Okay, I’ll bite. I define ‘like us’ as owning an electric car. I choose electric cars because they are clearly a significant technological advancement that reflects a different conception of how people interact with the environment and take responsibility for their impact on it at a global level etc etc etc. Its as legitimate as your bow and arrow suggestion.
As of 1 Jan 2025, about 95% of humans are not like us (including me), so the matching date range is 1996 (from first commercial vehicle) to c.2050 for market dominance, so we are about midway through that process. That fulfils your requirements as you’ve set out.
If my answer seems trite, maybe its the way you’ve (not) framed your original post, which is not actually asking a factual question but inviting a series of debating points with illustrations.
The actual evidence in Pleistocene Africa for early Homo sapien cultural development is scrappy at best, and I think most posters are struggling from this and unfamiliarity with this pretty murky stage of human history. And cheat-sheets from Google Scholar only could get us so far.
Agreed @Banksiaman: It is indeed unfortunate that so many of us are not like us.
In GD an appropriate question would be, “What is humanity?” For FQ we ask, “What is the scientific evidence regarding…” We can ask such questions provided we define our terms. Some definitions are ludicrous on their face; others are dubious. No worries, we’ve also explored more plausible definitions.
So far, I’ve emphasized the cognitive: for me estimates have centered on 50,000 bp +/- 15,000 bp, with defensible estimates extending much further into the past. Here, I’d like to discuss the emotional: when did humans emotionally like us originate? A key metric I think is burial: a strong desire even need to honor the dead indicates a solid basis for commonality. What does the evidence say?
“By at least 120,000 years ago we have what we believe are deliberately buried human bodies,” Mary Stiner, a professor of anthropology at the University of Arizona, told Live Science.
So 120,000 bp. More controversial archeological sites date to some 300,000 years ago, among extinct relatives of homo sapiens. Neanderthals are thought to have buried their dead, though there are a few dissenters to this POV. Adding some complexity, burial methods appear to have come and gone during the Upper Paleolithic (45,000 to 10,000 years ago). So to assume that humans 100,000 years ago felt about burials in ways similar to us now is a matter of conjecture, though I find it difficult to imagine otherwise.
I think that’s a weak argument… “Sapiens and neanderthals could interbreed, but they still don’t count as the same species, because there are plenty of other pairs of species that can interbreed”: Well, maybe that just means that we should count those other creatures as being the same species, too.
The biological species concept does have its limitations and its fuzzy edges, but it’s the best definition of “same species” we have, and arguments like Springer’s basically just amount to “Well I don’t like it, so I’m going to arbitrarily change the definitions”.
I cited Springer because he’s handy and very citable. He’s hardly alone, though. Any number of authoritative sites remove Neanderthal from Sapiens lineage.
You’re right that others argue for inclusion. Here’s an article that gives both sides.
Notice that it shows modern scientists challenging Ernest Mayr’s definition of a species, which you’re basically quoting. (Modern meaning last few years: Mayr has been challenged since, well, since before you were born.) “[T]here are now 20 different conceptions of what a “species” could be—and no strong consensus on which should take center stage,” says the article. It’s a hot debate and has been for about forever.
A compact history of the debate can be found below. That he’s a botanist doesn’t matter; the debate works across biology.
Does the answer matter? Not really. As far as I’m concerned the world started when I became cognizant of it. Everything was invented for me to experience. Are there others like me? Sure. All of them. I’m convinced that each person ever was/is always solipsistic in viewing the world, because no other experience is possible. (Telepathy/schmelapathy.) That’s why we’re giving such different answers.
We didn’t just become ‘human’ when so-called “homo sapiens” emerged. Clearly it was a gradual path. I would argue Neanderthals were the first humans. Evidence shows that they had language, art, and buried their dead ritualistically. All hallmarks of modern humans. And that is all quite separate from the fact that most Europeans have 1-4% Neanderthal DNA.
Underlying these behaviors and technological innovations are cognitive and cultural foundations that have been documented experimentally and ethnographically by evolutionary and cultural anthropologists. These human universal patterns include cumulative cultural adaptation, social norms, language, and extensive help and cooperation beyond close kin.[4][5]
Dating, bolding added:
There are many theories on the evolution of behavioral modernity. These approaches tend to fall into two camps: cognitive and gradualist. The Later Upper Paleolithic Model theorizes that modern human behavior arose through cognitive, genetic changes in Africa abruptly around 40,000–50,000 years ago around the time of the Out-of-Africa migration, prompting the movement of some modern humans out of Africa and across the world.[7]
ISTM that the Australian Aboriginal experience disrupts the 40-50,000 bp dating as discussed upthread.
Other models focus on how modern human behavior may have arisen through gradual steps, with the archaeological signatures of such behavior appearing only through demographic or subsistence-based changes. Many cite evidence of behavioral modernity earlier (by at least about 150,000–75,000 years ago and possibly earlier) namely in the African Middle Stone Age.[8][3][9][10][11] Anthropologists Sally McBrearty and Alison S. Brooks have been notable proponents of gradualism—challenging Europe-centered models by situating more change in the African Middle Stone Age—though this model is more difficult to substantiate due to the general thinning of the fossil record as one goes further back in time.
I wuld say that language goes hadn in hand with necessity. So abstract concepts and dependent clauses (and future, and future imperfect, and subjunctive, etc.) probably evolved togher to support each other.
Again, there seems to have been some event and bottleneck of human development about 70,000 years ago, then from a tiny group (a few thousand or even less, by one estimate I’ve read) they quickly spread out to dominate the world and replace other (sub)species. I bet the ability to think abstractly to a greater degree, and communicate that, and so better plan - was the catalyst.
General theories of the migration of the 70,000-year-old African group suggests that they learned boating and travelled along the coast of India and on to Indonesia and Australia, then a major volcanic event or several in Indonesia cut off the Australian part of he migration. (So yes, by then the attributes of the modern human would ahve been set) Boating would have also helped the migration along the west coast of the Americas initially. I’ve seen recent suggestions the ice-free interior corridor of Alaska and the Yukon was too inhospitable to support migration. And the Pacific northwest is impenetrable without boats.
I’m curious, I’ve seen quotes from 45,000 to 60,000 for the age of the human occupation of Australia,.
There are similar debates over whether this or that animal is a spearate species or just a variation in things like fur colouring and size from a neighbouring species. IIRC this was a debate with some versions of wolves. Whereas folklore says the Inuit and northern natives would take out their dogs to let them breed with wolves for some “fresh blood” in thier dog lineage -psrticularly huskies. Modern humans vary a great deal due to widely separated populations, yet there is zero problem interbreeding.
There is still some debate within the Australian archaeological community about dates prior to 50,000 years ago and the way the continent was entered. The boat crossing in the Indonesian archipelago is non-negotiable as there was never a continuous land bridge, and genetic evidence suggests a substantial founder population, not the pregnant-female-on-a-tree-trunk scenario, which could potentially still apply to the Flores hominid [the ‘Hobbit’]. Even Aust archaeologists who think that there is little solid evidence for pre-50K are comfortable with a 65-70Kish likely working entry date, and increasingly pre-70K scenarios are being explored.
However, the likelihood of them hugging the coast or boating from Africa to Bondi is supported by nil evidence. Somewhere they got into the Denisovans’ pants and this is more likely to have happened within the continental Eurasian landmass rather than a coastal root.
And just to repeat - those Aboriginal people who came then were fully armed with all the conceptual weaponry of metaphysical thought, art and language already.
I think you’re on fairly solid ground in arguing that Neanderthals were fully people, but that doesn’t mean they were first. They died off before us, but I don’t think they arose before us. There were also other non-sapiens humans around, too, like the Denisovans and the Floresians, and they might have been first, too.
Most likely, I would imagine that the “first people” were whatever the common ancestor was of us, the Neanderthals, the Denisovans, and the Floresians.
But then - is the evidence of Denisovian genetics more evident in Australia’s original inhabitants than elsewhere in the Eurasian landmass? is it (like Neanderthal) simply a hint of some mixing?
The archeolgical evidence from what I’ve reas supports rapid progress dispersing along the south coast of Asia initially - which explains the stronger resemblance of aboriginals with Africans. There was also the suggestion that the darker skin for those original inhabitants (i.e. Andaman islanders too) reflects a sea-going culture which not only endured a tropical sun but also its reflection from the water, and needed much stronger protection from UV light.
This is not to say that some groups did not migrate to the interior over time, but certainly without roads, and with dense forests, travel by waterways - rivers and oceans - is certainly a lot faster and less risky. A population averaging 5 miles a year would disperse 10,000 miles in only 2,000 years. In more accommodating spots, some would disperse upriver.
Another factor would be food. I read Farley Mowat Sea of Slaughter a long time ago, and he describes the massive abundance of the Gulf of St Lawrence before Europeans arrived in bulk to kill it off. The same likely applied to the seas elsewhere, there were areas where before depredations of man, fishing and shellfish (and shorebirds) harvesting was probably one of the easiest ways to get food, settling along the coast made sense.
Looking at the map of the indonesian archipelago, the longest single distance island-hopping that migrants would have had to cover to get to Australia is about 135 miles from Java to Borneo islands. Presumably they were - like most inhabtants of that area recently - fairly adept seagoing cultures, given the same brainpower and conceptual thinking as we have today.
(IIRC the time about 70,000 to 50,000 years ago was still during the cold glacial period, so also shorelines would have been extended further out.)
Most likely was Homo heidelbergensis with the African Branch leading to Homo Sapiens and the Eurasian branch leading to both Homo neanderthalensis and the Denisovans. Homo heidelbergensis used fire and made spears. Many arguments exists over if these 2 branches count as a single species and what to call them.
The cranial capacity at least for the African branch was within the lower range of modern Home Sapiens.
Homo floresiensis are not likely to be descended from Homo heidelbergensis but from earlier ancestors Homo habilis or Homo ergaster. So very unlikely to have classified as humans like us.
That would be the oldest still existing language family. I assume there were prior language families but since our ability to reconstruct former languages only goes back so far (which probably accounts for at least some of the language isolates) absent a time machine we’re can only see so far backward.
I see no reason to assume before-current-language families were any less sophisticated or inadequate for communication.
Typically, “weak pidgin” languages will become full fledged creoles/languages with the next generation, that is, kids who grow up speaking it will turn it into a full language. This has been demonstrated multiple times in our world. This has even been demonstrated with Sign languages used by Deaf people/communities. Humans as a whole seem to have an “instinct” for language even if some unfortunate individuals may be lacking.
So… I think our-type-of-human language goes back considerably more than 10,000-20,000 years, which is the extreme limit of what we can even potentially reconstruct with current techniques and information.
Based just on the evidence at Blombos Cave, I’d say somewhere between 70000 and 100000 years ago. The humans living there then were as fully human as anyone living today, IMO.
Are you aware that the various Chinese languages such as Mandarin do not have verb tenses? I wouldn’t say that the Chinese and related folks are “not human like us”. They certainly can learn languages like the various Indo-European ones that have verb tenses, just as the rest of us can learn Mandarin.
Or “better for current conditions” - Neanderthals may have done better in colder climates for various reasons and suffered in a warming world. Neanderthals were successful apex predators for about 350,000 years, which is longer than H. sapiens has been around.
One hypothesis I’ve heard recently is that Neanderthals requires about twice the calories of Sapiens on a daily basis, allowing them larger populations in the same locations. Another is that Neanderthals were focused more on hunting big game and living on heavily meat diets, essentially a more carnivorous sort of primate, whereas we are more omnivorous and flexible in our diets. Maybe we won out not because we were mighty hunters or warriors but because we could subsist on turnips and onions when game was scare and Neanderthals couldn’t.
Eh… not so fast.
Horses and donkeys are considered separate species, and their mutual offspring, mules, are considered infertile. However, while all male mules are, indeed, infertile there have been some rare instances of female mules being impregnated by either horse or donkey male and giving birth. So the infertility is not complete.
This is also seen in crosses between tigers and lions - the male hybrids are always infertile but the females occasionally produce offspring.
It is possible that this held true for Neanderthal and Sapiens as well - perhaps all such male hybrids were sterile, but a few of the females were not and were the source of Neanderthal genes in modern Sapiens (and would have brought some Sapien genes into the Neanderthal gene pool). Such events might be statistically rare but in two species of Homo living in the same region for tens of thousands of years there might be enough for affecting the gene pools of both species.
In other words, the “traditional” definition of species is a bit over-rigid for actual observed reality. Nature is messy and ignores the neat pigeon-holes Sapiens want to force everything into.
In sum: it is possible for Neanderthal and Sapiens to be two different species yet also interfertile to a greater or lesser degree.
Well, if you go back far enough, they were. The question is just how far back you have to go for that. We do have innate language instincts, but those had to evolve over time, too. Presumably, the genetic instinct for language and the cultural development of language itself had to have happened in parallel, because there wouldn’t have been impetus for either one without the other.
And yes, it’s very, very difficult to even estimate the timescales over which that happened. We can make some headway by looking at things like language families and when various populations of humans diverged, but those can only give us later bounds (the development of fully-complex language must have happened at least by time X), and we don’t know how long before such bounds it must have happened. The only other option we have is to look in the archaeological records for when humans first did things requiring a level of coordination that would have required language, but of course, most of what humans have done is lost to the archaeological record, and we also have insufficient data on non-lingual or proto-lingual intelligent creatures to say just what level of coordination is possible for them.
Thank you for this discussion, as it concerns something I have long been curious about, yet have not to date studied sufficiently. This discussion has encouraged me to put a couple of books on hold at the library. May I ask a couple of questions from my position of ignorance so that I might better understand the ongoing discussion? (If these are too stupid, just ignore them, please.)
I periodically muse, “What would it be like if I were alive in whatever prior time period?” Challenging, of course, as I need to think of my innate capabilities, but without my acquired culture/experiences. Part of such musing is thinking of what it would be like for persons with my intellectual/emotional/physiological capability to live In prior times. For example, I periodically muse about what it would have been like if I were one of the first European visitors to my midwestern area. Or one of the aboriginal persons before that. As opposed to present-day me being transported to those times via time travel. So, am I to assume that most of this discussion concerns how far back such musing could go without me presuming that I were a different species than I am?
Is there a general consensus (in this thread or in the literature) that homo sapiens was physically modern as of 300k yrs BP, but something happened such that we became behaviorally modern much later - maybe 50-70k yrs BP? And that that “something” could have been a combination of physiological changes, population density, or other unknown factors? (For the purposes of my ignorant questions, I have selected certain dates. If possible, please try to perceive my general questions rather than nitpicking specific dates.)
Is the difference around (again, to simply pick a date) 50k BP simply the result of 250k yrs of accumulated culture? After 250k yrs of being humans, had we learned and reproduced enough that - for whatever reason - we had sufficient leisure to attend to non-necessities, and created items that became lasting artifacts.
To what extent is the suggestion of the 50k BP “expansion/enlightenment” simply possible interpretations of a very incomplete archeological record?
I’m trying to understand whether the difference between a homo sapiens 30k yrs BP and one 200k BP is different or greater than, say - the difference between a European and an uncontacted Amazonian in the early 20th century.
Dates for quite a few things in human evolution seem to me to keep getting pushed backwards; I suspect at least in part because we’re dealing with a very incomplete fossil record, and we may sometimes be taking lack of evidence for lack of occurence, but then finding more evidence which indicates earlier dates.
“Homo floresiensis” may not even have existed; the claim of a different species may have been made based on an atypical individual. There are people currently living in the general area who are on the small side and some of whom are chinless, and nobody’s claiming that they aren’t sapiens sapiens.
Somewhere in LeGuin – I can’t find it right now – is a haunting image of a possible origin for language-as-we-know-it: some critical mass of children brought together by a meeting of groups, and the children’s babble as they play together suddenly rising and coming together into a new thing while the adults sit unrealizing around the fire.
Or, possibly, just luckier. It turns out that while the Neanderthals were dying out, so were some Sapiens lineages in Eurasia. When you’re dealing with small overall populations, in some cases survival may just be the chance of having been in some slightly more survivable location.
