|
The discovery of human antiquity was a major achievement of science in the middle 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 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== There is no one answer from modern science to give. What the original 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'';〔James C. Kaufman, Robert J. Sternberg, ''The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity'' (2010), p. 280; (Google Books ).〕 meaning that the existence of all types of men has been within the Quaternary. 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 200,000 years old, with behavioral modernity dating back to 40,000〔("'Modern' Behavior Began 40,000 Years Ago In Africa" ), ''Science Daily'', July 1998〕 or 50,000 years ago. The first question is still subject to debates on its definition. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「discovery of human antiquity」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|