Content deleted Content added
m Reverted edits by 2600:8807:BC04:C600:849:95E4:2E35:82BB (talk) to last version by PohranicniStraze |
Rescuing 1 sources and tagging 0 as dead.) #IABot (v2.0.8.8) (Whoop whoop pull up - 10069 |
||
Line 124:
The term was first used in a scientific context by [[Charles Lyell]] in the third edition (1851) of his book ''Elements of Geology'' in relation to missing parts of the [[Geologic time scale|geological column]], but it was popularized in its present meaning by its appearance on page xi of his book ''[[Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man]]'' of 1863. By that time, it was generally thought that the end of the [[last glacial period]] marked the first appearance of humanity; Lyell drew on new findings in his ''Antiquity of Man'' to put the origin of human beings much further back. Lyell wrote that it remained a profound mystery how the huge gulf between man and beast could be bridged.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Bynum |first=William F. |date=Summer 1984 |title=Charles Lyell's ''Antiquity of Man'' and its critics |journal=Journal of the History of Biology |volume=17 |issue=2 |pages=153–187 |doi=10.1007/BF00143731 |jstor=4330890 |s2cid=84588890 |issn=0022-5010 }}</ref> Lyell's vivid writing fired the public imagination, inspiring [[Jules Verne]]'s ''[[Journey to the Center of the Earth]]'' (1864) and [[Louis Figuier]]'s 1867 second edition of ''La Terre avant le déluge'' ("Earth before the Flood"), which included dramatic illustrations of savage men and women wearing animal skins and wielding stone axes, in place of the [[Garden of Eden]] shown in the 1863 edition.{{sfn|Browne|2003|pp=130, 218, 515}}
The search for a fossil showing transitional traits between apes and humans, however, was fruitless until the young Dutch geologist [[Eugène Dubois]] found a skullcap, a molar and a [[femur]] on the banks of [[Solo River]], [[Java]] in 1891. The find combined a low, ape-like [[skull roof]] with a brain estimated at around 1000 cc, midway between that of a chimpanzee and an adult human. The single molar was larger than any modern human tooth, but the femur was long and straight, with a knee angle showing that "[[Java Man]]" had walked upright.<ref>{{harvnb|Swisher|Curtis|Lewin|2001}}</ref> Given the name ''[[Homo erectus|Pithecanthropus erectus]]'' ("erect ape-man"), it became the first in what is now a long [[list of human evolution fossils]]. At the time it was hailed by many as the "missing link," helping set the term as primarily used for human fossils, though it is sometimes used for other intermediates, like the dinosaur-bird intermediary ''[[Archaeopteryx]]''.<ref>{{harvnb|Reader|2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Benton |first=Michael J. |author-link=Michael Benton |date=March 2001 |title=Evidence of Evolutionary Transitions |url=http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/benton2.html |website=[[actionbioscience]] |publisher=[[American Institute of Biological Sciences]] |___location=Washington, D.C. |access-date=2012-03-29 |archive-date=26 April 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120426203938/http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/benton2.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>
[[File:Punctuated Equilibrium.svg|thumb|upright=1.7|Sudden jumps with apparent gaps in the fossil record have been used as evidence for [[punctuated equilibrium]]. Such jumps can be explained either by [[macromutation]] or simply by relatively rapid episodes of gradual evolution by natural selection, since a period of say 10,000 years barely registers in the fossil record.]]
| |||