Sapiens: a brief History of Humankind

Homo sapiens –
that man jumped to the
top of the food chain.
That spectacular leap from the middle to the top had enormous consequences.
Other animals at the top of the pyramid, such as lions and sharks, evolved into
that position very gradually, over millions of years. This enabled the ecosystem to
develop checks and balances that prevent lions and sharks from wreaking too
much havoc. As lions became deadlier, so gazelles evolved to run faster, hyenas to
cooperate better, and rhinoceroses to be more bad-tempered. In contrast,
humankind ascended to the top so quickly that the ecosystem was not given time
to adjust. Moreover, humans themselves failed to adjust. Most top predators of the
planet are majestic creatures. Millions of years of dominion have lled them with
self-con dence. Sapiens by contrast is more like a banana republic dictator.

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Having so recently been one of the underdogs of the savannah, we are full of fears
and anxieties over our position, which makes us doubly cruel and dangerous.
Many historical calamities, from deadly wars to ecological catastrophes, have
resulted from this over-hasty jump.
A Race of Cooks
A signi cant step on the way to the top was the domestication of re. Some
human species may have made occasional use of re as early as 800,000 years
ago. By about 300,000 years ago, 
Homo erectus
, Neanderthals and the forefathers
of 
Homo sapiens
were using re on a daily basis. Humans now had a dependable
source of light and warmth, and a deadly weapon against prowling lions. Not
long afterwards, humans may even have started deliberately to torch their
neighbourhoods. A carefully managed re could turn impassable barren thickets
into prime grasslands teeming with game. In addition, once the re died down,
Stone Age entrepreneurs could walk through the smoking remains and harvest
charcoaled animals, nuts and tubers.
But the best thing re did was cook. Foods that humans cannot digest in their
natural forms – such as wheat, rice and potatoes – became staples of our diet
thanks to cooking. Fire not only changed food’s chemistry, it changed its biology
as well. Cooking killed germs and parasites that infested food. Humans also had a
far easier time chewing and digesting old favourites such as fruits, nuts, insects
and carrion if they were cooked. Whereas chimpanzees spend ve hours a day
chewing raw food, a single hour suffices for people eating cooked food.
The advent of cooking enabled humans to eat more kinds of food, to devote less
time to eating, and to make do with smaller teeth and shorter intestines. Some
scholars believe there is a direct link between the advent of cooking, the
shortening of the human intestinal track, and the growth of the human brain.
Since long intestines and large brains are both massive energy consumers, it’s
hard to have both. By shortening the intestines and decreasing their energy
consumption, cooking inadvertently opened the way to the jumbo brains of
Neanderthals and Sapiens.
1
Fire also opened the rst signi cant gulf between man and the other animals.
The power of almost all animals depends on their bodies: the strength of their
muscles, the size of their teeth, the breadth of their wings. Though they may
harness winds and currents, they are unable to control these natural forces, and
are always constrained by their physical design. Eagles, for example, identify
thermal columns rising from the ground, spread their giant wings and allow the

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hot air to lift them upwards. Yet eagles cannot control the location of the columns,
and their maximum carrying capacity is strictly proportional to their wingspan.
When humans domesticated re, they gained control of an obedient and
potentially limitless force. Unlike eagles, humans could choose when and where to
ignite a ame, and they were able to exploit re for any number of tasks. Most
importantly, the power of fire was not limited by the form, structure or strength of
the human body. A single woman with a int or re stick could burn down an
entire forest in a matter of hours. The domestication of re was a sign of things to
come.
Our Brothers’ Keepers
Despite the bene ts of re, 150,000 years ago humans were still marginal
creatures. They could now scare away lions, warm themselves during cold nights,
and burn down the occasional forest. Yet counting all species together, there were
still no more than perhaps a million humans living between the Indonesian
archipelago and the Iberian peninsula, a mere blip on the ecological radar.
Our own species, 
Homo sapiens
, was already present on the world stage, but so
far it was just minding its own business in a corner of Africa. We don’t know
exactly where and when animals that can be classi ed as 
Homo sapiens
rst
evolved from some earlier type of humans, but most scientists agree that by
150,000 years ago, East Africa was populated by Sapiens that looked just like us.
If one of them turned up in a modern morgue, the local pathologist would notice
nothing peculiar. Thanks to the blessings of re, they had smaller teeth and jaws
than their ancestors, whereas they had massive brains, equal in size to ours.
Scientists also agree that about 70,000 years ago, Sapiens from East Africa
spread into the Arabian peninsula, and from there they quickly overran the entire
Eurasian landmass.
When 
Homo sapiens
landed in Arabia, most of Eurasia was already settled by
other humans. What happened to them? There are two con icting theories. The
‘Interbreeding Theory’ tells a story of attraction, sex and mingling. As the African
immigrants spread around the world, they bred with other human populations,
and people today are the outcome of this interbreeding.
For example, when Sapiens reached the Middle East and Europe, they
encountered the Neanderthals. These humans were more muscular than Sapiens,
had larger brains, and were better adapted to cold climes. They used tools and
re, were good hunters, and apparently took care of their sick and in rm.
(Archaeologists have discovered the bones of Neanderthals who lived for many

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years with severe physical handicaps, evidence that they were cared for by their
relatives.) Neanderthals are often depicted in caricatures as the archetypical
brutish and stupid ‘cave people’, but recent evidence has changed their image.
According to the Interbreeding Theory, when Sapiens spread into Neanderthal
lands, Sapiens bred with Neanderthals until the two populations merged. If this is
the case, then today’s Eurasians are not pure Sapiens. They are a mixture of
Sapiens and Neanderthals. Similarly, when Sapiens reached East Asia, they
interbred with the local Erectus, so the Chinese and Koreans are a mixture of
Sapiens and Erectus.
The opposing view, called the ‘Replacement Theory’ tells a very different story –
one of incompatibility, revulsion, and perhaps even genocide. According to this
theory, Sapiens and other humans had di erent anatomies, and most likely
di erent mating habits and even body odours. They would have had little sexual
interest in one another. And even if a Neanderthal Romeo and a Sapiens Juliet fell
in love, they could not produce fertile children, because the genetic gulf
separating the two populations was already unbridgeable. The two populations
remained completely distinct, and when the Neanderthals died out, or were killed
o , their genes died with them. According to this view, Sapiens replaced all the
previous human populations without merging with them. If that is the case, the
lineages of all contemporary humans can be traced back, exclusively, to East
Africa, 70,000 years ago. We are all ‘pure Sapiens’.