Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

by Yuval Noah Harari

the Cognitive Revolution kick-started history about 70,000 years ago. The Agricultural Revolution sped it up about 12,000 years ago. The Scientific Revolution, which got under way only 500 years ago, may well end history and start something completely different. This book tells the story of how these three revolutions have affected humans and their fellow organisms.

These archaic humans loved, played, formed close friendships and competed for status and power – but so did chimpanzees, baboons and elephants.

fathom

prehistoric humans is that they were insignificant animals

Species that evolved from a common ancestor are bunched together under the heading ‘genus’

we are members of a large and particularly noisy family called the great apes. Our

Just 6 million years ago, a single female ape had two daughters. One became the ancestor of all chimpanzees, the other is our own grandmother.

real meaning of the word human is ‘an animal belonging to the genus Homo’,

Neanderthals, bulkier and more muscular than us Sapiens, were well adapted to the cold climate of Ice Age western Eurasia.

more eastern regions of Asia were populated by Homo erectus, ‘Upright Man’, who survived there for close to 2 million years, making it the most durable human species

Most notably, humans have extraordinarily large brains compared to other animals.

enamoured

The fact is that a jumbo brain is a jumbo drain on the body.

In Homo sapiens, the brain accounts for about 2–3 per cent of total body weight, but it consumes 25 per cent of the body’s energy when the body is at rest.

Archaic humans paid for their large brains in two ways. Firstly, they spent more time in search of food. Secondly, their muscles atrophied.

Standing up, it’s easier to scan the savannah for game or enemies, and arms that are unnecessary for locomotion are freed for other purposes, like throwing stones or signalling.

Natural selection consequently favoured earlier births.

Raising children required constant help from other family members and neighbours.

Evolution thus favoured those capable of forming strong social ties.

since humans are born underdeveloped, they can be educated and socialised ...

dwelt

carrion

Other animals at the top of the pyramid, such as lions and sharks, evolved into that position very gradually, over millions of years. This enabled the ecosystem to develop checks and balances that prevent lions and sharks from wreaking too much havoc. As lions became deadlier, so gazelles evolved to run faster, hyenas to cooperate better, and rhinoceroses to be more bad-tempered. In contrast, humankind ascended to the top so quickly that the ecosystem was not given time to adjust.

Having so recently been one of the underdogs of the savannah, we are full of fears and anxieties over our position,

teeming

cook. Foods that humans cannot digest in their natural forms – such as wheat, rice and potatoes – became staples of our diet thanks to cooking. Fire not only changed food’s chemistry, it changed its biology as well. Cooking killed germs and parasites that infested food. Humans also had a far easier time chewing and digesting old favourites such as fruits, nuts, insects and carrion if they were cooked. Whereas chimpanzees spend five hours a day chewing raw food, a single hour suffices for people eating cooked food.

blip

According to the Interbreeding Theory, when Sapiens spread into Neanderthal lands, Sapiens bred with Neanderthals until the two populations merged.

when Sapiens reached East Asia, they interbred with the local Erectus,

According to this view, Sapiens replaced all the previous human populations without merging with them.

1–4 per cent of the unique human DNA of modern populations in the Middle East and Europe is Neanderthal DNA.

So the populations did not merge, but a few lucky Neanderthal genes did hitch a ride on the Sapiens Express.

Homo sapiens drove them to extinction.

from about 70,000 years ago to about 30,000 years ago witnessed the invention of boats, oil lamps, bows and arrows and needles

The appearance of new ways of thinking and communicating, between 70,000 and 30,000 years ago, constitutes the Cognitive Revolution.

green monkeys use calls of various kinds to communicate. Zoologists have identified one call that means, ‘Careful! An eagle!’

our language is amazingly supple. We can connect a limited number of sounds and signs to produce an infinite number of sentences, each with a distinct meaning.

A second theory agrees that our unique language evolved as a means of sharing information about the world.

Our language evolved as a way of gossiping.

Such myths give Sapiens the unprecedented ability to cooperate flexibly in large numbers.

As the number of chimpanzees in a troop increases, the social order destabilises, eventually leading to a rupture and the formation of a new troop by some of the animals.

wake of the Cognitive Revolution, gossip helped Homo sapiens to form larger and more stable bands.

secret was probably the appearance of fiction. Large numbers of strangers can cooperate successfully by believing in common myths.

Any large-scale human cooperation – whether a modern state, a medieval church, an ancient city or an archaic tribe – is rooted in common myths that exist only in people’s collective imagination.

There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws, and no justice outside the common imagination of human beings.

when it succeeds, it gives Sapiens immense power, because it enables millions of strangers to cooperate and work towards common goals.

woven

the way people cooperate can be altered by changing the myths

In 1789 the French population switched almost overnight from believing in the myth of the divine right of kings to believing in the myth of the sovereignty of the people. Consequently, ever since the Cognitive Revolution Homo sapiens has been able to revise its behaviour rapidly in accordance with changing needs.

outstripped