AFRICA IS THE CRADLE OF MANKIND

                        

Africa is argued as the origin of man, this is evidenced by the fossil

evidence and technology through tools of development. Archeology, linguistics, oral tradition, anthropology and written materials give information that proves that Africa really is the source of human life.

Although there is incomplete evidence, Africa is the source where hominids made their first appearance. However, not all stages in their evolution are represented in the fossil specimens discovered. Regardless of climatic changes, Africa always offered a habitat for man, who could move about along both latitudes and longitudes. The formation of great Rift valley during Pleistocene period exposed fossils in East Africa. In

addition, wind and water erosion made it easier for fossils of Hominidae to be discovered. Fore example in Omo valley in Ethiopia, where sedimentary beds 1000 meters thick can be observed on the hills slopes and can be dated from the bottom upwards to period ranging from 4.5to 1 million years ago.

In Southern Africa, hominid fossils have been found in caves, in some instances under profusion of cave-fill resulting from roof falls.

In discussing this argument i will first deal with the hominids that were

Discovered in Africa then give some evidence in technological evidence that show that these hominids were in Africa for real.

Discussion of hominids

Homo sapiens

This has been after technological development leading to present – day

Man, who belongs to the home sapiens species. H. sapiens (“Sapiens”

means wise or intelligent) has lived from about 250,000 years ago to the

 present. Between 400,000 years ago and the second interglacial period the

 middle Pleistocene, around 250,000 years ago, the trend in cranial

expansion and the elaboration of stone tool technologies developed,

providing evidence for a transition from H. erectus to H. sapiens. The

 direct evidence suggests there was a migration of H. erectus in Africa (there is

little evidence that this speciation occurred elsewhere). Then a subsequent migration within and out of Africa eventually replaced the earlier dispersed H. erectus. This migration and origin theory is usually referred to as the single-origin theory. However, the current evidence does not preclude multiregional speciation, either. This is a hotly debated area in pale anthropology.

Current research establishes that human beings are highly genetically homogenous, meaning that the DNA of individual home sapiens is more alike than usual for most species, a result of their relatively recent evolution. Distinctive genetic characteristics have arisen, however, primarily as the result of people moving into new

Environmental circumstances. Such small groups are initially highly

inbred, allowing the relatively rapid transmission of traits favorable to the new environment.  These adapted traits are a very small component of the home sapiens genome and include such outward “racial”

characteristics such as the ability to breathe more efficiently in high altitudes.

Homosapiens Idaltu, from Ethiopia, lived from about 160,000 years ago (proposed subspecies). It is the oldest known anatomically modern

human. in Africa, there have been several important discoveries that illustrate the presence of primitive home sapiens on the continent for more  than 100 000 years. Rhodesian man discovered in 1920 at Broken hill, in what was then Northern Rhodesia, has been regarded as the oldest home sapiens found in Africa and has been dated about 35 000 years ago. The specimen has been compared with Neanderthal man from

Europe.

On the other hand, the Kanjera site, in western Kenya, has yielded two human skulls associated with fossil fauna dating back to the Pleistocene.

The site has not been accurately dated but these two skulls have been

Related to Homo sapiens. They may date back almost 200 000 years.

Skull fragments dating from 100 000 years ago have been found in Omo

Valley in Ethiopia

Homo erectus (pre-sapiens)

Fossils dating back to 1 500 000 and 500 000 years have been found in North, Southern and Eastern Africa. Homo erectus had a brain of

Between 750 and 1000 centimeter cubed, compared to that of Homo

Sapiens of 1400 centimeter cubed. Some fossils of Homo erectus were

found at Koobi Fora in Kenya.

Homo Habilis

Homo habilis lived from about 2.4 to 1.5 million years ago (MYA).Homo Habilis,

the first species of the genus homo, evolved in south and east Africa in the late Pliocene or early Pleistocene, 2.5-2 MYA, when it diverged from

the australopithecines. Homo Habilis had smaller molars and larger brains

Than the Australopithecines, and made tools from stone and perhaps

animal bones. One of the first known hominids, it was nicknamed ‘handy man’ by its discoverer, Louis Leakey. Some scientists have proposed

moving this species out of Homo and into Australopithecus.

Remains attributed to the homo lineage, but occurring earlier than those

of Homo Erectus are  currently confined to East Africa. Homo habilis

species specimens  were discovered at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania and

More recently at Koobi fora  on the eastern shore of Lake Turkana. It is

perhaps at Laetolil in Tanzania and at Hadar in the Ethiopian Afar region

at least 1.7; million years ago. Homo Habilis had a cranial capacity of

More than 750 centimeter cubed. The Homo habilis that lived in an

African savanna environment was also a hunter because it made pebble

tools.

Australopithecus

Australopithecus Africanus is primarily known from South African sites

and a number of related fossils in East Africa. In 1924, Raymond Dart

described Australopithecus Africans as the type specimen as the Taung

Child, an Australopithecus infant discovered in a cave deposit being mined for concrete at Taung, South Africa. The remains were a remarkably well preserved, tiny skull and an endocranial cast of the       

individual’s brains. Although the brain was small (410 cm³), its shape was

rounded, unlike that of chimpanzees and gorillas, and more like a

modern human brain. Also, the specimen exhibited short canine teeth,

and the position of the foramen magnum was evidence of bipedal

locomotion. All of these traits convinced Dart that the Taung baby was a

bipedal human ancestor, a transitional form between apes and humans.

Another 20 years would pass before Dart’s claims were taken seriously,

following the discovery of more fossils that resembled his find. The

 prevailing view of the time was that a large brain evolved before

 bipedality. It was thought that intelligence on par with modern humans

was a prerequisite to bipedalism.

The australopithecines are now thought to be immediate ancestors of the

genus homo, the group to which modern humans belong. Both

Australopithecines and Homo sapiens are part of the tribe Hominini, but

recent data has brought into doubt the position of A. Africanus as a

direct ancestor of modern humans; it may well have been a dead – end

cousin. The australopithecines were originally classified as either gracile

or robust. The robust variety of Australopithecus has since been

reclassified as Paranthhrolpus. In the 1930s, when the robust specimens

were first described, the Paranthropus genus was used. During the

1960s, the robust variety was moved into Australopithecus. The recent

 trend has been back to the original classification as a separate genus.

The best specimen is KNM-ER 181 from Koobi Fora from Kenya. It had a

cranial capacity of 600 centimeter cubed or less. Australopithecus Boisei

(or Australopithecus Robustus) fossils were found at ;Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania.

The earliest known catarrhine is Kamoyapithecus from uppermost

Oligocene at Eragaleit in the northern Kenya rift valley, dated to 24 ma

(millions of years before present). Its ancestry is general thought to be

Close to such genera as Aegyptopithecus, Propliopithecus, and

Parapithecus from the Fayum, at around 35 ma. There are no fossils from

 the intervening 11 million years. No near ancestor to South American

Platyrrhines, whose fossil record begins at around 30 ma, can be

identified among the North African fossil species, and possibly lies in

other forms that lived in West Africa that were caught up in the still-

mysterious transatlantic sweepstakes that sent primates, rodents, boa

constrictors, and cichlid fishes from Africa to South America sometime in

the Oligocene

In the early Miocene, after 22 ma, many kinds of arboreally adapted

primitive catarrhines from East Africa suggest a long history of prior

diversification. Because the fossils at 20 ma include fragments attributed

to Victoriapithecus, the earliest Cercopithecoid, the other forms are (by

default) grouped as hominoids, without clear evidence as to which are

closest to living apes and humans. Among the presently recognized

genera in this group, which ranges upto 13 ma, we find Proconsul,

Rangwapithecus, Dendrolpithecus, Afropithecus, Heliopithecus, and

Kenya pithecus, all from East Africa. The presence of other generalized non-Cercolpithecids of middle Miocene age from sites far distant—

Otavipithecus from cave deposits in Namibia, and Pieroloapithecus and

Dryopithecus from France, Spain and Austria – is evidence of a wide

diversity of forms across Africa and the Mediterranean basin during the

relatively warm and equable climatic regimes of the early and middle

Miocene. The youngest of the Miocene hominoids, Oreopoithecus, is from 9-ma coal beds in Italy.

There is evidence of Oldowan (pebble) tools and the Acheulian or hand

Axe culture from Olduvai gorge that were used during the early stone

 Age. Acheulian sites were also found at Olorgesailie and Kariandusi in the Rift Valley.

During the late stone age, thumbnail scrapper, backed blade and

Crescent were found in the Kenyan rift valley.

Discussion of technological evidence

Early stone age

The earliest human fashioned tools ranging between 1 – 3 million years

ago were found at the edges of former lakes and marshes close to the Rift

Valley in Northern Tanzania, Kenya and Ethiopia. Fragments with signs

Of cutting and wear were found at several sites on Lake Turkana and the

Omo valley in Ethiopia. These were pebble tools for cutting vegetables

and tearing animals. Recent intensive studies have revealed that these

pebble tools had a greater technological sophistication than earlier

assumed the makers of these tools were hunters and gatherers. These tools are said to belong to Australopithecus and Homo Habilis.

The Acheulian or hand axe culture, was a culture which was  widespread in

Africa as the oldowan and the sites identified are in fact much more

numerous. Its beginnings in Africa date from more than a million years

ago. This type of technology continued for over a million years until

relatively recent times, probably not more than 100 000years ago.

Middle stone age

This were the homo sapiens although some subspecies were somewhat

different from modern man> in technology middle stone age saw

significant advices. Basic stone tool making, which consisted of

knocking off flakes from rock fragments, was being increasingly

superseded by the more complex technique of preparing the core by

precise flaking to a required shape and size, and then striking off the

finished tools. At the same time the technique was perfected of braking

off random flakes, which were subsequently shaped by retouching, thus

making  it possible to produce smaller tools. In the 2^nd phase of middle

stone age, the technique of fitting wood or other materials as handles

was achieved.

Late stone age

The main concentration here was making of blades instead of flakes.

Blades were trimmed or retouched for a variety of shapes and purposes.

The timmied pieces were usually very small and are known as

‘microliths’. A common form is called the crescent or lunate, which was

 designed not so much to be held in the hand but to be slotted into a

wooden handles forming a kind of a knife or saw – blade. It was during

This period that bow and arrow were used in hunting. Due to widespread

Use of bones and awls, there was sewing of garments from hides an

Skins or making of shelters. Making of beads from seeds, stones, bones

Or ostrich eggshells to make necklaces was evident.