I have referred to the importance of the 1974 discovery of Lucy, the australopithecine that revolutionised our understanding of hominin evolution.
The fact that Lucy was bipedal is significant, because it indicates that the freeing of the hand was crucial in the emergence of modern Homo sapiens.
I referred to the fact that Frederick Engels, collaborator of Karl Marx, made the critical observation regarding the freeing of the hand from locomotion duties in his 1876 pamphlet The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man.
In a previous article, I stated that palaeontologists and archaeologists will fill in the blank spaces, long after Engels’ death. The liberation of the hand made possible the beginning of practical labouring activities. That is the basis of what makes us uniquely human.
I was looking for a way to elaborate these points in an article and, over the last few weeks, ample evidentiary confirmation of that proposition has been provided.
Dominic Alexander, writing in Counterfire, examines this very topic in an excellent article.
It is labouring activity that is the basis of consciousness, tool making and the emergence of modern humans. No, all these features did not emerge in a singular, explosive event. Bipedal locomotion preceded tool-making behaviour by millions of years.
Be that as it may, Engels was correct to stipulate labour activity as the crucial component in the development of intelligence. It is through labouring that we modify and use our environment. The environment in turn influences our activities and ideas.
No, humans do not “triumph” over nature. Engels plainly stated that each supposed “victory” over nature rebounds on us in the form of harmful ecological consequences.
To quote from Alexander’s article, he elaborates, beginning with Engels’ words, in the following manner: “Let us not, however, flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human victories over nature. For each such victory nature takes its revenge on us.
“Engels goes on to detail a number of environmental disasters in human history, starting with deforestation in ancient Mesopotamia, the impacts of the same in Greece and Italy, and their serious consequences for climate and soil fertility: ‘Thus at every step we are reminded that we by no means rule over nature … but that we, with flesh, blood and brain, belong to nature.’”
The australopithecine fossil known as Lucy — Dinkinesh in Amharic — was discovered 50 years ago. Surely there are more recent findings that shed light on hominin evolution and bipedalism? Yes, there are.
Kenya’s Turkana region is well known for its rich fossil history. The Conversation reported that a team of palaeontologists have uncovered fossilised footprints of two bipedal hominin species. Homo erectus, one of our direct ancestors and Paranthropus boisei, a distant and now extinct relative, walked and interacted with each other in the same region.
The Turkana region in East Africa is the place of numerous fossil discoveries. Since the 1970s, palaeontologists have excavated the geologically rich soils, documenting the findings in the sedimentary trenches.
Why is this dual footprint discovery so important?
Finding the footprints of two different hominin species walking along the same lakeshore in Kenya provides evidence that human evolution was not a simple, linear progression. It was a branching, complex mosaic of interacting streams — a delta, if you will. Some streams rejoin, others eventually dry up.
No, we cannot discern the level of interaction between the two hominin species. Did they talk to each other? Just eye each other off? Use their hands to make signs?
What is known is that they walked within hours of each other. At the very least, they cohabited. Palaeontologists have found the fossilised footprints of other animals, including horse-like creatures and cow-like animals.
Our hominin ancestors coexisted with each other for thousands of years. That may seem like a bland observation, yet it is important for a good reason. In our billionaire-dominated society with its cult of individual entrepreneurship, we have allowed the billionaires (and the media they own) to define human nature. Surely hominins are inherently selfish, grasping creatures, willing and able to crush competition in the rise to the top?
Prehistoric findings such as the one above overturn our viewpoint of humans as naturally greedy, self-centred creatures. Cohabitation and cooperation were part of the evolutionary picture for thousands of years. In fact, we would not have evolved cognitive and intelligence faculties if it were not for social cooperation.
Do palaeontologists know the intellectual capacities of Lucy? No, of course not.
Do the latest footprint discoveries mean we can draw definitive conclusions about when and how consciousness emerged? No, it does not.
The emergence of tool making is marked by disagreements and controversies. Tool making, while a sign of cognitive development, underwent numerous stages — the Oldowan culture being an important example. Culture does not evolve in a one-way, linear fashion, but in a weblike projection of various cumulative, yet uneven, trajectories.
The origin of consciousness as self-awareness is still a mystery, subject to disputes between psychologists and neuroscientists. We can make a number of pertinent observations here. Labouring activity is the prerequisite for the eventual development of tool making, intelligence and cognitive abilities. The mind and its achievements are not independently arrived at without a material basis.
The mind is definitely a creator — of ideas. The embodied self-awareness of the mind has led us to invent multiple instances of disembodied minds — gods if you will — that possess and exercise the features of a mind without a physical brain. The spiritual is a product of our minds, a projection of our self-conscious awareness into the non-physical realm.
Findings such as the fossilised footprints referred to above can help us discover our hominin roots and fill in the picture of our emergent humanity.
[This article was first published at the Antipodean Atheist blog.]