This page is part picture gallery, part reflection upon those pictures and the ideas that surround them.
The image above, which I use at the head of my
Evolutionary (Darwinian) Medicine subsite, and which I used on that subsite's predecessor since it was set up in 1997, has been employed in different forms numerous times to differing affect. It is a means of depicting human evolution. As one follows the figures from left to right, one in effect traces the sequence of human evolution via representatives of different stages in that process. However, this visual device usually implies a lot more than the mere fact that there has been physical change over historical time.
What is it that makes this image so evocative? Why has it been reproduced in different forms so often? (Indeed, why do I find it so compelling that I have started collecting versions of it?)
Interestingly, this image is found in scientific and popular culture.
It would be interesting to know when this image was first used scientifically and how and when it passed into popular culture. Presumably the image was not used before 1859. However, the idea of human progress has a long and complicated history.
If you know of any other images that adopt this progress metaphor, please let me know by email.
The figure at the head of this page now graces the cover of 'Ancestral Roots: Modern Living and Human Evolution' by Timothy Clack:
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Notice that the man on the right is now working hunched over a laptop (rather than a desktop PC), the penultimate man has what appears to be a power drill (rather than a road drill) and the pre-penultimate man carries a different kind of rake the opposite way up.
General Comments
The figures always travel left to right.
The figures are (almost) always male.
There is no indication of the time taken or whether how these stages are separated in time.
The carriage of objects implies more than just a physical evolution but also a cultural improvement.
The general impression is one of human improvement, not just physical change – which is really all that evolution is.
Darwin200
To commemorate the bicentenary of the birth of
Charles Darwin (1809-1882), the Royal Mail has produced the following set of stamps and first day cover:
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Somewhere else using this image as part of
Darwin200 is
Bolton Museum who sent around this flyer:
Evolution tee-shirts and other giftsSuch is the popularity of this design - which seems to be increasing over recent years - that a number of items bearing a version of the 'ascent of humankind' image can be obtained online. Try the following:
Amazon -
.com(1);
.com(2);
.co.uk(1);
.co.uk(2).
Zazzle
Google SearchesUsing the search phrases '
evolution t shirt' and '
evolution tee shirt' yields a wealth of images.
New Scientist magazine used the image above for an article enti
tled 'Evolution: 24 myths and misconceptions'. Note that this image is one of the few in which a female figure is found in the lineage. Although men are, of course, necessary for reproductive purposes, the only certain continuous physical line linking present day humans and our most distant ancestors is that line which passes from mother to daughter. To be more accurate, the (Pictorial) Ascent of Man(kind) should really consist of a line of females.
Note also the intimation that an increase in size is not necessarily the same as or accompanied by evolutionary 'progress'.
Scientific Use
The version used on my Evolutionary (Darwinian) medicine subsite was clearly modified for the New York Academy of Sciences meeting 'Evolution, Health, and Disease Darwinian Approaches to Medicine'
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Bryan Sykes' book
Adam's Curse – A future without men uses the image to depict the evolution of Man into woman.
Mostly Male
This image draws to our attention the fact that other versions of this image seem always to depict males – with a strategically advanced right leg covering their genitals. It raises the question as to whether this image demonstrates an inherent male bias or orientation in the study of anthropology. (There is an old adage that anthropology is 'the study of Man, embracing woman', which, in itself, has certain male-leaning nuances.)
It is not men that evolve, nor is it women but Man. Thus, indirectly, this image raises the question of how to use the word 'Man'. For me, Man – with a capital 'M' – is an inclusive term. It refers to the whole of the human species. This includes men, women and children of all geographical origins. Sometimes, I substitute the term 'humankind' for Man (or Mankind).
Unwittingly, this image may seem to imply that progress from male to female has a negative connotation. Wherever this type of image is portrayed, the increase in height of the evolving figure implies an ascent for Man with a decrease in height, after a maximum has been reached, implying some form of descent. For example, see the figure at the head of this page and that immediately below used by The Ecomonist.
Keith Harrison's light but informative book
Your Body - The Fish That Evolved (London: Metro 2007) uses on its cover this image:
Interestingly, to give a fuller picture of the whole of the evolution which led to us, Harrison's cover shows pre-ape like forms: a fish and a frog. Strictly speaking there are no frogs in our ancestry. However, the point is made that our ape-like ancestors had ancestors of their own - back to the time when they lived in the seas.
This image taken from the
Neanderthal Museum website alludes to the idea of evolutionary progression. In this example Neanderthal Man - being the subject of the museum - is the end product. However, if one looks carefully, one can see that it is the same but smaller image that tails off to the left not any ancestral forms.
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This is is taken from 'What Makes Us Human?' (ed. Charles Pasternak) [
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Detail:
The following is taken from a small book published by
Wooden Books - a publisher with an interesting, if eclectic, catalogue:
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Here, the characters usually depicted in the march of human progress appear in the bottom corners of the front cover and we are left to piece the sequence together for ourselves. Inside, the following detail, taken from page 45, gives a rather fanciful view of the future:
However, is the suggestion about a possible evolutionary future for dolphins entirely inconceivable? They will never be able to break the laws of physics and begin to levitate but leaving the oceans to become intelligent, bipedal, land-dwelling beings breaks no 'law' of biology
per se.
The following, from Tim Glynne-Jones' 'The Book of Words', is the first I have found to extend the idea of physical evolution to that of language. This it does by employing the simple device of using a couple of speech bubbles. The irony of the words in these bubbles is that 'ugh!' and 'whatever' do not suggest much of a difference and so nothing much by way of progress. 'Whatever' is a term that has come to be associated with disaffected and generally rather dim teenagers and is little more than an 'ugh!'.
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This, which takes the progress idea and applies it to growing up, is taken from 'Teenagers: A Natural History' by David Bainbridge:
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The following was captured from an animated opening sequence of a BBC production about the
Aquatic Ape Hypothesis:
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One use of this image that is clearly meant to convey a message was found on the front of the December 13th-19th 2003 edition of
The Economist:
[
See]The message is that people (at least, in the West) are becoming morbidly obese as a result of their consumption of junk food – as typified by the super-sized cartoon which, no doubt, contained a carbonated sugary drink.
Why the obese man on the right is drawn wearing briefs is a puzzle. In very obese people of both sexes, the abdomen droops down over the pubic area covering the genitals. So 'full frontal nude' views of such individuals do not expose the sexual anatomy. Furthermore, in very obese males, the fat of the lower abdomen immediately in front of the pubis, tends to engulf the penis making it appear almost invisible.
Popular Culture
In popular culture, the
Bronze Records, uses a version of the image on its label:
This is a cleverly named record label. It was started by Gerry Bron in 1971. So it was literally, Bron's records! The reference seems to be to the
Bronze Age which is a relatively recent period in the development of human civilization. Divided into three periods (Early, Middle and Late) the Bronze Age lasted from c3500-c1200 BC. Little physical evolution of note occurred during or since that period.
Although arranged in a circle the figures advance from left to right.
The comedian
Jimmy Carr (writing with
Lucy Greeves) has used a version of the image on the front of his book, the Naked Jape. This is a clear reference to Desmond Morris's book the
Naked Ape.
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This is a scan of a postcard entitled 'Evolving?' I know nothing more of it provenance. What is particularly interesting is the comment of the seemingly most advanced figure on the right: 'Are we there yet?' Although our conception of progress seems to imply some sort of aim or goal, human physical evolution has no set aim or goal; our species is not deliberately changing so as to reach some ultimate state of perfectibility.
The figures appear to be the origins from which the cover of The Economist was drawn.
(The image above parallels another poster from the same campaign. In that poster a series of pint glasses are shown. From left to right, the glasses get filled as the Guinness is poured, then progressively emptied as the Guinness is drunk.)
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