ENGELS' THEORY OF THE EVOLUTION OF THE HUMAN HAND:
ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY
ASM 104 - BONES, STONES, AND HUMAN EVOLUTION
SPRING 2024 - WEEK 2
Introduction:
In the 19th century, materialism began to displace divine explanations for the origin
of life, including the origin of humans on earth. In 1809 Jean-Baptiste Lamarck published
Philosophie Zoologique. In this book Lamarck proposed a completely materialist theory that
nature is governed by laws that naturally lead to the progressive development of more
advanced types of organisms. There are no supernatural forces at play in the creation of
these organisms. Everything can be explained scientifically. In this book too, long before
Darwin, Lamarck suggested that humans may have evolved from apes. Environmental
changes in the past forced certain apes out of their arboreal habitats and developed
adaptations for standing and moving on two feet on the ground. These bipedal adaptations in
turn transformed them into humans2. Materialist explanations for the origin of manu-This
kind of futility culminated in the second half of the 19th century with the publication of The
Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, in 1859, and The Descent of Man in 1871.
Engels studied Lamarck, Darwin, Lyell, and the works of other naturalists of his
time. As a materialist, Engels viewed man, first of all, as an organism brought into existence
by natural processes according to certain natural laws. In this context, the migration of
human ancestors from the wilderness to the open plains was not a trivial matter for human
emergence1. The migration to open landscapes and more diverse habitat mosaics was,
according to Engels, the first key step in man's transition from ape2. This migration served
as the foundation for the evolutionary forging of the hand, which in Engels' theoretical
framework is the organic form of labor and the anatomical foundation that led to the
uniquely human quality of tool production. Engels asserts that "no simian hand has ever
made even the crudest stone knife "3. This ability of human ancestors to produce stone tools
was not something that was simply given to them by default at one point in their evolution.
It presupposes an evolutionary sequence of millions of years that, according to Engels, was
preceded by the stress of terrestrial life, the development of bipedal anatomy, the
differentiation of hands from feet, and the adaptation of (pre-stone) technology after this
differentiation. It was this long process that allowed the distinctive human hand to develop.
As primates, humans inherited hand anatomy from mammalian forelimbs. In
mammals, there is no "hand from foot" differentiation. All four are "feet". How it happened
that mammalian forelimbs evolved into hands throughout primate evolution, or the evolution
from ape hands to human hands, will not be reviewed here. In this paper I will only trace the
evolution from ape "hands" to the development towards human hands. In the meantime, the
role of hands (and work) in the evolution of the three qualities of humans that distinguish
them from other great apes, namely language, technological behavior and symbolic culture,
seems to warrant a separate presentation.
The Ecological Revolution and the Origin of Human Hands:
In Engels' theory, the human hand is not just an organ, but the anatomical
embodiment of work. Work itself is understood by Engels in general terms as a process of
transforming nature in the context of human survival as a social being. Work, as the practice
of the outpouring of energy through the body's organs on the rest of nature, is "the initial
fundamental condition for all human existence" so that it can be said that "work creates man
himself "1. This theory radicalizes the labor-value theory that Marx developed in his
economic works. Whereas in Marx's economics work or the exertion of human forces in
transforming nature is the source of value of all commodities, in Engels' theory work is
drawn deep into the recesses of human evolution as the distinctiveness and origin of
humanity itself. In this paper, the question is: how can the hand be said to be the origin of all
distinctively human qualities? Since the human hand is not a pre-given organ, it must have
an origin.
In the introduction to Dialektik der Natur, Engels summarizes his ideas as follows:
"when the differentiation of hands from feet and upright standing were finally
established after thousands of years of struggle, man became distinct from the apes, and
the foundation was laid for the development of eloquent speech and the extraordinary
advancement of the brain that has since made the gulf between man and the apes
unbridgeable. The specialization of the hand-this had an impact on the [production of]
tools, and tools affected specifically human activity-changed man's reaction to nature, to
production... and he [man] came to this extent first and foremost by the help of the hand.
Even the steam engine, insofar as it is the most powerful tool for the transformation of
nature, because it is a tool, ultimately depends on the hand "1.
Here, Engels asserts that the transition from ape to human is bipedalism. This quality
became the foundation for the emergence of other qualities that would later truly distinguish
humans from apes in general, namely work, language and symbolic consciousness.
In contrast to Darwin, who assumed the simultaneous occurrence of bipedal
anatomy, language and thought, Engels argued that they were the product of evolutionary
leaps in which material conditions, particularly ecological pressures, were key
preconditions. Simply put, following environmental changes that forced certain apes to
become terrestrial, bipedalism led to the specialization of hands. These hands, differentiated
from feet, transformed the metabolic relationship between human ancestors and nature
through work tools that, in turn, became the foundation of the development of community,
language and cognitive abilities.
In the previous article, it has been explained that in Engels' theory, bipedalism is a
characteristic of human beings who first evolved.
Long before humans were known to produce tools, speak languages and produce
symbolic cultures, there were first changes in the anatomy of human ancestors that showed
an increasing tendency to stand and move on two legs. The oldest hominin fossil remains,
Ardipithecus ramidus and Orrorin tugenensis, show that bipedal anatomical tendencies
emerged at least 5-4 million years ago, or a few million years after the genetic branching of
hominins from a common ancestor that also descended from the chimpanzee clan2.
Bipedalism was an important transition to humanity. In Engels' hypothesis, this
transition was forced by drastic ecological changes. The ancestral habitat of humans was
Africa. At the end of the Miocene Period, 10-7 million years ago, the tumultuous earth
sucked in one side and pushed rocks on the other along eastern Africa. This geological
movement transformed the surface of East Africa into what is now known as the Great Rift
Valley. This valley stretches from north to south forming a natural fortress between the
eastern and western parts of Africa. Globally, this geological revolution also changed the
climate. On the other side of the Earth, from the poles the ice sheet expanded. In the south it
covered the southern part of South America, and in the north it extended to Alaska, Canada
and Northern Europe. Water is trapped in the ice. Sea levels shrank by at least 150 meters at
this time. New landmasses emerged forming bridges linking Africa and Europe, Asia and
the Americas, Britain and Mainland Europe that had previously been separated. The
Mediterranean Sea dried up completely. So did the climate at the equator. As a result,
deserts formed in everywhere. Tropical jungles are disappearing and grasslands are
replacing them. In the context of primate evolution, Asian apes were developmentally
isolated from their African relatives by dry landscapes. In Africa, some ape species were
separated and did not associate for millions of years by the Great Rift Valley. Hundreds of
species became extinct. Some new species emerged. Around 10-7 million years ago, new
primate species emerged. Three of these were the ancestors of humans, gorillas and
chimpanzees.
Africa's dramatic ecological changes leave few options for the surviving ape
species1. The choices are to remain in the wilderness or to move out and face the hardships
of life on Africa's expanding open plains. Staying in the wilderness means maintaining the
wilderness lifestyle of previous great ape ancestors. Not much physiological change is
required here. They can still be fully plant-eaters. Nor do they have to worry about predators
that generally live in the open plains. Certainly those who can remain in the wilderness are
the species that are most resilient in maintaining their place and lifestyle.
Some choose to remain dependent on the wilderness while occasionally searching for
food sources on its banks. They live on the edge of the Great Rift Valley. They began to
abandon their ancestral vegetarians and started to eat insects, tubers and small mammal
meat, although the latter still only accounted for 2-4 percent of total consumption. In the
context of the Great Rift Valley, among the species that adapted to this more open
landscape, the ancestors of chimpanzees chose to live to the west of the valley and the
ancestors of humans were pushed to the east.
In the east, the natural mosaic is more diverse and harsh. Sparse patches of forest are
surrounded by vast grasslands and dry plains with large and small lakes and rivers that often
overflow for miles in the rainy season. In essence, human ancestors were forced to live in
difficult landscapes and had to change many of the things they inherited from their Keranya
ancestors. Among those changes were modes of movement and subsistence options. They
had to abandon their reliance on the protection of trees1. Their bodies, which are more
fragile than those of their two close relatives who chose to remain in the shade of the
wilderness, are adapted to move across a wide range and diverse open landscape. Their
effective control of movement and body heat comes from being able to move around on two
legs2. The same goes for adaptation to the aquatic environment.
If we look at the anatomy of the genus ardipithecus (4.4 million years ago) and
australopithecus (lived 3.8-2 million years ago), it seems that early hominins still inherited
the anatomy and physiology that allowed them to remain good at climbing3. Their habitats
also more closely resembled those of modern chimpanzees. This means that the dramatic
changes in African ecology that began several million years earlier had not yet completely
altered their inherited ape anatomy. One noticeable change was the differentiation of the
hands from the feet and the anatomy that supported this differentiation. Compared to
chimpanzees, which move quadrupedally on the ground, australopithecines seem to have
become more accustomed to bipedal locomotion. According to Engels, this adaptation to
bipedal locomotion led to further changes in the function of individual hands4. The hands of
australopithecines, for example, no longer support the weight of the body when moving,
especially on the ground. While their hands are still good for climbing, they are not as
flexible as those of chimpanzees. Their flat, non-grasping feet also suggest that they mostly
lived and moved on the ground on two feet. In australopithecines differentiation of hands
and feet had already occurred. The size and shape of their feet and legs were suitable for
long walks. Their more fragile arms and hands, associated with support, had clearly been
freed from direct movement functions.
Robert E. Kelly proposed a model for the origin of bipedalism from a transitional
stage of tripedalism in the earliest hominins. This model departs from the fact of the
anatomical asymmetry of Homo sapiens. The physiology of modern humans is much more
asymmetrical than that of the great apes. According to Kelly, ecological changes in Africa at
the end of the Miocene shrank the trees for climbing. For protection in open, treeless
landscapes, ancestral human apes carried stone tools; while one hand remained functional
for locomotion, the other carried stones or food. Quadrupedal apes gradually became
tripedal. It was this stone-carrying habit, which then affected the quantity of muscles and
arm bones due to the differentiation of the functions of the two hands, that led to the
subsequent hominin anato-traditionality1. The problem is that Kelly's model does not
address which hand was used to carry the stone and which remained as body support in the
tripedal movement. From his presentation, it seems that Kelly is implicitly leaning towards
the possibility that it was the right hand that carried the object while the left hand remained
in the movement function.
This resemblance was probably inherited from their common ancestor who lived
before 8 million years ago. But there are quantitative differences of considerable
evolutionary importance. Chimpanzees and australopithecines, for example, have thumbs
that have evolved to the point of grasping objects. The thumb is opposite to the other
fingers. But in chimpanzees the thumb is so fat that it coincides with the forefinger. They
were unable to bring the tip of the thumb and the tip of the forefinger together. Meanwhile,
australopithecines already showed fully human finger anatomy. The thumb was longer so
that it could meet the forefinger. This anatomical feature allowed the human ancestor to
grasp objects more tightly and stably than chimpanzees1. Gommery and Senut found
anatomical features of human fingers in an even older hominin species, Orrorin tugenensis
(lived 6 to 5.7 million years ago)2. Since Orrorin, there have been at least three finger
muscles that are not found in apes. These tendons are known to function for grasping that
includes the thumb. The presence of this anatomy in the earliest hominins fundamentally
predates the appearance of stone tools at 2.6 million years ago, confirming that strong
thumbs existed in the earliest human ancestors and were not an adaptive achievement for
stone tool making, but rather a prerequisite3. This is where the evolutionary journey of the
human hand began. This small quantitative difference was the first step in the qualitative
difference between humans and other great apes. There is a dialectical leap here. The leap, in
Engels' theoretical framework, is related to the ecological adaptations that forced human
ancestors to develop technological behavior millions of years after the terrestrial way of life
and the anatomy of the great ape's hand were formed.
The unique development of the human hand:
A side from the fact that since our ancestors the hand has not been used for
movement on the ground, what is another striking difference between the human hand and
that of other great apes? Within the framework of Engels' hypothesis, the answer is the
ability to use and make stone tools. Engels knew that other than humans, Chimpanzees also
make and use tools in their daily foraging and drinking activities1. They break branches,
clean their leaves and use them to scrape out termites to eat. They crack hard seeds to extract
their kernels by slamming a stone into them. They select the leaves of certain trees, crumple
them into sponges, and use the sponges to absorb water for drinking. In warfare or hunting,
they also selected logs, grasped them tightly, and struck or threw them. For some scholars,
the chimpanzees' human-like technological behavior has led them to believe that before the
split between chimpanzee ancestors and human ancestors, the ancestors of both were great
apes that were also technological2.
Primatological findings confirm that all great apes3 used tools, including stone tools, but
only hominins made stone tools. The significance of stone tool making and use goes beyond
the type of raw material. At first glance, the manufacture of stone flakes in early Homo was
simply modifying objects by separating certain parts, just as chimpanzees pick apart twigs
and leaves to make termite scraping sticks. On closer inspection, however, the stone
modification method required dexterity, precise two-handed coordination and grasping
power beyond that of chimpanzee hands. We will look at this issue in the next section. In
this section the issue is, if the chimpanzee hand is also capable of making and using tools
and this makes it so similar to the ancestral human hand, then what is truly unique about the
human hand?
Although there have been slight differences in the function of the earliest hominin
hands and chimpanzee hands, technologically they are not much different. Even in the
earliest species of the genus homo, scholars are not convinced that there are significant
differences. Therefore, many scholars have tried to blur the distinction between chimpanzees
and humans. They claim that human technological capabilities differ only in degree
(quantitative) and not in kind (qualitative) from those of chimpanzees. This suggests that
there is a biological continuity that leads to the continuity of behavior between the two.
However, from the point of view of dialectical materialism, no matter how small the
difference, its impact can be great and lead to a qualitative leap in a completely different
direction. Genetically, for example, humans and chimpanzees differ by only 2 percent. But it
is that 2 percent that enables a huge qualitative leap.
There is one small difference between the hands of humans and chimpanzees. The
difference is related to handedness1 or the differentiation of the functions of the right hand
and left hand in manual actions. Although both hands are anatomically the same, there is a
tendency in human ancestors to differentiate the technological functions of each. If we
accept Kelly's thesis above, this tendency for differentiation was already present during the
transition from apes to hominins. However, there is no archaeological evidence from that
transitional stage to support Kelly's thesis other than the anatomical asymmetry of modern
humans. Archaeological evidence is only available from millions of years after the
appearance of hominins. Recent archaeological studies of stone tools from early Homo
erectus (1.9 to 1.4 million years ago), show that they were made in a manual action with the
right hand dominating over the left hand in a ratio of only 54:46. This means that erectus
handedness was only slightly skewed towards right-handedness. In comparison, in1
Handedness is defined as the broad tendency of a type to steadily utilize the hands, or the
tendency towards left-handedness or right-handedness in hand-based operative activities.
Homo sapiens, the ratio is 90:101. This can be interpreted to mean that in Homo erectus
(and earlier hominin species) there was no clear differentiation of the right hand from the
left hand in operations based on two-handed coordination. This right-handedness is unique
to Homo sapiens although it does not mean it is not inherited from its ancestral species.
Based on archaeological evidence, this uniqueness is clearly derived from the first species in
hominin evolution whose handwork was predominantly right-handed, Homo
heidelbergensis, the direct ancestor of Homo sapiens. Recent investigations have revealed
that their tools were already almost entirely made with predominantly right-handed labor
activities2.
Most hand-based work operations always include both hands in a coordinated
manner. Right-hand dominance here is "reflecting the speed, precision and accuracy of the
right hand as a manipulator" compared to the left3. There is also an element of relative
strength and agility of the right hand compared to the left. Take the example of making
sambel. In the process of kneading, both hands are equally functional. However, the right
hand is operated to knead while the left hand stabilizes the coet so that it does not move
around. The same thing happens in writing.
In the primate world, no other species exhibits the same right-handedness as humans.
They activate one hand, either right or left, in a relatively equally dominant portion of most
technological activities. There is no differentiation of hand function. The only species
known to have a right-handed bias is the chimpanzee. Even then, it is a very small,
individual, or at least group, and not a population-level, let alone species-level, tendency.
Furthermore, this individualized bias is only found in a few captive chimpanzees, which
may be once as a product of imitation of human behavior around them1. Because of this
unique human handedness, some scholars believe that it is not merely the anatomy of the
human hand itself that distinguishes humans from apes, but the strict differentiation of the
right and left hands in their work operations due to the technological adaptation of tool use
and manufacture2.
Why are humans different than their evolutionary cousins? How did this difference
develop? Is handedness rooted in genes or are environmental factors more dominant? This
question leads to an investigation of the "original conditions" for the formation of the
ancestral human handedness trait. In Kelly's thesis above, the precondition is the selection
pressure to carry objects in the tripedal locomotion of the earliest hominin ancestors that
influenced anatomical asymmetry in their offspring. Anatomical asymmetry in humans is
related to the stronger and more dexterous organs of the right hand than the left3. This
means that Kelly's thesis emphasizes environmental factors as preconditions for human
handedness. From her investigation of individuals who had accidents that damaged the
anatomy of one hand, Clare Porac concluded that there is little chance that genetics has an
effect on handedness4. The largest factor is the function of environmental interventions that
cause permanent behavioral changes in hand use. Adult handedness may change following
changes in physical condition. The degree of change is related to specific events that affect
hand use activities. Porac further concludes that individuals are sensitive to hand use
transitions and can make temporary changes in hand use patterns when environmental
conditions require changes. This conclusion is supported by Syuichi Ooki's study in his
investigation of twins in Japan1. Ooki concluded that the factors of handedness are generally
not genetics, but rather the environment, including handedness in the child's
biopsychological development and family habits. However, Laland et al. also cautioned that
since handedness is a facultative human trait, there may also be genes as a biological
foundation, albeit with little influence2.
In a recent study, Forrester et.al. also rejected the possibility that right-handedness at
the human population level is a product of genetics3. Rather than genetics, right-hand
dominance is context-specific and inherited from a shared behavior that humans and great
apes inherited from their ancestors. What is the context for this right-handedness? By
classifying human actions into two types based on their target, namely actions toward social
partners or animate and actions toward inanimate objects, Forrester et al. found that young
children show a substantial right-hand bias in manual actions directed toward social targets
and not so for manual actions directed toward inanimate objects. Forrester et al.'s
investigation also led to the conclusion that human right-handedness is a trait that evolved
through tool-using adaptations inherited from a common ancestor of humans and great apes.
However, this latter conclusion has not been supported by primatological evidence. As
already noted, handedness in chimpanzees, the closest relatives of humans, has not yet come
to population, let alone species, but only at the individual or group level. Even in captive
studies, it can be interpreted that their behavior is a product of imitation of human behavior.
In Engels' theoretical framework, in addition to anatomy, another default condition is
subsistence pressure. From studies of late Miocene hominid fossils, it appears that the
ancestors of the African great apes were wilderness-dwelling omnivores who specialized as
fruit eaters1. Together with gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos, humans inherited the
omnivorous physiology of these African great ape ancestors. Their digestive organs and
biochemical makeup can process both plant and animal food. Although humans are not
genetically more omnivorous than other great apes, it appears that humans are the most
omnivorous in the literal sense. This omnivorousness developed even in the earliest Homo
genus. We could easily list a gorilla's lunch menu, but it would take a long paper to list what
modern humans can and do eat. From caterpillars to whale meat, from rice seeds to durian.
Everything could be part of that menu. Where did the eating habits of these human ancestors
evolve from? Why did they further develop omnivorous physiology and behavior?
Without adversity there is no progress. As stated earlier that the gorilla's ancestors
chose to stay in the shrinking wilderness. They pushed their weaker competitors out of the
forest. Human ancestors were fragile African apes and were therefore driven out of their
natural habitat. They were forced to roam the open landscape on the eastern side of the Great
Rift Valley. If human ancestors had stuck to the tradition of eating only soft-skinned fruits
like their ancestors, they would have become extinct millions of years ago. This was not the
case. From-Instead of following "tradition", they opted for change. Fruit may still be
expected, but its scarcity forces them to eat anything edible. From tubers in the ground, plant
stems, hard-skinned fruits, small animals they can chase, to the carcasses of large mammals
they happen to come across. They also have to get their food with great difficulty. They
traversed vast territories to get their fill. Evidence of that hardship is the foot anatomy and
secretion physiology that supports long-distance movement at a reduced energy cost and less
than that of gorillas or chimpanzees. Their bodies and cooling systems are so highly
developed that they do not heat up quickly from movement. Sometimes, when the rainy
season arrives and many plains are flooded for weeks, they also have to move around in
water areas. Not just to walk across, but also to swim through.
Compared to chimpanzees, which are known to hunt small mammals for food, meat
was a bigger part of our ancestors' daily diet. Especially in the early homo species1. This is
not a matter of taste. Before appetite, life-or-death is the default condition for the unequal
meat/vegetable diets of humans and chimpanzees. Only 2-3 percent of the chimpanzee diet
is meat. This is usually monopolized by alpha males. In contrast, in human ancestors, the
portion reached 20-30 percent, depending on the ecological conditions in which they lived.
Chimpanzees were able to stay close to the dietary habits of their African great ape ancestors
because they chose to remain in tropical wilderness environments. Human ancestors, on the
other hand, had to rack their brains to stay alive when they had to give up fruit because there
were no fruit trees in the grasslands. When they assessed the potential for food from
mammal carcasses or bones, they were faced with the reality that they needed tools that
could slice and dice flesh or break bones. Unlike chimpanzees with long fangs, it seems that
early human ancestors' fangs were shrunken. Large mammal carcasses left over from
predators they encountered on their travels had to be cut into pieces so that their small fangs
could tear them apart. In addition, the presence of large mammal carcasses always attracts
the attention of scavengers such as dubuks. This means they need to work quickly to utilize
the carcass. It was from this kind of survival compulsion that one of our human ancestors,
the first of our kind in the Homo family, made his first stone tools. Oldowan stone
technology fits with the information that they began to consume more meat. Their earliest
form of stone tool was a flake-stone that scholars say served as a slicer. In time, the making
of these tools was not just a whim of individuals. As early as 2.6 million years ago, this
technological behavior was widespread and characterized ancestral human populations.
In addition to stone-flakes, Oldowan toolmakers also production of a single-sided
(monofacial) handheld stone tool by banging two stones together to split one side. This split
side is sharp so it can be used for cutting as well. But archaeologists have also discovered
that the so-called handheld stone also served as a raw material for making flakes. They
selected a suitable stone, carried it with them on their activities, and made flakes when
necessary. The stone will be carried with them until they can no longer make new flakes.
Sometimes, they built a specific location on the ground as a tool-making site1. At this stage,
it could be said that these shale-makers had ceased to be apes. They no longer simply
utilizing the products of nature, but producing something from nature. In the German
Ideology, written by Engels together with Marx, it is stated that "human beings may be
distinguished from animals by consciousness, religion, or whatever we like, but human
beings themselves begin to distinguish themselves from other animals as soon as they begin
to produce the means of life, a step conditioned by their physical organization. By producing
their means of life, human beings indirectly produce their material life "1.
Although the above statement was made in the context of a critique of German
idealist philosophy at the time, it is clear that its conception is linked to an understanding of
what determinants exist in the process of human evolution. That determinant is ecological
selection pressure and an economy of subsistence that begins with productive labor.
Beginning with the rise of tooled hominins 2.6 million years ago, hominin evolution moved
to the emergence of a primate species that would surpass the achievements of other apes, not
only quantitatively, but also qualitatively. In terms of hands as a means of productive labor,
the big leap occurred with the emergence of Homo heidelbergensis around 600,000 years
ago.
During the Middle Pleistocene Epoch, dramatic climate change occurred. Experts
call this the "Middle Pleistocene Revolution "2. Fluctuations in glacial-interglacial cycles
between 900-650 thousand years ago were long and extreme. Around 640,000 years ago,
Europe experienced glaciation followed by a warmer period 500,000 years ago. Between
470-360,000 years ago, the glacial periods became more intense. Africa-Europe was
isolated. The African wilderness shrank. Open landscapes formed everywhere. Many species
became extinct. Some of them were from the hominin family. Anyway, according to Hublin,
hominin populations seemed to be strangled or squeezed hard by the nature. However, every
revolution is a prerequisite for the emergence of a new, more resilient species1. Homo
heidelbergensis (and its African subtype, Homo rhodesiensis) emerged from within this
revolution. Inheriting the hand anatomy and technological behavior of their ancestor Homo
ergaster, the Homo heidelbergensis hand shows a fully modern development. The hands are
exactly the same as Homo sapiens, with differentiation and dissimilarity between the right
and left hands2. This shows a huge leap or revolution in hand development in just a few
hundred thousand years. From the hands of Homo erestus where the handedness ratio was
only 54:46 to the hands of Homo heidelbergensis where the handedness ratio was 90:10 for
right-handed dominance. This fact can also mean that evolution is not a gradual process, but
contains revolutionary leaps. With this hand, the Acheulean stone technology first developed
by Homo ergaster 1.7 million years ago, was about 500,000 years ago developed to a more
refined, symmetrical, composite and multifunctional level by Homo heidelbergensis3.
Composite tools, which combine two or more different raw materials, first appeared with
them in the form of hammer tools. Stone hammer blades were supported by handles of wood
or animal bone. With these hammers they made finer, thinner and more symmetrical stone
tools. Around 400,000 years ago, the production of the first wooden tools in the form of
spears developed4. Without further evidence, the production of these wooden spears
presupposes the existence of specialized tools (such as drawstring knives) to make them.
From the information above, it can be said that with Homo heidelbergensis, a
differentiation developed between tools for subsistence and tools for producing tools. Tool
differentiation requires control and organization of operations far beyond the capabilities of
any ape. The degree of differentiation of the right hand from the left in them appears to be a
precondition for this differential technological behavior. Recent investigations into the
contralateral nature of the right hand and left hemisphere of the human brain provide a solid
foundation for uncovering the origins of language, cognitive abilities and symbolic culture.
As Engels put it, "first work, afterwards and then with it speech - both are the most
fundamental stimuli under whose influence the ape brain is gradually transformed into the
human brain... "1. Language, cognitive abilities and symbolic culture, as manifestations of
these abilities, are inseparable from the evolution of the human hand, which is characterized
and honed by one uniquely human quality, work.
Discussion and Conclusion:
"Labor", says Engels, "begins with the making of tools "2. The emergence of the
oldest stone technology 2.6 million years ago is the earliest evidence of the appearance of
"technological organisms" in the hominin evolutionary horizon3. With work, human
ancestors began to step out of the world of apes because they did not simply collect the
"products" of nature, but produced something new from nature. As they began to produce,
humans also produced their lives. Work emerge as a human quality in their evolution from
the ape world. Biologically, work was first made possible by the differentiation of hands
from feet. At a later stage by the differentiation of the right hand and the left hand. Hundreds
of thousands of years of hand labor in using and making stone tools in turn helped shape the
ancestral human hands that we inherit today. It took millions of years and processes before
humans had hands that can make tools. This means that the hand is not a one-off creation by
supernatural forces, but is rooted in nature and can therefore be traced scientifically. It is not
human society alone that is historical. The human hand that makes history itself is also
historical and in its history work plays an important role.
Engels notes that "the hand does not exist by itself. It is only one member of a very
complex whole organism. And what benefits the hand also benefits the whole body which it
serves "1. Related to this fact, there are two impacts of hominin hand development, namely
anatomical and historical. Anatomically, the refinement of the hand along with the overall
refinement of the bipedal anatomy of human ancestors, in accordance with the law of growth
correlation, ultimately also renewed the human relationship with nature through the
development of the five senses and related organs, including the brain. To this extent, the
evolution of the hand helped to create human organisms or individuals.
Adhering to the principle of dialectical materialism, Engels saw that the whole is not
simply the sum of its parts. The whole is always greater than the sum of its parts even
though the sum, at some level, allows for the emergence of the "whole" with its new
qualities. In accordance with the law of transition from quantity to quality, individual H2O
molecules will give rise to the quality of liquidity at some point when the aggregate exceeds
a certain threshold. Fluidity is the new quality that emerge from all the reactions of
combining H2O molecules at the threshold point. Something similar happens to the human
organism. Like the H2O molecules, the development of the hands and other anatomies that
make up the body, eventually give rise to "reactions... to the whole organism "2. Work,
which is supported by the development of the hand in the context of growth correlations
with other organs, specifically The five senses broaden the horizons of human vision. The
previously unknown properties of natural objects become known. The same applies to social
objects. Work brings individuals in the population together "through the multiplication of
cases of mutual assistance and joint activity" which clarifies each individual's social
awareness of the importance of such joint activity. Eventually, "when they have something
to say to each other "1, this assemblage of individuals and their experiences mediated by the
labor of hands reaches the threshold point of transitioning from a mere horde of apes to
human society, from quantity to quality. Language and symbolic consciousness were born,
two qualities that made the gap between humans and the animal world at large unbridgeable.
In Engels' lifetime, the scientific data on evolution were "still too little investigated", so that
"here we can do no more than state facts in a general sense "2. The situation is much
different now. Therefore, the task of Marxist anthropologists today is, among other things, to
reconstruct human prehistory with the help of the latest findings in paleoanthropology and
related fields in order to uncover the material roots of the phenomena of language and
consciousness that are the pillars of culture. What is the importance of this task? Because
"without this pre-history the existence of the thinking human brain remains a miracle "3.
Now, it is in this "miracle" that reactionary factors against science usually sem...
Sound.
ENGELS, THE PRIMATE MODEL, AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF
PRIMITIVE HUMAN SOCIAL LIFE
Introduction:
Within the framework of historical materialism, human history is seen as the
successive organization of human society. This means that it spans from its emergence in
nature to the development of industrial capitalism today. In the German Ideology, compiled
together around 1846, the conception of the diversity of precapitalist forms or modes of
production began to take shape in the thought of Marx and Engels1. Here, the various modes
of production were seen as stages of development or evolutionary growth in the teleological
sense, that is, the earlier became the forerunner of the later in a straight line. The key to this
development is the division of labor, which is based on the question of ownership of the
social means and resources of production. It is said that the institution of ownership
developed from the "clan/tribal" to the "ancient communal and state" and then to the "feudal
or estate" form, in which the ownership of the means and resources of social production is
the basis for the development of the society in which private ownership is increasingly
dominant in organizing society's mode of production.
At a later stage, especially as set out in the manuscripts of 1857-8, the diversity of
precapitalist forms of social life was not seen by Marx in terms of linear stages of
development, but as a multi-step model. This is especially so in relation to the modes of
production following the collapse of the tribal mode of production. In the Grundrisse, for
example, Marx sketches at least five modes of production besides "primitive communal",
namely "Asiatic, archaic, Germanic, feudal and Slavonic "1. Here, "primitive communal"
replaces "clan/tribal" in the German Ideology, although there seems to be no substantial
change in meaning.
In Contributions to the Critique of Political Economy, strangely enough, the life of
"primitive communities" is not mentioned again. There is only mention of "the Asiatic,
archaic, feudal, and modern bourgeois modes of production may broadly speaking be
regarded as historical epics marking progress in the economic development of society "2.
The omission of "primitive communal" from this list may be related to the context of the
boundaries of what Marx understood as "historical epics". It could also have something to
do with Marx's lack of confidence in his limited knowledge of social life forms deep in the
recesses of human antiquity. According to Eric Hobsbawm, as far as ancient communal
societies are concerned, Marx and Engels' historical views were almost certainly only
transformed by three source writers, namely Georg von Maurer, L.H. Morgan and M.M.
Kovalevsky3. Chronologically, this means that it happened long after the German Ideology
and Contributions had been written. In addition, pressing political interests also made them
increasingly set aside systematic efforts to understand this original communal society. For
Marx, It was only in the last three years of his life that this effort was made. At least from
Marx's notes, edited by Lawrence Krader, we know that for Marx it was important to
understand human history in its entirety, including the earliest days of human existence1.
Engels himself was fortunate. In the late 1880s, after Marx's death, publications on the
ethnology of "ancient" peoples and paleoanthro- pology began to proliferate as ancient
human fossils were dug up and analyzed. But still, what Engels knew at the time was far
from adequate to describe what human social life was like in the earliest stages of existence.
Despite the omission of "primitive communal" from the list of precapitalist modes of
production and Marx's limited exposure to it in other writings, in relation to my paper, it can
at least be summarized that this primitive communal mode of production was associated by
Marx and Engels with the lower stage of production "in which people lived by hunting and
fishing, by raising livestock or, at best, by cultivating the land". The existence of this
primitive commune is supported by a division of labor that is "still very basic and limited to
a further extension of the natural division of labor existing in the family. The social structure
is therefore limited to an extension of the family "2. In such a context, "individuals act not as
workers but as managers [of the means of production]-and as members of a commune"
whose "goal is not value creation" but "the maintenance, both of the manager and his family,
and of the communal body as a whole "3.
The beginning of ownership is the existence of a "human community, which emerges
from natural evolution "1. This community, which Marx calls the "original community", is
the starting point of social evolution or the "epic of history" and the basic raw material for
the possibilities of the development of a property institution at a later stage. From the point
of view of historical materialism, this "original community" is arguably the singularity of
human history.
In most of Marx's writings, since the focus is on social evolution marked by the
development of forms of ownership and division of labor (whether communal or private),
this historical singularity without forms of ownership is taken for granted. It is never
included in the list of precapitalist modes of production. It is merely a footnote that, even if
removed, would not undermine the grand narrative of human social evolution. Marx never
elaborates on what this original community actually looked like other than that people lived
communally and "no one had a special sphere of activity "2. Moreover, "production is
fundamentally collective, as is consumption which proceeds by the distribution of products
directly within communistic communities "3 or in a general sense, this community practiced
a "communism in practice "4.
Nevertheless, despite the limitations of the data, Marx gives us anecdotes that seem
to be reserved for future scholars to uncover. Marx, for example, imagined that these
original communities lived a nomadic life because "man by nature does not settle down" and
they originally lived by "making use of what is found locally and then move again" just like
"monkeys" and "wild animals" in their natural life1. With this in mind, the dissolution of the
original community as the singularity of human history occurs when "humans finally settle
down". In other words, sedentary life is a transitional step from a life without ownership to a
society with a certain division of labor and pre-established ownership of the means and
resources of production. When did it happen first? From prehistoric archaeological findings,
relatively stable forms of sedentary life first appeared in the early Holocene around 11 rts
(thousand years ago) when the last Ice Age ended. From this, we can say that human history
before the Holocene represents the singularity of history as envisioned by Marx and Engels.
One of the problems Marx and Engels faced, of course, was that let alone
reconstructing the most ancient form of human social life before the Holocene, they were
still groping in the dark. As they both admitted, there is a gap of hundreds of thousands of
years to look back to the "childhood of the human race "2. There are no binoculars that can
be pointed directly at it. If we look for comparisons today, it is also the case that "no tribe in
this state has been found in this chapter of human history "3. In essence, "we have no direct
evidence to prove [its] existence "4. However, "once the evolution of humans from the
animal kingdom is proposed, an intermediate stage must necessarily be presupposed "5.
Reconstruction Models:
Since the early nineteenth century, especially when fossilized human-like bones or
skeletons were discovered, there have been attempts to reconstruct primitive human social
life. This effort was initially triggered by the results of comparative anatomical studies that
found similarities in the skeletal designs of humans and apes. Thomas Huxley, for example,
proved that the human skeleton is more congruent with gorillas and chimpanzees than with
orangutans. With this conclusion, Darwin, who published The Descent of Man a few years
after Huxley published his research results, hypothesized that human ancestors came from
Africa. His reasoning was that gorillas and chimpanzees live in Africa while orangutans live
in Asia1. The proximity of ana- tomy and size of humans to gorillas and chimpanzees
suggests that they shared a common ancestor before branching out into different species.
Since not only anatomy is inherited in evolution, but also species-specific behaviors,
it is likely that the social behavior of our ancestors shared forms with that of gorillas.
Regarding mating behavior and its link to primitive human forms of sociality, Darwin
proposed a conclusion:
"If we look far enough back in time, it is highly improbable that primitive male and
female humans lived together in promiscuity. Judging from the social habits of male man
as he now exists, and from those of the wildest humans who are polygamists, the most
probable view is that primitive male man originally lived in small communities, each
with as many wives as he could support and obtain, which he would guard strictly from
other males. Or he may have lived with several wives to himself, like the Gorilla "2. At
first glance, Darwin proposed gorilla social life as a model for primitive human social
forms. His conclusion was drawn not only from anatomical similarities and the possibility
of a common ancestor that descended humans and gorillas, but also from the fact that in
the primate world, sexual dimorphism is considered a sign of competition for females.
Competition is a result of promiscuous or non-bonded mating between mating males and
females. Since sexual dimorphism in humans is very small, it is unlikely that in primitive
times their mating methods were promiscuous. Although Darwin did not propose a
particular primate model to reconstruct primitive human social life, his theory of
evolution by natural selection in general and his theory of sexual selection in particular
paved the way for the development of referential primate models. This is especially true
as more prehuman fossils are found, raising questions about their physical appearance,
natural environment and social life in the past.
Why are primate models important? Unlike anatomy, social behavior not fossilized. Apart
from looking at the lives of contemporary hunter-gatherer tribes living in "primitive"
conditions and assessing what might be a remnant of ancient human life, from the point of
view of evolutionary science the only other way to reconstruct primitive human behavior or
social life is to find bioecological similarities between certain primates that are considered to
have biological or ecological affinities with the biology and ecology of early human
adaptive environments. From there, observe the social behavior of these primates to then
draw possibilities related to primitive human social behavior. This is called the referential
primate model. In reconstructing primitive human social behavior, we propose one particular
primate species as a model.
When primatology emerged as a scientific discipline around the 1960s, the
referential model was dominant. Babun hamadrya was referenced1. Why baboons? It was
during this time that new types of hominin fossils from Africa were discovered. From
investigating the ancient environment where these fossils were found, it was concluded that
human ancestors no longer lived in the wilderness, but in savannah forests. At that time,
Africa was drying up. The wilderness shrank and was replaced by vast savannahs. The
habitat of the hamadrya baboon is similar to this ancient environment of human ancestors. It
is for this reason that baboons were modeled. The main characteristics of baboon behavior
include living in large groups. Gang members can reach up to 200 individuals. Swarms are
dominated by adult males centered on one alpha male. Large flocks are an adaptive behavior
for living in the open landscapes of Africa, where predators are abundant. But the cost of
living in a group is not cheap. Competition between males is high, whether for females or
food. By studying the social behavior and ecological context of baboon habitats, the
modelers hope to draw some conclusions about the behavior and social lives of our human
ancestors.
The baboon model is based on the assumption that human ancestral habitats is the
open landscape of Africa. From the paleoecological findings of Late Miocene to Pliocene
fossils this assumption is not proven. The oldest hominins such as Sahelanthropus,
Ardipithecus and Orrorin, which were only discovered in the late 1990s and early 21st
century, and are dated to have lived between 7-4 million years ago, show that they were
hominins who, as Engels predicted, "lived in the trees "2 rather than terrestrial apes living in
the savannah. This means that they were more likely to have been arboreal or at least semi-
arboreal animals rather than purely terrestrial like the baboons.
After the hamadrya baboons, during the 1970s and 1980s chimpanzees (Pan
troglodytes) emerged as the favorite referential model of early human researchers1.
Compared to baboons, the chimpanzee model is arguably the most enduring. It has even
survived to the present day. The choice of chimpanzees is, first of all, due to their close
phylogeny with humans. Genetically, humans share 98.2% of the same kro- mosome
makeup with chimpanzees. The reason phylogeny is taken as a benchmark is based on the
evolutionary fact that two species descended from a common ancestor share not only
anatomical and physiological design, but also behavior. Genetically speaking, the branching
off of chimpanzees and humans is said to have taken place 7 to 5 million years ago. Much
closer than baboons and humans, which are tens of millions of years apart.
In addition, many human "cultural" behaviors have crude forms in chimpanzees.
Tool making and use, cooperation in hunting, group hierarchy and so on have evolved into
innate behaviors in the chimpanzee species2. Assuming that genotypic dispositions
determine phenotypes, including behavior, and that these dispositions were inherited from a
common ancestor who also descended humans, it is highly likely that early hominin social
behaviors were similar to those of chimpanzees.
Engels and the Reconstruction of Primitive Social Life:
To the best of my knowledge, there are two passages in The Origin of the Family that reveal
Engels' imagination of human savagery. The first is the first two pages that reiterate L.H.
Morgan's description of the "wildness" of man; and the second is his exposition of "group
marriage" as the most primitive form of human mating.
In describing the "lowest stage" of the "wildness" stage, which he says is the stage of
the "infancy of the human race", namely when "man still lives in his natural habitat in
tropical and subtropical wildernesses and at least partly as a tree-dweller", Engels mentions
that this period lasted "thousands of years "1. Meanwhile, in his summary of the "middle
stage" of the "round of wildness", Engels only mentions that a feature of this round was the
development of the use of ancient stone tools or "paleoliths" by humans, a feature that shows
how primitive their level of culture was2.
In the 19th century, when rock measuring techniques were still very limited,
"millennia" meant, of course, that a period was so long when measured. As all
paleontologists know today, the period of The "childhood of the human race" in the sense of
the evolution of the early hominin stages from the primate branch about 8-7 million years
ago to the appearance of the first genus homo (humans) making stone tools about 2.6 million
years ago spans over 5 million years. So, it is not "thousands" but "millions" of years, a span
of time that Engels and other nineteenth-century scholars could not have imagined.
Millions of years is definitely not a short period of time. Just as the transformation
from bipedal apes 8-7 million years ago in Africa to Homo sapiens, we, who inhabit almost
all of the earth, are certainly not incalculable. Even if we limit "humanity" to Homo sapiens,
the only hominin to have survived to this day, it is not easy to describe what life was like in
the early stages of their existence some 200,000 years ago.
Elsewhere in The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State (1884),
which has not been given much attention, anthropologists for the first time set up a data
triangulation framework for determining the unknowns of early human social life by looking
to the comparative behavioral ecology of living primates and the ethnography of
contemporary hunter-gatherers as points of comparison alongside fossil data and ancient
artifacts1, Engels had proposed a similar triangu- lation model almost a century earlier.
Although Engels stated that "we know practically nothing definite about the family and
other social groupings of the anthropoid apes" and that "with regard to the wild tribes of
man" the descriptions are "clearly contradictory" from one ethnographic section to another,
this does not mean that we cannot find lessons from these two sources2. What needs to be
done is not a complete rejection, but a "very critical examination and screening" especially
of the descriptions of non-human primate life because "ape societies are much more difficult
to observe than human societies "3.
Engels' first position is to reject the validity of the referential primate model4. The
reason is that "even our closest relatives, [the apes] quadrumana5, exhibit every possible
variation in the grouping of males and females "6. There are various conditional factors for
the emergence of certain behaviors or forms of sociality even among different populations of
the same species. But we can also see that Engels' rejection is methodological rather than
substantial.
Seen from the context, namely the childhood of primatology studies in the 19th
century, which was still very little supported by reliable knowledge about the life of primate
species in their natural habitat, Engels stated that "at least we see that animal society has
some benefits for drawing conclusions about [primitive] human society; but the benefits are
only negative "7. This statement should not be understood as a complete denial of the
importance of ecological studies and animal behavior (ethology) in understanding the
common features of primitive human behavior and social life. Compared to the nineteenth-
century natu- ralist tendency, it can be said that Engels went one step further by criticizing
the referential or analogical model that focuses on finding behavioral patterns of a certain
type of primate, chimpanzees or gorillas for example, and then using it as a model in
reconstructing primitive human behavior or sociality.
Instead of choosing one primate as a model, Engels seems to have favored what is
now known as the conceptual or strategic model, a model that uses the theories of
evolutionary biology in general and the results of behavioral-ecological studies of all living
organisms to build a set of conceptual principles for describing primitive human behavior
and social life1.
Within the framework of the general theory of evolution, the results of the study of
the behavior of social mammals and primates that he learned from the naturalists of the time,
Engels tried to find certain principles that illuminated what the ancient sociality of humans
might have looked like from various factors such as behavioral-ecology, physiology, and
behavioral patterns. For example, when reviewing Alvred Espinas' Des sociétés animales
(1877) and comparing it with the general framework of knowledge about human societies
that existed at the time, Engels drew the conclusion that "among the higher animals,
[communities of] gangs and families do not complement each other, but are about each
other... [and in them we can see] the sociality of the human race.... [and in them we can see]
how the jealousy of the males during the mating season loosens the bonds of each social
mob or breaks them up temporarily "2.
In the animal kingdom, the contradiction between family units1 and larger
communities (or populations) is obvious. Key to that contradiction is "the jealousy of the
males [which] prevents the formation of the mob, the higher social form, or reduces its
cohesiveness, or [constantly] breaks it up during the mating season. At least it hinders its
development". Therefore, Engels continued, "there is sufficient evidence that animal
families and early human societies were not comparable, and that when early human
societies made their way out of the animal world, they had neither a family form at all nor a
form which did not exist among animals" at all2. Why is this so?
According to Engels, any individual social animal is too fragile to live alone. Even
with the help of social groupings limited to the nuclear family. In my previous writings there
is at least ample evidence that the bioecological conditions of hominins after the
development of bipedal anatomy do not allow for the reproductive success of the species
without a social group larger than just the male-female mating bond and the parental bond
between parents and their children to support the life and livelihood of each individual3.
Therefore, according to Engels, "for the development of man beyond the animal level, for
the attainment of the greatest progress that nature has shown, something more is needed: the
deficient strength of individual defense must be made good by the united strength and
cooperation of the group "4.
What are the prerequisites for the existence of the "mob" social life? With very
limited scientific data and somewhat voluntaristic, According to Engels, the condition is that
"mutual tolerance among adult males, liberation from jealousy, is the first condition for the
formation of larger, lasting groups in which individual animals can become human beings
"1. So what makes this first condition possible? Implicitly, Engels proposed physiological
change as the basis for this possibility. In the animal world, he argued, mating and social
grouping could be explained by "physiological causes" alone2. Whereas in humans they are
not. Why, Engels did not explain. Today, thanks to advances in the science of evolutionary
biology, we know that the "physiological causes" of mating and mating seasons in the
animal world are linked to the presence of oestrus in females. Oestrus is the physiological
signs of female fertility in the form of changes in body size and temperature in the genital
area, accompanied by the release of certain odors from the female genitalia. It is these signs
that trigger the reaction of the male, with his capacity to pick up on these signs with his
senses, to mate. It is only during this oestrus period that the male will act to inseminate the
female. Similarly, females can only be physiologically inseminated during the oestrus
period.
The onset of oestrus is limited in duration. Oestrus will also only reappear over a
long period of time. Because the period of onset is short, there is a "scarcity" of time for
animals to mate. Since oestrus is public in the sense that all adults can sniff out fertile
females, there is a kind of scramble for fertile females. In other words, sexual receptivity
regulates animal sociality. During times of fertility, the "community" dissolves as adult
males scramble to inseminate. Post-fertile period, the community returns to normal. There is
no social permanence. There is biological permanence as a blind driver of forms of
sexuality.
Well, oestrus is what is missing in human physiology. When and why it was lost is
still an evolutionary puzzle. But we can at least trace its effects. With the disappearance of
oestrus, now no one knows, not even the females themselves, whether it is time to mate or
not. Whereas in non-human animals females cannot conceal their fertility, in humans
females can (because even they don't know!). Because fertility is so public, chimpanzee
females, for example, cannot refuse to be inseminated by males attracted by their oestrus.
Human females, on the other hand, might. In other words, as a result of the first loss of
oestrus, unlike chimpanzees who are completely bound to nature, humans slowly distance
themselves from nature. It is at this point, a point conditioned by their biological evolution,
that humans become human by starting to distance themselves from nature due to changes in
nature (physiology) itself. The loss of oestrus became the condition that allowed the creation
of non-biological means to inform them whether they were fertile or not.
With the opening up of sexual acceptance and the establishment of distance between
driven by blind biology and the possibility of cultural manipulation due to the disappearance
of oestrus, females can now say "no" to males who want to inseminate them. This is
important because, as I have pointed out in previous posts, their reproductive interests or
priorities are not the same as those of males. For females, supplying their young with the
necessities of life and saving them through the most difficult time in early life is more
important than reproducing. For this reason, they require additional intake of highly
nutritious food. The disappearance of oestrus allows them to play bargaining politics with
any male who wants to have sex with them. Sex is no longer "natural" and free: the male's
need for it must be exchanged for something valuable for reproductive success: food. The
problem is, how do females force males to give them game meat?
In addition to the loss of oestrus, another typical human (female) physiology is
menstruation. In contrast to the loss of oestrus so that even females do not know their own
fertile period, human females know clearly whether they are menstruating or not. Paul
Turke's research proved a unique symptom of human biology that there is a tendency for
menstrual synchronization among females living in groups in one place. Females living in
close proximity will experience menstrual periods that span almost the same time. In order
to close the space for the males who "come and go without a message" and make the
females "used up" without exchanging food, the females need a bond between each other
that is bound by a common symbol. Menstrual blood provides the raw material. By
synchronizing their menstruation, they can bind themselves into political alliances to impose
conditions on any male who wants sex1.
One of the other consequences of the loss of oestrus and the opening up of human
sexual acceptance is the certainty of paternity of children fathered by females. On the male's
side, there is no guarantee at all that the children of the females he has mated are really his
flesh and blood. There is also no guarantee that when they go out to mate, the female will
not be mated by another male from another group. Therefore, due to the reproductive
priorities of males, who tend to fertilize more and more, the more likely they are to pass on
their genes to the next generation, males cannot tie themselves to a single female. With the
development of menstrual synchronization events, the collective rejection of females in
favor of nutrient-rich meat for their offspring, and the accumulated knowledge of males of
the uselessness of bonding to a single female, and their knowledge that without exchanging
a certain amount of nutritious food to a group of females, they will not get any food. In the
words of Engels, it was "mutual tolerance between adult males, freedom from jealousy" that
was the psychological precondition for the emergence of the primordial human community.
In Engels' words, it was "mutual tolerance among adult males, freedom from jealousy" that
was the psychological prerequisite for the emergence of the primeval human community.
Related to the above, according to Engels' speculation, "the oldest and most ancient
form of family whose historical existence we can prove indisputably" is the family based on
"group marriage, a form of family in which a group of men and a group of women claim
each other, and which leaves little room for jealousy "2. So, as I have argued in previous
posts3, it is quite impossible for human populations to reproduce themselves by organizing
their social life within the narrow confines of the monogamous nuclear family as most
nineteenth-century scholars believed or the polygynous family as Darwin believed. Neither
of these forms of sociality allowed for the successful reproduction of the human species at
the earliest stage of its history on the basis of limited productive forces. With the clearest
evidence that humans have survived to the present as a species, another form that does not
resemble the conjugal monogamous family or the polygynous family must have been
"chosen" by our ancestors. It may have been as Engels envisioned, a community based on
group marriage, an "original communistic household "4, in which there were no barriers of
personal control in terms of marriage. The relationship between humans and nature is
communal and natural. Even if there was a division of labor, it was based on biological
factors such as age and sex, between members who were procreating and those who were
not, and so on. The point is that everyone contributes according to their abilities, all received
what they needed, or in Marx's terms a "living communism" in its "raw" form1.
Engels' image of the "original communistic household" as the organization of human
social life at the earliest stage of human existence on earth looks as if primitive man was at
peace; a heavenly life on a lost earth. The original communion looked like the idealized
world of the 18th century Romantics whose teachings Engels and Marx opposed. Engels, in
contrast to the Romantics, did not see humanity's original life as one without problems. It is
possible to find, as in the hunter-gatherer tribes of our time, "the custom of killing girls
immediately after birth "2 or that "because of the uncertainty of food supply, cannibalism
seems to have arisen and to have been practiced "3. Engels also does not dismiss the
possibility of the practice of "living with one man and one woman on a temporary basis" in
these group marriage-based communities4. What Engels proposes through the concept of the
"original communistic household" is not an empirical description, but a theoretical design of
the most probable form of primeval human sociality.
If we stick to the materialist-dialectical theory of evolution In terms of both human
continuity and disconnection from the built world, a qualitative leap or "a transitional stage
must be presupposed "5. Theoretically, the communistic native community is a transitional
point whose form has no counterpart in either the primate world at large or the human world
today. To obtain an empirical picture requires a direct observation, which is realistically
impossible because "even the the most primitive nations known to history provide no direct
examples of such a life "1.
Indeed, we will not be able to obtain direct information about the "original
communistic household" based on "group marriage" from primitive societies. But that
doesn't mean we can't find it indirectly from the ethnographies of the temporary hunter-
gatherer tribes whose way of life is considered the most primitive. Take for example Berndt
and Berndt's ethnography of the indigenous tribes of Australia. Among them:
"a wife can have access to a number of tribal "husbands", and
"brothers-cousins" of her actual husband; while also a husband enjoys the same privileges as
the "wives" of the tribe, the classificatory sisters of his wife and his wife's wives and cousins
their female "cousins". Should the husband or wife object, or take steps to break their bond,
this would go against public opinion, and the protesting camp would soon be made to
understand that they are part of an institution that legitimately condones such relationships
"2.
When Engels spoke of "group marriage", it is likely that the empirical picture was as
in the ethnographic report above. This means that Engels' speculation is not a kind of
illusionistic speculation that cannot be proven empirically. The main issue in rejecting
Engels' speculation about group marriage does not seem to be whether or not there is a
human society with a communistic marriage model. It is rather a bourgeois moral bulwark to
be able to accept the fact that the monogamous conjugal family is historical, not something
original and universal since humans first set foot as humans on the primate evolutionary
tree. In Engels's time, "it was so trend to deny the existence of this primal stage in human
sexual life" because according to bourgeois morality "humanity must be kept away from this
"disgrace""1. When (bourgeois) morality becomes the judge of scientific truth, then all we
get is the naturalization of bourgeois morality and the institutions of bourgeois society.
Indeed, quipped Engels, "any [scientific] understanding of primitive society is impossible
for one who sees it only as a brothel "2.
Cover:
In general, from what has been described above, in seeking to explain the most
ancient form of human social organization through the negation of the referential primate
model, Engels draws the conclusion that early man lived in a communistic social
organization. With this inference, does Engels view communistic life as a uniquely human
form and, therefore, as a necessity for the most ancient history of mankind? Or, to put it
another way, does Engels consider it to be human nature that our ancestors were
communistic? In the teleological sense, as opposed by Darwin, Marx and Engels himself,
certainly not. The forms of sociality are determined by the material conditions that sustain
human life in a particular era. In terms of historical materialism, these conditions include,
first of all, biology, ecology, and the means of production and repro- duction of the material
conditions of life that human beings find already in front of them, either transformed or
utilized as they are3. None of these material conditions are in themselves timeless.
Moreover, unlike today, arguably the changes in nature throughout human evolution itself
were largely not the result of human actions. It is for these reasons that Engels dismisses the
referential primate model for the reconstruction of early human life while still believing that
we can still draw lessons from studies of the lives of living primates. By locking "human
nature" in the repository of primate biology, no matter how close our reference primate is
genetically, the chimpanzee for example, we are actually closing off the possibility of a
plausible explanation in the context that evolution is a dialectical process in which necessity
and chance are internally intertwined1. Thus, as a social relation of production and repro-
duction, primitive communism is conditioned by the material conditions of human existence.
For us now, the issue is how to continue Engels' work in providing a historical materialist
explanation of human nature and the presentation of scientific evidence for the early
communistic form of human social life. How communistic was their social organization?
Was it uniform or diverse? The consequence of accepting historical materialism is the
recognition of the historicity or conditioning of the way human beings organize their lives
by space and through time. In fact, as in the quote from German Ideology above, in Marx's
understanding, even the original communal mode of production took many forms. This
diversity lies not in the communal social relations of production, but in the means and
resources of production that the relations of production organize. So, does the principle of
historical materialism also apply even at the point of singularity of the emergence of
"society" on earth? As long as society exists in space and through time, of course yes.
Moreover, the principle of historical materialism that the base conditions the superstructure,
and the principle that productive forces condition the relations of production, allow for the
diversity of forms and dynamics of the original communities because the earth on which
these communities live is not uniform.
Geographical and climatic differentiation, especially when human ancestors began to
move out of Africa 2 jts and spread across the European-Asian globe, diversified the means
and potentials of production that they could develop to produce the means of life.
