1987-2017 : Regard sur l’évolution de l’histoire des origines
Over the last thirty years, studies on human origins have undergone a real revolution due to the development of fieldwork, to the improvement of dating methods that allow better calibration of deposits and a better understanding of evolutionary changes in time. The date of the potential origin of ou...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Société Francophone de Primatologie
2018-03-01
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| Series: | Revue de Primatologie |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/primatologie/2787 |
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| Summary: | Over the last thirty years, studies on human origins have undergone a real revolution due to the development of fieldwork, to the improvement of dating methods that allow better calibration of deposits and a better understanding of evolutionary changes in time. The date of the potential origin of our lineage has been doubled. Fossil hominids were generally compared only to African great apes and modern humans; the apes generally being regarded as primitive. The development of studies on fossil hominoids has made it possible to better define the state of the characters: whereas the chimpanzee seemed (until recently) to be a "good model" of the common ancestor of great apes and humans, this idea is highly controversial today. Advances in genetics have made it possible to refine relationships between primates and dates of divergence between humans and great apes. Today, dates from genetics and palaeontology are becoming compatible. The principle of uniformatarianism widely used in palaeontology is important in the study of human evolution: the development of fieldwork and laboratory research on modern non-human primates is essential for establishing comparative models which permit a better understanding of the cultural and locomotor behaviors of the past, the life characters, but also the living environments. The reconstructions of environments largely based on palaeobiota, are now supplemented by geochemical studies of the enamel of mammalian teeth (reconstruction of diets), but also of the sediments (highlighting phases of aridity, by example). The holistic and naturalistic approach over a long time span turns out to be essential to understand the emergence of humans, but also of great apes in an environmental (and thus climatic) framework. |
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| ISSN: | 2077-3757 |