Abstract
The biological similarities between humans and apes are great but they should not obscure the differences. Some differences are of such great consequence that man should be considered truly unique kind of organism with a marvellous plasticity of mind. All of the uniquely human traits are adaptations to the environments in which man evolved; these Include profound modifications of anatomy, physiology and behaviour. The morphological differences between man and his nearest relatives are very conspicuous. The form of the skeleton is adapted to fully erect posture and bipedal locomotion. The pelvis is broadened to provide adequate attachment for the powerful striding muscles. The transformation of the tail vertebrae is unique among the vertebrates. The joint for the neck is in the middel of the base of the skull. The hands are prehensile, with a large and strongly opposable thumb. The brain is uniquely large in proportion to the body and has a particularly large and complex cerebrum; the cerebral cortex contains the cent res for memory and complex computation. The enlarged brain requires prolonged infant dependency and high quality nutrition. Differences between humans and animals are grea tes t in the realm of behaviour: Ability to make tools (associated with bipedalism); ability to anticipate the future; development of symbolic communication (associated with expansion of cortex). Direct evidence of man's language capabilities comes form the anatomy of the modern human vocal tract. Man is the only species that succeeded in creating a truly productive language, and it is the scaffolding of human culture and civilization.Copyright information
- Ownership of copyright in terms of the Work remains with the authors.
- The authors retain the non-exclusive right to do anything they wish with the Work, provided attribution is given to the place and detail of original publication, as set out in the official citation of the Work published in the journal. The retained right specifically includes the right to post the Work on the authors’ or their institutions’ websites or institutional repositories.
Publication and user license
- The authors grant the title owner and the publisher an irrevocable license and first right and perpetual subsequent right to (a) publish, reproduce, distribute, display and store the Work in any form/medium, (b) to translate the Work into other languages, create adaptations, summaries or extracts of the Work or other derivative works based on the Work and exercise all of the rights set forth in (a) above in such translations, adaptations, summaries, extracts and derivative works, (c) to license others to do any or all of the above, and (d) to register the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) for the Definitive Work.
- The authors acknowledge and accept the user licence under which the Work will be published as set out in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (Creative Commons Attribution License South Africa)
- The undersigned warrant that they have the authority to license these publication rights and that no portion of the copyright to the Work has been assigned or licensed previously to any other party.
Disclaimer: The publisher, editors and title owner accept no responsibility for any statement made or opinion expressed by any other person in this Work. Consequently, they will not be liable for any loss or damage sustained by any reader as a result of his or her action upon any statement or opinion in this Work.
In cases where a manuscript is NOT accepted for publication by the editorial board, the portions of this agreement regarding the publishing licensing shall be null and void and the authors will be free to submit this manuscript to any other publication for first publication.
Our copyright policies are author-friendly and protect the rights of our authors and publishing partners.