The first humans were a radical departure from how a lot of flesh-and-blood beings lived. It seems that sapiens, with their jumbo brains, hands, ability to use tools, and ability to co-operate in unbelievably large groups with unbelievable flexibility, and further powers gained by our own kind, changed virtually the whole environment and ecosystem.
First was the evolution of the ability to stand and walk upright on two feet, which first of all made it easier to scan for enemies and game in the wild. Also, two of the feet became hands for other purposes, instead of being organs of propulsion, they were organs of manipulation. They could produce and use tools more sophisticated than those the great apes have been observed to use. Apparently, all Gorillas and Chimps have shorter thumbs than us because they still walk on their knuckles.
Having the ability to perform very intricate tasks with hands, such as making and using very sophisticated tools, they could then domesticate fire, first making occasional use of it, then coming to use it on a daily basis. The power of all other animals is contained within the biological properties of their bodies, such as the strength of their muscles, the size of their teeth and the breadth of wings of flying animals. They may harness natural forces but don't have the hands or tools to control them.
For example, Eagles can identify thermal vents, spread their wings, the hot air lifting them off the ground, but they cannot control the location of them. And their airborne carrying capacity is limited by their wingspan. But we as human beings can control where to start a fire and where to spread it, and the power of fire is much greater than the that of the human body. It takes just a single person with a flint stick to burn down an entire forest in less than a day. Fire was a source of heat and light and a very effective weapon against predators, and could also cook.
Also, some animals eat plants, some animals eat other animals and others even eat both. But they all basically stuff their mouths with biomass as is and chew on it and digest it. Sometimes it can be hard to digest, and each chimpanzee can spent as long as five hours a day chewing raw food. Raw food is sometimes infested with parasites and germs. With cooking, what we ate was not exactly the biomass itself but but some product of greatly heating that biomass. Humans who cooked could also eat food we cannot digest in its raw form, like wheat, rice, potatoes and many kinds of bean.
This enabled a reduction in jaw size and shortening of the intestines. Shorter intestines consume less energy and so made way for bigger brains, as more energy could run the brain instead of going into digesting food.
As the brain got bigger, the neocortex could get larger without the rest of the brain getting smaller. And this increased the size of a human band where all humans know each other and humans could also live in tribes, where tribal members still all know each other, these all being larger than any chimpanzee band. This allowed humans to co-operate in larger groups, and with no less flexibility. And they could also co-operate more effectively with strangers.
First was the evolution of the ability to stand and walk upright on two feet, which first of all made it easier to scan for enemies and game in the wild. Also, two of the feet became hands for other purposes, instead of being organs of propulsion, they were organs of manipulation. They could produce and use tools more sophisticated than those the great apes have been observed to use. Apparently, all Gorillas and Chimps have shorter thumbs than us because they still walk on their knuckles.
Having the ability to perform very intricate tasks with hands, such as making and using very sophisticated tools, they could then domesticate fire, first making occasional use of it, then coming to use it on a daily basis. The power of all other animals is contained within the biological properties of their bodies, such as the strength of their muscles, the size of their teeth and the breadth of wings of flying animals. They may harness natural forces but don't have the hands or tools to control them.
For example, Eagles can identify thermal vents, spread their wings, the hot air lifting them off the ground, but they cannot control the location of them. And their airborne carrying capacity is limited by their wingspan. But we as human beings can control where to start a fire and where to spread it, and the power of fire is much greater than the that of the human body. It takes just a single person with a flint stick to burn down an entire forest in less than a day. Fire was a source of heat and light and a very effective weapon against predators, and could also cook.
Also, some animals eat plants, some animals eat other animals and others even eat both. But they all basically stuff their mouths with biomass as is and chew on it and digest it. Sometimes it can be hard to digest, and each chimpanzee can spent as long as five hours a day chewing raw food. Raw food is sometimes infested with parasites and germs. With cooking, what we ate was not exactly the biomass itself but but some product of greatly heating that biomass. Humans who cooked could also eat food we cannot digest in its raw form, like wheat, rice, potatoes and many kinds of bean.
This enabled a reduction in jaw size and shortening of the intestines. Shorter intestines consume less energy and so made way for bigger brains, as more energy could run the brain instead of going into digesting food.
As the brain got bigger, the neocortex could get larger without the rest of the brain getting smaller. And this increased the size of a human band where all humans know each other and humans could also live in tribes, where tribal members still all know each other, these all being larger than any chimpanzee band. This allowed humans to co-operate in larger groups, and with no less flexibility. And they could also co-operate more effectively with strangers.