When did we become how we are today? The first humans evolved around two and a half million years ago, with more human-like body shapes and sizes appearing half a million years later. Our own species, Homo sapiens, began to develop more than 300,000 years ago, and 150,000 years later, they looked just like us. Behaviour, however, is far more difficult to trace than anatomy and look.

Modern behaviour is commonly associated with our relatively large brains, which began to grow when to-be humans included a modicum of meat in their diet around three and a half million years ago, and the growth was later fostered by cooking. Over time, we were able to communicate in an ever-complex way, plan ahead, dream, and craft our imagination into art, and our fingers could function with enormous dexterity, resulting in skills and tools other animals can only dream of.

Speaking in a versatile and colourful manner became essential to our behaviour, yet it is unsure when humans began to tell the first rudimentary stories to others. Full language capabilities may have existed hundreds of thousands of years ago, but not later than 100,000 years ago when our species began exploring continents outside Africa.

By that time, the first religious beliefs were already born in our vivid imagination. Some buried dead people by placing food, tools, and ornaments into the graves with the body, while others coloured the corpse with red ochre – both suggesting humans had a comforting belief there was an afterlife of some sort.

Within the next tens of thousands of years, archaic artists began to draw their minds onto the cave walls. The first known painters were our sturdy cousins that once inhabited Europe, Homo neanderthalensis, but soon cave paintings of people and animals appeared where ever humans had laid their feet.

Sculptors, too, began their work. Some carved mythical creatures, such as chimaeras, while others created curvy female figurines – whether or not these were ancient amulets of fertility, pornography of the time, or just fantasies of the creators. Be that as it may, scientists believe that by 40,000 years ago, our ancestors had become just like you and me, liking music, painting pictures, wearing fashion, and dreaming about sex.

Bibliography

Rutherford, A. 2020. The Book of Humans a Brief History of Culture, Sex, and the Evolution of Us. London, United Kingdom: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. 240 p. ISBN 9781615195909. Pages 29-30, 165, 177-187.

Holloway, R. 2017. A Little History of Religion. New Haven, United States. Yale University Press. 256 p. ISBN 9780300228816. Page 4.

Harari, Y. N. 2015. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. London, United Kingdom: Vintage. 512 p. ISBN 9780099590088. Page 15, 25.

Pettitt, P. 2022. Homo Sapiens Rediscovered the Scientific Revolution Rewriting Our Origins. London, United Kingdom: Thames & Hudson. 304 p. ISBN 9780500252635. Pages 20, 40, 60.

Smithsonian. 2018. Inventions a Visual Encyclopedia. New York, United States: DK Publishing. 304 p. ISBN 9781465458384. Page 8.

Panciroli, E. 2022. The Earth a Biography of Life The Story of Life On Our Planet Through 47 Incredible Organisms. London, United Kingdom: An Hachette UK company. 255 p. ISBN 9781529413984. Pages 240-243.

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