Human Evolution: Homo Sapiens and Culture

Posted on Mar 2, 2025 in Social sciences

Homo Sapiens in Relation to Other Species

Aspects of Humanization (2)

As Homo sapiens began its slow but steady expansion across the globe, we are aware of their presence in South Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and Australia, and a little later in America. They reached Europe about 40,000 years ago, where they entered an inhospitable territory occupied for 10,000 years by Neanderthals, with whom they shared and spread into Spain. The evolutionary explanations for their success lie in three specific innovations:

• Transforming their ability to act with the intention of using increasingly effective tools, and their need to adapt the environment.
• Organizational capacity of group life around articulate speech; they could speak, based not on force but on cooperation.
• Ability of symbolic representation, allowing a non-material, shared reality: the exclusive world of culture. First, they expressed their feelings and emotions to the world through art in the myths of religion, and then, based on reasoning, in understanding the nature of the world and themselves.

Definition of Academic and Anthropological Culture

What’s included in the anthropological definition of this concept? (1.5)

In the 18th century, a person with a degree of knowledge was seen as cultured, well-born; an elitist concept of culture as academic knowledge of the classics. It was restricted to the privileged classes. Later, during the Enlightenment, the idea that culture is the right of all, which must be settled through education, extended.

In the 19th century, the anthropological definition includes whatever individuals learn within a society. It validated the learning of culture and social life, i.e., we only know what we learn, and we learn what has been transmitted by other people over time.

Hominids Evolution

There are two major groups of hominids: the genus Australopithecus and the genus Homo. Hominids are characterized by walking on two legs, though not entirely; that is, their way of getting around was imperfectly upright. The first known hominid, Australopithecus afarensis, is about 4.5 million years old and found in the area of Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania.

Species belonging to the genus Homo are characterized by standing apart, and the degree of encephalization, with a smaller capacity being ⁶⁰⁰ cm3.

• Homo habilis is the first of the genus Homo. It existed 1.6-1.9 million years ago, and its cranial capacity is 600 cm³. Its main feature is that it worked with an opposable thumb on their hands, making Homo habilis the first toolmaker.
• Homo ergaster is known to be a descendant of Homo habilis. It existed between 1 million and 100,000 years ago across the entire African continent. In very early times, it left Africa and spread throughout Europe and Asia, where it is known as Homo erectus. It manufactured cutting tools and had features typical of higher intelligence: the control of fire, newborns needing a very long period under watchful maternal care, a high degree of cooperation during hunts, and the effectiveness of their weapons and tools.
• Homo antecessor is a descendant of Homo ergaster that lived 800,000 years ago. It followed the customs of ergaster but faded into two new species: Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens.
• Homo neanderthalensis lived 300,000 years ago in parts of Europe and Asia less burdened by the cold. They began to understand culture with an awareness of death, which developed the Mousterian culture. In their last 10,000 years, they coexisted with Homo sapiens.
• Homo sapiens is a descendant of Homo rhodesiensis, a derivation of Homo antecessor. It is characterized by:
  • A cranial capacity of 1450 cm³.
  • Anatomically, just like us.
  • Logical reasoning.
  • Symbiotic capacity.

  Its success in development is due to the use of increasingly sophisticated tools, the use of articulate speech, and the ability of symbiotic representation.