DECORATION AND HUMAN UNIQUENESS: Traditional beaded headress on the forehead of a San Bushman at sunset.
Image: iStockphoto
-
Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That?
Why do testicles hang the way they do? Is there an adaptive function to the female orgasm? What does it feel like to want to kill yourself? Does “free will”...
Read More »
TEMPE, Arizona—Based on our capacity for thought, social learning and cooperation, humans often hold our own species in high regard compared to all other living things.
It is certainly true that the human species is a statistical outlier along several dimensions, so scientists have recently been working out a sequence of the anatomical and behavioral adaptations that were necessary across evolutionary time for our ancestors to become fully human.
Emboldened by such developments, 25 experts from a range of disciplines gathered February 19-22 at a workshop, "Origins of Human Uniqueness and Behavioral Modernity," organized by Arizona State University’s Origins Project to identify the suite of traits that could be used to mark the starting point of humankind.
Participating scientists included paleontologists, anthropologists, archeologists, evolutionary ecologists and biologists, primatologists, developmental psychologists, geneticists and other specialists in cognition, cooperation, culture and social organization.
Theoretical physicist and cosmologist Lawrence Krauss, ASU professor and director of ASU's Origins Project, kicked off the workshop by saying it would help lay the foundation for the story of humanity's beginnings and open new avenues for future study.
"We are doing exactly what we had intended—bringing together the best minds from a wide variety of fields—to address a truly fundamental question about the nature of humanity," Krauss said. "What this ultimately means is that we want to understand what happened that led to 'us' and gave us Shakespeare."
The event's co-organizers, paleoanthropologist Curtis Marean of ASU, who directs archeological digs in South Africa aimed at understanding human origins, and anthropologist Kim Hill of ASU, whose focus is the emergence of human uniqueness from the vantage point of nearly 30 years of fieldwork with hunter-gatherer societies, recounted that during the Pleistocene epoch (between 1.8 million and 10,000 years ago) in Africa, a species of hominins walked along an evolutionary trail to "become something more than just bipedal apes," which led humans to persist, led hominins such as Neandertals not to persist, and gave humans the capability to eventually colonize the planet.
The question of how a seemingly feeble, naked ape could survive to become dominant is "one of those topics that always fascinate people," Marean said. He adds that a scientific consensus into "what comprises uniqueness" would also bolster research into human origins by helping to guide the development of identification markers—fossils and artifacts—that would help reveal human emergence in the paleoanthropological record.
The study of human uniqueness is fairly young and a cross-disciplinary approach is necessary, according to Hill. Having recently published research on the topic in the October 2009 issue of Evolutionary Anthropology, Hill said, "We are just now tackling the problem [of human uniqueness]. Most of the recent advances that I am aware of are covered in our review paper, but there are some areas that I know less well such as cognition and neuroscience."
What is meant by human uniqueness is also a point of confusion among scientists. Hill said that evolutionary scientists have historically been reluctant to pronounce humans as distinct. "What we mean by 'unique' is that humans show a combination of characteristics" that make humans a "statistical outlier in the living world" rather than unique "through processes that are unique to our species," he said. Whatever makes humans special, Hill added, it has led us to become biologically dominant—cycling the majority of all the nitrogen on the planet, technologically dominant and extremely complex.
See what we're tweeting about
21 Comments
Add CommentAdvanced cultural humanity certainly left its mark on the world during the brief blip of its existence on Earth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHumanness began at the point when one of our apelike ancestors secretly killed a troopmate, blamed the crime on a neighboring troop, and used it as justification to liberate the other troop from the tyranny of its alpha male.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Based on our capacity for thought,.."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe choice of the word "thought" reveals, to me, a lamentable inability to think with appropriate level of precision and to communicate clearly; and it of course also reveals a commensurately defective editing of SciAm articles.
The article should have begun with, 'Based on our capacity for symbolic language,..', instead.
Befell - Perhaps the author was intentionally referring to thought rather than communication using symbolic language.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo Befell and jtdwyer:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is still problematic with either formulation. We are clearly not the only species that has a capacity for thought, and given the studies of bonobos and other species, we know they are capable of using, communicating with, and passing on symbolic languages.
Personally, my only conclusion is that the editors try to keep the language simplified enough to attract and retain a larger audience. Imagine how quickly the prospective audience could be turned off and scared away if the language used was highly technical and precise to the practitioners of that field of study.
Befell and ColleenHarper - I agree that as a casual reader I had simply overlooked the critical distinction. It is the crucial issue of the entire subject. Thanks for the clarification.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn that light I'd suggest that the question is not what makes humanity unique, but what capabilities contribute to the cumulative development of human intellect, since individual capabilities provided by brain physiology seem to have been essentially unchanged for many thousands of years.
Having agreed to the question, I still counter with the well known quote: "If the Earth is a living organism, humanity is its cancer." Perhaps some understanding of this aspect of humanity could also be gained.
They asked, "What would Darwin do?" Darwin was a trail blazer who thought outside the box. He wasn't afraid to speculate or take a chance on the "far fetched". I saw none of that in this article. You cannot rehash history and hope that something pops out at you that someone else might have missed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think they need to get away from this "evolutionary ape" theory and look at something a little more difficult for your mind to wrap around or comprehend. How do they explain a thirty thousand year old battery, that by squeezing lemon juice into it, that can still produce a charge? I do not think an ape build that battery or that thousands of year old star charting computer. There are just too many things that have been discovered that would push us away from the "We are from the planet of the apes" theory.
Some scientists say that we (and I think they were talking about humans and not apes) are formed from star dust, or we are of star dust material. I would perfer to start with the theory that we, our DAN, was pushed here from an exploding world many millions of years ago, or maybe on that chunk of rock that wiped out the dino, and we grew and evolved from our own DNA so we could survive on a hostil world. I think that would explain our rapid advancment better than "I came from an ape!"
If you refuse to think outside the box, you are going to continue to evolve in circles...or evolve backwards.
JamesDavis - You've got to find the edge of the box before you can climb out. Keep searching...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI should add that, many thousands of years ago, the human brain was apparently already physiologically capable of conceiving of and comprehending communication of more complex thoughts than were available for symbolic representation and communication.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is the accumulated symbolic representations of knowledge that has increased over time, not our ability to comprehend and extend the currently accumulated knowledge base.
JamesDavis, why do you fight so hard to avoid having something in common with apes? Going so far as to imagine you have separate (space alien) DNA so that you can avoid the connection seems extreme.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAgain I will remind you that it isn't that you are directly related to an ape but that long ago there was a shared ancestor (which was neither Ape/monkey/chimp nor human, just a primative forebear of us all), and then many many little DNA changes over the years along separate chains from that original ancestor led us to be us, and them to be them.
As a result, we still have a large percentage of shared DNA from the common ancestor (so in many ways we are similar) but the small additional changes over the years make a huge difference to us, and in our relative positions in the world.
That is totally different that being directly related to an ape or monkey, so get over it already! Darwin was right, evolotion is real and happens all around us every day.
More significant than what they are talking about is the idea of a cross-discipline meeting. I think the idea of breaking down the walls between disciplines has been in the air for quite some time. However, to truly achieve this wall crumbling, the scientific insistence on jargon has to be relaxed or expanded--that is, all of these disciplines have to begin to speak the same language. This might be a natural outcome if such meetings are frequent enough or if the belief is strong enough that disciplines can impede the growth of knowledge.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGreat article
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow about capacity for the forming and the communication of abstract conceptions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe fallacy of the argument is issue of human evolution. Modern man is not evolved from primitive man. There is no link from cro-magnon man or beyond. Cro-magnon is a privative form of man that evolved from apes, oui...however there IS nothing to show modern humanity has ANY link to cro-magnon in modern human evolution. Modern man has more of a link to the dolphin and the seal than any early form of man. Looking similar does not make one so...similarities in the brain development are much more important. The brain of cro-magnon along with the claimed simian forebear is so dissimilar to modern man there can be no issue in the fact there is no link. However the brain power of the sea mammal IS SO similar to modern man development that its a non-issue where modern man descended.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisjmuielewicz...except for any fossil evidence for us to have evolved from a sea mammal.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAre you really arguing that the DNA of modern humans is farther from Cro-Magnon man than it is from the dolphin or the seal? This seems a crazy assertion to me. You really can't be serious. I'm not a scientist in this precise field, so no one should take my word for it, but I would like a true scientist in the field to enlighten us. I find the assertion incredulous.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisbostonprof – I think that it’d be more productive for this panel of experts to study this unique line of reasoning - it may be exciting new evidence that 'primitive' humans continue to exist!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMost 'logical' and 'sane' assertions seem 'crazy' to the establishment since it will move science into the correct path of finding validity and out of the 'true believer' religious-like alycoyic hell of 'profit taking' where con artists lie to collect salaries. Just check out the moronic response of 'flat earther' jtdwyer who is more than happy to pass hemlock around to keep the earth flat.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have yet to see any fossil evidence otherwise. There is quite a bit of evidence in both communication and other studies that counter so-called 'physical' evidence of a direct link to earlier human-like mammals.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHaven't you people been taught the theory of parallel evolution expounded by the infamous physical anthropological theorist john musielewicz? Apparently the theory goes as so: physical similarities develop as environmental conditions allow. The conditions were correct for Neanderthal so it developed. The conditions were correct for cro-magnon so it developed. The conditions were correct for modern man so it developed. But there IS NO link between the different species of human-looking mammal. No relationship -- none. They just look a little a like because, under similar environmental conditions similar features can develop. Very simplistic explained here however read the book--it explains much more clearly.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHaving agreed to the question, I still counter with the well known quote: "If the Earth is a living organism, humanity is its cancer." ( http://loadingvault.com/ ) Perhaps some understanding of this aspect of humanity could also be gained.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this