previously formidable geographical areas. Fired by the exploratory flames of human consciousness, we zigzagged our way out of Africa into southeastern and eastern Asia, a poetic, yet cognitive, equivalent of continental drift.
A bout eight cosmic hours ago (250,000 years), a hominid with a 1,450 cc brain showed up. It was the grand entrance of Homo sapiens , from the Latin word sapia , which means “wise.” These large-brain ancestors did not include our heavily browed, hairy, and more muscled cousin, Homo neanderthalensis . Matthias Krings of the University of Munich has shown that there is a significant difference between the DNA of Neanderthal Man and that of modern human beings, which means, although related to us, they were altogether a different species. It is not known exactly when our Neanderthal relatives became extinct (estimates are between 50,000 and 200,000 years ago), but, in spite of 10,000 years of living side by side with H. sapiens in Europe and the Middle East, we think we know why. It is believed they were vanquished by none other than their highly inventive and aggressive hominid cousins—us.
The next step in our evolution has to be regarded as one of the great cognitive milestones in our history—the beginnings of sophisticated art. Prior to as little as 40,000 years ago, no rock art or engravings of any aesthetic significance, whether on bone or stone, are known to exist. It is as if from one level of capability to another, human creativity took a quantum leap. The signature and skill of an artist hitherto unknown suddenly emerged. The great sand faces of the Earth became the diaries of human experience as well as the mirrors of the human soul. Modern man had arrived.
So this is who we are— Homo sapiens sapiens —the sole survivors of at least eighteen species of bipedal ancestors. We are privileged. Creative and clever? Yes. Doubly wise? I doubt it.
CULTURAL EVOLUTION
T he human animal traveled the world. Equipped with a brain that was primed to seek and to explore, we had no choice. The search for food and new hunting grounds made sure of that until, close on the heels of the last ice age ten thousand years ago and with the Earth’s temperatures warming again, one of Nature’s most fortuitous genetic accidents occurred. It stopped our nomadic ancestors in their tracks. By some great fluke, or perhaps the result of a hitherto unknown temperature-dependent bacterial alliance with wild grasses, a wind-scattered wild wheat with fourteen chromosomes crossed with a natural goat grass of the same chromosome number. The result was a fertile twenty-eight-chromosome hybrid called emmer. The seeds of this edible hybrid were still light enough to be wind-borne but then a second accident occurred when emmer crossed with another goat grass, producing a still larger hybrid with forty-two chromosomes. This hybrid is the cereal called bread wheat, Triticum vulgare , the staple diet of millions of people today.
Prior to this, the order of the day was to collect grass seeds and to bring them home, but suddenly, in an exotic, symbiotic relationship beautifully described by scientist and philosopher J. Bronowski, “man and a plant came together.” A grain had developed that was too heavy for wind dispersal and that had to be cultivated by a species that understood the behavior of flowering plants and grasses. By accident or coincidence, the coalition of natural grasses to form cereals accelerated. Barley, Hordeum vulgare , sprang up in the Middle East, followed by maize, Zea mays , in the American tropics 7,000 years ago. Nearly two thousand years later, rice, Oryza sativa , cropped up in Thailand and China, while in Africa sorghum, Sorghum bicolor , and the millets, Pennisetum glaucum and Eleusine corocana , began seeding themselves. At last, the hominids were able to take off their nomadic shoes and stay put for a while. Planting, cultivating, harvesting, and the domesticating and interbreeding of
A bout eight cosmic hours ago (250,000 years), a hominid with a 1,450 cc brain showed up. It was the grand entrance of Homo sapiens , from the Latin word sapia , which means “wise.” These large-brain ancestors did not include our heavily browed, hairy, and more muscled cousin, Homo neanderthalensis . Matthias Krings of the University of Munich has shown that there is a significant difference between the DNA of Neanderthal Man and that of modern human beings, which means, although related to us, they were altogether a different species. It is not known exactly when our Neanderthal relatives became extinct (estimates are between 50,000 and 200,000 years ago), but, in spite of 10,000 years of living side by side with H. sapiens in Europe and the Middle East, we think we know why. It is believed they were vanquished by none other than their highly inventive and aggressive hominid cousins—us.
The next step in our evolution has to be regarded as one of the great cognitive milestones in our history—the beginnings of sophisticated art. Prior to as little as 40,000 years ago, no rock art or engravings of any aesthetic significance, whether on bone or stone, are known to exist. It is as if from one level of capability to another, human creativity took a quantum leap. The signature and skill of an artist hitherto unknown suddenly emerged. The great sand faces of the Earth became the diaries of human experience as well as the mirrors of the human soul. Modern man had arrived.
So this is who we are— Homo sapiens sapiens —the sole survivors of at least eighteen species of bipedal ancestors. We are privileged. Creative and clever? Yes. Doubly wise? I doubt it.
CULTURAL EVOLUTION
T he human animal traveled the world. Equipped with a brain that was primed to seek and to explore, we had no choice. The search for food and new hunting grounds made sure of that until, close on the heels of the last ice age ten thousand years ago and with the Earth’s temperatures warming again, one of Nature’s most fortuitous genetic accidents occurred. It stopped our nomadic ancestors in their tracks. By some great fluke, or perhaps the result of a hitherto unknown temperature-dependent bacterial alliance with wild grasses, a wind-scattered wild wheat with fourteen chromosomes crossed with a natural goat grass of the same chromosome number. The result was a fertile twenty-eight-chromosome hybrid called emmer. The seeds of this edible hybrid were still light enough to be wind-borne but then a second accident occurred when emmer crossed with another goat grass, producing a still larger hybrid with forty-two chromosomes. This hybrid is the cereal called bread wheat, Triticum vulgare , the staple diet of millions of people today.
Prior to this, the order of the day was to collect grass seeds and to bring them home, but suddenly, in an exotic, symbiotic relationship beautifully described by scientist and philosopher J. Bronowski, “man and a plant came together.” A grain had developed that was too heavy for wind dispersal and that had to be cultivated by a species that understood the behavior of flowering plants and grasses. By accident or coincidence, the coalition of natural grasses to form cereals accelerated. Barley, Hordeum vulgare , sprang up in the Middle East, followed by maize, Zea mays , in the American tropics 7,000 years ago. Nearly two thousand years later, rice, Oryza sativa , cropped up in Thailand and China, while in Africa sorghum, Sorghum bicolor , and the millets, Pennisetum glaucum and Eleusine corocana , began seeding themselves. At last, the hominids were able to take off their nomadic shoes and stay put for a while. Planting, cultivating, harvesting, and the domesticating and interbreeding of
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