Sapiens: The Long Climb

The archaeological site of Jebel Irhoud in Morocco.

Proving that I spent way too much time interested in all the things normal teenagers ignored, I remember being fascinated by a science article on human origins published in the early 1980's. This article was new research that dated the emergence of our species to a little under two-hundred thousand years ago. A remarkably distant time for a South Carolina teenager who regularly heard revival pastors come to my grandparents' church to report the world was at best six-thousand years old.

The two-hundred thousand year human origin article was real science, as opposed to material that purposed horny space aliens mated with our ape-like ancestors to create humans. One of many utterly ridiculous ideas that had been floating around in popular culture/New Age circles since the early 1970's. These preeminent bullshit theories can all be traced back to Swiss wacko, Erich von Daniken who had extraterrestrials inhabiting every attic and basement on prehistoric Earth and onward into the present.

The real science that tickled the fascination centers of my brain had our ancestors evolving in eastern Africa with early Homo sapiens popping up in southern Africa. At that time, H. sapien appearance was considered “sudden” with them weathering tough climate times in caves on what is now the South African coast. Once the climate situation improved, our people then moved out of Africa to spread across the globe. The general assumption after that being H. sapiens quickly eliminated the “brutish” and primitive Neanderthals while conquering the rest of the planet.

A nice tidy theory that has been turned on its ear.

Back in 2017 the fossils of five Homo sapien individuals dating to nearly three-hundred thousand years ago were found in a cave in Morocco. Needless to say, this fossil find overthrows the idea that our species popped up in eastern Africa before moving down to the South African coast to hang out eating tubers and shellfish. That our species originated throughout the entire continent of Africa.

Northern Africa was probably quite different three-hundred thousand years ago with the Sahara going through a green and wet period allowing those five individuals to hunt plentiful game. There was an important difference between those early humans and those of us alive today. The individuals discovered in the Moroccan cave had smaller versions of the cerebellum. Additionally their braincases were elongated resembling archaic human lineages instead of modern humans.

Despite these internal differences, numerous computer studies and 3D x-ray measurements of the fossils reveal that these people were almost indistinguishable from those of us living today. Whether or not these folks could have been taught complex abstract ideas is questionable, but they did make stone tools to aid in their daily survival.

The book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari purposes that Homo sapiens were pretty lowly creatures up until seventy-thousand years ago when we went through a “cognitive revolution.” This allowed our species develop abstract, imaginary ideas like gods, nations, money, and human rights among many other concepts. Armed with this ability to imagine new things humans acquired the ability to cooperate in larger numbers as compared to our hairier primate kinfolk.

Like my younger teenage self, it fascinates me how our ancestors navigated those long, dark millennia before some unknown spark pushed us over the edge into true sentience. Contrary to Mr. von Daniken and his confused followers, no advance aliens helped our ancestors. Through centuries of monstrous trial and horrific error our species scratched its way up from living in caves and working with stone to the technological civilization we have today.

Ultimately, my thoughts lead me to the opposite end of where we came from to where we are going. Will Homo sapiens exist three-hundred thousand years from now and if we do, what will the lives of our descendants be like.

Of course, my hope is that our species will have spread out to the solar system and beyond. That our far-flung children might one day look back upon our time and feel a similar fascination at how we eventually moved beyond the primitive and destructive desires that hold us back now. 

Source Material: Oldest Fossils of Our Species Push Back Origin of Modern Humans.