Homo sapiens is the only species of all the huminids which ever evolved on this planet whose evolutionary fate can be assessed in perspective since he alone has been able to survive to this day and spread out to all the corners of the Earth. In the course of development of the Homo genus the more highly organized branches, races and populations, which were in what we call the mainstream of the evolution, prevailed over their rivals with lower forms of organization or whose organizational forms became even more primitive in the course of their adaptation to different environments (like mountains or tropical forests). A hallmark of the Homo genus right from the start was its lust for boundless expansion. The logical result thereof was the birth in Europe of a truly unique civilization, oriented at the broadest spectrum of climatic and geographical conditions. Faced with a steady and seemingly endless technical and technological progress of our contemporary society, the obvious questions which springs up in one's mind is: can mankind keep up its traditional strategy much longer and is there some limit to it all? What about some more remote prospects of development of mankind-a time when there will be simply no room left on this planet for any new generations? This problem and its likely prospects are examined by Marianna Kozlova, Cand. Sc. (Biol.), researcher of the Vavilov Institute of History of Natural Sciences and Technology, RAS. STRATEGY OF ADAPTATION At the time of major geological transformations in the history of this planet, when conditions of the habitat became extremely unstable, the best chances of survival belonged to what we call universal life forms which happened to be least dependent on the environment. They gave rise to new and higher taxa - types and classes - of organisms. The same general tendency was manifested in anthropogenesis. In the course thereof and all over the "oikoumene"-the inhabited earth-the local archaic forms of the Hominidae w ... Читать далее