Biocultural evolution

Human Evolution: a biocultural process

Osama Elnur

What does it mean for a living being to be a human being? Of course, part of the answer can be understood through the concept of organic evolution, as this applies to any animal. Emphasizing that man is an animal, and that the evolutionary process is equally effective in man through the joint action of evolutionary forces: mutation, genetic drift, migration, and natural selection. The human population has evolved and is still evolving due to the evolution that affects gene frequency in response to these evolutionary forces. This is a scientific fact that has become an axiom that does not require proof or explanation from us.

Hence, the origins of man can be traced back to the roots of life on the surface of this planet, approximately the past three and a half billion years. The last five hundred million years of evolution, as told by the fossil record of vertebrates, point more directly to the direct ancestors of hominids. With more precision, we can trace the roots of man back to the emergence of placental mammals, and from there to the beginnings of the order of primates dating back more than sixty million years ago.

Through comparative studies of primates, apes, great apes, and human beings, we can uncover the remains of bones and molars that constitute the fossil record of primate ancestors of human beings. We know from such comparisons that early anthropoid species began to emerge in the ancient world approximately forty million years ago, and that the first humans were on the stage of life about twenty million years ago (and possibly approximately thirty million years ago).

But the question, however, is: When did the unique evolutionary emergence that produced the first humans begin? The specific timing of this evolutionary event is still a matter of debate and disagreement, but we point out that the evidence points to a date that falls between 5 and 10 million years ago for the emergence of the first member of the hominid family. The first half of humankind's evolutionary history is still clouded, but ongoing research by Richard Leakey, Donald Joanson, David Belbeam and others aims to cover this knowledge gap. We now know somewhat more about the last five million years. The vast evidence available from southern and eastern Africa dating back to the Plio-Pleistocene provides us with specimens of early human forms. The early form, the southern hominid, represents a human with a very small brain, but it walks on two legs. It remains a question whether the early form of humanity was successful in manufacturing its tools regularly, but no stone tools have been found in association with the fossils of this early form.

A more specific and clear biological and cultural interrelationship between the ancestors of hominids is evident from two million years ago, during which time early members of the genus Homo began to emerge in Africa (and possibly also in Asia) and their fossilized remains were associated with the remains of stone tools in many regions. It is therefore not surprising that early members of the genus Homo appear to have much larger brains than is observed in the southern ape species (Australopithecus).

The fossil record of human ancestors continues, the Gilgamesh myth filled with heroic deeds, including Homo erectus, transitional forms, and types of rational forms, including Neanderthals, and finally anatomically modern humans of our species, Homo sapiens, rational (human) from forty thousand years ago (possibly one hundred thousand years ago).

This is, then, very briefly, man's evolutionary journey, but it is a story told to us in more than just the morphological details of molars and bones, as the structures of man and his ancestors constitute more than just physical beings who blindly submit to the dictates of organic evolution. Several million years ago, early humans began to make cultural modifications to their environments, thus causing a radical change in their ecological surroundings, thus plotting a new direction for human evolution.

The answer to the question: what we are and how we became what we are now, is possible only and only through the becoming of biological-cultural processes. Regardless of whether we are talking about the first experiments and attempts at fragmenting stone cores in order to extract the rinses, or about landing a man on the surface of the moon, the process is a uniform process. It may be true that man made tools, but isn't it equally true to say that tools made man?

The unique results of human evolutionary history are enumerated in the size and structure of the human brain, in the dental system, and in bipedalism. We can, however, see the impact of the human origins of human structures in their behavior: the capabilities of human cultural structures in making and using tools, in symbolic language, and in the desire to be social.

Of course, the physical structure of human bodies was shaped by evolutionary elements linked to the development accompanying all of these behavioral characteristics... Does human evolution then explain his behavior? Currently, there are researchers in the fields of biology and anthropology who believe in the validity of such a hypothesis.

A new emphasis has developed in behavioral biology in recent decades, which has been called social biology. This approach, in its conservative, pragmatic applications, attempts to understand social behavior among insects and birds from the standpoint of models of natural selection. In other words, social biology assumes the possibility of understanding social behavior among these animals in an optimal way by attributing such behavior to the differential success of individuals.

What can we say about human behavior? Many researchers have argued that contemporary human behavior, which contains elements such as the territorial nation-state, organized civil war, and so on, is merely an extension of behavior based on the natural inclination of human beings that has evolved over the last several million years. These researchers have emphasized the role of hunting as the main determinant in shaping human behavior, i.e. the creation of the supreme fighting ape.

It is clear that organized hunting of large animals became an important element in the era of Homo erectus about one million years ago. The behavioral requirements for this kind of “social hunting” may have equated to a more cohesive social organization, more effective means of communication, and more personalized tools, which in turn may have posed a higher selective advantage to a larger brain. This hypothesis may provide a good model, but even at this level this model remains a largely speculative one, as there is no direct reference in the fossil record or in archaeological remains to the specific circumstances of an increase in brain size in humans.

Likewise, hypotheses regarding the inevitable impact of hunting on human and territorial aggressiveness, differences between males and females, and so on, are also speculative assumptions. If we take into account the available evidence and its nature, it may seem advisable to avoid such hypotheses, no matter how intelligent they are.

The question still remains... What can we say about human behavior? The development of culture undoubtedly shaped the possibilities of human behavioral structures. The present fact indicates that rational, rational man possesses a complex nervous system foundation, and that all human structures are capable of using the language of symbols, based on the biological and cultural evolutionary inheritance. However, the development of culture created a whole new horizon of behavioral possibilities, because early human beings, like human beings, were also symbol makers and were knowing animals, and their behavior carried the element of testing built within it, which means that the ability to use language and culture is inherited, but the form it takes is acquired through learning. Likewise, human behavior is subject to major changes even during the life of an individual human being.

We human beings are not machines, we are not blind genes that follow the final end to achieve higher individual differential success. Unlike all animals, we possess the potential for infinite behavioral creativity, in addition to the fact of awareness of the possession of this flexibility. Due to the existence of cognitive devices that Richard Dawkins called memes, we human beings have separated from the path of biological evolution that genes dictate to move into the field of development achieved culturally and symbolically.

While social values (as applied to groups) and biological success (as applied to individuals in groups) may come into conflict from time to time, they are more or less consistent over time.  Without an interrelationship of applicable biocultural elements, neither human structures nor the human groups on which humans depend for survival can survive for long periods of time.

The path of human evolution led to the emergence of rational, rational man, this animal that the Creator honored by making him distinguished by behavioral flexibility. On the one hand, human structures are a product of their evolution, but - unlike all creatures on our planet Earth - they can adapt their behavior endlessly through the exercise of their unique creative abilities.

From about 10,000 years ago groups of Homo sapiens sapiens increased the speed of cultural modification. It is known how the physical geography as well as the plant and animal groups changed as the ice retreated, and the same happened for human groups, as human species are not immune to evolutionary forces. As environments change, evolution does not stop, but rather changes its direction. With the development of agriculture and densely populated settled residential sites, new selection pressures have emerged, especially epidemic diseases. An example of this is the spread of sickle cell trait in response to malarial pressures, which is an embodiment of how natural selection works among human populations within the context of their cultural environments.

The rate of cultural change has continued to increase over the last ten thousand years. We can trace how agriculture developed over a period of only several thousand years in many regions of the Old World. At the same time, human groups began experimenting with the domestication of plants in the New World. We also observed the emergence of complex societies.

Many cultural anthropologists and archaeologists have used this evidence to argue that there are regular patterns and even laws that govern the direction of cultural change, and some have gone so far as to suggest hypothetical models to explain how culture emerges. We must take into account that the processes underlying cultural evolution differ radically from those taking place in the field of biological evolution: there are no unique units of cultural transmission corresponding to genes, nor is there cultural selection as measured by the success of groups parallel to natural selection as measured by success in individuals.

It has long been said that people are different, and as early as 1758 Linnaeus put forward the view that certain traits are associated with specific breeds, which he expressed through his classification of four population groups each characterized by a certain trait: the irascible American Indian, the bloody European, the contracted Asiatics, and the indifferent Africans. One hundred years later, the issue of attaching personal traits to races continued to prevail among other researchers, including Gobineau, who became known as the “Father of Racist Ideology.” We point out here the difference between the two racial classifications on the one hand and the racist classifications on the other. The former attempts, usually without success, to distribute human structures into groups, avoiding making a distinction that creates the advantage of one group over another, while racial classifications attempt, always without success, to attach the most superior behavioral characteristics to certain breeds, and the most inferior behavioral characteristics to other breeds. It is worth noting here that anthropologists and psychologists have not found a valid scientific basis for establishing a mutual relationship between personality and ancestry. It is common today to believe that there is a relationship between race and personality, despite the absence of evidence that personality or any cultural trait or any element of culture such as religion and language is in any way a race trait. We have no doubt that this statement is accepted by most enlightened Sudanese, and then accepting the idea that racism is the belief in the superiority of one race over another, and is linked to behaviors characterized by discrimination and discrimination towards what is considered an “inferior” race. Racist belief is usually based on the claim that certain population groups possess abilities. And “lesser” mental faculties. This belief extends to include, in addition to that, the moral and ethical character of the “lower” race. This racist trend is characterized by its claim that mental, moral, and ethical capacities are inherited traits. We believe that it is possible to trace the racist belief that a certain group of people are genetically “inferior” to several elements: such as colonialism, religion, value and moral systems, economic activities, technology, or all of them combined. Only through careful and objective study away from the restrictions imposed on the mind due to the dominance of various forms of taboo, can the enlightened Sudanese mind succeed in revealing the truth of the current crisis imposed by the dominance of the Raja mind whose roots extend to the era of the Blue Sultanate, and then working tirelessly to liberate the mind of our people in the North and South, East and West from such as is promoted by the so-called “Black Book,” which is actually what it claims for itself.

Racism is a cultural phenomenon with no genetic basis, and the fact that a race is the best or the lowest mentally and morally is something that lacks evidence and evidence to support it. What is closest to the truth is that racism is a phenomenon whose roots extend to economics, politics, and society. But it is clear that despite the convictions of the enlightened Sudanese that there is no evidence indicating the “inferiority” of an ethnic group and the “superiority” of other groups that make up the mosaic of the Sudanese nation, racism is a practice that still finds expressions in many political and social behaviors in rescue Sudan at a time when the world has moved, with the beginning of the twenty-first century, to solving problems with more effectiveness and effectiveness for the life of the being called the rational, rational human being.

Taking these points into consideration, we cannot deny the fact that cultures change, that these changes have a specific direction, and that some cultures endure and grow while others become extinct. If we are to meaningfully understand anything about the last thousands of years in human history, this is only possible through studying these cultural elements.

Does my saying this mean a position that calls for completely abandoning the horizon of biological evolution? This is not the case in any way, as long as I realize that mutations are still occurring, and that the effects of radiation and chemicals on gene mutations have become a threat to the occurrence of more frequent gene “errors.” Natural selection is also still active in a strong way, as it is possible that 85% of all gamete cells that a female is pregnant with do not reproduce themselves. In addition, the results of the Arab migrations to Sudan in the last five centuries are completely clear around us.

What we want to say is that man's enormous ability to change his environment has exceeded his biological ability to respond. Unlike mosquitoes, which have responded completely (adaptively) to massive environmental changes, such as the pesticide DDT, humans will not be able to adapt so quickly. If mosquitoes were to spray humans permanently with the same amounts of pesticides (which the mosquitoes will call herbicides), humans will be unable to adapt and will become completely extinct.

Makfung coronation ceremony in Fazogli