In the history textbook of junior high school, we learned that the first civilization era that human beings entered was called the Stone Age, and the biggest feature was the beginning of all kinds of stone tools. Modern anthropology believes that learning to make stone tools is a sign from apes to people, as long as it enters the stone civilization, it means that the brain of this creature has been very developed, can build simple small tribes, by making weapons and traps to hunt animals, on the road of the spirit of all things.
Tips: Stone Age, a time period assumed by archaeologists, is an archaeological term. It is divided into Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic.
The ancestor of mankind, Australopithecus, mastered the ability to make stone tools about 2.5 million years ago, and since then has embarked on the road of opening and hanging, deriving many subspecies of the family, and finally only the winner is us. Who would have thought that a small act of smashing stones back then would actually lead to such a magnificent civilization epic?
Tips: Australopithecus, an extinct genus of hominins. is a late representative of a man in the making. It lived between 5.5 million and 1.3 million years ago.
How would you feel if someone told you that there is another monkey in this world that has entered the stone civilization? Could it be that the plot in the movie "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" really has to be staged in reality? In the future, will this kind of monkey replace humans and become the spirit of all things?
Scientists claim Panamanian monkeys entered the Stone Age?
In mid-2018, news that "Panamanian white-faced capuchins enter the Stone Age" began circulating online, with some headlines accompanied by sensational subtitles such as "Scientists Worried," as if there was a war with the monkeys tomorrow. So are these monkeys really as powerful as rumors?
Tips: Capuchin monkeys, also known as white-headed capri-tails, white-faced capri-tailed monkeys or white-throated capuchin monkeys, are small New World monkeys named for the same length and body length as the tail, and the end of the tail is curled into a circle.
Back in 2004, scientists visited a small island in Panama and found that the local white-faced capytail monkeys were rocking nuts. This surprised scientists, chimpanzees and other apes have long been familiar with the use of tools, after all, chimpanzees' brain capacity is about 420 ml, which is very close to our ancestor Australopithecus, it is difficult to be smart. However, the brain volume of monkeys is generally around 300 milliliters, and although brain capacity is not a key factor in determining IQ, it is generally believed that monkeys are not as smart as chimpanzees. But capuchins around the world are much more clever at using stones than chimpanzees.
The white-faced capuchin monkeys living in South America are very fond of eating the seeds of a palm plant, but their pointed teeth cannot bite the hard shell of the seed, and in order to eat their beloved food, they have developed a nut shelling process. First, they gnaw off the fibrous skin on the outside of the seed with their teeth, then expose the seed to the sun, and when the shell is dry and brittle, the capuchin monkey will put it in the groove of the stone or trunk and smash it with a stone to eat it deliciously.
Tips: Nut is a category of nuts with a hard skin and containing 1 or more seeds. Such as chestnut, almond and other fruits. Nuts are the essence of plants, generally rich in nutrients, and have excellent effects on human growth and development, enhancing physical fitness, and preventing diseases.
This series of complex processes is not a monkey's instinct, but an acquired skill, and a small capuchin monkey usually has to imitate an adult monkey for seven or eight years to become a seed smashing master. Scientists have been following for a year and found that these capuchin monkeys spend a lot of time on the work of selecting stones, they will carefully classify and collect stones, they will also communicate with simple calls, and they can walk on two feet for a short time, far more intelligent than other monkeys.
Most interestingly, scientists once excavated a 3,000-year-old site in Brazil, where many carefully collected stones were found. However, these stones were not left by the ancients, but were forgotten by the ancient capuchin monkeys. This shows that capuchins have learned to use stones for at least 3,000 years.
Tips: Imitation refers to the process by which an individual consciously or unconsciously repeats the actions of others. It is one of the important forms of social learning. Especially in children, the formation and development of children's movements, language, skills, behavioral habits, qualities, etc. are inseparable from imitation.
After these research results were reported, they immediately attracted the attention of the media, and everyone was accompanied by exaggerated headlines saying that monkeys had entered the Stone Age and that the status of humans was seriously threatened. But is that really the case?
This also deserves to be called the Stone Age?
A group of monkeys learned to stone nuts, is it really worthy of the Stone Age? Are these shouting marketing numbers too much to look down on the ancestors of Homo erectus 2.5 million years ago? In nature, there are too many animals that learn to use simple tools. Chimpanzees, for example, also hit them with stones and stick into ant holes to catch ants to eat. In addition, crows also use wooden sticks, and after observing humans feeding ornamental fish for a long time, some crows have also learned to throw breadcrumbs into the water to fish and eat.
Tips: The Crow Drinks Water is an Aesop fable. By telling the story of a crow drinking water. Tell people not to give up when they encounter difficulties, and to use whatever is available to them to help themselves.
More famous examples are sea otters, whose favorite food is sea urchins. In order to break the hard shell of sea urchins, they will float on their backs to the sea, place a fist-sized stone on their chest, pick up the sea urchin and smash it upwards. Even the toothfish learned to use hard coral fragments to clam. Whether birds, fish, or primates, there are too many animals that use simple tools.
Tips: Sea urchin Echinoidea, a family of echinoderms, is a group of invertebrates that live in shallow waters of the ocean. The main feature is that the body is spherical, disc-shaped, or heart-shaped, and has no wrist.
If the above animals that can use tools can be called civilization, then there are too many animals in nature that should enter the Stone Age, or even the "Coral Age". The threshold of what we call the Stone Age is not as low as it is now.
What is the Stone Age?
The Stone Age is a generic term in human archaeology. After the Stone Age, humans unlocked metal smelting technology and began an agrarian civilization. In this, even in the rudimentary Paleolithic period, the technology of human ancestors is stronger than these monkeys that have evolved for millions of years.
Tips: Smelting is a refining technique that refers to the extraction of metals from ores by roasting, smelting, electrolysis, and the use of chemical agents.
In the Paleolithic era, the ancients did not just use stones to smash nuts, but invented stone tools. It is made of siliceous rocks such as flint as raw materials, and is made by knocking stones on each other, and the rocks crack to form a shell-like sharp peeling mouth to make a sharp cutting surface. This is a real technical job, handed over to modern people a pile of flint, without anyone to supervise the professor, it is difficult to make qualified stone tools. And at this time, the types of stone tools have been very rich, which can be divided into five types: pointed tools, scrapers, chopping tools, carvers, and ball tools.
Among them, the pointed device is a two-edged or three-edged pointed device, which can be used to punch holes or as an arrowhead. A scraper is similar to a blade and can be used for fine cutting. Choppers are also a general term for tools such as stone axes, which can be used to cut trees, smash animal bones and so on. Carvers, on the other hand, are small stone tools specially used to carve wood. As for the ball, its use has not been fully clarified so far, and it is only preliminary speculation that it may be a stone bullet weapon used for projection.
Tips: Fint, commonly known as flint, is a more common siliceous rock, flint is dense, hard, mostly gray, black, after breaking with a shell-like fracture.
From the above descriptions, we can see that the ancients were already finishing wood at this time. They can already hunt large animals with weapons such as spears, and can make various household items from wood, such as bamboo baskets, which may have been learned since the Paleolithic period. It's just that things like wood can't be preserved for a long time, so only stone tools are left, which is called the Stone Age.
What's more, at this time, the ancients had learned to use fire, eat barbecue and sing songs every day, and the days were called leisurely and happy. In the Mesolithic Age, the ancients used polished stone tools, and the types of patterns were more complicated, and they also learned to process jade bone tools and began to cultivate artistic cells. And after a long period of contact with fire, people also slowly learned to make pottery.
Tips: Drilling wood for fire, refers to the hardwood rod rubbing against the wood or drilling in, relying on friction to make fire. The Flintstones, who live in the forest, often prey on wild beasts and often produce sparks when the stones that hit the beasts collide with mountain rocks.
In fact, in the process of moving from ape to man, learning to use fire is the most critical part of evolution. In the eyes of modern people who are accustomed to kitchen stoves, cooking on a fire seems to be a trivial matter. But if you told you that humans are the animals that spend the least time on eating of all primates, how would you feel?
Some people may say, this is not right, I keep snacking all day long, my mouth is not idle, how can it be used in the shortest time. In fact, touch your own round belly, and you must have the answer in your heart. You are just gluttonous, not only full of food, but also a lot of time to accumulate excess fat, while other animals are really hungry.
Tips: The process of converting starch, protein, fat and other macromolecular substances in food into small molecules that can be dissolved in water under the action of digestive enzymes is called digestion.
An animal that has not learned to use fire, wants to digest food, especially meat protein, it takes a lot of time, and the absorption rate of energy is also very low, so even if you eat enough every time, you still can't meet the body's energy consumption. So they always wait for the last meal to empty in the stomach, and immediately start eating, either waiting for the stomach to empty or on the way to find food. Moreover, there are not many tools to improve efficiency, predation is very inefficient, and if the natural resources of the habitat are reduced, it is immediately at risk of extinction. In this state, creatures really have no leisure to create more labor value, will not be bored to sit on the ground, think about a thousand uses of sticks, brain power is simply not fully developed.
Tips: Pottery is a utensil made of clay or clay that has been kneaded into shape and fired. Pottery has a long history, and simple and rough pottery was first seen in the Neolithic period.
Only when humans master the use of fire, eat exquisite cooked food, and eat a full meal for half a day without hunger, can they have enough time to develop their brains. In "A Brief History of Mankind", the author Yuval also believes that the development of human language ability is related to the ancients sitting idle and gossiping together. Without time for small talk, humans may be as socially boring as monkeys, with nothing but food and reproduction.
And most importantly, the use of fire reduces the burden on the human digestive system, so that the teeth and occlusal muscles gradually degenerate, making more space for the brain, weakening the intestinal capacity, and allowing us to supply more energy to the brain, we become higher intelligent creatures. Therefore, knowing how to use stones is really not very special, learning to use fire is the true light of wisdom.
Tips: Studies have shown that in the development process from ape brain to human brain, the language area of the brain is expanding little by little, from dot to piece, from piece to large area of the combination of piece.
You say, these monkeys, how can He De be worthy of the Stone Age? When the white-faced capuchin monkeys sing songs next to the fire and weave bamboo baskets with small stone knives, you marketing numbers will make up lies that "scientists are very worried".
epilogue
Seeing this, I believe that everyone has understood that the wisdom of the Panama Capuchin is far from the level of civilization, and scientists' reports on it will only use stones, not exaggerated Stone Age. In fact, to say which animals on Earth are most likely to evolve intelligence, it is still necessary to look at bonobos. It is the most intelligent animal on Earth besides humans, and in some ways even surpasses humans. American scientists once trained a bonobobo named "Panbanisha", which has shown more intelligence than many people imagined.
Tips: Bonobos are one of two animals in the genus Chimpanzee, with a body length of 70-83 cm and a weight of 30-45 kg. Similar in appearance to chimpanzees, but they are more upright, docile, less angry, less noisy, and more peace-loving than chimpanzees.
Although it can't read or write, it has learned the meaning of more than 3,000 English words, and can communicate briefly with researchers through a computer touchscreen. However, this communication is not as evil as the outside world rumors, it only recognizes individual words, but does not combine these words into a single sentence. For example, it will point to the words "I" and "apple" to express its wishes, but it will not express sentences such as "I want to eat apples". Nouns are very easy to understand for it, but words such as predicate adverbs that require abstract thinking to understand are not within its comprehension.
Tips: Regardless of short-term memory, Panbanisha outperforms humans. It can memorize the 9 numbers flashed on the computer screen in 60 milliseconds and memorize them in order, and if it gives people 60 milliseconds, I am afraid that they will not even be able to react.
In addition, according to research, bonobos have human-like emotional expressions and can even be taught to cook with fire. However, this is still too far from the Stone Age. Even if one of the bonobos mastered the skill of using fire and did not have the complex skills of language transmission, they would not be able to pass on their knowledge to future generations and build more complex civilizations. What's more, now that the earth has been exploited on a large scale by humans, the space left for other animals is too small. So, unless humans disappear for some other reason, and other animals have enough time and space to develop their own brains, there's absolutely no need to worry.