The Humans Lost in Time: Evolution Unraveled, #6

By Vaishali Alapati

Think of history, what's the first thing that comes to mind? Just take a moment to pause and think.  Does your mind wander to the pyramids of Ancient Egypt, The Rise and Fall of the Aztec Civilization, The Discovery of the Americas, or maybe the Industrial Revolution.

Today's world owes an immense debt to the mighty empires and great cities of ancient history. Their inventions and ideas enabled the advancement of human society and laid the foundation for modern life. But is it possible to dig a little deeper for the full story? What happened before history? The grand story of humanity starts on Earth. The history of humans is not a clean, linear process with clear beginnings and conclusions. 

It constantly adds new chapters and rewrites itself. Some of the greatest evidence showing how Homo sapiens developed is shown in this evolutionary timeline. All leading up to the world we live in today with other fascinating creatures, tigers, parrots, jellyfish etc. This amazing tale explores the most profound mysteries of humankind, which merges findings from the archeological record with the most recent genetic research to find out who we are, where we came from, and what the future may hold for our existence. It is the story of a family tree whose tangled and knotted branches span several epochs and continents. Let this story immerse us into the saga of human evolution, commencing with the earliest traces of our hominid ancestors in Africa and continuing through waves of human expansion across the continents to the emergence of agriculture and the explosive growth of the world's population.  Many hominin specimens belong not in our solid line of ancestry but on side branches of humankind—evolutionary experiments that ended in extinction. We now realize that the human saga is far more nuanced than the scholars of yore could have ever envisioned. There is no single missing piece binding apes and humans, and there is no smooth drumbeat march forward towards a preordained destiny, shattering the neat clichés of our prehistory. Our tale is blurred, jumbled, and random, but it is one that needs to be told. There are myriad questions unanswered, evolutionary dead ends, and a spirited cast of ancient ancestors of early hominins. This does not imply that scientists have everything completely figured out.

 Many questions remain. The evolution of humans, however, is today one of the best-documented evidence of evolution's empowering force, whereas it was previously an unnerving conjecture in Darwin's grand theory. We humans are strange creatures. We have supersized brains, can stand upright on two legs, design tools to fill every want and need, speak through symbols and traditions, and have conquered every corner of the planet. Scientists have been attempting to explain how humans came to be and our role in the natural world for centuries. The vibrant setting of this story is influenced by adaptation, survival, innovation, creativity and mortality.  If we could travel back in time, we could find common ancestors between ourselves and every other living organism. We could find prehistoric humans, who were curious, inventive, passionate, emotional and power hungry. Nobody, least of all the first humans, had any notion that their descendants would one day reach the moon, split the atom, achieve and master flight, build electrical gadgets, fathom the genetic code, form languages, and write history. Questions like "When did speech evolve?" and "Why did the Neanderthals become extinct?" are just a few of the many that need to be answered, and we will answer these many questions in this volume of "Evolution Unraveled". "The Humans Lost in Time" will take you on an adventurous tour through time, and more.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vaishali Alapati
• Release date: Nov 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215699522

Book preview

Part 1

Intro

At first, the Latin word evolution meant the unrolling of a scroll. This gives the flavor of the inevitable recitation of a story or message. The story has already been composed; all that is needed is to read off the message in a consistent fashion from beginning to end. However, there isn't a beginning and an end.

To put it simply, in biology, evolution is the idea that all species on Earth evolve from other pre-existing organisms and their characteristics change over several generations. People from all over the world tell tales of how the world began. All current people who live in traditional (such as hunter-gatherer tribes, nations, or chiefdoms) or state-level societies adhere to a specific set of origin-related concepts.

Any ideas that fall outside the realm of science, however, are considered creation myths and are an aspect of a culture's religion. Creation myths are mystical, cultural, or spiritual stories that explain the roots of humanity, earth, nature, and the universe. One of the reasons why creation stories are universal is that all cultures and civilizations have the same basic questions about life, such as Where did the universe and the earth come from?, and Why do we humans exist?. Because it is human nature to ponder the unknown and search for answers. All the creation stories we know today stem from these very questions.

For example, Genesis, the creation myth of both Judaism and Christianity, contains two origin stories, both of which are accepted as the creation of the world by the beliefs of modern Judaism, Christianity, and Islam faiths. In the first, God says, Let there be light, and light appears. In six days God creates the sky, heaven, land, plants, the sun, moon, stars, animals, and humans.

On the first and second days, God created the sky, light, and heavens. On the third day, the soil and vegetation were created. On the fourth day, the sun, moon, and stars. The fifth is the aquatic and avian creatures. Finally on the sixth, land-based wildlife and humankind. He created fish in the seas, birds in the air, and all kinds of flora and fauna on the land. God had gifted these creatures with gills to breathe, wings to fly, eyes to see, etc. To all, he says, Be fruitful and multiply, which they do. All the handiwork of an omniscient God. On the seventh day, God rests and ponders his handiwork. The second story is of the well-known Adam and Eve.

Some of these legends have found their place in history and long eclipsed the civilizations that first gave them a voice. Some of us hold to the ethics and morals that were illustrated in the folklore and epics of people who died centuries before us, who spoke languages we will never understand, experienced things we will never experience, and who lived in lands we will never touch.

The passage of time, the concept of birth, and the vision of an all-knowing creator are among the common threads across creation stories, although some are quite unusual. So what if creation stories of contrary cultures share similar aspects? In particular, a theme of many fables in numerous cultures, including those of Greece, Egypt, and Mesopotamia, presents primeval water as the lone element that existed in the beginning. Many philosophers have developed their ideas based on this recurring theme.

That the fabric of the universe was built from primeval water. The qi or mist, which represents the divine power that embodies the cosmic force governing matter, time, and space, is one exception to this rule. It was the core first element in Chinese cosmology.

According to Chinese historical texts, this energy changes at the moment of creation, breaking into dual aspects of male and female, Yin and Yang, hard and soft matter, and other binary components. Which leads to the Chinese origin story. Several legends begin with the cracking of a cosmic egg, including a Chinese one.

A primordial cosmic egg floated within the infinite void containing chaos, a mixture of forces of yin and yang. Over time, the interplay between multiple elements and energies eventually conceived a primal being—a shaggy, horned giant named Pan-Gu. Pan-Gu (pan goo) slept and matured for 18,000 years. One day, he mysteriously awoke. When he opened his eyes, all he could see was a