Sapiens: a brief History of Humankind

Homo sapiens
has been able to revise its behaviour
rapidly in accordance with changing needs. This opened a fast lane of cultural
evolution, bypassing the tra c jams of genetic evolution. Speeding down this fast
lane, 
Homo sapiens
soon far outstripped all other human and animal species in its
ability to cooperate.
The behaviour of other social animals is determined to a large extent by their
genes. DNA is not an autocrat. Animal behaviour is also in uenced by
environmental factors and individual quirks. Nevertheless, in a given
environment, animals of the same species will tend to behave in a similar way.
Signi cant changes in social behaviour cannot occur, in general, without genetic
mutations. For example, common chimpanzees have a genetic tendency to live in
hierarchical groups headed by an alpha male. Members of a closely related
chimpanzee species, bonobos, usually live in more egalitarian groups dominated
by female alliances. Female common chimpanzees cannot take lessons from their
bonobo relatives and stage a feminist revolution. Male chimps cannot gather in a
constitutional assembly to abolish the o ce of alpha male and declare that from

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here on out all chimps are to be treated as equals. Such dramatic changes in
behaviour would occur only if something changed in the chimpanzees’ DNA.
For similar reasons, archaic humans did not initiate any revolutions. As far as
we can tell, changes in social patterns, the invention of new technologies and the
settlement of alien habitats resulted from genetic mutations and environmental
pressures more than from cultural initiatives. This is why it took humans hundreds
of thousands of years to make these steps. Two million years ago, genetic
mutations resulted in the appearance of a new human species called 
Homo erectus
.
Its emergence was accompanied by the development of a new stone tool
technology, now recognised as a de ning feature of this species. As long as 
Homo
erectus
did not undergo further genetic alterations, its stone tools remained
roughly the same – for close to 2 million years!
In contrast, ever since the Cognitive Revolution, Sapiens have been able to
change their behaviour quickly, transmitting new behaviours to future generations
without any need of genetic or environmental change. As a prime example,
consider the repeated appearance of childless elites, such as the Catholic
priesthood, Buddhist monastic orders and Chinese eunuch bureaucracies. The
existence of such elites goes against the most fundamental principles of natural
selection, since these dominant members of society willingly give up procreation.
Whereas chimpanzee alpha males use their power to have sex with as many
females as possible – and consequently sire a large proportion of their troop’s
young – the Catholic alpha male abstains completely from sexual intercourse and
childcare. This abstinence does not result from unique environmental conditions
such as a severe lack of food or want of potential mates. Nor is it the result of
some quirky genetic mutation. The Catholic Church has survived for centuries, not
by passing on a ‘celibacy gene’ from one pope to the next, but by passing on the
stories of the New Testament and of Catholic canon law.
In other words, while the behaviour patterns of archaic humans remained xed
for tens of thousands of years, Sapiens could transform their social structures, the
nature of their interpersonal relations, their economic activities and a host of
other behaviours within a decade or two. Consider a resident of Berlin, born in
1900 and living to the ripe age of one hundred. She spent her childhood in the
Hohenzollern Empire of Wilhelm II; her adult years in the Weimar Republic, the
Nazi Third Reich and Communist East Germany; and she died a citizen of a
democratic and reuni ed Germany. She had managed to be a part of ve very
different sociopolitical systems, though her DNA remained exactly the same.
This was the key to Sapiens’ success. In a one-on-one brawl, a Neanderthal
would probably have beaten a Sapiens. But in a conflict of hundreds, Neanderthals
wouldn’t stand a chance. Neanderthals could share information about the
whereabouts of lions, but they probably could not tell – and revise – stories about

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tribal spirits. Without an ability to compose ction, Neanderthals were unable to
cooperate effectively in large numbers, nor could they adapt their social behaviour
to rapidly changing challenges.
While we can’t get inside a Neanderthal mind to understand how they thought,
we have indirect evidence of the limits to their cognition compared with their
Sapiens rivals. Archaeologists excavating 30,000-year-old Sapiens sites in the
European heartland occasionally nd there seashells from the Mediterranean and
Atlantic coasts. In all likelihood, these shells got to the continental interior
through long-distance trade between di erent Sapiens bands. Neanderthal sites
lack any evidence of such trade. Each group manufactured its own tools from local
materials.
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