Sapiens: a brief History of Humankind

6.
 The Catholic alpha male abstains from sexual intercourse and childcare, even though there is no
genetic or ecological reason for him to do so
.
Another example comes from the South Paci c. Sapiens bands that lived on the
island of New Ireland, north of New Guinea, used a volcanic glass called obsidian
to manufacture particularly strong and sharp tools. New Ireland, however, has no

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natural deposits of obsidian. Laboratory tests revealed that the obsidian they used
was brought from deposits on New Britain, an island 400 kilometres away. Some
of the inhabitants of these islands must have been skilled navigators who traded
from island to island over long distances.
5
Trade may seem a very pragmatic activity, one that needs no ctive basis. Yet
the fact is that no animal other than Sapiens engages in trade, and all the Sapiens
trade neworks about which we have detailed evidence were based on ctions.
Trade cannot exist without trust, and it is very di cult to trust strangers. The
global trade network of today is based on our trust in such ctional entities as the
dollar, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the totemic trademarks of corporations.
When two strangers in a tribal society want to trade, they will often establish trust
by appealing to a common god, mythical ancestor or totem animal.
If archaic Sapiens believing in such ctions traded shells and obsidian, it stands
to reason that they could also have traded information, thus creating a much
denser and wider knowledge network than the one that served Neanderthals and
other archaic humans.
Hunting techniques provide another illustration of these di erences.
Neanderthals usually hunted alone or in small groups. Sapiens, on the other hand,
developed techniques that relied on cooperation between many dozens of
individuals, and perhaps even between di erent bands. One particularly e ective
method was to surround an entire herd of animals, such as wild horses, then chase
them into a narrow gorge, where it was easy to slaughter them en masse. If all
went according to plan, the bands could harvest tons of meat, fat and animal
skins in a single afternoon of collective e ort, and either consume these riches in
a giant potlatch, or dry, smoke or (in Arctic areas) freeze them for later usage.
Archaeologists have discovered sites where entire herds were butchered annually
in such ways. There are even sites where fences and obstacles were erected in
order to create artificial traps and slaughtering grounds.
We may presume that Neanderthals were not pleased to see their traditional
hunting grounds turned into Sapiens-controlled slaughterhouses. However, if
violence broke out between the two species, Neanderthals were not much better
o than wild horses. Fifty Neanderthals cooperating in traditional and static
patterns were no match for 500 versatile and innovative Sapiens. And even if the
Sapiens lost the rst round, they could quickly invent new stratagems that would
enable them to win the next time.
What happened in the Cognitive Revolution?

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