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114-686: Trinil is a palaeoanthropological site on the banks of the Bengawan Solo River in Ngawi Regency , East Java Province , Indonesia . It was at this site in 1891 that the Dutch anatomist Eugène Dubois discovered the first early hominin remains to be found outside of Europe : the famous " Java Man " ( Homo erectus erectus ) specimen. 7°22′27″S 111°21′28″E  /  7.3743°S 111.3578°E  / -7.3743; 111.3578 This East Java location article

228-441: A genealogical branching of a single evolutionary tree , discarding Lamarck's independent lineages progressing to higher forms. Unconventionally, Darwin asked questions of fancy pigeon and animal breeders as well as established scientists. At the zoo he had his first sight of an ape, and was profoundly impressed by how human the orangutan seemed. In late September 1838, he started reading Thomas Malthus 's An Essay on

342-484: A 5% royalty with Appleton's of New York, who got their edition out in mid-January 1860, and the other two withdrew. In a May letter, Darwin mentioned a print run of 2,500 copies, but it is not clear if this referred to the first printing only, as there were four that year. The book was widely translated in Darwin's lifetime, but problems arose with translating concepts and metaphors, and some translations were biased by

456-548: A changed environment, initially identifying the most recent catastrophe as the biblical flood . Some anatomists such as Robert Grant were influenced by Lamarck and Geoffroy, but most naturalists regarded their ideas of transmutation as a threat to divinely appointed social order. Darwin went to Edinburgh University in 1825 to study medicine. In his second year he neglected his medical studies for natural history and spent four months assisting Robert Grant 's research into marine invertebrates . Grant revealed his enthusiasm for

570-420: A common ancestor. The Ussher chronology of the 1650s had calculated creation at 4004 BC, but by the 1780s geologists assumed a much older world. Wernerians thought strata were deposits from shrinking seas , but James Hutton proposed a self-maintaining infinite cycle, anticipating uniformitarianism . Charles Darwin's grandfather Erasmus Darwin outlined a hypothesis of transmutation of species in

684-782: A joint publication putting together Wallace's pages with extracts from Darwin's 1844 Essay and his 1857 letter to Gray should be presented at the Linnean Society , and on 1 July 1858, the papers entitled On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection , by Wallace and Darwin respectively, were read out but drew little reaction. While Darwin considered Wallace's idea to be identical to his concept of natural selection, historians have pointed out differences. Darwin described natural selection as being analogous to

798-594: A little more than two years, in the winter of 1929, Pei Wenzhong , then the field director at Zhoukoudian, unearthed the first complete calvaria of Peking Man . Twenty-seven years after Schlosser’s initial description, the antiquity of early humans in East Asia was no longer a speculation, but a reality. Excavations continued at the site and remained fruitful until the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937. The decade-long research yielded

912-649: A new species, Ardipithecus ramidus , based on fossils from Ethiopia. In 1999, two new species were announced. Berhane Asfaw and Tim D. White named Australopithecus garhi based on specimens discovered in Ethiopia's Awash valley . Meave Leakey announced a new species, Kenyanthropus platyops , based on the cranium KNM-WT 40000 from Lake Turkana. In the 21st century, numerous fossils have been found that add to current knowledge of existing species. For example, in 2001, Zeresenay Alemseged discovered an Australopithecus afarensis child fossil, called Selam , from

1026-642: A new species, Australopithecus sediba , based on fossils they had discovered in Malapa cave in South Africa. In 2015, a team also led by Lee Berger announced another species, Homo naledi , based on fossils representing 15 individuals from the Rising Star Cave system in South Africa. New species have also been found in eastern Africa. In 2000, Brigitte Senut and Martin Pickford described

1140-399: A nod to the religious concerns of his oldest friends. The Introduction establishes Darwin's credentials as a naturalist and author, then refers to John Herschel 's letter suggesting that the origin of species "would be found to be a natural in contradistinction to a miraculous process": WHEN on board HMS Beagle , as naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of

1254-692: A proposal to the Rockefeller Foundation seeking financial support for systematic excavation at Zhoukoudian and the establishment of an institute for the study of human biology in China. The Zhoukoudian Project came into existence in the spring of 1927, and two years later, the Cenozoic Research Laboratory of the Geological Survey of China was formally established. Being the first institution of its kind,

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1368-461: A response to Darwin's recent encouragement, with a request to send it on to Lyell if Darwin thought it worthwhile. The mechanism was similar to Darwin's own theory. Darwin wrote to Lyell that "your words have come true with a vengeance, ... forestalled" and he would "of course, at once write and offer to send [it] to any journal" that Wallace chose, adding that "all my originality, whatever it may amount to, will be smashed". Lyell and Hooker agreed that

1482-661: A thing of the past" (1977: 139). The first paleoanthropological find made in Africa was the 1921 discovery of the Kabwe 1 skull at Kabwe (Broken Hill) , Zambia. Initially, this specimen was named Homo rhodesiensis ; however, today it is considered part of the species Homo heidelbergensis . In 1924 in a limestone quarry at Taung , Professor Raymond Dart discovered a remarkably well-preserved juvenile specimen (face and brain endocast), which he named Australopithecus africanus ( Australopithecus meaning "Southern Ape"). Although

1596-753: A third in 1870, but he had difficulty getting her to remove her notes and was troubled by these editions. He remained unsatisfied until a translation by Edmond Barbier was published in 1876. A Dutch translation by Tiberius Cornelis Winkler was published in 1860. By 1864, additional translations had appeared in Italian and Russian. In Darwin's lifetime, Origin was published in Swedish in 1871, Danish in 1872, Polish in 1873, Hungarian in 1873–1874, Spanish in 1877 and Serbian in 1878. As of 1977, Origin had appeared in an additional 18 languages, including Chinese by Ma Chün-wu who added non-Darwinian ideas; he published

1710-473: A translator in France fell through, and the translation by Clémence Royer published in 1862 added an introduction praising Darwin's ideas as an alternative to religious revelation and promoting ideas anticipating social Darwinism and eugenics , as well as numerous explanatory notes giving her own answers to doubts that Darwin expressed. Darwin corresponded with Royer about a second edition published in 1866 and

1824-473: A unique species. Although most hominin fossils from Africa have been found in eastern and southern Africa, there are a few exceptions. One is Sahelanthropus tchadensis , discovered in the central African country of Chad in 2002. This find is important because it widens the assumed geographic range of early hominins. On the Origin of Species On the Origin of Species (or, more completely, On

1938-523: A wealth of faunal and lithic materials, as well as hominin fossils. These included 5 more complete calvaria, 9 large cranial fragments, 6 facial fragments, 14 partial mandibles, 147 isolated teeth, and 11 postcranial elements—estimated to represent as least 40 individuals. Evidence of fire, marked by ash lenses and burned bones and stones, were apparently also present, although recent studies have challenged this view. Franz Weidenreich came to Beijing soon after Black’s untimely death in 1934, and took charge of

2052-547: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Paleoanthropology The field draws from and combines primatology , paleontology , biological anthropology , and cultural anthropology . As technologies and methods advance, genetics plays an ever-increasing role, in particular to examine and compare DNA structure as a vital tool of research of the evolutionary kinship lines of related species and genera. The term paleoanthropology derives from Greek palaiós (παλαιός) "old, ancient", ánthrōpos (ἄνθρωπος) "man, human" and

2166-417: Is currently in flux. The term "hominin" refers to any genus in the human tribe (Hominini), of which Homo sapiens (modern humans) is the only living specimen. In 1758 Carl Linnaeus introduced the name Homo sapiens as a species name in the 10th edition of his work Systema Naturae although without a scientific description of the species-specific characteristics. Since the great apes were considered

2280-541: Is most severe between closely related forms "which fill nearly the same place in the economy of nature". Chapter IV details natural selection under the "infinitely complex and close-fitting ... mutual relations of all organic beings to each other and to their physical conditions of life". Darwin takes as an example a country where a change in conditions led to extinction of some species, immigration of others and, where suitable variations occurred, descendants of some species became adapted to new conditions. He remarks that

2394-483: Is simply due to our domestic productions having been raised under conditions of life not so uniform as, and somewhat different from, those to which the parent-species have been exposed under nature. It can be seen here that Darwin attributes the greater variation amongst individuals of domestic varieties compared to their progenitor populations in nature as being due to their "conditions of life" (environment) being "not so uniform as", and "somewhat different from" those of

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2508-670: The Baconian method . After the turmoil of the English Civil War , the Royal Society wanted to show that science did not threaten religious and political stability. John Ray developed an influential natural theology of rational order; in his taxonomy , species were static and fixed, their adaptation and complexity designed by God, and varieties showed minor differences caused by local conditions. In God's benevolent design, carnivores caused mercifully swift death, but

2622-443: The X Club to secularise science by promoting scientific naturalism . Within two decades, there was widespread scientific agreement that evolution, with a branching pattern of common descent, had occurred, but scientists were slow to give natural selection the significance that Darwin thought appropriate. During " the eclipse of Darwinism " from the 1880s to the 1930s, various other mechanisms of evolution were given more credit. With

2736-408: The artificial selection practised by animal breeders, and emphasised competition between individuals; Wallace drew no comparison to selective breeding , and focused on ecological pressures that kept different varieties adapted to local conditions. Some historians have suggested that Wallace was actually discussing group selection rather than selection acting on individual variation. Soon after

2850-648: The 1790s, and French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck published a more developed theory in 1809. Both envisaged that spontaneous generation produced simple forms of life that progressively developed greater complexity, adapting to the environment by inheriting changes in adults caused by use or disuse. This process was later called Lamarckism . Lamarck thought there was an inherent progressive tendency driving organisms continuously towards greater complexity, in parallel but separate lineages with no perceptible extinction. Geoffroy contended that embryonic development recapitulated transformations of organisms in past eras when

2964-409: The 1930s, paleontologist Robert Broom discovered and described a new species at Kromdraai , South Africa. Although similar in some ways to Dart's Australopithecus africanus , Broom's specimen had much larger cheek teeth. Because of this difference, Broom named his specimen Paranthropus robustus , using a new genus name. In doing so, he established the practice of grouping gracile australopiths in

3078-607: The Cenozoic Laboratory opened up new avenues for the study of paleogeology and paleontology in China. The Laboratory was the precursor of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Science, which took its modern form after 1949. The first of the major project finds are attributed to the young Swedish paleontologist, Anders Birger Bohlin , then serving as

3192-603: The Genesis of Species listed detailed arguments against natural selection, and claimed it included false metaphysics . Darwin made extensive revisions to the sixth edition of the Origin (this was the first edition in which he used the word " evolution " which had commonly been associated with embryological development , though all editions concluded with the word "evolved" ), and added a new chapter VII, Miscellaneous objections , to address Mivart's arguments. The sixth edition

3306-567: The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life ) is a work of scientific literature by Charles Darwin that is considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology . It was published on 24 November 1859. Darwin's book introduced the scientific theory that populations evolve over the course of generations through a process of natural selection although Lamarckism

3420-486: The Principle of Population with its statistical argument that human populations, if unrestrained, breed beyond their means and struggle to survive . Darwin related this to the struggle for existence among wildlife and botanist de Candolle's "warring of the species" in plants; he immediately envisioned "a force like a hundred thousand wedges" pushing well-adapted variations into "gaps in the economy of nature", so that

3534-535: The Taung child was a bipedal human ancestor, a transitional form between ape and human. However, Dart's conclusions were largely ignored for decades, as the prevailing view of the time was that a large brain evolved before bipedality. It took the discovery of additional australopith fossils in Africa that resembled his specimen, and the rejection of the Piltdown Man hoax , for Dart's claims to be taken seriously. In

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3648-476: The United States, botanist Asa Gray , an American colleague of Darwin, negotiated with a Boston publisher for publication of an authorised American version, but learnt that two New York publishing firms were already planning to exploit the absence of international copyright to print Origin . Darwin was delighted by the popularity of the book, and asked Gray to keep any profits. Gray managed to negotiate

3762-513: The affected areas by other species. In Britain, William Paley 's Natural Theology saw adaptation as evidence of beneficial "design" by the Creator acting through natural laws. All naturalists in the two English universities ( Oxford and Cambridge ) were Church of England clergymen, and science became a search for these laws. Geologists adapted catastrophism to show repeated worldwide annihilation and creation of new fixed species adapted to

3876-494: The anonymously published popular science book Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation , written by Scottish journalist Robert Chambers , widened public interest in the concept of transmutation of species. Vestiges used evidence from the fossil record and embryology to support the claim that living things had progressed from the simple to the more complex over time. But it proposed a linear progression rather than

3990-428: The arrival of Wallace at the same conclusion, which led him to "publish this Abstract" of his incomplete work. He outlines his ideas, and sets out the essence of his theory: As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under

4104-533: The artificial selection practised by animal breeders frequently produced sharp divergence in character between breeds, and suggests that natural selection might do the same, saying: But how, it may be asked, can any analogous principle apply in nature? I believe it can and does apply most efficiently, from the simple circumstance that the more diversified the descendants from any one species become in structure, constitution, and habits, by so much will they be better enabled to seize on many and widely diversified places in

4218-399: The book on the same terms as he published Lyell, without even seeing the manuscript: he offered Darwin ⅔ of the profits. Darwin promptly accepted with pleasure, insisting that Murray would be free to withdraw the offer if, having read the chapter manuscripts, he felt the book would not sell well (eventually Murray paid £180 to Darwin for the first edition and by Darwin's death in 1882 the book

4332-407: The book promptly reached a large number of subscribers to the library. The second edition of 3,000 copies was quickly brought out on 7 January 1860, and incorporated numerous corrections as well as a response to religious objections by the addition of a new epigraph on page ii, a quotation from Charles Kingsley , and the phrase "by the Creator" added to the closing sentence. During Darwin's lifetime

4446-501: The book went through six editions, with cumulative changes and revisions to deal with counter-arguments raised. The third edition came out in 1861, with a number of sentences rewritten or added and an introductory appendix, An Historical Sketch of the Recent Progress of Opinion on the Origin of Species . In response to objections that the origin of life was unexplained, Darwin pointed to acceptance of Newton's law even though

4560-618: The book where the phrase "races of man" is used, referring to races of humans. On the Origin of Species was first published on Thursday 24 November 1859, priced at fifteen shillings with a first printing of 1250 copies. The book had been offered to booksellers at Murray's autumn sale on Tuesday 22 November, and all available copies had been taken up immediately. In total, 1,250 copies were printed but after deducting presentation and review copies, and five for Stationers' Hall copyright, around 1,170 copies were available for sale. Significantly, 500 were taken by Mudie's Library , ensuring that

4674-518: The book, Darwin traced evolutionary ideas as far back as Aristotle ; the text he cites is a summary by Aristotle of the ideas of the earlier Greek philosopher Empedocles . Early Christian Church Fathers and Medieval European scholars interpreted the Genesis creation narrative allegorically rather than as a literal historical account; organisms were described by their mythological and heraldic significance as well as by their physical form. Nature

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4788-455: The brain was small (410 cm ), its shape was rounded, unlike the brain shape of chimpanzees and gorillas, and more like the shape seen in modern humans. In addition, the specimen exhibited short canine teeth , and the anterior placement of the foramen magnum was more like the placement seen in modern humans than the placement seen in chimpanzees and gorillas, suggesting that this species was bipedal . All of these traits convinced Dart that

4902-421: The branching common descent theory behind Darwin's work in progress, and it ignored adaptation . Darwin read it soon after publication, and scorned its amateurish geology and zoology, but he carefully reviewed his own arguments after leading scientists, including Adam Sedgwick, attacked its morality and scientific errors. Vestiges had significant influence on public opinion, and the intense debate helped to pave

5016-415: The breeds is something astonishing", yet all were descended from one species, the rock dove . Darwin saw two distinct kinds of variation: (1) rare abrupt changes he called "sports" or "monstrosities" (example: Ancon sheep with short legs), and (2) ubiquitous small differences (example: slightly shorter or longer bill of pigeons). Both types of hereditary changes can be used by breeders. However, for Darwin

5130-610: The bright plumage of some male birds. He analysed sexual selection more fully in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871). Natural selection was expected to work very slowly in forming new species, but given the effectiveness of artificial selection, he could "see no limit to the amount of change, to the beauty and infinite complexity of the coadaptations between all organic beings, one with another and with their physical conditions of life, which may be effected in

5244-465: The cause of gravity was unknown, and Leibnitz had accused Newton of introducing "occult qualities & miracles". The fourth edition in 1866 had further revisions. The fifth edition, published on 10 February 1869, incorporated more changes and for the first time included the phrase " survival of the fittest ", which had been coined by the philosopher Herbert Spencer in his Principles of Biology (1864). In January 1871, George Jackson Mivart 's On

5358-459: The closest relatives of human beings, based on morphological similarity, in the 19th century, it was speculated that the closest living relatives to humans were chimpanzees (genus Pan ) and gorilla (genus Gorilla ), and based on the natural range of these creatures, it was surmised that humans shared a common ancestor with African apes and that fossils of these ancestors would ultimately be found in Africa. The science arguably began in

5472-476: The complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form. Starting with the third edition, Darwin prefaced the introduction with a sketch of the historical development of evolutionary ideas. In that sketch he acknowledged that Patrick Matthew had, unknown to Wallace or himself, anticipated

5586-558: The concept of natural selection in an appendix to a book published in 1831; in the fourth edition he mentioned that William Charles Wells had done so as early as 1813. Chapter I covers animal husbandry and plant breeding , going back to ancient Egypt . Darwin discusses contemporary opinions on the origins of different breeds under cultivation to argue that many have been produced from common ancestors by selective breeding . As an illustration of artificial selection , he describes fancy pigeon breeding, noting that "[t]he diversity of

5700-403: The correct explanation of stabilizing selection . In Chapter II, Darwin specifies that the distinction between species and varieties is arbitrary, with experts disagreeing and changing their decisions when new forms were found. He concludes that "a well-marked variety may be justly called an incipient species" and that "species are only strongly marked and permanent varieties". He argues for

5814-432: The development of the modern evolutionary synthesis in the 1930s and 1940s, Darwin's concept of evolutionary adaptation through natural selection became central to modern evolutionary theory, and it has now become the unifying concept of the life sciences . Darwin's theory of evolution is based on key facts and the inferences drawn from them, which biologist Ernst Mayr summarised as follows: In later editions of

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5928-494: The developmental and anatomical differences between different breeds of many domestic animals, became actively involved in fancy pigeon breeding, and experimented (with the help of his young son Francis ) on ways that plant seeds and animals might disperse across oceans to colonise distant islands. By 1856, his theory was much more sophisticated, with a mass of supporting evidence. In his autobiography, Darwin said he had "gained much by my delay in publishing from about 1839, when

6042-435: The environment acted on embryos, and that animal structures were determined by a constant plan as demonstrated by homologies . Georges Cuvier strongly disputed such ideas, holding that unrelated, fixed species showed similarities that reflected a design for functional needs. His palæontological work in the 1790s had established the reality of extinction, which he explained by local catastrophes , followed by repopulation of

6156-654: The famous Laetoli footprints in Tanzania, which demonstrated the antiquity of bipedality in the human lineage. In 1985, Richard Leakey and Alan Walker discovered a specimen they called the Black Skull , found near Lake Turkana. This specimen was assigned to another species, Paranthropus aethiopicus . In 1994, a team led by Meave Leakey announced a new species, Australopithecus anamensis , based on specimens found near Lake Turkana. Numerous other researchers have made important discoveries in eastern Africa. Possibly

6270-415: The field advisor at Zhoukoudian . He recovered a left lower molar that Black (1927) identified as unmistakably human (it compared favorably to the previous find made by Zdansky), and subsequently coined it Sinanthropus pekinensis . The news was at first met with skepticism, and many scholars had reservations that a single tooth was sufficient to justify the naming of a new type of early hominin. Yet within

6384-411: The first points which strikes us, is, that they generally differ much more from each other, than do the individuals of any one species or variety in a state of nature. When we reflect on the vast diversity of the plants and animals which have been cultivated, and which have varied during all ages under the most different climates and treatment, I think we are driven to conclude that this greater variability

6498-421: The first stop ashore, at St. Jago , found Lyell's uniformitarianism a key to the geological history of landscapes. Darwin discovered fossils resembling huge armadillos , and noted the geographical distribution of modern species in hope of finding their "centre of creation". The three Fuegian missionaries the expedition returned to Tierra del Fuego were friendly and civilised, yet to Darwin their relatives on

6612-577: The fossil KNM-ER 1470 near Lake Turkana in Kenya. KNM-ER 1470 has been interpreted as either a distinct species, Homo rudolfensis , or alternatively as evidence of sexual dimorphism in Homo habilis . In 1967, Richard Leakey reported the earliest definitive examples of anatomically modern Homo sapiens from the site of Omo Kibish in Ethiopia, known as the Omo remains . In the late 1970s, Mary Leakey excavated

6726-489: The fossil hominin teeth delighted the scientific community in Beijing, and plans for developing a larger, more systematic project at Zhoukoudian were soon formulated. At the epicenter of excitement was Davidson Black , a Canadian-born anatomist working at Peking Union Medical College . Black shared Andersson’s interest, as well as his view that central Asia was a promising home for early humankind. In late 1926, Black submitted

6840-466: The general acceptance of Africa as the root of genus Homo , 19th-century naturalists sought the origin of humans in Asia. So-called "dragon bones" (fossil bones and teeth) from Chinese apothecary shops were known, but it was not until the early 20th century that German paleontologist, Max Schlosser , first described a single human tooth from Beijing . Although Schlosser (1903) was very cautious, identifying

6954-450: The genus Australopithecus and robust australopiths in the genus Paranthropus . During the 1960s, the robust variety was commonly moved into Australopithecus . A more recent consensus has been to return to the original classification of Paranthropus as a separate genus. The second half of the twentieth century saw a significant increase in the number of paleoanthropological finds made in Africa. Many of these finds were associated with

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7068-422: The geographical distribution of living and fossil species could be explained if every new species always came into existence near an already existing, closely related species. Charles Lyell recognised the implications of Wallace's paper and its possible connection to Darwin's work, although Darwin did not, and in a letter written on 1–2 May 1856 Lyell urged Darwin to publish his theory to establish priority. Darwin

7182-518: The inhabitants of South America, and in the geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants of that continent. These facts seemed to me to throw some light on the origin of species—that mystery of mysteries, as it has been called by one of our greatest philosophers. Darwin refers specifically to the distribution of the species rheas , and to that of the Galápagos tortoises and mockingbirds . He mentions his years of work on his theory, and

7296-529: The island seemed "miserable, degraded savages", and he no longer saw an unbridgeable gap between humans and animals. As the Beagle neared England in 1836, he noted that species might not be fixed. Richard Owen showed that fossils of extinct species Darwin found in South America were allied to living species on the same continent. In March 1837, ornithologist John Gould announced that Darwin's rhea

7410-599: The last part of his Beagle -related writing and began working full-time on evolution. He now realised that the branching pattern of evolutionary divergence was explained by natural selection working constantly to improve adaptation. His thinking changed from the view that species formed in isolated populations only , as on islands, to an emphasis on speciation without isolation ; that is, he saw increasing specialisation within large stable populations as continuously exploiting new ecological niches . He conducted empirical research focusing on difficulties with his theory. He studied

7524-613: The late 19th century when important discoveries occurred that led to the study of human evolution . The discovery of the Neanderthal in Germany, Thomas Huxley 's Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature , and Charles Darwin 's The Descent of Man were both important to early paleoanthropological research. The modern field of paleoanthropology began in the 19th century with the discovery of " Neanderthal man" (the eponymous skeleton

7638-404: The leading expert on their classification. Using his theory, he discovered homologies showing that slightly changed body parts served different functions to meet new conditions, and he found an intermediate stage in the evolution of distinct sexes . Darwin's barnacle studies convinced him that variation arose constantly and not just in response to changed circumstances. In 1854, he completed

7752-413: The manuscripts to his friends for checking. By early October, he began to "expect my abstract will run into a small volume, which will have to be published separately." Over the same period, he continued to collect information and write large fully detailed sections of the manuscript for his "big book" on Species, Natural Selection . By mid-March 1859 Darwin's abstract had reached the stage where he

7866-618: The meeting, Darwin decided to write "an abstract of my whole work" in the form of one or more papers to be published by the Linnean Society , but was concerned about "how it can be made scientific for a Journal, without giving facts, which would be impossible." He asked Hooker how many pages would be available, but "If the Referees were to reject it as not strictly scientific I would, perhaps publish it as pamphlet." He began his "abstract of Species book" on 20 July 1858, while on holiday at Sandown , and wrote parts of it from memory, while sending

7980-626: The most famous is the Lucy skeleton , discovered in 1973 by Donald Johanson and Maurice Taieb in Ethiopia's Afar Triangle at the site of Hadar . On the basis of this skeleton and subsequent discoveries, the researchers came up with a new species, Australopithecus afarensis . In 1975, Colin Groves and Vratislav Mazák announced a new species of human they called Homo ergaster . Homo ergaster specimens have been found at numerous sites in eastern and southern Africa. In 1994, Tim D. White announced

8094-755: The natural world. In Chapter III, Darwin asks how varieties "which I have called incipient species" become distinct species, and in answer introduces the key concept he calls " natural selection "; in the fifth edition he adds, "But the expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer , of the Survival of the Fittest , is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient." Owing to this struggle for life, any variation, however slight and from whatever cause proceeding, if it be in any degree profitable to an individual of any species, in its infinitely complex relations to other organic beings and to external nature, will tend to

8208-409: The origin of life, as well as a final chapter on religious implications partly inspired by Bronn's adherence to Naturphilosophie . In 1862, Bronn produced a second edition based on the third English edition and Darwin's suggested additions, but then died of a heart attack. Darwin corresponded closely with Julius Victor Carus , who published an improved translation in 1867. Darwin's attempts to find

8322-491: The paleoanthropological spotlight shifted westward to East Africa. Although China re-opened its doors to the West in the late 1970s, national policy calling for self-reliance, coupled with a widened language barrier, thwarted all the possibilities of renewed scientific relationships. Indeed, Harvard anthropologist K. C. Chang noted, "international collaboration (in developing nations very often a disguise for Western domination) became

8436-521: The parent species". He later erroneously elaborates that changed "conditions of life" act on the reproductive organs to generate greater variability in the progeny. Even after 1860 when Darwin read the correct reason for greater variation in domestic varieties in Patrick Matthew 's book, On Naval Timber and Arboriculture published in 1831, future editions of On the Origin of Species contained these first two sentences unchanged and continued to omit

8550-541: The phrase " struggle for existence " in "a large and metaphorical sense, including dependence of one being on another"; he gives examples ranging from plants struggling against drought to plants competing for birds to eat their fruit and disseminate their seeds. He describes the struggle resulting from population growth: "It is the doctrine of Malthus applied with manifold force to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms." He discusses checks to such increase including complex ecological interdependencies, and notes that competition

8664-525: The polity of nature, and so be enabled to increase in numbers. Historians have remarked that here Darwin anticipated the modern concept of an ecological niche . He did not suggest that every favourable variation must be selected, nor that the favoured animals were better or higher, but merely more adapted to their surroundings. Darwin proposes sexual selection , driven by competition between males for mates, to explain sexually dimorphic features such as lion manes, deer antlers, peacock tails, bird songs, and

8778-485: The preliminaries and chapters 1–5 in 1902–1904, and his complete translation in 1920. Page ii contains quotations by William Whewell and Francis Bacon on the theology of natural laws , harmonising science and religion in accordance with Isaac Newton 's belief in a rational God who established a law-abiding cosmos. In the second edition, Darwin added an epigraph from Joseph Butler affirming that God could work through scientific laws as much as through miracles , in

8892-426: The preservation of that individual, and will generally be inherited by its offspring ... I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection, in order to mark its relation to man's power of selection. He notes that both A. P. de Candolle and Charles Lyell had stated that all organisms are exposed to severe competition. Darwin emphasizes that he used

9006-462: The principle of divergence was complete by 5 September 1857 when he sent Asa Gray a brief but detailed abstract of his ideas. Darwin was hard at work on the manuscript for his "big book" on Natural Selection , when on 18 June 1858 he received a parcel from Wallace, who stayed on the Maluku Islands ( Ternate and Gilolo). It enclosed twenty pages describing an evolutionary mechanism,

9120-557: The scientific results of the Beagle voyage. He tentatively wrote of his ideas to Lyell in January 1842; then in June he roughed out a 35-page "Pencil Sketch" of his theory. Darwin began correspondence about his theorising with the botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker in January 1844, and by July had rounded out his "sketch" into a 230-page "Essay", to be expanded with his research results and published if he died prematurely. In November 1844,

9234-459: The site of Dikika in the Afar region of Ethiopia. This find is particularly important because the fossil included a preserved hyoid bone , something rarely found in other paleoanthropological fossils but important for understanding the evolution of speech capacities. Two new species from southern Africa have been discovered and described in recent years. In 2008, a team led by Lee Berger announced

9348-453: The small changes were most important in evolution. In this chapter Darwin expresses his erroneous belief that environmental change is necessary to generate variation. The opening two sentences of On The Origin demonstrate this point and also show that Darwin did not see the role of natural selection in stabilizing selection : When we look to the individuals of the same variety or sub-variety of our older cultivated plants and animals, one of

9462-594: The sparse nature of the initial finds, the site was abandoned. Work did not resume until 1921, when the Austrian paleontologist, Otto Zdansky , fresh with his doctoral degree from Vienna, came to Beijing to work for Andersson. Zdansky conducted short-term excavations at Locality 1 in 1921 and 1923, and recovered only two teeth of significance (one premolar and one molar) that he subsequently described, cautiously, as "? Homo sp. " (Zdansky, 1927). With that done, Zdansky returned to Austria and suspended all fieldwork. News of

9576-406: The species Orrorin tugenensis , based on fossils they found in Kenya. In 2004, Yohannes Haile-Selassie announced that some specimens previously labeled as Ardipithecus ramidus made up a different species, Ardipithecus kadabba . In 2015, Haile-Selassie announced another new species, Australopithecus deyiremeda , though some scholars are skeptical that the associated fossils truly represent

9690-465: The specific question of human evolution—"light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history," was all Darwin wrote on the subject—the implications of evolutionary theory were clear to contemporary readers. Debates between Thomas Huxley and Richard Owen focused on the idea of human evolution. Huxley convincingly illustrated many of the similarities and differences between humans and apes in his 1863 book Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature . By

9804-649: The study of the hominin specimens. Following the loss of the Peking Man materials in late 1941, scientific endeavors at Zhoukoudian slowed, primarily because of lack of funding. Frantic search for the missing fossils took place, and continued well into the 1950s. After the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, excavations resumed at Zhoukoudian. But with political instability and social unrest brewing in China, beginning in 1966, and major discoveries at Olduvai Gorge and East Turkana ( Koobi Fora ),

9918-407: The suffering caused by parasitism was a puzzling problem . The biological classification introduced by Carl Linnaeus in 1735 also viewed species as fixed according to the divine plan, but did recognize the hierarchical nature of different taxa. In 1766, Georges Buffon suggested that some similar species, such as horses and asses, or lions, tigers, and leopards, might be varieties descended from

10032-475: The suffix -logía (-λογία) "study of". Hominoids are a primate superfamily, the hominid family is currently considered to comprise both the great ape lineages and human lineages within the hominoid superfamily. The " Homininae " comprise both the human lineages and the African ape lineages. The term "African apes" refers only to chimpanzees and gorillas . The terminology of the immediate biological family

10146-428: The survivors would pass on their form and abilities, and unfavourable variations would be destroyed. By December 1838, he had noted a similarity between the act of breeders selecting traits and a Malthusian Nature selecting among variants thrown up by "chance" so that "every part of newly acquired structure is fully practical and perfected". Darwin now had the basic framework of his theory of natural selection, but he

10260-792: The theory was clearly conceived, to 1859; and I lost nothing by it". On the first page of his 1859 book he noted that, having begun work on the topic in 1837, he had drawn up "some short notes" after five years, had enlarged these into a sketch in 1844, and "from that period to the present day I have steadily pursued the same object." Various biographers have proposed that Darwin avoided or delayed making his ideas public for personal reasons. Reasons suggested have included fear of religious persecution or social disgrace if his views were revealed, and concern about upsetting his clergymen naturalist friends or his pious wife Emma. Charles Darwin's illness caused repeated delays. His paper on Glen Roy had proved embarrassingly wrong, and he may have wanted to be sure he

10374-459: The time Darwin published his own book on the subject, Descent of Man , it was already a well-known interpretation of his theory—and the interpretation which made the theory highly controversial. Even many of Darwin's original supporters (such as Alfred Russel Wallace and Charles Lyell ) balked at the idea that human beings could have evolved their apparently boundless mental capacities and moral sensibilities through natural selection . Prior to

10488-505: The title page adding by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life . In this extended title (and elsewhere in the book) Darwin used the biological term " races " interchangeably with " varieties " , meaning varieties within a species . He used the term broadly, and as well as discussions of "the several races, for instance, of the cabbage" and "the hereditary varieties or races of our domestic animals and plants", there are three instances in

10602-422: The tooth only as "? Anthropoide g. et sp. indet ?," he was hopeful that future work would discover a new anthropoid in China. Eleven years later, the Swedish geologist Johan Gunnar Andersson was sent to China as a mining advisor and soon developed an interest in "dragon bones". It was he who, in 1918, discovered the sites around Zhoukoudian , a village about 50 kilometers southwest of Beijing. However, because of

10716-598: The translator's own agenda. Darwin distributed presentation copies in France and Germany, hoping that suitable applicants would come forward, as translators were expected to make their own arrangements with a local publisher. He welcomed the distinguished elderly naturalist and geologist Heinrich Georg Bronn , but the German translation published in 1860 imposed Bronn's own ideas, adding controversial themes that Darwin had deliberately omitted. Bronn translated "favoured races" as "perfected races", and added essays on issues including

10830-545: The transmutation of species, but Darwin rejected it. Starting in 1827, at Cambridge University , Darwin learnt science as natural theology from botanist John Stevens Henslow , and read Paley , John Herschel and Alexander von Humboldt . Filled with zeal for science, he studied catastrophist geology with Adam Sedgwick . In December 1831, he joined the Beagle expedition as a gentleman naturalist and geologist. He read Charles Lyell 's Principles of Geology and from

10944-433: The ubiquity of variation in nature. Historians have noted that naturalists had long been aware that the individuals of a species differed from one another, but had generally considered such variations to be limited and unimportant deviations from the archetype of each species, that archetype being a fixed ideal in the mind of God. Darwin and Wallace made variation among individuals of the same species central to understanding

11058-550: The way for the acceptance of the more scientifically sophisticated Origin by moving evolutionary speculation into the mainstream. While few naturalists were willing to consider transmutation, Herbert Spencer became an active proponent of Lamarckism and progressive development in the 1850s. Hooker was persuaded to take away a copy of the "Essay" in January 1847, and eventually sent a page of notes giving Darwin much-needed feedback. Reminded of his lack of expertise in taxonomy , Darwin began an eight-year study of barnacles , becoming

11172-414: The way for the larger work expected shortly: "Every body is interested in pigeons." Darwin responded that this was impractical: he had only the last chapter still to write. In September the main title still included " An essay on the origin of species and varieties ", but Darwin now proposed dropping "varieties". With Murray's persuasion, the title was eventually agreed as On the Origin of Species , with

11286-577: The work of the Leakey family in eastern Africa. In 1959, Mary Leakey 's discovery of the Zinj fossin ( OH 5 ) at Olduvai Gorge , Tanzania, led to the identification of a new species, Paranthropus boisei . In 1960, the Leakeys discovered the fossil OH 7 , also at Olduvai Gorge, and assigned it to a new species, Homo habilis . In 1972, Bernard Ngeneo, a fieldworker working for Richard Leakey , discovered

11400-417: The year shown as " 1859 ". Murray's response was favourable, and a very pleased Darwin told Lyell on 30 March that he would "send shortly a large bundle of M.S. but unfortunately I cannot for a week, as the three first chapters are in three copyists' hands". He bowed to Murray's objection to "abstract" in the title, though he felt it excused the lack of references, but wanted to keep "natural selection" which

11514-407: Was "constantly used in all works on Breeding", and hoped "to retain it with Explanation, somewhat as thus",— Through Natural Selection or the preservation of favoured races . On 31 March Darwin wrote to Murray in confirmation, and listed headings of the 12 chapters in progress: he had drafted all except "XII. Recapitulation & Conclusion". Murray responded immediately with an agreement to publish

11628-548: Was a separate species from the previously described rhea (though their territories overlapped), that mockingbirds collected on the Galápagos Islands represented three separate species each unique to a particular island, and that several distinct birds from those islands were all classified as finches . Darwin began speculating, in a series of notebooks, on the possibility that "one species does change into another" to explain these findings, and around July sketched

11742-462: Was also included as a mechanism of lesser importance. The book presented a body of evidence that the diversity of life arose by common descent through a branching pattern of evolution . Darwin included evidence that he had collected on the Beagle expedition in the 1830s and his subsequent findings from research, correspondence, and experimentation. Various evolutionary ideas had already been proposed to explain new findings in biology . There

11856-448: Was correct. David Quammen has suggested all these factors may have contributed, and notes Darwin's large output of books and busy family life during that time. A more recent study by science historian John van Wyhe has determined that the idea that Darwin delayed publication only dates back to the 1940s, and Darwin's contemporaries thought the time he took was reasonable. Darwin always finished one book before starting another. While he

11970-427: Was found in 1856, but there had been finds elsewhere since 1830), and with evidence of so-called cave men . The idea that humans are similar to certain great apes had been obvious to people for some time, but the idea of the biological evolution of species in general was not legitimized until after Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859. Though Darwin's first book on evolution did not address

12084-492: Was fully occupied with his career as a geologist and held back from compiling it until his book on The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs was completed. As he recalled in his autobiography, he had "at last got a theory by which to work", but it was only in June 1842 that he allowed himself "the satisfaction of writing a very brief abstract of my theory in pencil". Darwin continued to research and extensively revise his theory while focusing on his main work of publishing

12198-665: Was growing support for such ideas among dissident anatomists and the general public, but during the first half of the 19th century the English scientific establishment was closely tied to the Church of England , while science was part of natural theology . Ideas about the transmutation of species were controversial as they conflicted with the beliefs that species were unchanging parts of a designed hierarchy and that humans were unique, unrelated to other animals. The political and theological implications were intensely debated, but transmutation

12312-584: Was in its sixth edition, earning Darwin nearly £3000 ). On 5 April, Darwin sent Murray the first three chapters, and a proposal for the book's title. An early draft title page suggests On the Mutability of Species . Murray cautiously asked Whitwell Elwin to review the chapters. At Lyell's suggestion, Elwin recommended that, rather than "put forth the theory without the evidence", the book should focus on observations upon pigeons , briefly stating how these illustrated Darwin's general principles and preparing

12426-435: Was not accepted by the scientific mainstream. The book was written for non-specialist readers and attracted widespread interest upon its publication. Darwin was already highly regarded as a scientist, so his findings were taken seriously and the evidence he presented generated scientific, philosophical, and religious discussion. The debate over the book contributed to the campaign by T. H. Huxley and his fellow members of

12540-487: Was published by Murray on 19 February 1872 as The Origin of Species , with "On" dropped from the title. Darwin had told Murray of working men in Lancashire clubbing together to buy the fifth edition at 15 shillings and wanted it made more widely available; the price was halved to 7 s 6 d by printing in a smaller font . It includes a glossary compiled by W.S. Dallas. Book sales increased from 60 to 250 per month. In

12654-399: Was researching, he told many people about his interest in transmutation without causing outrage. He firmly intended to publish, but it was not until September 1854 that he could work on it full-time. His 1846 estimate that writing his "big book" would take five years proved optimistic. An 1855 paper on the "introduction" of species, written by Alfred Russel Wallace , claimed that patterns in

12768-451: Was thinking of early publication; Lyell suggested the publisher John Murray , and met with him to find if he would be willing to publish. On 28 March Darwin wrote to Lyell asking about progress, and offering to give Murray assurances "that my Book is not more un -orthodox, than the subject makes inevitable." He enclosed a draft title sheet proposing An abstract of an Essay on the Origin of Species and Varieties Through natural selection , with

12882-500: Was torn between the desire to set out a full and convincing account and the pressure to quickly produce a short paper. He met Lyell, and in correspondence with Joseph Dalton Hooker affirmed that he did not want to expose his ideas to review by an editor as would have been required to publish in an academic journal. He began a "sketch" account on 14 May 1856, and by July had decided to produce a full technical treatise on species as his "big book" on Natural Selection . His theory including

12996-465: Was widely believed to be unstable and capricious, with monstrous births from union between species, and spontaneous generation of life. The Protestant Reformation inspired a literal interpretation of the Bible , with concepts of creation that conflicted with the findings of an emerging science seeking explanations congruent with the mechanical philosophy of René Descartes and the empiricism of

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