How Did We Become Humans? What Makes Humans (Homo Sapiens) Unique?

Introduction

There is no disproving to the fact that humans in this extant form (Homo sapiens sapiens) evolved overtime from the ancestral timeline of some hominid species. For a baseline knowledge of this, you can check out this post and this post . But as it were; there are some distinguishing factors that have made us unique from other of the earlier primates. In this survey, we will be looking at them in details.

_{[Image Source: Pixabay. CC0 licensed]}

Humankind has been one of the most successfully evolved creatures alive today; no wonder he has literally shown his supremacy in conquering Mother Nature, but even with all these feats, humans in this extant form have similarities with some of our extinct ancestors and even some other mammals at large, but there are some areas that humans have shown distinctive differences for others; let's look at them:

Tools Making and Skills

As a matter of precision, this is one of the distinguishing factors between man and Ape. According to this palaeoanthroplogical record , the Homo habilis has been recognized as a major breakthrough in the invention and usage of crude stone tools - this also explains why the "habilis" was affixed to the "homo". The "habilis" represents ability - so by inference; "Homo habilis" is the man with ability of stone making; otherwise called the "Handy man".

Even though the Australopithecus came before the Homo habilis which only arrived about 2.4million years ago [ref], but it wasn't recognized for any known tool-making skills, and they were also very primitive and weird-looking Ape-men. One of the first discoveries of the Homo habilis was made in the year 1960 by Dr Louis Leakey and Dr (Mrs) Mary Leakey in Tanzania (East Africa) in a place known as Olduvai Gorge, and awesomely enough, some of the tools made by these our grandpas (which were excavated alongside their fossils) are still present even to this day [ref].

_{[Image Source: Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain licensed]}

Some people may ask; "didn't Apes use tools too?" Okay here's the point; Apes basically made use of the objects they found as tools, but the Homo habilis fashioned his own tool out of a pre-existing object; that was why it was dubbed "man with ability". Here's a view by Dr Kenneth Oakley (anthropologist) on this:

Making of tools is what makes man unique. - K. Oakley [source]

Uprightness and Bipedalism

This is another property that makes man uniquely different from Apes - walking uprightly on both feet without using the hands as support for locomotion; thus freeing the hands for use in other things. The specie recognized as a major breakthrough in bipedalism is the "Homo erectus" - which was also nicknamed the "Java man" because the earliest fossils were found in Java, in the year 1891 [ref], and they had longer femur bones compared to the previous Homo habilis, and also a knee-angle curvature that supports uprightness and bipedalism.

These creatures were given the name "Pithecanthropus erectus” (or just Pithecanthropus) which also translates to "erect ape-man", but was later given the fancy name "Homo erectus". Because of their bipedalism, they made use of more complex stone tools - I mean, their hand were freed to do some works. Even though it has been relatively unknown if the Homo erectus evolved directly from the Homo habilis or some missing links were in-between, but some palaeoanthroplogical evidences based on fossil records have indicated that the later had bigger brain mass and possessed less massive jaws than the initial. And yes; they were taller in height - the maximum recorded height of 6.1ft as against 4.5ft in the Homo habilis [ref].

_{[Femur bones of Homo erectus indicating uprightness. Source: Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain licensed]}

However, some questions about these creatures have been left in the grey zone; questions like - Did they use and have control of fire? (were their foods cooked or eaten raw? You'll find out later), were they the direct ancestors of the extant modern man (Homo sapiens), or were they side branches in the evolutionary tree? Were they gregarious? - Did they move in groups or they were lone-dwellers? No doubt, man is also known for his communal nature, and this should be a yardstick for qualifying/disqualifying Men and Apes.

Killers and Fucking Carnivorous?

One of our very oldest ancestors; the Sahalantropus which had very vague similarities to man; but was not truly recognized as one because of their obvious Ape features; lived a predominantly herbivorous lifestyle [ref]. Their eating pattern was closely related to what Chimps did - fruits, bark of trees, herbs, leaves. This could be explained because of their environmental influence - they were majorly forest dwellers _{(maybe vegetarians are trying to mimic this ancestor of ours)}.

The trend of herbivorous lifestyle continued even down the line to the Zinjanthropus, which was recognized as the nut cracker (Australopithecus boisei) until it came to the A.africanus. According to Professor Dart; University of Witwatersrand, South Africa, the Australopithecus africanus was recognized as one of the first true meat-eater [ref]. But how was meat introduced to their diet? If you observed the trend, you would see a migration from herbs to nuts - and these nuts are rich in lipids, which was like a preparation for the big one; the meat (because their intestines were already used to herbs and they needed some forms of set-induction; which was the purpose of the nuts).

_{[Image of man eating meat. Source: Wikimedia Commons. Author: Rpm911 CC BY-SA 3.0 licensed]}

But did they hunt for meat? According to this source , it was recognized that these Ape-men started off as scavengers - feeding off from carcasses and dead animals probably killed by some carnivorous animals; as against hunting for their own meat. And as it were; the meat was eaten raw... ewww. But with the better mastery of fire during the late palaeolithic era to the early neolithic era , it was discovered that passing meat through fire made it more tasty. Though it has been relatively unknown the first hominid specie to cook meat, but according to this report , the Homo erectus could be queried for this, and the reason behind this is the discovery of ashes alongside the fossils of these creatures. Also it is logical to think they are remotely credited for cooking the first meal because they were fully bipedal and they could utilize their hands effectively.

Though some others have linked the creation of fire to the Neanderthals, but like we are aware of, no one lived through history to exactly trace the timeline of the evolution of man to the extant Homo sapiens sapiens, but with the aid of palaeoanthroplogical study of fossils, we could be pointed to the right direction.

Conclusion

Humans; though related by evolution to the ancient hominid species; there are obvious properties that have made us uniquely different. We have had an overview of these qualities, and also the species recognized for the breakthrough in each of the features. But one thing should be noted more importantly; the trend of evolution hasn't stopped.

Thanks for reading

References for further reading:

• humanorigins/human_fossils
• columbia.edu/australopithecus
• Hominid_species/tool-making
• The first humans
• Extinct hominid species
• Homo_habilis/tool making
• Homo_erectus

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