It started in Africa, in or about the year 50,000 b.c. We were living in the savannahs of East Africa, hunting for meat, gathering berries, and otherwise looking like any other group of two-legged apes, once common in Africa. But something was different about us.
We decorated and adorned our bodies like humans do; we created art like humans do; we planned our hunting and gathering like humans do; and most importantly, we improved on everything we did and taught our children everything we knew, in the hopes that their lives would be better.
Nobody yet knows what made us different from the other apes—perhaps it was a combination of seeking new ideas and having the language to communicate those ideas to others—but whatever happened so many years ago in Africa finally made us human and that’s when our story starts.
There were only a few thousand of us back then. All of humanity could have fit into a ballpark. Every day under the burning sun the men hunted while the women collected berries and nuts. Every night under the brilliant stars we huddled together and told ourselves stories. And sometimes we were afraid, when the storms washed the land, or when a lion came to hunt, but we knew where to hide and we knew how to fight and every day we learned new things. There were only a few thousand of us back then, but every century there were more of us.
There were only a few thousand of us back then. All of humanity could have fit into a ballpark. Every day under the burning sun the men hunted while the women collected berries and nuts. Every night under the brilliant stars we huddled together and told ourselves stories. And sometimes we were afraid, when the storms washed the land, or when a lion came to hunt, but we knew where to hide and we knew how to fight and every day we learned new things. There were only a few thousand of us back then, but every century there were more of us.
We have always been seekers of new things, and (possibly more importantly) we have always been seekers of fame. It did not take long for some of us to leave the hunting grounds of East Africa and head north across the African plain. As each century passed, we left our footprints on more and more of the world. We walked to the Fertile Crescent, settling in the places we liked, happy near the abundant game and the bountiful earth.
Later we walked towards the Northern Star and settled in the craggy majesty of Europe; and we walked East towards the rising sun and walked on the golden steppes of Eurasia. Eventually, we even built boats to reach the land of New Guinea and antipodal Australia. In only a few millennia we had populated three-quarters of the land. It has always been a small world after all.
As we walked and hunted throughout the world we were not always alone. In Europe we met another group of ape-descendants who had left Africa long ago. The Neanderthals were our older cousins. They were larger than us and had hunted in Ice Age Europe with fire and stone for more than 50,000 years. But by then, our skills were great and our tools were powerful. Nobody knows whether we out-hunted them or out-fought them. All we know is that the Neanderthals disappeared soon after we arrived.
Source and Credits: George Moromisato