Butovskaya M. L. Power, gender and reproductive success UDC 39 BBK 63.5 B 93 Butovskaya M. L. Power, gender and reproductive success. - Fryazino: “Vek 2”, 2005. - 64 p. - (Science Today). ISBN 5–85099–152–2 On the cover: Francesco Hayes “The New Darling”. ISBN 5–85099–152–2© “Century 2”.

Humans and primates, evolutionary anthropology

Marina Lvovna Butovskaya(born June 27, Cherkassy, ​​Ukraine) - Russian ethologist, anthropologist, Doctor of Historical Sciences, professor.

Biography

Main works

Monographs

• At the origins of human society / RAS. Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology named after. Miklouho-Maclay. M.: Nauka, 1993. 255 p.
• Butovskaya M. L. Language of the body. Nature and culture (evolutionary and cross-cultural foundations of human nonverbal communication). M.: Scientific world, 2004. 437 p. ISBN 5-89176-240-4.
• Butovskaya M. L. Secrets of gender. Man and woman in the mirror of evolution. Fryazino: Vek-2, 2004. 367 p. ISBN 5-85099-148-4.
• Butovskaya M. L., Deryagina M. A. Systematics and behavior of primates. M.: Encyclopedia of Russian Villages, 2004. 272 ​​p.
• Butovskaya M. L., Burkova V. N., Timenchik V. M., Boyko E. Yu. Aggression and peaceful coexistence: universal mechanisms for controlling social tension in humans. M.: Scientific world, 2006. 275 p. ISBN 5-89176-349-4.
• Butovskaya M. L.. M.: Iz-vo "Vek 2", 2013.

Articles

• Butovskaya M. L. The evolution of group behavior of primates as a prerequisite for anthroposociogenesis // Soviet ethnography. 1987. No. 1.
• Butovskaya M. L., Fainberg L. A. Ethology of primates (textbook). M.: Moscow State University Publishing House, 1992. 190 p.
• Butovskaya M. L. Sexual dimorphism in the social behavior of brown macaques (in connection with the evolution of hominid behavior) // Woman in the aspect of physical anthropology. M., 1994. S. 102-109.
• Butovskaya M. L., Plyusnin Yu. M. Principles of organization of spatial behavior in humans and higher primates (comparative analysis) // Modern anthropology and genetics and the problem of races in humans / Ed. I. M. Zolotareva, G. A. Aksyanova. M.: IEA RAS, 1995. P. 91-143.
• Butovskaya M. L. Biology of gender, culture and sex-role stereotypes of behavior in children / Family, gender, culture. M., 1996.
• Butovskaya M. L. Formation of gender stereotypes in children: sociocultural and sociobiological paradigm - dialogue or new confrontation? // Ethnographic review. 1997. No. 4. P. 104-122.
• Butovskaya M. L., Artemova O. Yu., Arsenina O. I. Gender-role stereotypes among children of Central Russia in modern conditions // Ethnographic Review. 1998. No. 1. P. 104-120.
• Butovskaya M. L. Aggression and reconciliation as a manifestation of sociality in primates and humans // Social sciences and modernity. 1998. No. 6. P. 149-160.
• Butovskaya M. L. Evolution of man and his social structure // Nature. 1998. No. 9. pp. 87-99.
• Butovskaya M. L. The Evolution of Human Behavior: The Relationship Between the Biological and the Social // Anthropology. 2000. V. 38. No. 2.
• Butovskaya M. L., Korotayev A. V., Kazankov A. A. Variabilité des relations sociales chez les primates humains et non humains: à la recherche d "un paradigme général // Primatologie. 2000. V. 3. P. 319–363.
• Butovskaya M. L., Guchinova E. Men and Women in Contemporary Kalmykia: Traditional Gender Stereotypes and Reality // Inner Asia, 2001, N.3 p. 61-71.
• Butovskaya M. L., Boyko E. Y., Selverova N. B., Ermakova I. V. The hormonal basis of reconciliation in humans // J. Physiol. Anthropol. Appl. Human. Sci., 2005, 24 (4), p. 333-337. ()
• Butovskaya M. L., Mabulla A. Hadza in conditions of intercultural interaction: features of social behavior of children and adolescents studying at school in the village of Endomaga // / Responsible. ed. A. V. Korotaev, E. B. Demintseva. M.: Institute for African Studies RAS, 2007. pp. 138-167.

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Links

• Online
• on the RSUH website
• on the website of the Faculty of History of Moscow State University
• on the website "Chronicle of Moscow University"
• on the website "Ethology"
• on the PostScience website
• on the website of the magazine "Skepticism"
• // “Russian Reporter”, No. 16, 2008
• on Radio Liberty
• (from the series of public lectures “Polit.ru”)

An excerpt characterizing Butovskaya, Marina Lvovna

Princess Marya, sitting in the living room and listening to these talk and gossip of the old people, did not understand anything of what she heard; she only thought about whether all the guests noticed her father’s hostile attitude towards her. She did not even notice the special attention and courtesies that Drubetskoy, who had been in their house for the third time, showed her throughout this dinner.
Princess Marya, with an absent-minded, questioning look, turned to Pierre, who, the last of the guests, with a hat in his hand and a smile on his face, approached her after the prince had left, and they alone remained in the living room.
-Can we sit still? - he said, throwing his fat body into a chair next to Princess Marya.
“Oh yes,” she said. “Didn’t you notice anything?” said her look.
Pierre was in a pleasant, post-dinner state of mind. He looked ahead and smiled quietly.
“How long have you known this young man, princess?” - he said.
- Which one?
- Drubetsky?
- No, recently...
- What do you like about him?
- Yes, he is a nice young man... Why are you asking me this? - said Princess Marya, continuing to think about her morning conversation with her father.
“Because I made an observation, a young man usually comes from St. Petersburg to Moscow on vacation only for the purpose of marrying a rich bride.
– You made this observation! - said Princess Marya.
“Yes,” Pierre continued with a smile, “and this young man now behaves in such a way that where there are rich brides, there he is.” It’s like I’m reading it from a book. He is now undecided who to attack: you or mademoiselle Julie Karagin. Il est tres assidu aupres d'elle. [He is very attentive to her.]
– Does he go to them?
- Very often. And do you know a new style of grooming? - Pierre said with a cheerful smile, apparently in that cheerful spirit of good-natured ridicule, for which he so often reproached himself in his diary.
“No,” said Princess Marya.
- Now, in order to please Moscow girls - il faut etre melancolique. Et il est tres melancolique aupres de m lle Karagin, [one must be melancholic. And he is very melancholy with m elle Karagin,” said Pierre.
- Vraiment? [Really?] - said Princess Marya, looking into Pierre’s kind face and never ceasing to think about her grief. “It would be easier for me,” she thought, if I decided to trust someone with everything I feel. And I would like to tell Pierre everything. He is so kind and noble. It would make me feel better. He would give me advice!”
– Would you marry him? asked Pierre.
“Oh, my God, Count, there are moments when I would marry anyone,” Princess Marya suddenly said to herself, with tears in her voice. “Oh, how hard it can be to love a loved one and feel that... nothing (she continued in a trembling voice) you can’t do for him except grief, when you know that you can’t change it.” Then one thing is to leave, but where should I go?...
- What are you, what’s wrong with you, princess?
But the princess, without finishing, began to cry.
– I don’t know what’s wrong with me today. Don't listen to me, forget what I told you.
All Pierre's gaiety disappeared. He anxiously questioned the princess, asked her to express everything, to confide in him her grief; but she only repeated that she asked him to forget what she said, that she did not remember what she said, and that she had no grief other than the one he knew - the grief that Prince Andrei’s marriage threatens to quarrel with his father son.
– Have you heard about the Rostovs? – she asked to change the conversation. - I was told that they would be here soon. I also wait for Andre every day. I would like them to see each other here.
– How does he look at this matter now? - Pierre asked, by which he meant the old prince. Princess Marya shook her head.
- But what to do? There are only a few months left until the year ends. And this cannot be. I would only like to spare my brother the first minutes. I wish they would come sooner. I hope to get along with her. “You have known them for a long time,” said Princess Marya, “tell me, hand on heart, the whole true truth, what kind of girl is this and how do you find her?” But the whole truth; because, you understand, Andrei is risking so much by doing this against his father’s will that I would like to know...
A vague instinct told Pierre that these reservations and repeated requests to tell the whole truth expressed Princess Marya’s ill will towards her future daughter-in-law, that she wanted Pierre not to approve of Prince Andrei’s choice; but Pierre said what he felt rather than thought.
“I don’t know how to answer your question,” he said, blushing, without knowing why. “I absolutely don’t know what kind of girl this is; I can't analyze it at all. She's charming. Why, I don’t know: that’s all that can be said about her. “Princess Marya sighed and the expression on her face said: “Yes, I expected and was afraid of this.”
– Is she smart? - asked Princess Marya. Pierre thought about it.
“I think not,” he said, “but yes.” She doesn't deserve to be smart... No, she's charming, and nothing more. – Princess Marya again shook her head disapprovingly.
- Oh, I so want to love her! You will tell her this if you see her before me.
“I heard that they will be there one of these days,” said Pierre.
Princess Marya told Pierre her plan about how, as soon as the Rostovs arrived, she would become close to her future daughter-in-law and try to accustom the old prince to her.

Boris did not succeed in marrying a rich bride in St. Petersburg and he came to Moscow for the same purpose. In Moscow, Boris was indecisive between the two richest brides - Julie and Princess Marya. Although Princess Marya, despite her ugliness, seemed more attractive to him than Julie, for some reason he felt awkward courting Bolkonskaya. On her last meeting with her, on the old prince’s name day, to all his attempts to talk to her about feelings, she answered him inappropriately and obviously did not listen to him.
Julie, on the contrary, although in a special way peculiar to her, willingly accepted his courtship.
Julie was 27 years old. After the death of her brothers, she became very rich. She was now completely ugly; but I thought that she was not only just as good, but even much more attractive than she was before. She was supported in this delusion by the fact that, firstly, she became a very rich bride, and secondly, that the older she became, the safer she was for men, the freer it was for men to treat her and, without taking on any obligations, take advantage of her dinners, evenings and the lively company that gathered at her place. A man who ten years ago would have been afraid to go every day to the house where there was a 17-year-old young lady, so as not to compromise her and tie himself down, now went to her boldly every day and treated her not as a young bride, but as a acquaintance who has no gender.
The Karagins' house was the most pleasant and hospitable house in Moscow that winter. In addition to parties and dinners, every day a large company gathered at the Karagins, especially men, who dined at 12 o'clock in the morning and stayed until 3 o'clock. There was no ball, party, or theater that Julie missed. Her toilets were always the most fashionable. But, despite this, Julie seemed disappointed in everything, telling everyone that she did not believe in friendship, nor in love, nor in any joys of life, and expected peace only there. She adopted the tone of a girl who had suffered great disappointment, a girl as if she had lost a loved one or had been cruelly deceived by him. Although nothing of the sort happened to her, they looked at her as if she were one, and she herself even believed that she had suffered a lot in life. This melancholy, which did not prevent her from having fun, did not prevent the young people who visited her from having a pleasant time. Each guest, coming to them, paid his debt to the melancholy mood of the hostess and then engaged in small talk, dancing, mental games, and Burime tournaments, which were in fashion with the Karagins. Only some young people, including Boris, delved deeper into Julie’s melancholic mood, and with these young people she had longer and more private conversations about the vanity of everything worldly, and to them she opened her albums covered with sad images, sayings and poems.

Modern Western society pays a lot of attention to gender issues. Sex, erotica, and romantic love have been and remain the most popular themes in feature films, soap operas, talk shows, radio programs, novels and short stories. Sex scandals and family life of celebrities do not leave the front pages of major magazines and newspapers. Lust for love and sexual addictions have caused the collapse of more than one political career. Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, Dominic Struskan and an unknown hotel maid, Silvio Berlusconi and an underage model - this list could be continued for quite a long time. Relations between the sexes structure not only family life, but also the social community.

Tons of scientific and popular literature are devoted to the issues of sex education and gender-specific attitudes to the development of a child literally from the first days of his birth. No less has been written about the conflict between parents and children, between representatives of different generations. Psychologists, sociologists, teachers and educators offer different approaches and techniques that allow spouses to live peacefully with each other, and for parents to find a common language with their children, thereby ensuring family well-being. Numerous government and public organizations are making every effort to combat domestic violence, abuse of women, illegal trafficking of children and women, and pedophilia. However, crime statistics remain disappointing: the number of sexual crimes is not decreasing, and along with wife beating, statistics record an increased number of injuries and mutilations inflicted on men by their regular partners in the heat of family squabbles.

Why is modern man, who has mastered nuclear energy and provided communication with the most remote corners of the earth using the Internet and mobile phones, still powerless to control relations in society? Why does human sexuality create so many problems, invading literally every area of ​​everyday life?

The phenomenon of gender is fraught with a lot of mysteries. Until recently, it seemed obvious that upbringing can radically influence an individual’s life attitudes. Today we know that this is far from the case. Many characteristics of human behavior are predetermined within the framework of evolved intraspecific strategies. Until recently, the very idea that psychological attitudes and taste preferences in choosing sexual partners are significantly determined by the innate characteristics of the male and female body was considered seditious.

A hundred years ago, the mere suggestion of differences in the mental activity of men and women caused a storm of protests and caustic irony among Democrats. Today we know that the brain is formed in the early stages of fetal development, and differences in brain structure have a significant impact on individual psychological characteristics. The growing avalanche of facts and results of laboratory experiments conducted by ethologists, evolutionary psychologists, economists and sociologists not only does not refute, but, on the contrary, adds even more surprising examples to the long list of differences in male and female behavior.

A hundred years ago, the question of gender was resolved by a simple examination of the external structure of the genital organs. Today it has become absolutely clear that gender is a complex phenomenon: there is genetic sex, hormonal sex, sex based on the structure of the brain, sex based on internal and external morphological characteristics, and so on. If in the 19th century a woman was seen as an underdeveloped man, today we are talking about the female gender being the basic one. Recently, there have even been curious reports that humanity is gradually losing the Y chromosome (that is, this chromosome is shortening in size over time). It’s time to remember the myth of the Amazons. The alarm, however, turned out to be in vain: other researchers soon proved that the stronger sex was not in danger of extinction. To a 19th-century person, stories about the spontaneous transformation of a girl into a man would seem like a curious tale. We now know that this is possible, and it doesn't require any magic.

In this book we will look in detail at the phenomenon of sexual selection in the past and present. It will be shown that life strategies and their trajectories depend on the psychophysiological state of the body, a set of motivations, momentary conditions, and networks of social connections. Our brain is “not a blank slate or a blank, but a coloring book with instructions “what to do” that got there even before we were born... This is not one active “I”, but a whole set of sometimes the most disparate subtypes of “I”, each of which performs various and very important tasks..." ( Kenrick, 2012).

Human ethology in combination with evolutionary psychology proposes to consider the phenomenon of gender and human behavior associated with it as the result of millions of years of evolution of hominins (the predecessors of modern humans), and in some cases to consider the basic strategies of male and female sex in the broader context of the entire animal kingdom.

This book will tell the reader about what gender is, how it is formed in the process of evolution; what are the advantages of sexual reproduction; why conflicts inevitably arise between the sexes; how these conflicts are resolved in animals and humans; why selection contributes to the formation of certain sexual preferences and stereotypes of male and female beauty; why women predominantly prefer to marry wealthier and higher-status men, and they, in turn, look for young and outwardly more attractive partners; why the interests of male and female parents do not always coincide; why men fight and women keep house; and much more.

The book is based on materials from many years of field research by the author, conducted in Russia, France, Germany, Tanzania, Zambia, Rwanda, Uganda, as well as the work of domestic and foreign researchers.

First of all, let’s define the semantic component of the concepts "floor" (sex) And "gender" (gender) and terms directly related to them. In English-language literature, the concepts of “gender” and “sex” are defined by one word “sex”. In Russian, the word “gender” implies the categories “man” and “woman”, defined on the basis of anatomical components. It was in this sense that the word “sex” was understood in English literature until the mid-19th century. At the end of the 19th century, the meaning of this word expanded somewhat, and it began to be used to refer to the anatomy of the genital organs, their functions, as well as the differences between men and women. By the middle of the 20th century, they began to use it to mean sexual behavior and sexual attractiveness. This word has come to mean not only a category, but also a phenomenon as such and the process associated with it. As the word "sex" came to be used to mean "coitus", it took on a "dirty" connotation, and the term "gender" was coined to refer to the cognitive, behavioral and personality characteristics that differ between men and women. Subsequently, as the word “sex” in the meaning of intercourse became widespread in everyday use, there was a tendency to use the word “gender” as a euphemism for the original meaning of the word “sex.” All of the above must be taken into account when familiarizing yourself with the literature devoted to the study of sex and gender.

Biological sex

Biological sex is a morphofunctional characteristic of an organism, including its specific reproductive characteristics and properties by which males can be distinguished from females. Biological sex is based on genes that determine the sexual differentiation of the body, gonads (sex glands), sex hormones, internal and external genitalia. Biological characteristics also include sexual dimorphism of body structures, in particular, the neuroanatomy of the brain. Hormonal, neuroanatomical and morphological sexual characteristics influence the psychology and behavior of their carriers. In recent years, many works have appeared written in the vein of evolutionary anthropology, human ethology and evolutionary psychology, proposing to take into account biological differences between the sexes when discussing human behavior.

The human ancestry now dates back 4.4 million years, although the candidate for its founder has not been firmly identified. This does not interfere, however, with attempts to understand when and why our distant ancestors “got on their feet,” learned to make and use tools, acquired the “gift of speech,” what the communities of ancestral people were like and on what they were built.

FEW scientific problems have been discussed as long and emotionally as the problem of human origins. Among those discussing this issue, there are those who argue that man and his ancestry have nothing in common with other forms of life on Earth, others believe in an act of divine creation. But every year anthropology, and mainly paleoanthropology, provides more and more scientific evidence of the consistent evolution of the human race, lasting millions of years. For more than a century, researchers have been searching for the "lost link" - a form that directly branched off from a common ancestor with African apes. Anthropologists argue about which of these monkeys - chimpanzees, bonobos (in Russian literature it is called the pygmy chimpanzee) or gorillas - is closer to humans, and about what served as the impetus for unique morphological and behavioral transformations: the development of bipedality, the evolution of the hand, enlargement brain, the formation of instrumental activity, speech, consciousness. There is no final clarity in understanding the path of human social evolution.

OUR AFRICAN ANCESTORS: WHO ARE THEY?

Science is slowly but consistently looking further into the depths of time. Discovered in 1925 by R. Dart, the leading anthropologist from South Africa, the child from Taung - Australopithecus africanus - was dated 2.5 million years ago and caused a real shock. Moreover, the find was received with hostility by many experts, since it radically changed ideas about the geographical location of the human ancestral home (until the beginning of this century, most anthropologists considered it to be Southeast Asia) and about the antiquity of man. At the same time, the appearance of the “baby from Taung” confirmed Charles Darwin’s brilliant guess about the African roots of the human race.

Since the late 50s, the human family tree has continued to inexorably lengthen and branch. Anthropologists were faced with the fact that in Eastern and Southern Africa 2.6 - 1.2 million years ago several species of australopithecines simultaneously existed: gracile forms, such as Australopithecus africanus, and massive - A.boisei, A.robustus. The appearance of the first representatives of the genus dates back to approximately the same time. Homo, i.e. H. habilis(2.6 - 1.6 million years ago) and H.rudolfensis(2.5 - 1.9 million years).

The remains of a more primitive hominid, Australopithecus afarensis, discovered in 1974 by D. Johanson ( A.afarensis; it was the skeleton of a female, since then widely known as Lucy) - they ancientized human history to 3 million years4. Later it was found that creatures of this species lived in the territory of present-day Hadar (Ethiopia) much earlier: 4 - 3 million years ago.

To date, the remains of about 250 individuals have been discovered there. True, of these, only a few finds turned out to be complete to such an extent that from them it was possible to estimate the body proportions of these creatures and the structural features of the skull, and Johanson also established the fact of bipedal locomotion. By the way, the discovery made by Johanson eight years later, in 1992, remains to this day the most complete for early australopithecines. In 1993, D. Johanson and B. Bel managed to restore the male skull from 200 fragments, which included the occipital bone, parts of the palate (with several teeth) and the cranial vault, a canine and a significant proportion of the bones of the facial skeleton.

The remains of australopithecines from Hadar, found in geological layers of different antiquity, turned out to be extremely similar morphologically. Thus, it became obvious that A.afarensis existed almost unchanged for 900 thousand years (between 4 and 3 million years ago). Australopithecus afarensis apparently competed successfully with other species of primates, and possibly with carnivores.

What is known now about these possible human ancestors - one of the most ancient? There is no doubt that these creatures walked on two legs and could spend a lot of time on the ground. The hind limbs of early australopithecines were somewhat longer than those of modern chimpanzees or bonobos, and the forelimbs were the same as those of these monkeys, the pelvis was wider and shorter.

Regarding the movement of Australopithecus afarensis, experts have not yet come to a common opinion. Some, including American anthropologists O. Lovejoy, D. Johanson and B. Latimer, believe that Lucy had already perfectly mastered bipedal locomotion, and the structure of her pelvis and thigh muscles even made it difficult to move through the trees. Other, no less famous American experts, for example R. Sussman and J. Stern, prove that Lucy and her relatives still moved with their legs slightly bent at the knees. Swiss P. Schmidt is sure that Australopithecus afarensis could not run long distances, as evidenced by the shape of Lucy's chest - long and cylindrical. In his opinion, when moving on two legs, Lucy rotated her body strongly, as gorillas do. The structural features of the fingers and big toe, the elongated proportions of the arms, seem to indicate that these creatures spent quite a long time in the trees, which they apparently used as the safest place to sleep and rest.

Whatever the differences in views among paleoanthropologists, they are all united in one thing: early australopithecines could move on two legs and spent a lot of time on the ground. Footprints of at least two individuals A.afarensis almost 3.5 million years ago, preserved on volcanic ash in Letoli (Tanzania), clearly indicate that the main emphasis of the foot was on the heel bone, like in humans.

However, bipedal walking probably has a much longer history. Kenyan researcher M. Leakey recently reported a discovery in Kanapoi and Aliyah Bay near the lake. Turkana (Kenya) remains of a bipedal creature that lived about 4.2 - 3.9 million years ago and named by her A.anamensis. This species, according to the American anthropologist J. Tatersel, is only slightly different from A.afarensis and closely related to him. The dimensions of the epiphyses of the tibia and the angle of its articulation with the femur in the knee joint indicate that A.anamensis was already moving on two legs.

In the mid-90s, the American paleoanthropologist T. White announced that he had found in Ethiopia (Aramis) the very “missing link” that scientists have been dreaming about for more than a century. The new form, whose age is estimated at 4.4 million years, was allocated to a new genus Aridipithecus and named A.ramidus- a terrestrial ape. According to White, it claims to be the ancestor of the australopithecines. This form has more characteristics inherent in chimpanzees than in the already known species of australopithecus. In Aramis, remains were discovered belonging to approximately 50 individuals and including skeletal fragments, including foot bones, seven of the eight wrist bones, etc. Based on the structure of the dental system A.ramidus resembles a bonobo, which, according to A. Zilman, retained the maximum number of features of a common ancestor with hominids. However, unlike bonobos, A.ramidus, apparently, has already begun to master bipedal walking.

There is also an undeniable similarity between A.anamensis And A.ramidus. Anthropologists, however, have not yet decided whether the latter is a sister taxon to the former, or should be considered the original ancestral form.

In recent years, molecular taxonomists have come to extremely interesting conclusions regarding the time of separation of the hominid lineage from the common ancestral trunk with the African apes. It is assumed that first the gorilla line branched off (between 10 and 7 million years ago) and only then (also in the Miocene, i.e. 7 - 6 million years ago) the hominoid line split into the hominid line (Australopithecus, and then the genus Homo) and panid (chimpanzee and bonobo) branches. If these data are correct, then humans, chimpanzees and bonobos are more closely related to each other than each of them is to the gorilla.

Nowadays, the opinion is firmly established that the classification of hominids should be based not on morphological characteristics, but on the degree of genetic relatedness. Data from molecular biology have led to a radical revision of taxonomy: the genera gorilla, chimpanzee and human form a closely related group Hominini within a single family of hominids. It also includes orangutans and gibbons - more distant relatives of humans.

The dispute about the number of Australopithecus species that coexisted in Afar has not yet been resolved. Some researchers, based on body size, insist on a high level of sexual dimorphism in Afar hominids. According to Johanson's calculations, the mass of the male Australopithecus afarensis was approximately 45 kg with a height of 152.5 cm, while the female was significantly smaller: approximately 120 cm high and weighing about 27 kg. It is striking, however, that with strong sexual dimorphism in body size, the size of the canines of males and females differed little.

Socioecological studies of primates reveal extremely complex relationships between the degree of sexual dimorphism, competition between males, the nature of relationships between individuals of different sexes, the ratio of males to females in a group, the selection of protective males who reduce the risk of killing of young by intruder males, and features of ecology, e.g. type of food and presence of predators.

However, sexual dimorphism cannot yet serve as an unambiguous indication of more rigid hierarchical relationships in groups or an orientation towards harem forms of social organization. The reason for dimorphism may lie in different food specializations of the sexes or be associated with the need for protection from enemies.

Lovejoy associates sexual differences in body size with the transition of australopithecines to monogamy and builds on this basis his model of the social organization of early hominids. According to Lovejoy, their community consisted of several paired families with offspring. It is quite possible that these creatures lived in close-knit groups of 25 - 30 individuals, which ensured collective protection from predators. Powerful, large males were undoubtedly already capable of using stones or sticks for this purpose (like modern chimpanzees), and the straightened position of the body and a change in the technique of throwing an object made the defense more effective.

True, some experts believe that in Afar there were two types of australopithecines - large and small, and within each of them sexual dimorphism could be insignificant. With this view, the arguments in favor of the fact that Lucy was a female individual, and the creature whose remains were found in 1992 was male, have little evidence, since Johanson’s main argument is precisely the different body sizes. Note that the sex of chimpanzees and bonobos cannot be determined by body size and pelvic shape. Consequently, this indicator is hardly suitable for diagnosing sex in early hominids.

UPREAMING, DEVELOPMENT OF HAND AND SPEECH

Until the early 90s, not a single serious specialist doubted that the direct ancestral home of man was East Africa. Most of the discoveries of australopithecines and early representatives of the genus Homo were indeed made in its wide expanses (from Ethiopia to Tanzania), as well as in the southern part of the continent. This gave reason to assume that the early stages of human evolution were somewhat confined to the Great African Rift zone (East African Rift Zone). But in 1993, in Chad (Bahr el-Ghazal province), i.e., 2500 km west of this zone, almost in the center of the continent, the remains of a certain creature called Chadanthropus were found, which in morphological characteristics resembles Australopithecus afarensis. This suggests a wider distribution of australopithecines in Africa at least during the period 3.5 - 3 million years ago. Consequently, the hypothesis that Australopithecus displaced less adapted chimpanzees from open areas to the tropical forest zone west of the African Rift is not confirmed. The Bahr el-Ghazal area, according to paleoecologists, resembled Hadar of the same era: it was replete with lakes and small streams, tropical rainforests interspersed with forested savannas and open areas covered with dense grass.

Since our school years, we have become accustomed to hearing that bipedal locomotion arose among our ancestors during the transition to life in the savannah. However, paleoecological data cast doubt on this fact. The climate in East Africa 6 - 4.3 million years ago was moderately humid, and in the period from 4.4 to 2.8 million years the humidity even increased slightly. Paleoecological materials from Aramis indicate that A.ramidus lived in the tropical forest. Taking into account other information, it should apparently be recognized that bipedal walking arose out of connection with global climate changes and aridization of the habitat of human ancestors, and therefore was not an adaptation to life in open spaces. The aridization of East Africa began much later - about 2.5 million years ago, i.e. more than 2 million years after the transition of hominids to upright walking.

Early australopithecines appear to have been closely associated with forest ecosystems, while later representatives of the genus probably lived in mosaic landscapes. Bipedal locomotion undoubtedly played a big role in the exploration of open places by hominids, since thanks to it the area of ​​insolation of the body decreased, the overview of the territory increased, it became possible to use objects for protection from predators, etc. However, upright walking is most likely not due to the transition to life in the savannah.

What, then, was the impetus for the change in the method of movement among human ancestors? Unfortunately, there is no clear answer to this question yet. As White suggests, in an upright position A.ramidus could begin to move along thick branches to collect fruits from low trees, and subsequently switched to bipedal walking from tree to tree. This method was energetically more beneficial than every time going down on all fours and getting back up on two legs. From the point of view of A. Cortland, the transition to upright walking and the elongation of the hind limbs could finally be an adaptation to life in a swampy tropical forest.

The anthropological literature has repeatedly mentioned the uneconomical nature of bipedal locomotion, but then it generally became a completely non-adaptive behavioral quality. This idea, however, had to be abandoned as soon as experts compared the types of movement. It is known that there are three of them: with support on four limbs (on the palms and feet, the heel bone does not touch the ground); on the feet and backs of the hands (finger bones); to the full foot in a straightened position. It turned out that the least profitable method is the second, typical for apes, and not the third, hominid one. In other words, the way chimpanzees or gorillas move on the ground is much less adaptive than walking upright. From an energetic point of view, the transition from ape-like walking with support on the bones of the fingers to bipedality should be considered as adaptive.

From our student days, we firmly grasped Engels’s triad, which supposedly ensured the development of man: upright walking, development of the hand and speech, closely related to each other. A progressive increase in brain size is a universal direction of evolution of all hominid lineages in the Pliocene and Pliopleistocene. However, trends in the development of body size and limb proportions in Australopithecines and representatives of the genus Homo are different.

Bipedal locomotion arose repeatedly in different lines of hominids, much earlier - several million years before the formation of the human hand. To date, no evidence has been found that early australopithecines, like their later forms (gracile or massive), made and regularly used stone tools. After all, the oldest of them, found in Oldovaya (Tanzania), date back 2.5 million years and are associated only with the appearance H. habilis. True, tool culture is rooted in the very depths of hominid evolution, and it is quite possible that australopithecines (especially later ones) could make tools from less hard natural materials - wood, bone. This assumption will not seem so fantastic if we remember that modern chimpanzees in nature actively and constantly use a variety of devices. To fish out termites and ants, they sharpen a stick or straw with their teeth; To collect water, they make a sponge from chewed leaves, and crack nuts with stones.

It is noteworthy that each chimpanzee in the national parks of Tai (Côte d'Ivoire) and Bossou (Guinea) has his own favorite stone tools - a “hammer and anvil”, carries them with him or hides them in certain places, which he clearly remembers. Moreover, some individuals also use a third stone as a wedge to support the surface of the “anvil" in a horizontal position and give it stability. A stone that serves as a wedge is essentially a meta-tool, because it is used to improve the primary weapon.

The use of specific materials as tools is passed down as a tradition in populations of this species. Female chimpanzees from Thailand, for example, not only crack nuts in the presence of their young, but also explicitly stimulate them (through punishment or reward) to develop optimal cracking skills.

The reasons for the emergence of bipedal locomotion in one or more hominin populations remains a mystery. It is quite possible that such a restructuring was a neutral consequence of some complex mutation, a pre-adaptation. One thing is important: the transformations did not occur because the hands of these creatures were constantly busy with something. But the transition to walking on two legs certainly led to the release of the hands, which created favorable opportunities for the subsequent development of manipulative abilities.

Human speech, on the contrary, began to develop earlier than anthropologists expected. It can be considered established that the Broca's and Wernicke's brain centers already existed in H. habilis. According to the leading expert on early hominids, F. Tabias, the rudiments of the speech center can be traced in late australopithecines - gracile and massive, i.e. A.africanus And A.robustus. It seems obvious that in creatures that switched to upright walking, the brain had not yet reached the required size for them to be able to express themselves articulately. The brain volume of Australopithecus afarensis (find in 1992) only slightly exceeded 500 cm 3, and in H. habilis- one of the first of its kind Homo- on average it was already equal to 630 cm 3, but in modern humans it is about 1300 cm 3.

Meanwhile, our distant ancestors undoubtedly already had the basis for the formation of human language - the rudimentary ability to operate with symbols. Judging by modern data, the closest relatives of humans - chimpanzees, bonobos and gorilla - understand symbols, operate with them, combine signs, creating new meanings. Pygmy chimpanzees are especially successful in this. For example, a bonobo named Kenzi has learned to communicate using symbols, perceives words by ear without special training, quickly establishes a connection between a drawn symbol and its verbal expression, and understands the meaning of simple sentences. Perhaps, under natural conditions, bonobos are capable of transmitting information using symbols. A group of American and Japanese primatologists working in Lomaco National Park recently discovered that members of one community, breaking into groups, leave real messages to each other in the form of symbols: sticks stuck in the ground, branches laid on a path, plant leaves oriented in the right direction. Thanks to such marks, relatives can determine the direction of movement of the group ahead. These marks are more often found at forks or in places where it is impossible to leave marks on the ground - when crossing a stream, in a wetland, etc. This is what people would do in similar situations.

Apes also possess the rudiments of abstract thinking - they can reproduce the image of an object. It is noteworthy that they draw in accordance with a number of rules characteristic of the creative activity of 1.5 - 4 year olds, and sometimes older children. Gorilla Koko, who can speak the language of the deaf and dumb, undoubtedly puts a certain meaning into her drawings. So, she gave the name “Bird” to one of them, made in red, yellow and blue colors, explaining to the experimenters that she depicted her favorite - a blue jay - of a similar color. Coco's partner, the male Michael, drew a dinosaur, a brown toy with green spikes, accurately reproduced the colors and even depicted the teeth.

Data from the field of primatology, accumulated to date, significantly undermine traditional ideas about the qualitative uniqueness of humans and make the search for the notorious line between him and great apes unpromising. Of course, there are differences, but they are mostly of a quantitative order.

BEHAVIOR OF EARLY HOMINIDS

Will we ever know the truth about this - after all, social behavior cannot be documented from fossil remains. However, a growing number of researchers are trying to reconstruct it using data from the fields of primate socioecology, human ethology, social anthropology and paleoecology. Now we can only talk about the most general model of social relations in hominid groups, or more precisely, about the principles, because even within the same animal species, social structure and relationships can vary greatly. In the harem species, gorillas, many groups have more than one male participating in reproduction. The social structure of chimpanzees depends on the habitat: populations inhabiting the border of the savanna, unlike their forest relatives, form close-knit and numerous communities, and are less likely to split into small groups in search of prey.

The variability of social structures is due to many things: environmental conditions, time of year and actual weather conditions (for example, unprecedented drought or abundance of rain), the presence of neighboring communities (i.e. population density) or a second closely related group laying claim to similar food resources. Thus, during periods of severe drought, herds of Anubis baboons form unusual groups for themselves, which resemble the harems of hamadryas baboons.

The history of a particular group and intra-group traditions can play a significant role in social evolution. It is known that chimpanzees in nature differ greatly in the nature of their use of tools, their food-getting techniques, and the individual attachments of adults. The role of the “personality” of individual group members, primarily the leader, is extremely important.

As we can see, social structures and relationships in monkey communities are truly diverse. Therefore, it is hardly appropriate to build unilinear, rigid models of human social evolution or to base them on the analysis of the behavior of any one species of primates or only societies of modern hunter-gatherers.

Specialists in the field of socioecology tend to explain differences in social behavior between species (or populations) based on the nature of the distribution of food resources and reproductive partners in space. It is known, for example, that terrestrial omnivorous (unspecialized or predominantly frugivorous) primate species can form large groups in which there is competition between females for food and between males for access to a female.

Humans' closest relatives - chimpanzees and bonobos - are patrilocal: males spend their entire lives in the group in which they were born, and adult females usually move to other groups. However, with the general predominance of such a system of exchange of individuals, some female monkeys spend their entire lives in their native group. If we turn to ethnography, it turns out that some traditional human cultures are not patrilocal, but matrilocal, and the roots of this social organization are very ancient. Does this mean that matrilocality appeared a second time, and all hominid populations were patrilocal?

According to Foley, patrilocality is due to a developed system of cooperation between males and its low level between females. This means that in the life of communities of early hominids, the social connections of females did not play a significant role, but the tendency to unite males increased over time, because this contributed to success in hunting and protection from predators (and possibly from neighboring communities).

From our point of view, the stability of social groups of early hominids largely depended on females. Judging by the results of many years of observations by F. de Waal of a colony of common chimpanzees in Arnhem (Holland) and by C. Besch in the Tai National Park, females are able to form stable groups based on kinship and friendly attachments. This form of social behavior is also characteristic of the pygmy chimpanzee. Bonobos differ from the common chimpanzee by a higher level of sociality, both in relationships between females and between females and males. On average, bonobo groups are larger, the composition of the groups is more constant, and the likelihood of intragroup aggression is less. Bonobos are also notable for the highest level of development of the mechanisms by which social tension is controlled. The latter is important for modeling the social relations of hominids, because with the development of tool culture, conflicts within the group became more dangerous. To resolve them, bonobos use not only elements of friendly behavior - kisses, hugs and touches, also inherent in ordinary chimpanzees, but also sexual elements, both in relationships between individuals of the opposite sex and their own.

With patrilocality, bonobos are characterized by intense, close and stable connections between unrelated females, which arise due to many years of personal attachment. This could be facilitated either by the risk of infanticide (infanticide) by males, or by the need to unite to search for and obtain food. When early hominids got on their feet and lost their fangs, if there were predators in the neighborhood, the tendency for females to cooperate could increase. The development of friendly ties between them could also be due to the joint raising of offspring.

Modern women seem to follow the same pattern of behavior in their relationships. In many traditional patrilocal societies, the wife, having moved into her husband's house, establishes close ties with his relatives, runs the household with them and raises children. And in general, girls from an early age are prone to friendly relationships, while boys more often form groups to improve their own status.

From the above it follows that the large role of females in social relations is quite compatible with patrilocality and is confirmed by both primatological and ethnographic data.

The average community sizes of chimpanzees, bonobos and modern hunter-gatherers are similar (25 - 35 individuals including children), and there is no reason to believe that the group sizes of our ancestors were different. It is also possible that communities either broke up into small groups, going in search of food, or united for the night or to collect a bountiful harvest of fruits or nuts (later the food source could be the carcasses of animals killed or captured from predators).

It has been noted that group cohesion is greatest among those representatives of the same species (chimpanzees, anubis baboons, rhesus macaques and lapunders) that live in open areas with a dry climate. In such conditions, unlike forest ecosystems, chimpanzees, for example, most often form groups that include adult males, while individuals or groups without males are extremely rare. The reason for this transformation is the presence of predators: the higher the danger of their attack, the more males in each group.

There is no doubt that the Pleistocene fauna of East Africa was rich in predators. Early hominids lived in close proximity to saber-toothed tigers, hyenas, cheetahs and leopards and could not match them in strength or speed. It was cohesion and large group sizes that primarily helped australopithecines adapt to these conditions.

An extremely heated debate among domestic specialists in the history of primitive society is taking place regarding reproductive (marriage) relations among our ancestors. It is unlikely that one should adhere to any one model in this regard; evolution could be multivariate. Modern data, it seems to us, confirms the idea of ​​the existence of serial monogamy (successive paired marriages) in the early stages of hominization. But other types of marital relations cannot be ruled out. The likelihood of harem structures is small, but acceptable in a small number of populations: when hominids began to consume meat, a more talented hunter could provide food for several partners. (Note that among modern hunter-gatherers, harem relationships are not prohibited, but they are still rare, and the number of wives in a harem is small: two or three, rarely four.) Promiscuity is also possible - fairly free sexual relations.

According to sociobiology, the reproductive strategies of males and females in primates are different (in humans too). On average, males are more promiscuous and focused on sexual contacts with many partners. The strategy of females is twofold: they either choose a helper male (i.e. a good father), or a “carrier of good genes” - physically healthy, strong, attractive, occupying a high place in the hierarchy. In the latter case, the offspring has a chance to inherit obvious advantages from the father, but the mother loses her assistant. Which strategy—male or female—prevails depends on its adaptability under given conditions. For females of early hominids, pair bonds with a specific male turned out to be vital and adaptive, since the reproductive capacity of females was low, and children needed parental care for a long time. An alternative to the paired family could only be an emphasis on family ties and help from female friends and relatives.

Ethological analysis provides insight into sexual choice preferences in primates and humans. It turns out that the most attractive partners are those who have traits similar to those in whose environment they were in early childhood (i.e., first-order relatives). Next in attractiveness are distant relatives - second cousins, uncles and nephews. So consanguineous marriages have very ancient roots.

HUNTERS OR CARRION GATHERERS?

The most important event in the evolution of hominids is considered to be the transition to the consumption of meat. How did they get it? Archaeological data from the Pliopleistocene time seem to confirm that in the early stages our ancestors were carrion gatherers. However, it cannot be ruled out that they also hunted. According to G. Isaac, early hominids combined hunting with carrion collection, and in different seasons, one of these methods of obtaining meat food, then the other, predominated. Archaeologists have not found bones that could indicate hominids hunting animals. But observations of chimpanzees and ethnographic materials from the Hadza people (a group of hunter-gatherers from Tanzania) confirm this. Common chimpanzees, for example, hunt regularly, and in the national parks of Tai, Mahale, and Gombe they simply prey on other monkeys - the red herring monkeys.

According to estimates by R. Renham and E. Bergman-Riess, a group of 45 chimpanzees can consume up to 600 kg of meat per year. Everything is eaten, including bones. If early hominids caught small and medium-sized game and consumed it without a trace, then no bones could be preserved. True, modern Hadza sometimes leave the remains of hunting trophies at the hunting site, but they are quickly consumed by birds and ground scavengers. For both chimpanzees and the Hadza, the peak of hunting and carrion collection occurs during the dry season, when plant food is clearly in short supply.

According to K. Stanford, hunting in chimpanzee communities is stimulated by receptive females. There appears to be an evolutionary connection between a male's access to a reproductive female and his concern for providing her with food. With the disappearance of external signs of receptivity (swelling of the genital skin), sexual relations ceased to be confined to the period of probable conception, sexual relations between a particular male and female became constant, and were not limited to a few hours or days, as in chimpanzees.

The development of hunting stimulated cooperation between males, since already in chimpanzees there is a positive relationship between the number of hunters and success in catching game. Such cooperation helped males control and control power in the group, which in turn increased their reproductive chances. Maximum individual success depended both on the male’s social intelligence (the ability to manipulate other members of the group) and “instrumental” intelligence - successful planning of the hunt and knowledge of the behavior of the prey.

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So, the human ancestry has become ancient to 4.4 million years, but the candidate for its founder has not been definitively determined. Like modern primates, our distant ancestors lived in communities in which social relationships could be very diverse.

Primatological research in recent years shows that social organization and social relationships, even among species of the same genus, can vary greatly. Therefore, a model that is based on data about a specific species of modern primates, be it chimpanzees, bonobos or baboons, cannot be considered justified. On the contrary, analysis of the general nature of behavior in the phylogenetic series of primates, identification of universal patterns and strategies in intragroup relations can bring us closer to understanding events at the dawn of human history.