Рашид Шафигулин - Культурная эволюция Homo sapiens

archaeological evidence shows that tattooing has been practiced since the depths of centuries, since the Upper Paleolithic period, and we still see echoes of this phenomenon today. Why did people put tattoos on their bodies? The author has his own opinion on this issue.

What were the combs and mirrors found in numerous excavations used for? Was their appearance caused by the desire of their ancestors for beauty or by social necessity? Or maybe they served the observance of the simplest hygiene? The reader learns the author’s position from the book.

How did a person learn to melt metals and what prompted him to do this?

The book tells about the history of their production and use, as well as about why humanity switched to completely new smelting technologies and mastered metals such as copper, bronze, iron.

But the Bronze Age ended in a real disaster for many countries. At the end of it there is the collapse of the Mycenaean kingdoms, the Hittite kingdom in Anatolia, Syria, Egypt is falling into decline. The collapse of culture throughout the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean is accompanied by a political and economic collapse, in which, in parallel with the decline of some civilizations, new civilizations and new ideologies were born. Scientists cannot come to a general conclusion about the causes of the «Bronze Age catastrophe».

It was at the same time (XIII century BC) that the transition of mankind from polytheism to monotheism took place. Why is the change in the religious views of our ancestors associated with the crisis period?

Glass producing has opened up new opportunities for humans. Of course, it all started with the simplest glass products. But with the development of physics and optics, it turned out that glass allows you to make unheard-of discoveries. Thanks to glass, new specific optical devices have appeared, designed for various physical and physico-chemical studies, spectral analyses. All astronomical discoveries are made with the help of a telescope. Without glass, we would not be able to enter the space age. But we are interested in when and why Sapiens began to get the first semblance of glass from sand. The book will tell you about this too. And after a person went from simple glass blowing to the production of vacuum flasks and connected it with electricity (another scientific breakthrough), humanity received the first lighting lamps, rapidly broke into the age of computer science and the atomic era.

The book will interest not only readers, but also scientists and specialists.

Contents

1. Fire

Neanderthals and fire

Culinary hypothesis

Taming the Fire

The price and importance of fire

Vegetable food and self-medication

Against microorganisms

2. Ceramics

Archaeological excavations of ceramics.

Microorganisms and ceramics. Possible causes of ceramics

Genes and ceramics

3. Funeral activities

Death in the animal world

Primates (modern times)

Homo heidelbergensis

Middle Paleolithic. Early homo sapiens

Late homo sapiens

Neanderthals

Disputes about the premeditation of burials

Chronology of Neanderthal burials

Homo sapiens in the Upper (Late) Paleolithic (37,000–21,000 BC)

Madeleine culture

Natufian culture

Neolithic

The Copper — Stone Age circa 2500–1900 BC.

4. Cremation

Middle Paleolithic

Upper Paleolithic

Mesolithic

Neolithic

The Copper-Stone Age (Eneolithic) and the Bronze Age

Iron Age

Zoroastrianism

Antiquity

Middle Ages

China, Korea, Japan

Cremation in India

Conclusion

5. Jewelry

History and archaeology

Decoration in the animal world

Sexual selection, social status and pathogens

What are the decorations for. Hypotheses

6. Hair loss

Hypotheses

Parasites

Control of parasites in animals

7. Combs

8. Security

History and archaeology

What is ochre for? Hypotheses

Or maybe pathogens?

Is beauty the result of social necessity or protection from parasites?

9. Tattoos

Copper and Bronze Age

The Iron Age.

Are tattoos initiation, social status, magic or ancient medicine?

Tattooing and Medicine

10. Progressive inventions. Metallurgy. The era of early metal. Eneolithic.

Metal discovery hypothesis

Chronology of the appearance of copper objects.

Why metal?

The Copper — Stone Age in Asia

11. Bronze

Early Bronze Age.

Middle Bronze Age

Late Bronze Age

Bronze in East Asia.

12. Bronze bells.

13. Metallurgy. Iron

The Iron Age in Asia

Why iron?

14. Progressive inventions. Mirror and Glass

Mirror

History of the mirror

Antiquity

Glass

Beads and small amulets made of glass.

15. The invention of electricity

The history of electricity and magnetism.

Telephone, lamp, TV.

Afterword

* * *

В память о брате, о гениальном безумце.

Когда много лет назад на Земле появился хомо сапиенс, окружающий мир был не слишком доброжелателен к нему — то и дело бросал вызовы, проверял на прочность. Надо отдать должное нашему далекому пращуру, он мужественно противостоял испытаниям, обрушивающимся на него, и пройдя через череду «бутылочных горлышек», каждый раз выбирался из западни, из крайне неблагоприятной ситуации, выходя из них победителем. Происходило настоящее чудо: пройдя через очередное испытание, человек не только становился сильнее, но каждый раз получал в дар новые способности, благодаря которым совершал новый революционный рывок, что в конечном счете и превратило пещерного жителя в звериных шкурах в нашего современника со смартфоном в руке.

Секрет революционного рывка лежит в таинственном ящике эволюции, хранящемся внутри нас. Причем там хранятся все секреты культурного прогресса хомо сапиенса, не только настоящего, но и будущего. И никто не знает и не может предсказать, какой новый дар, какое новое культурное приобретение мы получим в следующий раз, когда столкнемся с новыми испытанием.

Кто-то может подумать: а стоит ли рыться в много тысячелетней пыли? Мы так далеко ушли вперед, что прошлое нам уже неинтересно. У нас новейшие технологии, великолепная медицина, мы устремлены в будущее! Но мы — дети, внуки, пра-пра-пра-пра……пра-правнуки тех, кто --">