{N}HUMAN ORIGINS{/}

{K}HUMAN RACE ANCESTORS{/}
The human species has evolved as the ultimate branch of the tree of life, and we should never forget that the chain of ancestors goes back to the first living matter from which all species came. However, we all know that apes or simians are the species that are most similar to us. The question is:
- If we descend from one of them, which one will it be?
- And if they are our "cousins", how and when did our human ancestors separate from them?
To begin with, it is absolutely certain that the present day large apes which most closely ressemble humans, the gorilla and the chimpanzee, are nothing more than our "cousins". They do not represent the common ancestor, because as the human was being transformed in his whole body, the ape, from which the human species had separated to start this original evolution, also transformed and evolved in a different direction, one characterized by the development of teeth, jawbone and arms. The more intelligent present day apes are more animal-like than their ancestors were at time when humans and apes began to differnciate.
- When did the differentiation take place? Present science cannot define the exact date but it was somewhere between 10 to 15 million years ago.
- Where did it take place? Some years ago, everyone would have answered: In Africa, most probably in eastern Africa, or more specifically in the eastern part of Africa, between the present Ethiopia and Tanzania, because it is there we find the later evolution of the branch which leads to human race. Now, from new discoveries in China, it seems that the separation originated in eastern Asia and that our ancestors moved later towards Africa.
- How did it happen?

{K}HUMAN RACE FIRST STEPS, OR HOW TO SURVIVE?{/}
Seventeen million years ago the eastern part of Africa, the area from the present Ethiopia to Tanzania, was covered with equatorial jungles where many primates prospered (primates are the zoological group that embraces apes together with similar animals: see graph). They lived in trees and moved from branch to branch by swinging from their long tails and grasping the branches. Their size was small and they fed on fruits and leaves.
At this time the continents drifted apart and the collision of the Africa-Arabia land mass with the previously separated Asian land mass produced a geological cataclysm. This caused a collapse immersng a long furrow from north to south, from Palestine (with the depression of the Jordan and the Dead Sea) to the African Great Lakes of Kenya. Possibly this was the reason why a climatic change was initiated. Humidity gradually decreased and the jungles became clearer, little by little making way for the savanna or plains, interrupted by forests that became more and more reduced.
Some of the primates, maybe those that were at the western side of the valley, continued as they had always lived; meanwhile the climate became drier and the land more desert-like, and they were forced to retreat towards the west, where the immense jungles still existed. Their evolution process brought them to develop into a bigger and stronger species, such as the chimpanzee and the gorilla, which till now are used move by holding onto branches of trees with long athletic arms.
As for those from the eastern part, they also had to adapt themselves to a land where the lack of trees made it difficult to defend themselves from carnivores and fruits were already scarce. In order to feed on seeds, roots and other hard fibrous plants, which wore down their teeth, the jawbone was reinforced and their teeth enamel became thicker. To discourage enemies they had to live in groups and they grew in size and strength. Now the apes were able to maintain an almost erect posture. They became steady in this way of walking, using their hands to grasp the food they brought to their mouths and also to defend themselves with the use of clubs and by throwing rocks. Some paleontologists believe that those ancestors knew how to work stone in a very rudimentary manner to give them a sharp edge.
Innumerable remains have been found from these primates, who were very intelligent and had the same cerebral capacity as the present day gorillas, in spite of being smaller. The diverse species form a group called Australopithec (southern apes), within which many important differences in exterior appearance are found. The oldest were smaller (around 1.20 m or 4 feet) and thinner, but later more robust Australopithecus appeared, reaching 1.50 m or 5 feet and weighing some 50 kg., with impressive chewing muscles.
Not all the primates in the eastern part entered into this line of evolution. Some "chose" a different way to overcome the challenges of survival: instead of reinforcing teeth and muscles, they became more inventive. They straightened up, developed the brain and accepted a change in their menu. In this way, in the same place where the Australopithecs lived, from the same ancestors another family grew, which scientists include in the same category as present day humans by calling them {C}Homo habilis{/}, or artisan man. {C}Artisan{/} because able to carve stone. The clasification was {C}homo{/} due to the similarity to our ancestors. However, we must specify that this classification as {C}homo{/} has only a biological value, meaning in reference to its body, and leaves the question about whether this species had a personality and spirit as we have, entirely open.
During the time that the Australopithecs patiently chewed roots, this {C}Homo{/}, less athletic but craftier, never lost the opportunity to steal and to set traps. He ate snails, mice and insects, but also attacked in bands hunting antelopes, bovines, wild boar and even elephants. They cut stones and constructed shelters with posts and tree branches. 
In these same areas where the Australopithecus and the first {C}Homo{/} lived together, the remains of previous primates were found; the most famous of these being an almost complete skeleton, named Lucy by its discoverers. Among these {C}pre-Australopithecus{/} we should search for the common ancestors of both the Australopithecus and {C}Homo habilis.{/} Those were the ones who, during this time (some 6 to 4 million years ago) had to "choose" in some way between the animal toughness and the adaptation towards intelligence.

{K}WHEN HUMANS AWAITED THE SPIRIT{/}
The {C}Homo habilis{/}, appeared some 4 million years ago, stayed for a long time in eastern Africa, and later walked towards unknown lands. After 2 million years he reached Indonesia and from there their families travelled all over Africa, Asia and Europe, except in the northern parts which were covered by immense icebergs.
At this time their appearance began to alter: there was growth in size and weight, enlargement of the head and development of the brain. About 1.600.000 years ago, the whole species had progressed, reaching a new form, called {C}Homo erectus{/} (the erect man), which remained stable for over 1.000.000 years.
Between 200.000 and 100.000 years ago, still a new evolution began affecting mainly the head, bringing a new increase in the capacity of the brain. This brought the species to the form named {C}Homo sapiens{/}. In Northern Africa, Asia and the Middle East, this {C}Homo sapiens{/} was almost identical to the present human race. However in Europe, {C}Homo sapiens{/} acquired characteristics that were more rustic and bestial, even though their cerebral capacity was the same as ours. This was named the Neanderthal{N} man{/}, whose species survived until 30.000 years before Christ, slowly being substituted by a {C}Homo sapiens{/} of another kind from the East, named the Cro-Magnon{N} man{/}.
With this, the biological evolution of human race reached to an end, although the evolution would continue at the social and cultural level. From the time between the tree swinging primate to the present human species, more or less during the last 30 million years, what is most noticeable is the growth of the brain. However, the inter-relationships between the diverse functions of the body is such that this growth demanded a rearrangement of the equilibrium and structure of the individual. Four factors were equally necessary for the hominization of the primates. These were:
- {C}Development of the brain{/}. There cannot be thought and free decision making if the mind does not have a first class computer, with millions of millions of circuits. Specialists consider that language cannot exist unless the brain reaches a capacity of 600 cubic centimeters. This does not simply mean quantitative growth only. Within the human brain, the cortex or Grey matter, developed in a privileged way, and the cerebral convolutions have multiplied. The lateral areas responsible for language, hand mobility, pharynx and facial muscles grew and got organized.
- {C}Reduction in the jawbone{/}. Humans have hands to defend themselves and seize and tear apart their prey. The jawbone no longer has so much chewing and biting to do. The structure of the head no longer needed to support the powerful muscles for mastication and as the size of the jawbone was reduced, the brain could wind or roll up and increase in volume. The reduction of these muscles allowed the development of superficial muscles in the face that reflect emotions and allow communication.
- {C}Improvement of the hand{/}. Previously, animals transformed parts of their body in order to adapt better to various functions: legs for running, paws for digging, claws for grabbing prey; teeth for chewing, biting, gnawing. Now the hand began to make instruments outside of the body. Because of this the body no longer needed to align itself irreversibly for a certain function or job, and became available for new tasks. The hand, holding tools, alleviated the work previously done by the jawbone, allowing it to be reduced in size and the brain to be developed.
- {C}Erect posture{/}. With {C}homo erectus{/} totally straightening up, the front body members stopped functioning as motors, and the hand could be formed. The displacement of the articulation point of the head on the vertebral column favored the "rolling up" of the brain. The vertical posture totally changed the way of relating among individuals, especially in sexual relations: facial expressions, exchange of emotions, and touch. The sexual union in face to face position promotes de emergence of love. The displacement of the breasts from the abdomen or womb upward, which followed erect posture, transformed the relationship between mother and child during the nursing period in such a way as to awaken the child's spirit with the embrace, look and smile of the mother. 
The development of the cerebral capacity allowed the emergence of the spirit, but much more than a superior quality brain was needed in order to make the jump from animal intelligence to spirit. The same growth of the brain responded to an inner need of its being while activities, social life and language progressed. In this sense, the step from {C}Homo habilis{/} to {C}Homo erectus{/} and from this one to {C}Homo sapiens{/}, with its significant increase in the cerebral capacity, is fundamentally due to its cultural developement through life in society. In the case of humans, psychological development is what leads to biological progress.

{K}WHEN DID "HOMO" BEGIN HAVING "SOUL"?{/}
With respect to having a soul, or spirit, we must state three points:
- According to the christian faith, and the majority of believers and philosophers agree on this point, human spirit is not only a superior form of animal intelligence, but rather it is different from any other soul or principle of life in the animal world. The Bible expresses this by saying that we are made in the image of God [Gen_1,26] and therefore, participate in all that exists in God. We are capable of reflection and love; as humans we are capable of seeing beauty and creating art. We are capable of discovering the world's order and reconstructing it in our own way. A restlessness that is never satisfied, makes humans constantly reflect on experience, gain consciousness, measure hindrances and try to overcome them.
- We give for granted that the spirit does not come little by little. There is or there is not a spirit, and one cannot be halfway between animal intelligence and a reflexive and free spirit. Intermediate stages are given only in the psychological development that prepare the capacity of the animal for spirit. Later, there is also progress in the capacity of the spirit to change and to renew psychological responses, ways of thinking, carrying out projects and actions. A specific individual, or a whole society, can evolve very slowly for having a dormant spirit, but the spirit is there or is not.
- In the animal or vegetable world the individual does not count, but the species lives on and grows through the individuals. Now then, if some of them come to "have a soul" (the word {C}spirit {/}would be much better), then we can speak of a new creation. This time the individual exists for himself and for God: it is a person. And the person begins to exist by the gift of God. The expression "humans descend from the apes" is false in every sense. Especially since this expression could give the impression that humans came about almost by chance. However for the Christian, from the beginning of creation, God so ordered the creation that humans emerged and that the universe would finally have at its center and head one of our own race: the Word of God made Man [Ef_1,1]; [Jn_1,1] - [Jn_1,14].
Natural sciences are not able to fix the boundary between animals and humans: they only observe them from the outside. But scientists, using as we do common knowledge, point out the developments which caracterize human race: capacity to make and use tools, the use of verbal language and the manifestations of both religious and artistic feelings.
During many years the use of tools was considered as something characteristic nd unique to humans. Some said: the use of tools shows a process which demands thought and choices to bring the project about, which is characteristic of the spirit. But now studies show that primates used sticks as tools and it is almost certain that the {C}Australopithecs{/} carved stone even if in a rudimentary form. {C}Homo habilis{/} carved stone and even kept percussion stone and directed the strike with a hammer. But we must consider that there was no progress in these techniques for two million years. Neither 20 centuries, nor ten times 20 centuries, nor even one hundred times, but one thousand times 20 centuries. Can the Spirit be this slow?
Many also thought that it was characteristic of humans not to fear fire, to know how to produce it and preserve it. In this case humans would have existed since the beginning of the {C}Homo erectus{/}, who used fire -meaning 1.5 million years ago. Others think that {C}Homo {/}erectus' brain already had the center of language developed and this would be proof that they spoke. The palate had also adapted to phonation. It has also been noted that {C}Homo erectus{/} made selection of the stones they used based not only on the stones' technical qualities, but esthetic qualities as well. Another interesting observation was obtained from the examination of the {C}Sinanthropus{/} cranium (meaning the man from China), a {C}Homo erectus{/}, whose remains are dated as being 400.000 years ago. Some persons think that the "owner" of this cranium had been subjected to religious rituals.
These last facts, if confirmed, would be proof that even in times very past humans existed. The manifestations of religious feelings ns practices usually found in the tombs of the dead are considered by all as unmistakable proof that the spirit was awakened. The oldest definite testimony of this religious sentiment that is known comes from the tombs of the Neanderthal man, a {C}Homo sapiens{/}, in the years between 30.000 and 40.000 years before Christ. Later art manifestations were multiplied. Therefore this is considered the latest date that real humans would have come to be.
Very possibly however, the appearance of the genuine human endowed with a spirit, does not coincide with any of the stages of our classification in Homo habilis, Homo erectus, or Homo sapiens. These designations are founded on characteristics of discovered bones. These are no more than approximated stages within the biological evolution. Meanwhile the more defining progress of our race was cultural and psychological. The awakening of the spirit may have taken place within one of these species without affecting all of the individuals of that species. Possibly it was produced within particular groups through a certain crisis which profoundly moved several individuals. The propagation of this spark could have been similar to certain forms of consciousness during history. If, as the Bible observes, we do not know the way a human being is introduced in the pregnant woman (Pr 30,19), we know even less about the way the spirit started to be present in the human race.

{K}STRAIGHTENED, ERECT, LIBERATED, AWAKE, RISEN{/}
In times past much emphasis has been given to the brain as the essential factor of human evolution: with ever greater intelligence and cerebral capacity, the animal would have naturally arrived at the spirit. In the last analysis, man would merely be the most gifted of animals. The conclusion that we draw nowadays from the paleontological and archeological data is very different. The factor that separated the ancestors of the human race from its animal brothers was the erect posture, that is to say, a way of standing, of living and walking that transformed the relationship among individuals, and allowed them to raise their gaze. Then came the cultural progress, fruit of their life in community, and the transmission of their past experiences to the young ones. The growth of the brain accompanied human promotion without being the true cause.
The straightening appears as the first liberating gesture, a remote source of free attitudes and personal relationships. As such it is perfectly set within the great biblical revelation that presents the divine history of the human race as made of liberations and splits, through which the human being {C}saves{/}, that is, fully conquers {C}his person{/}.
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