ANTHROPOLOGY: Historical Background

Historical Background

The study of human evolution and human variation are two principal aspects of Physical Anthropology. The evolution and of modern man through various stages of development and the evolutionary processes concerns physical anthropologists at the first place. At the second place they look at the differences in physical characteristics in modern man, including racial differentiation. A brief historical review of the study of the human groups which are referred to as races has been included under the heading “Racial Classification” in the later part of this book. In the present chapter a brief historical background of the concept of evolution and physical anthropology in general will be dealt with.

The development of physical anthropology as an organized and systematic discipline started in the second half of the nineteenth century. But the thinkers and philosophers tried to understand and explain the various aspects of human origin and variations in the physical features in their own ways from a very early time.

The idea of human origin and evolution occurred to some of the ancient Greek and Roman thinkers. In the writings of Herodotus (484-425 B.C) we come across description of skulls of the inhabitants of Greece, Egypt, Asia Minor, Libya, Scythia, etc. He demonstrated that the skull wall was thicker in the Egyptians and thinner in the Persians. According to him these differences were due to the influence of the environment. Hippocrates (460-377) also laid more emphasis on the environment to explain differences in physical features among different populations

Hippocrates, (460- 377 BC), Father of Medicine

 He demonstrated the differences in physical features between the inhabitants of the hills and of the plains. From his writings it appers that he was in favour of inheritance of the acquired characters.

Aristotle (384-322 B.C) works provide us with much useful and interesting anthropological information on heredity growth, distribution of body hair, body proportions in children, human brain, skull, biped nature of man and so forth. He observed the comparative characters of man and other animals.

     Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC)

According to him man is the most complete animal in all its parts. He marked the peculiar characteristics of man and on the basis of those he gave man a special place among the animals. Aristotle is considered as the first authority to use the word anthropology.

Galen (A.D 131-200) dissected animals of different kinds including apes to study muscles, nerves, development of foetus, etc. at the time dissection of human body was prohibited. Galen, however, got opportunities to study human skeletons. He found that the apes were the closest kins of man. He found that the apes resembled man most closely in viscera, muscles, arteries, nerves, bones, etc.

 Galen (A.D 131-200)

After this period for about one thousand years less importance was given to the study of the natural history of man. It almost lost its identity as an independent discipline. Man became a subject of study of the historians, philosophers, physicians and naturalists.

 In 1240 Emperor Fraderick II of Germany passed a regulation that a student’s study medicine must dissect human body ones during his course of study. But nobody paid any attentions to this for another 100 years. During the period between 1306 and 1315 the Italian physicians Mundinus (1270-1326) dissected two human bodies, when the need of the dissecting human body in medical science was gradually realized.

Vesalius (1514-1564) was a renowned anatomist of the 16th century. His observations on anatomical characters and descriptions of the structures of the human body contributed considerably towards the growth and development of Physical Anthropology at a later stage.

 Vesalius (1514-1564)

He noted that the skull of the Greek and Turks was globular, that of the Belgians was Oblong and the skulls of Germans were rounded with a flat occiput. Thus he may be considered as a pioneer in racial craniology, Koyter (1534-1600) was another scientist of the 16th century who made special study of the foetus and child.

Of the scientists of the 17th century who made a notable contributions towards the understanding of physical aspects of man, mention may be made of Tyson (1650-1708), Garengeot  (1688-1708) and John Ray (1628-  1705), Tyson made a comparative study of the anatomical  characters  of apes and man.  While Garengeot studied the anatomy of the muscular system of man in comparison of other animals, like dog.

Carl Linnaeus (1707 -1778), Count de Buffon (1707 -1788) and J.F. Blumenbach (1753-1840) are three renowned scholars of the 18th century, who made notable contribution to physical anthropology.

 Carl Linnaeus (1707 -1778)  Count de Buffon (1707 -1788)

Linnaeus was professor of botany in the University at Upsala, Sweden. His famous book ‘The Systema Naturae’ was first published in 1735. He started systematization and classification of plants and animals introducing binary nomenclature, whereby each and animal was assigned a genus name and a species name. He called man by the name Homo sapiens, Homo being the genus and Sapiens the species.

Buffon may be regarded as the founder of anthropology. He was the first to outline the great divisions of anthropology. According to him with an anthropological approach man may be studied i) in general as a natural history subject throughout the ages, ii) in groups, i.e., races- their origin, description and admixture , iii) to compare physical characteristics of man and other animals, and iv) to trace man’s origin and to place him in the animal kingdom. Thus, Buffon studied man as a species. His method was largely followed by others. The works of Buffon indicate that the concept of evolution occurred to him. Of course, he could not develop the idea of evolution. At one stage again he himself contradicted his own evolutionary concept. This was, however, because he did not like to defy Church, which was very much against evolutionary thoughts.

 J.F. Blumenbach (1753-1840)

Blumenbach is considered to be the father of physical anthropology. In the 18th century anthropology meant description of the body and soul. Blumenbach used the word anthropology to denote physical anthropology. He looked at the variation in physical features observed in different population groups. He made a systematic study to classify mankind into different groups on the basis of craniological materials.

In this connection it may be mentioned that several explorers of the period between the 12th and 18th centuries travelled through different parts of the globe and thereby came in contact with the autocthonous inhabitants of the several countries. Most of them kept records of their experiences of meeting divergent peoples belonging to different regions. Through their writings it was possible to know the physical features of various type of man. These helped a lot in identifying and classifying human groups.

Though Blumenbach is called the real father of craniology , the first scientific data on anthropological craniology comes from the 16th century when Vasalius made comparison of cranial form of different peoples like Greek, turk and German. One of the first attempts at craniometry was made by Spieghel (1578-1625). He measured four diameters of skull, namely, facial, transverse, vertical and oblique. According to the relationship among these four diameters he attempted to classify the various skulls.

Buffon’s collaborator Daubenton (1716-1800) applied craniometric method to study cranial characteristics. He observed the position of the foramen magnum which varies between posterior and interior sides of the skull in different animals including man. He devised the technique to measure an angle to determine the inclination, Camper (1722-1789) developed projection method to obtain crainometric data on skull. Hoeven (1801-1868) established relationship between cranial length –height cranial index. In this way craniometry was developed by different scientists from the middle of 19th century. Of them the names of Paul Broca (1824-1880), A.de Quatrefages (1810-1892) and Virchow (1821-1902) must be mentioned.

The theories concerning evolution of man may be grouped under four heads following R.S. Lull. These are: i) theory of eternity of the present conditions, ii) theory of special creation, iii) theory of catastrophism and iv) theory of organic evolution.

Those who advocate theory of eternity of the present condition believe that the universe with its organisms was there and it will be there without any change. This idea was, however, shared by a handful of men of science.

The Christian Church authorities were the chief supporters of the theory of special creation. St. Augustine (A.D. 354-430) expressed his view that God created Adam and Eve about 6,000 years ago and that all human beings were descended from Adam and Eve. Archbishop Ussher (1581-1656) went one step further to calculate the ages of the generations after Adam and to arrive at the conclusions that Adam and Eve were created in 4004 B.C. Lightfoot even gave the exact date and time of creation of man-9 A.M on 23rd October. 4004 B.C.

According to this theory the world was created in six days. On the first day, the earth was created. On the third day animal and plant kingdoms showed their appearance. By the fifth and sixth day all the creatures were created. Among the foremost defenders of the theory of special creation, the name of Father Suarez (1548-1617) may be mentioned. Until the eighteenth century this sort of idea of special creation was hardly challenged.

During the 18th century, fossil remains of several extinct animals were discovered from different parts of Europe. In some cases human remains were associated with those fossil remains. For example, along with remains of an elephant like creature a worked flint tool was discovered from gravel deposits near London in 1715. Again in 1771 human remains along with cave bear remains were collected in Germany. In 1797 hand axes were found along with the remains of extinct animals. The geologists also started collecting new information on the geological strata. Thus, palaeontology and geology made a rapid progress. More and more was learned about these.

In the early 19th century the theory of catastrophism was put forward. It was mainly upheld by Georges Cuvier (1769-1832).

  Georges Cuvier (1769-1832)

According to this theory the earth had periodically experienced natural calamity like floods, volcanic eruptions. As a result of this sort of disasters the organisms were extinguished. After the disasters new forms came to replace the previous forms. Thus , Cuvier rejected the theories of continuous evolution. According to him each time that the earth settled down after catastrophe, new animals appeared. In the beginning, there were corels, molluses and crustaceans and then came plants. After that fish and reptiles emerged and finally, birds and mammal appeared. Man appeared after the last geological revolution. That was about 6,000 years ago. Thus , in the theory of catastrophism one finds a compromise between the findings on the growing knowledge of palaeontology and geology on one hand and the conservative biblical thoughts on the other.

The idea of evolution is found in the works of the ancient Greeks and romans. Thales of Miletues (636 – 546 BC), a greek scholar looked for beginning of life in the blue water of the Agean Sea. He considered water as the mother of life, where from life originated. He suggested that man had evolved rom fish which came out of water and developed in land. Empedocles (490 – 430 BC) consider the remains of fossilized hippopotamus as the remains of extinct giants from which later on other types of animals developed. Herodotus attempted evolutionary interpretation to explain the variations in cranial characters of the Egyptians and Persians. Hippocrate’s works also indicate that he could think of some sort of evolutionary mechanism. Aristotle also conceived of evolution. He thought of a gradual progress from plants to animals and then man. He suggested that organisms had certain inborn power to adopt themselves to the environment. As a result an organism makes a progress. However, he could not explain the facts scientifically, as he had no clear understanding of the subject. Lucretius (99–55 BC), a Roman philosopher advanced a scheme of both biological and cultural evolution of man. Thus, even before the beginning of Christian era evolutionary concepts were conceived.

During the Middle Ages and at the beginning of the modern era, several scientists and thinkers contributed their shares by throwing some light on the subject of evolution. Edward Tyson, after comparing the anatomy of a pygmy with that of a monkey, an ape and a man came to the conclusion that the pygmy was the intermediate between the ape and man. Carl Linnaeus grouped man along with apes on the basis of close physical similarity between them. He, however, did not think of their common ancestry or evolution. Buffon’s idea on evolution has already been referred to. Robert Hooks (1635 – 1703) suggested that the earth’s past can be revealed by the fossil remains. Leibniz (1646 – 1716) said that men were linked to the animal, which in turn was connected with the plants, and these with the fossils. Thus, in the works of both these scholars evolutionary tendency of organisms were suggested.

In this connection we must consider the works of several scholars including Monboddo  (1714 – 1790), Charles Bonnet (1720 – 1793), Gothe (1749 – 1832), Immaneul Kant (1724 – 1804), Schopenhauer (1788 – 1860), Charles Lyell (1797 – 1875), Karl Von Baer (1792 – 1876), Erusmus Darwin (1731 – 1802) etc.

In the works of Monbonddo a suggestion on the origin of species and the evolution of man is found. Bonnet prepared a continuous scale beginning with minerals and ending with man including numerous intermediary forms. Gothe’s works includes so much of evolution that by some he was considered as a predecessor of Darwin. Kant suggested that perhaps man was descended from the monkey; Erasmus Darwin outlined his ideas of heredity and natural selection and evolution in one of his books.

The French naturalist Lamarck (1744 – 1829) was one of the forerunners who presented evolutionary concept.

 Lamarck (1744 – 1829)

 He expressed his views concerning evolution in one of his works in 1800. He believed in the inheritance of the acquired characters. Evolution was the result of the adaptation of organisms to environment. The adopted characters were transmitted from parents to offsprings. When more number of characters was acquired in this way, the species were transformed to a new one. The transformation took place because of use or disuse of certain bodily parts of an organism to adapt to a particular environment. For example, giraffe acquired elongated neck, because of continuous stretching of neck to reach the leaves of tall trees; the webbed feet of birds are to live in an aquatic environment; certain ducks cannot fly because of disuse of wings.

As regards human evolution, he wrote that “Let us assume that a certain quadrumanous race which was highly perfected should lose the habit, acquired through environmental necessity or by any other cause, of climbing trees and grasping the branches with the feet as well as the hands. If the individuals of this race, for us series of generations, should be obliged to use their feet exclusively for walking purposes and should cease to use their hands as feet such quadraumana would undoubtedly be transformed eventually into bimana and their toes would no longer be separated or opposable since their feet would only be utilized for walking ”. Similar explanation was given for erect posture, decrease of prognathism, reduction of mandible, etc.

Charles Darwin (1809-1882) published his work “The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection” in 1859, where he detailed his concept of evolution in general and also the concept of natural selection which helped to cause evolutionary changes.

 Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

 This may be considered as the turning point in the thinking of evolution. Again in 1871, his work “The Decent of Man” came to light. In this book he outlined the evolution of man. He based his arguments about human evolution not only on the fossil remains of early types of man, which were found in Europe, but also on comparative anatomical data.

Darwin observed that in spite of the tendency of organisms to increase in geometrical ratio; the species generally have fairly constant populations. Their numbers are held in check by struggle for existence. In the course of struggle individuals of an organisms having certain favorable variations survive and they reproduce, while those with unfavorable traits disappear. The favorable ones are selected by nature. This is Darwin’s Natural Selections. But Darwin could not explain how new variations arise in an organism. That was later explained by Geneticists. Darwin founded the concept of Natural Selection and Evolution while the science of genetics was founded by Gregor Mendel (1822-1884).

 Gregor Mendel (1822-1884).

 The development of genetics has helped to explain many facts which could not be done during the time of Darwin. Of course, Mendel reported his works in 1865, but his works remain unnoticed till 1900, 16 years after Mendel’s death, when the science of genetics was born. Otherwise Darwin perhaps could have attempted to explain certain ideas developed by him.

Darwin’s theory was criticized by some and appreciated by others. Among the adherents of Darwinism of the 19th century mention may be made of Thomas Huxley, Lyell, Wallace, Weismann, Haeckel, Carl Vogt, Edmand Perrier, etc. they tried to develop the Darwinian idea in their own ways.

Subsequently, Darwin’s idea was modified by some scientists. They attempted to rejuvenate Darwinism, which led to a new trend called, neo-Darwinism. Weismann was one of the leading exponents to this new tread.

In modern times scientists are trying to synthesize the Darwinian concepts and the knowledge gathered from the rapid development of the science of genetics to understand the basic biological facts and the physical bases of evolution in natural selection.