Origins [antikvár]

8 Humanity in Perspective Close to three million years ago on a campsite near the east shore of Kenya's spectacular Lake Turkana formerly Lake Rudolf, a primitive human picked up a wate" smoothed stone, and with a few skilful strikes transformed it into an implement. What was once an accident of nature was now a piece of deliberate technology, to be used to fashion a stick for digging up roots or to slice the flesh off a dead animal. Soon discarded by its maker, the stone tool still exists, an unbreakable link with our ancestors; together with many others, that tool is preserved in the National Museums of Kenya in Nairobi. It is a heart-quickening thought that we share the same genetic heritage with the hands that shaped the tool that we can now hold in our own hands, and with the mind that decided to make the tool that our minds can now contemplate. There is an inescapable and persistent element of excitement in the search for the origins of humanity. It affects everyone, professionals and non-professionals alike, because there appears to be a universal curiosity about our past, about how a thinking, feeling, cultural being emerged from a primitive ape-like stock. What evolutionary circumstances molded that ancient ape into a tall, upright, highly intelligent creature who, through technology and determination, has come to dominate the world? This is the question we ask about ourselves. And it is not mere idle curiosity because, without doubt, the key to our future lies in a true understanding of what sort of animal we are. Ever since the first signs of self-awareness flickered in the minds of our distant ancestors the human (or pre-human) mind has pondered on its relationship with the world outside. We can guess that early humans, say a million or so years ago, were conscious of themselves as an integral part of the environment in which they lived: they were hunters and gatherers and they survived only it they respected the world in which they lived. And yet they may have already P'-^^'Ous page: Our small planet revolves round the sun. which is only one of the ten thousand million stars w our galaxy. This in turn, is one of the millions of galaxies that make up the universe which according to the 'big bang' theory, probably began To ^'"'on years