How the heck did Homo sapiens survive?

[Minoosh]

I find there are many caveats about declaring when "modern man" came into being. For the purposes of this thread I'll go with what I consider a conservative estimate of 40,000 years. I'm talking about anatomically modern humans with a full complement of human intelligence.

I cannot figure out how the species lasted for the 30,000 years (or so) before mankind settled into agricultural communities and found some strength in technology and numbers. Was it the species' ingenuity that did it? The power to make fire? Before "civilization" kicked in circa 12,000 years or so ago - how did man live, with no fur, no fangs, no claws? What evolutionary advantage did this species have? I can see a lot of disadvantages, but maybe they turned out to be assets - such as the need to take care of young who could not walk for a year or two. It's tempting to believe that mankind's greatest weakness was also its greatest strength - that lack of natural advantages forced humans to organize, cooperate, hunt more efficiency, etc.

But how did we not freeze to death or starve to death in the interim? We had spread far beyond the tropics, where there might have been reliable food and weather. It's a puzzle to me and maybe someone at ISF has some answers.

 

[fuelair]

Ability to turn parts of the environment into weapons and other tools did not hurt at all.
Ability to figure out how plants and animals could be used and, eventually, modified was pretty useful too.

 

[Loss Leader]

It's a puzzle to me and maybe someone at ISF has some answers.

Any decent book on anthropology will have the answers. First, the use of fire is old ... very old. So old that it predates homo sapiens completely. H. Erectus was the first species to use fire.

Another thing that's way older than 40,000 years? Knives. They've found stone knives that were over 2 million years old - long before the evolution of gracile homo sapiens.

So, it's not that h. sapiens came into being and then found a way to survive. We evolved along with the means to survive. We came about because fire made food easier to chew. We're here because knives made it easier to clothe ourselves.

It's all very interesting.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Actually, we didn't, but that's okay.

...I've miles
And miles
Of files
Pretty files of your forefather's fruit
and now to suit our
great computer,
You're magnetic ink.♫

 

[epepke]

I find there are many caveats about declaring when "modern man" came into being. For the purposes of this thread I'll go with what I consider a conservative estimate of 40,000 years. I'm talking about anatomically modern humans with a full complement of human intelligence.

I cannot figure out how the species lasted for the 30,000 years (or so) before mankind settled into agricultural communities and found some strength in technology and numbers. Was it the species' ingenuity that did it?

They almost didn't.

Somewhere in the vicinity of 50,000 to 70,000 years ago, a mutation in a single male spread rapidly through the population. It had the effect of making people a lot nicer to each other (seriously, even though it's obvious that there was a long way to go). This made it possible to have permanent settlements. Before that, the best way not to get killed by other humans was to move around a lot.

Now, this couldn't have happened if humans hadn't gone through an evolutionary bottleneck and become almost extinct.

 

[Joey McGee]

For real? This isn't an argument for design right...

Humans are 200,000 years old. Started wearing clothes about 170,000 years ago when still in africa, didn't start moving to mountains and out of africa for another 70,000 years, so probably were pretty good at clothes and fire thus making moving into gradually colder climates over thousands of years easily explained. Also, tool use and hunting techniques were passed down since before the dawn of modern humans...

Here's a shorter explanation, most modern humans are spoiled, whiny pussies.

 

[MG1962]

One thing humans have proved incredibly good at is the ability to exploit any food source in any environment. If we could swallow it and it didn't kill us - we ate it. A good analogy to this is the population growth of Brown bears compared to virtually any other wild animals. Brown bears are so adaptable to food sources they are thriving on our rubbish lol

 

[CapelDodger]

I cannot figure out how the species lasted for the 30,000 years (or so) before mankind settled into agricultural communities and found some strength in technology and numbers.

I don't think you appreciate the wealth which is available in nature to the knowledgable. The chances are that numbers necessitated the settlement. That would suggest a species that was not just surviving but thriving.

Was it the species' ingenuity that did it?

That and our compulsion to mess with stuff to see what happens. Combine that with language and you have a powerful force.

 

[Olowkow]

And don't forget an insatiable sex drive and 24/7 availability.

 

[JohnG]

Here's a shorter explanation, most modern humans are spoiled, whiny pussies.

I know I am.

 

[Puppycow]

We almost didn't

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

Plus, we had the accumulated knowledge and experience of four and a half million years of hominid experience exploiting the environment. Humans didn't crawl out of the mud ignorant - every hominid had hominid parents teaching them edible fruits and how to find water.

And we had string. That seems to be one of the big technologies that pushed us forward. Sewn clothes, bags and tents, fishing line, and hafted tools are only found in h. Sapiens sapiens sites.

 

[MG1962]

Plus, we had the accumulated knowledge and experience of four and a half million years of hominid experience exploiting the environment. Humans didn't crawl out of the mud ignorant - every hominid had hominid parents teaching them edible fruits and how to find water.

And we had string. That seems to be one of the big technologies that pushed us forward. Sewn clothes, bags and tents, fishing line, and hafted tools are only found in h. Sapiens sapiens sites.

In the book Humans Who Went Extinct the author Clive Finlayson throws up the intriguing notion that one of Man's strength came from the variety of landscapes he encountered in Kenya. Marginal bush land, open plains, deep forests allowed man to learn a little about each so he could move back and forward and exploit which ever area was producing the most food for him, without falling into the trap of specialization.

 

[smartcooky]

Standing upright was, apparently, huge!

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/scien...evolution-of-walking-upright-13837658/?no-ist

 

[fuelair]

Standing upright was, apparently, huge!

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/scien...evolution-of-walking-upright-13837658/?no-ist

brought some problems (spinal and muscular) but all-in-all a very good thing!!!!

 

[Loss Leader]

brought some problems (spinal and muscular) but all-in-all a very good thing!!!!

Caused childbirth to be riskier and caused babies to be born more prematurely than non-walking primates, but it appears the benefits outweighed the costs.

 

[ddt]

I find there are many caveats about declaring when "modern man" came into being. For the purposes of this thread I'll go with what I consider a conservative estimate of 40,000 years. I'm talking about anatomically modern humans with a full complement of human intelligence.

The 40,000 year figure is the date that homo sapiens ventured out of Africa into Eurasia. Homo sapiens is much older than that.

And before sapiens, homo erectus had also fanned out into Eurasia. Java Man is an early fossil of erectus found in Indonesia, dated to between 700 ky and 1My.

I cannot figure out how the species lasted for the 30,000 years (or so) before mankind settled into agricultural communities and found some strength in technology and numbers. Was it the species' ingenuity that did it? The power to make fire? Before "civilization" kicked in circa 12,000 years or so ago - how did man live, with no fur, no fangs, no claws? What evolutionary advantage did this species have? I can see a lot of disadvantages, but maybe they turned out to be assets - such as the need to take care of young who could not walk for a year or two. It's tempting to believe that mankind's greatest weakness was also its greatest strength - that lack of natural advantages forced humans to organize, cooperate, hunt more efficiency, etc.

But how did we not freeze to death or starve to death in the interim? We had spread far beyond the tropics, where there might have been reliable food and weather. It's a puzzle to me and maybe someone at ISF has some answers.

Using all kind of tools had already been standard in all hominids, whether predecessors of sapiens like erectus, or its contemporaries like neanderthalensis. Sapiens just took it to the next level.

In the long run, the agricultural revolution made possible that humans eventually moved on to making machines, trains, cars, computers, etc. In the short run, it is not so evident that settled agriculture provided an immediate advantage. With low population density, foraging whatever nature provides is a very suitable survival stategy. And hunter-gatherers don't need to spend 40 hours/week to keep up their living.

 

[McHrozni]

Any decent book on anthropology will have the answers. First, the use of fire is old ... very old. So old that it predates homo sapiens completely. H. Erectus was the first species to use fire.

Another thing that's way older than 40,000 years? Knives. They've found stone knives that were over 2 million years old - long before the evolution of gracile homo sapiens.

So, it's not that h. sapiens came into being and then found a way to survive. We evolved along with the means to survive. We came about because fire made food easier to chew. We're here because knives made it easier to clothe ourselves.

It's all very interesting.

I would say that clothing is vastly superior to fur (or feathers). It is metabolically almost free, modular and it can be removed or added in a matter of seconds as opposed to weeks.

It's similar to spears versus claws/fangs. Spear has a longer range certainly, and it can pierce deeply, but more importantly if it breaks you just make a new one in a couple of hours. There is no risk of infection, no pain, no disability, no nothing.

McHrozni

 

[Silly Green Monkey]

Ah good, someone mentioned the boning. Much, much boning.

 

[McHrozni]

In the short run, it is not so evident that settled agriculture provided an immediate advantage. With low population density, foraging whatever nature provides is a very suitable survival stategy. And hunter-gatherers don't need to spend 40 hours/week to keep up their living.

This is further supported by the fact that nomadic peoples continued to present an invasion threat to settled societies at least until 1300s, and possibly longer.

McHrozni