History and Humans
History as a discipline was introduced to me for the first time in grade 6. When I opened my text book, the first thing that caught my attention was a picture of four human like figures. The first two looked almost like monkeys; the first one standing on all its four limbs and the second one standing only on its hind limbs but with its fore limbs hanging from its body, just a little above the ground without an upright posture. Me and my friends declared the first one to be a ‘big monkey’ and the second to be a ‘Chimpanzee’. The third figure looked more human to us but with a slouched back. Thus, we were convinced it was an ‘old man’. The last figure appeared to us as a ‘normal human’ but with a lot of body hair and hence, we declared it to be a middle-aged man. However, we were disappointed when our teacher told us that all of them were humans but from different time periods. She told us that these were our ancestors and we all have evolved from them. I wasn’t convinced. How could I evolve form a monkey like creature that walked using all four limbs, had weird looking head, large palms and so much body hair? I constantly compared my physical feature to that of the four figures. The first two seemed totally irrelevant to me. This constant sense of enquiry lasted and in fact grew over the years. It expanded from those four figures to Indus Valley Civilisation, to Vasco da Gama, to Guptas, to Hitler and to many more.
This article is an attempt to answer a few out of many questions that have crossed my mind. Let’s start by addressing the dilemma of the 6th grader. How and why did the physical features of humans change (evolve) over time? How and why did humans who were quadrupeds earlier adapt bipedalism, the shape of their head change, posture become upright? How and why did they start tool making, hunting, animal domestication and agriculture? Here, I would like to bring in ‘Tinbergen’s Four Questions’. Nikolaas Tinbergen (1907-1988) was a Dutch biologist and is considered one of the founders of modern ethology. In 1963, he published a paper titled “On aims and methods of Ethology”. It tried to build a connection between the study of biology and the study of behaviour. The resulting framework is known as Tinbergen’s Four Questions. The four questions are: (1) Function [adaptive value]-Why is the behaviour performed or what is its use? (2) Mechanism [cause]- What causes the behaviour to be performed? (3) Evolution [phylogeny]- How did the behaviour evolve? (4) Development [ontology] – How has the behaviour developed during the life time of the individual? Let’s take the example of bipedalism. There are many theories that have tried to reason why humans adapted bipedalism. Need to conserve energy, changes in climate, need to hold objects and need for better vision are a few reasons that are widely accepted. Using all four limbs to locomote required a lot of energy and time. Thus, the need to cover long distances in short periods of time and conserve as much energy as possible motivated humans to adapt bipedalism. Bipedalism helped free the fore limbs and thus, they eventually evolved into hands. These hands developed precision and power grip which facilitated tool making, hunting, defending, food gathering, shelter building and other activities. Here, we have tried to answer Tinbergen’s 4 questions. The above example can be connected to another behaviour, which is tool making. The need to hunt and defend themselves from predators motivated humans to use naturally available materials (mainly stones) as tools and also make tools out of naturally available materials. Tools have been used for various purposes by humans over the years. From defending themselves from predators to they themselves hunting; from building shelters to making sculptures, tools have been a part of several human activities throughout history. When looking into their development, we can observe how varying degrees of skills and different materials have been used in different time periods. We can observe that the stone tools of the Paleolithic age (Old stone age) were crude and undressed; whereas, the tools of Neolithic age (New stone age) were grooved, well dressed and polished. We can also trace the usage of different metals to make tools post 4000 B.C.E. Though this is a very vague way of applying this theory, we can still derive some sense of reason through this method (at least a few evidences to convince the 6th grader!).
The idea of war is something that has fascinated me from a very young age. The fact that humans wage wars being aware of the consequences was something that made me wonder. It started with my mother’s narration of stories from Mahabharata and the Ramayana serial that I watched with my grandparents. This fascination of mine grew with the study of different wars in middle school. With the study of various revolutions and uprisings in high school, the fascination extended towards all human conflicts. Be it the Kalinga war or the Austro-Prussian war; be it the 1857 Uprising or the French revolution, human conflicts interested me. What causes these conflicts? Be it wars, cold wars, revolution, protests or any other conflicts; what causes them?
Throughout the hundred history classes of the last academic year, my mind has been subjected to several questions concerning human needs and human activities with respect to needs. When trying to reason a few aspects of human evolution using ‘Tinbergen’s 4 questions’, we looked at certain ‘needs’ that ‘motivated’ the behaviour. The concepts of ‘needs’ and ‘motivation’ are 2 of the fundamental topics that the discipline of psychology offers. We know that different needs motivate different behaviours. Let’s come back to conflicts now. When speaking about ‘needs’, we mustn't forget the ‘Fight for needs’. There have been numerous conditions where humans had to fight or struggle for the fulfilment of their needs. Most of our history classes contained discussions about wars, revolutions and other conflicts. Let's consider the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71). This was a significant event in the process of German Unification. Here the need to unify Germans and establish political unity is evident. There are many other needs of Germans attached to this war or any war that Germany indulged in at that time period. The French revolution is another piece of evidence that can present to us the relationship between human needs and conflicts. The ruler, aiming at regaining the empire's wealth, wanted to increase taxation and to this the people of the third estate objected. Whereas, the people of the first two estates agreed with the ruler and opposed the demands of the third estate leading to conflict, contributing to the rise of revolution. Here we can observe two different needs. One feels the need to retain power and dominance. The other feels the need to overthrow suppression and to get equal rights, leading to conflict. Thus, ‘Conflicts arise due to needs’ or ‘Conflicts arise by virtue of needs’. Humans wage wars even after being completely aware of the damage it will cause due to their strong needs.
All I wonder now is, what made me write this article? Why did I wake up at 5 on a Sunday morning to write this? I’m sure that this is not something that is very informative or of great utility. This is just an attempt to answer a few of several queries that has crossed my mind. The reason I wrote this is simply to romanticise the sense of enquiry. To convey how beautiful and exciting the world around you feels when you try to reason things.
References:
https://www.reed.edu/biology/courses/BIO342/2014_syllabus_old/2014_WEBSITES/khsite/tinenbergen.html
https://www.conted.ox.ac.uk/courses/samples/animal-behaviour-an-introduction-online/index.html
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