At the threshold of consciousness (1957)

Summer landscape of a lake at sunset.

Ducks swimming on a forest lake.

A swimming swan.

A family of herons reflected on the surface of the water.

Flamingos on the shore.

Ostriches in the grass.

Grazing musk oxen.

The head of an elephant.

A seal looks out of the water.

Crocodiles on the coastal sand.

An anteater looking for food.

A porcupine bristles its quills.

An armadillo burrows into the sand.

The head of a turtle.

The turtle begins to pull its head under its shell.

The legs, body, neck and head of a giraffe.

A giraffe chews a tree branch.

Giraffes in a zoo enclosure.

Monkeys in zoo cages.

Faces of monkeys of different species.

A scientist gives a monkey a stick and watches it from behind a shelter.

The monkey uses a stick to move a nut lying outside the enclosure towards itself and takes it.

The face of a scientist watching a monkey.

An anthropologist in his office examines the bones of an ancient man discovered during excavations.

Bone fragments laid out on a table.

Anthropologist M.M. Gerasimov assembles the skull of an ancient man from fragments and shards of bones.

Mounting the lower jaw on the skull.

Applying layers of plasticine to the skull.

Gerasimov creating a sculptural portrait of an ancient Neanderthal boy from the Teshik-Tash cave.

A bust of an adult Neanderthal created by Gerasimov based on a skull found during excavations.

A bust of Sinanthropus on display at the Historical Museum.

Busts of an ancient ape-like man on display at the museum.

A bust of Australopithecus.

A skull discovered during excavations in Africa, which had lain in the sand for thirty million years.

A sculpture of the ancestor of ancient apes.

A chimpanzee in the forest.

The evolutionary paths of a fossil ape and man through the alternation of sculptural images.

Sculptural portraits of Australopithecus, Pithecanthropus, Sinanthropus, Neanderthal, Cro-Magnon.

Scientist holds chimpanzee by the hand.

Scientist leads monkey by the hand.

In the park on the territory of the Institute of Higher Nervous Activity.

Newsreel from 1933: monkey playing in an enclosure.

Academician I.P. Pavlov observes a monkey in Koltushi near Leningrad.

Chimpanzee makes a pyramid of cubes with numbers, Pavlov observes the monkey's actions.

Forest summer landscapes.

Adolescent hamadryas baboon Kaffi rushes into the thicket.

Kaffi picks fruit from a tree.

Kaffi eats the picked fruit.

Newly born baby monkeys in cages on bedding.

Institute employees check various reflexes of little monkeys.

Clinging reflex observed in a child.

Mother over a crib.

Baby monkey clinging to its mother.

A monkey with a baby.

An employee of the Institute of Higher Nervous Activity with a baby monkey in her arms.

Demonstration of the sucking reflex in a baby monkey.

The face of a baby moving its lips, a mother over the baby's crib.

Sucking movements that occur in a baby monkey when it sees a pacifier.

Monkeys in the forest.

A snake crawls out from under a stone.

Monkeys flee, demonstration of a defensive reflex.

A dog searches for food in the grass.

A bear cub sniffs and picks apart a rotten wooden log in search of food.

Monkeys in the forest study unfamiliar objects.

A monkey tastes a pine cone.

Monkeys examine branches and pieces of wood they find, looking for something edible among them.

A chimpanzee named Vega studies a wind-up toy.

Scientists observe the actions of a chimpanzee playing with a wind-up monkey.

A monkey sits in an enclosure on a drinking fountain.

A monkey named Caffy steals a broom lying behind the fence of the enclosure and plays with it.

Caffy is participating in an experiment to study the level of thinking of monkeys, giving up any object for a piece of sugar.

Caffy is looking for objects to exchange, offering the tip of his own tail in exchange.

Caffy chooses the objects that the experimenter shows.

The chimpanzee Vega is participating in another experiment on pulling a tray with a treat towards himself.

The experimenter demonstrates to Vega a way to solve the problem, Vega watches his movements.

Vega repeats the experimenter's actions and pulls the tray with a treat towards himself, demonstrating the imitation reflex.

Vega is eating an orange in a cage.

The experimenter is measuring the monkey's blood pressure in the presence of another monkey.

One of the monkeys begins to put a tonometer cuff on his leg.

The hand of the experimenter taking notes.

The monkey is trying to write, both monkeys are imitating a person.

A monkey draws on paper with a pencil.

Chimpanzees Vlada and Neva imitate the experimenter.

Chimpanzee Vega escapes from a snake on the bars of a cage during an experiment.

The snake crawls across the floor toward Vega.

The experimenter strokes the snake.

Vega begins to study the snake, imitating the experimenter.

The experimenter releases a chicken onto the floor and acts out a scene of fear.

Vega approaches a closed box.

Vega opens the box, sees the chickens, and runs away.

The artist's little son imitates his father, who is painting a picture.

A house drawn by an adult artist.

A house drawn by a child imitating an adult.

An experimenter draws geometric figures on a board with chalk, a chimpanzee named Vega watches him.

Vega makes meaningless scribbles on the board.

Geometric figures drawn by a person and scribbles made by a monkey with chalk on a board.

An experimenter leads a chimpanzee to a gardener digging the ground.

The chimpanzee, imitating the gardener, begins to dig the ground with a shovel meaninglessly.

Monkeys use sticks and stones to get food in natural conditions.

A capuchin monkey cracks nuts with stones.

An experiment to develop complex tool use skills in a monkey.

A monkey uses a long splinter to get a candy out of a pipe.

The experimenter gives the monkey a board to make a tool.

The monkey breaks off a part of the board, tries to push it into the pipe, the splinter does not go in because of its thickness.

The monkey tries to push a piece of the board into the pipe to get a candy.

The monkey breaks off a narrower longitudinal part of the board, puts it into the pipe and takes out a candy.

The monkey eats the candy.

The chimpanzee Lada during experiments on developing her skill of extinguishing a fire with water.

Lada pours water on the fire from a mug, takes out an orange.

Lada, during an experiment on moving from one raft to another, sets up a ladder for the transition, the experimenter watches Lada, gives her an orange after moving to another raft.

Conducting an experiment on extinguishing a fire, with a transition from one raft to another.

Lada with an empty mug goes to a raft with a barrel of water installed on it.

Lada collects water in the mug.

Fruit behind a burning fire.

Lada pours water on the fire brought from the tank, takes the fruit.

Lada eats the fruit she got.

A pack of monkeys in natural conditions.

Different species of animals united in herds and packs.

A pack of wolves during a joint hunt.

A pack of wolves drives a herd of antelopes during a hunt.

Wolves hunting deer.

Seagulls on the shore.

Seagulls take off to repel the attack of a feathered predator.

A herd of deer.

Grazing musk oxen.

A troop of baboons migrates in natural conditions.

A painting depicting a camp of a herd of ancient people.

A herd of monkeys moving.

Monkeys near caves.

The buildings of the medical and biological station in Sukhumi, monkeys communicate with their relatives from cages.

A herd of hamadryas baboons on the territory of the station in artificially created conditions similar to their homeland - Abyssinia.

The leader of the herd named Murray.

Conflicts between monkeys.

Murray disperses fighting relatives, restores order in the herd.

Murray punishes the culprit.

Monkeys with cubs on their backs.

A cub sucks its mother's breast.

Grown-up cubs play with each other.

A cub lost among the rocks.

A monkey is looking for a lost cub.

Monkey Kaffi helps to search for a cub.

Kaffi finds a cub and leads it to its mother.

Kaffi returns the cub to its mother.

Kaffi plays with rocks.

Monkeys look after their young.

Monkeys climb rocks in groups to escape a snake.

A herd of monkeys running away from a snake.

Monkeys sit on tree branches.

A bell is rung to signal for lunch.

Monkeys come down from the trees.

A station employee calls her charges for lunch.

Distributing food to the monkeys.

The leader and the young begin to eat.

The monkeys wait for the leader to eat.

An experiment to observe the leader's actions during meals.

Murray is looking for sugar.

One of the monkeys, having found sugar, is afraid to take it.

Murray takes away the piece of sugar he found.

A conflict between females during lunch.

The leader puts out the conflict.

The leader finishes lunch, the females rush to the food.

The females and young monkeys are having lunch.

An experiment to study family ties between monkeys.

The monkeys surround the abandoned cage with the young.

One of the females climbs into the free part of the cage and gets caught in the trap.

The herd becomes excited.

The station staff approach the cage with the babies and the captured female, take the cage away, the monkeys around express displeasure.

The monkeys hang on the gate, look under it, the babies and the female are in the cage.

The staff member plays a magnetic recording of the monkeys' cries, the herd responds to the cries.

Playing a recording of a cry in case of danger.

The monkeys respond to the cry, grab the babies and run away.

A herd of hamadryas baboon on the rocks among the trees.

Hamadryas baboon signal each other by crying.

The monkeys signaling each other using facial expressions and gestures.

The monkeys expressing their feelings using facial expressions and cries.

A scientist leads a chimpanzee by the hand along the terrace of the station building.

A chimpanzee holds a human hand.

A monkey uses a stick to perform simple operations.

A monkey making something like a primitive tool.

A monkey sticks its hand out from behind the bars.

Sculptures of ancient people using primitive tools.

Imitation of the manufacture of a club by Stone Age people using stone tools.

The process of creating a hand axe.

Processing wood with a hand axe.

The most ancient tools - a branch turned into a club, axe and a hammer.

A sculptural composition depicting the collective cutting of a deer carcass by ancient Sinanthropus.

Sculptural groups depicting the life of ancient people.

Paintings depicting the life and life of ancient people.

Fragments of a painting depicting a mammoth hunt.

Stone and bone tools made by people on display at a museum.

A bone cutter.

A cutter next to a bone blank.

A bust of a Cro-Magnon.

A human bust.

Making a bust in the antique style.

An anthropologist measures a human skull and a dummy brain and writes down the results.

The scientist gets up from the table and goes to the bookcase.

The scientist opens a book and immerses himself in reading.

Books on the shelves.