The History of Being Human

How well do you know your future self?

How much do you like yout future self?

The answer to these two questions has implications for how you plan and provide for that person.

Today, we cover the work of Hal Hershfield and others about how well or poorly we identify with Future Us, and what it means for how short- or far-sighted we are in our decision-making.

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Recent finds in the Atapuerca site in Spain have confirmed and expanded our understanding of the tates and culinary practices of Homo antecessor.  This species is enigmatic and its place in the evolutionary tree unclear. 

But what is very clear is that it was cannibalistic. And on a large scale.  It had a taste for young hominins, probably from competing tribes. How, you ask, could we possibly know that?

In this epsiode of The History of Being Human, we cover everything we know and how we know it.  Height, habitus, habits, diet of animals and hominins, and behavior.  

This episode expands significantly on the previous consideration of archaic human cannibalism in episode 3.  

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Rhys Taylor Lemoine is a postdoctoral researcher in extinction, megafauna, rewilding, and novel ecosystems. Today he speaks to us about the late quaternary extinction. 

We discuss what megafauna are, their key roles in ecosystems, and the worldwide number and types that died off during the extinction of the late quaternary period (including the present).  Rhys discusses the two main theories about what drove -- and still drives -- these extinctions, overKILL and overCHILL. He then tells us why he and his research team posit that climate change was a lesser factor driving these extinctions. 

For Rhys, the extinctions are best explained by the introduction of a novel, insatiable, armed predator. One that could attack the largest and most dangerous animals from a distance with relatively little risk to itself. In other words, humans did it.

One of the evidences he considers is that the extinctions of the late quaternary continue to this day, and the current culprit in large animal extinction is not in dispute.

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In the late quaternary period, from about 50 to 10 thousand years ago, vast populations of large animals died out.  Among them are some of the most iconic of prehistoric creatures -- mammoths, mastodons, woolly rhinoceri, dire wolves, smilodons, giant sloths, cave bears, and on and on.  In North America, more than 70% of species over 40kg (about 100lb) disappeared. In South America, it was even more.  Eurasia and Australia lost most of their large animals, including mammals, birds, and reptiles.

What happened?

Did the opportinistic pathogen known as Homo sapiens sapiens wipe them out?  Or was it the climactic upheaval of the ending of the last ice age?  Something else entirely?

Lively and ongoing debate surrounds this topic still.  In this episode we go over the theories proposed and the relative merits of each.  

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In this episode we begin a groundbreaking, never-before-attempted, altogether unprecedented series on the history of being human.  

We are going to cover some of the best people who ever lived. Aside from my Dad, that is.

Today we cover the "Moral Circle" concept, as a way to introduce just one of the criteria that will be going into deciding who is truly good, and who is truly not in the running.

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