CHRONICLE OF A DISAPPEARANCE FORETOLD IN THE PLEISTOCENE ERA

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With this post I start the 4th year of the Blog and the publication of 100 posts.

The Pleistocene era corresponds to the Quaternary period, and began approximately between 1.5 and 2 million years ago. Hominids such as Neanderthal man and Cro-Magnon man existed. The following chronicle is mainly focused on the latter.

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The Pleistocene has been divided into 3 parts, the Lower, which corresponds to the oldest, which began 1.5-2 million years ago, the Middle, which began 500,000 years ago, and the Upper, which began only 200,000 years ago.

I will divide this post in two sections, one to express what could have happened in that period of (our) history that has been called Pleistocene, with respect to one of the creatures that inhabited the earth; and the other section I will represent in a cartoon what happened to that specimen, through which I try to communicate what could happen to homo sapiens if it becomes an absolute sedentary.

Homo sapiens is a hominid that surely coexisted with Neanderthal, Cro-Magnon and some others, but above all it is placed in the Holocene epoch (10,000-15,000 years ago), with the title of Modern Homo sapiens, from 15,000 years ago to the present day.

I would like to complete the first part by commenting on the following graph that shows the historical development of man walking on planet Earth.

This same graph was presented in Post HOMO-ITER: MAN-WALKER. PART II.

The graphed period covers 1.5 million years, from the time when there were several hominids walking on Earth: Pithecanthropus erectus, Neanderthal man, Cro-Magnon man, Homo sapiens, and a dozen more of the homo species, with the essential characteristic that all of them were in an upright position and walked only on their 2 lower limbs, although there were some differences between all of them, regarding their feet, height, hands, skull, eyes and some more of organic and physiological type.

I will explain the most relevant aspects of the graph in a brief and concise way.

On the horizontal axis, time is recorded in a historical horizon of 1.5 million years.

On the vertical axis are recorded the averages that man has had the need to walk on the earth in feet/day.

From [-12,500] years ago, the different hominids walked an average of 11,500 feet daily, either to hunt and gather, or to move from one region to another to carry out these same activities but in new lands with better hunting and gathering potentials. They were one hundred percent nomadic.

From this point on, a sedentary lifestyle begins at a general level, as they begin to discover some activities that allow them to settle longer at each stop. Agriculture and cattle raising began to take place, although not as we know it today; nevertheless, this kept them in certain places and reduced their eagerness (need) for nomadism.

At this time, a true revolution in the history of mankind began, as the construction of the first semi-permanent settlements began, with the domestication of plants and animals. He began to sow the same seeds that he collected, to feed and breed certain animals for the use of their fur and meat.

In each period shown in the graph we can observe how the average walking, from this point on, decreases. We can perceive that towards the point [-2,500], 10,000 years after the beginning of sedentarism, the daily average of walking is reduced to half, to 5,750 feet/day. And by the beginning of our Christian era, the daily average becomes only 4,600 feet/day, that is, a reduction to 2/5. The most serious thing is that the slope is constant and in only 14,500 years we have reached an average of walking of only 500 feet/day, only in 1% of the time since we began to be sedentary with respect to the analyzed horizon, we have practically come to a standstill, to be completely stationary (static). It is clear that in the present time we practically DO NOT WALK at all.

As a technical fact, I would like to comment that in the “Holocene Calendar” the year zero is considered precisely when the human being stops being nomadic to become a sedentary being, stops collecting fruits, grains, roots, etc., and dedicates himself to cultivate and domesticate animals. This Calendar marks the year 1 as the beginning of the life of the Humanity. It is the period that begins 10,000 years ago, which is called the HOLOCENE GEOLOGICAL EPOCA, which coincides with the NEOLITHIC STONE AGE. However, our analysis has nothing to do with the calendrical-numerical aspect of the Holocene calendar, but with the coincidence that in this geological epoch the human being begins a transformation from nomadic to sedentary, 10,000 years ago.

In order to illustrate this process of sedentarism, we have a graph of PEOPLE AGED 60 to 85 YEARS, IN DIFFERENT EPOCHES OF HUMANITY:

The horizontal axis shows the years in that period of life, from 60 to 85 years of age.

On the vertical axis are recorded the walking averages in miles/year.

In the prehistoric period, at these ages, an annual average of 800 miles was walked. We note that in ancient it drops to less than half, to 300 miles per year, and throughout the Middle Ages it varies from 200 TO 50 MILES. In order to arrive in an asymptotic way to the modern era, the elderly do not walk at all, being that this segment of society should make an effort to walk, either by their own decisions or stimulated by the health institutions of each country.

The second section, as I mentioned, is a comics that will allow me to represent what happened to this Pleistocene specimen, due to his change of life.

The main character of our story and of the cartoons is the Cro-Magnon Man. This specimen was found in the Cro-Magnon cave, France, and hence its name. He lived in caves and was a nomadic hunter-gatherer.

Cro-Magnon man may have been a cross between Neanderthal and Homo sapiens, a possible hybridization, but this cannot be conclusively proven.

He had characteristics very similar to the rest of the other specimens of Homo Sapiens, however, he had 2 peculiarities that made him different: one, that the bone of the tibia was very flattened transversely, what we now call placticnemia; this disease –placticnemia– is a deformation of the tibia, of the congenital type, which presents transversal flattening in both faces of the bone, in a laminated form.

The other peculiarity he had in his feet; he presented a shortage in his development since the big toe was still placed in a semi-opposite position to the rest of the other four toes, which gave him the prehensile function; and for the same reason, his walking capacity was reduced to cover long distances; it made him less dynamic in this activity and he surely tired more quickly, apart from the fact that he could not develop considerable speeds in running.

Let us analyze this characteristic from the physical observation of the feet themselves and from the point of view of their footprints.

In its physical form we can observe the big toe. In the previous image we see it separated from the rest of the other 4 toes, both in monkeys and in Cro-Magnon man. The foot was evolving and shaping in hominids, from the monkey phase (A), through the foot of Cro-Magnon man (B) to the foot of today’s Homo sapiens (C). This transformation took place over thousands of years until reaching the development seen in image C. Most probably this transformation in the feet that we observe in the 3 previous images is what allowed Homo Sapiens to place itself in a superior position with respect to the rest of the animals, above mammals and their hominid brethren.

Observing the footprints left by these three, we can detect the difficulty in walking or running. In the following images we see that the footprint of the monkey (A) rests less on the ground, this allows us to infer that although it could represent greater speed, it is definitive that the fact that the foot does not settle completely the foot subtracts balance and support for walking or running, besides not exposing a complete erect position, which also represents a lack in the symmetry of walking and in the stability of the body when running or jogging (Future Post THE SYMMETRY OF THE BODY, ITS BALANCE AND WALKING).

In the footprint of Cro-Magnon man (Footprint B) we observe a greater position on the ground, but even so, he did not manage to settle it completely, which gave him less stability and some difficulty in walking long distances and reaching speeds that Homo Sapiens (Footprint C) was able to achieve.

Gaston Bachelard tells us: “The organ is constructed through function” […]”For a long time now we have been astonished by the fact that the different animal species are coordinated both historically and functionally. The order of succession of species gives the order of coexisting organs in a given individual.” (THE INTUITION OF THE INSTANT, F.C.E. Gaston Bachelard). Limbs, organs, all of them become specialized according to their functions and therefore the order that is generated in the evolution of higher species responds to this functionality and in turn dictates their conformation.

Now we will move on to the story of Litos and Litas who were two hominids -of the Cro-Magnon species- who had a very difficult time in those pre-historic times.

It was said that because I belonged to the Cro-Magnon family, I got too tired during the long walks in search of food,” said Litos, “and for that reason I could not survive, and I disappeared. Some companions from other tribes told us that we did not like to hunt; that we were too lazy to chase the animals. We resisted and preferred the comfort of gathering fruits, vegetables and roots.

I would like to tell you about a daily passage of my life, when I returned exhausted to my cave to be with my wife. This happened about a million years ago. Every time Litas came to receive me, after two or three days of being absent to get food… listen to what we talked about; of course, I have allowed myself to transcribe the primitive language we used.

This is what was heard when entering the main part of the grotto:

I would like to point out that it was not all bad news, because one could surely say that this was the proto-historical occasion of the invention of shoes.

To be continued…

Learn in the next chapter how Litas invented, in those prehistoric times, the moccasins and tennis shoes…

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