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EXACTLY
"Gazelle can run at 60 mile per hour!" Yeah, for like... 15 seconds, and then it needs *SIGNIFICANT* recharge time. Which humans, relentlessly ambling after it at 6 or 7 mph, REFUSE TO GIVE IT. So it DIES OF EXHAUSTION.
"Gazelle can run at 60 mile per hour!" Yeah, for like... 15 seconds, and then it needs *SIGNIFICANT* recharge time. Which humans, relentlessly ambling after it at 6 or 7 mph, REFUSE TO GIVE IT. So it DIES OF EXHAUSTION.
Another hominin super-power, BTW?
FRIENDSHIP.
It's not magic, it's SURVIVAL.
Take this Homo erectus skull, found in Georgia. At the time of its death, it was missing ALL of its teeth, apart from a single canine.
FRIENDSHIP.
It's not magic, it's SURVIVAL.
Take this Homo erectus skull, found in Georgia. At the time of its death, it was missing ALL of its teeth, apart from a single canine.
Furthermore, all the empty sockets the teeth had left behind had been filled in with new bone, which takes at least two years. So, this human ancestor was toothless for a significant amount of time, in a pre-blender, pre-dentures era, and STILL survived.
They were clearly getting nutrition somehow. but HOW?
A likely theory: Someone was chewing their food FOR them, then feeding them the chewed up pulp. As if they were a baby.
A likely theory: Someone was chewing their food FOR them, then feeding them the chewed up pulp. As if they were a baby.
This allowed them to live for YEARS after they could no longer process food efficiently by themselves-- remember, chewing is about more than the mechanical breakdown of food, there's also the mixing of food with digestive fluids.
Someone did that for them.
Someone did that for them.
If they had been nearly any other kind of animal, including some of our closest living relatives? They would have just slowly starved to death, probably while being out-competed by family. But instead, they lived, and provided their group with more years of service/companionship.
Maybe they babysat. Maybe they taught hunting or foraging techniques. Maybe they tended the fire, or made the tools the group used. Or maybe someone just really loved them and they loved that pre-human back, ALSO VALUABLE.
Human survival selected for sociability and bond-forming SO STRONGLY that it's a literal need for us now, like a vitamin. And if we don't get it, our health suffers; loneliness, the brain's way of trying to force you to Find Other People, is *unhealthier for you than smoking.*
Kurzgesagt did a great video about Why People Get Lonely, and how Friendship = Survival, here.
