decision-making, based on incredible knowledge of animal behavior. Information should be stored in larger memory. “

Human evolutionary adaptation has been very successful, “says Dr. Bendall. “As the size of animals continued to decline, the invention of bows and arrows and the tame of dogs allowed for more efficient hunting of medium and small animals until these populations also declined, at the end of the Stone Age. Towards, as animals became smaller, humans had to spend more energy on hunting than they could regain. Indeed, this is agriculture, including domestication of both animals and plants. It was a time of revolution. When humans moved to settlements and became farmers, their brain size decreased to the current 1300 to 1400 cc. This is because domesticated animals and plants do not fly, so hunting It happened because we no longer had to assign good cognitive abilities to the task. “

Professor Barkai: “For example, the chimpanzee’s brain has been stable for 7 million years, but the human brain has tripled and reached its maximum size about 300,000 years ago, in addition to its volume. Due to the pressure of evolution, humans use sophisticated tools such as language, fire, bows and arrows to adapt to the task of throwing and throwing arms and shoulders, adapting the body to long-term tracking, and improving stone tools. And domesticated dogs, and finally the game itself, domesticated and turned to agriculture. “

Professor Balkai adds: “We need to understand that our point of view is not deterministic. Humans have brought this problem to themselves. By focusing on hunting the largest animals, they have caused extinction. Wherever humans appeared, whether Homo erectus or Homo sapiens, sooner or later there was a mass extinction of large animals. Reliance on large animals came at a cost. But other species, such as our cousin Neanderthal, became extinct when their large prey disappeared, but Homo sapiens now relies on agriculture from the beginning. I decided to start over. “

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