What Happened Before History? Human Origins
Aug 9, 2023
What Happened Before History? Human Origins
Humans. We have been around for a while now. When we think about our past we think about ancient civilizations, the pyramids, stuff like that. But this is only a tiny, tiny part of our history. https://kgs.link/youtubeDE https://kgs.link/youtubeES https://kgs.link/shop https://kgs.link/patreon https://kgs.link/reddit https://kgs.link/instagram https://kgs.link/twitter https://kgs.link/facebook https://kgs.link/discord https://kgs.link/newsletter https://kgs.link/youtube-voice https://kgs.link/music-spotify https://kgs.link/music-soundcloud https://kgs.link/music-bandcamp https://kgs.link/music-youtube https://kgs.link/music-facebook http://bit.ly/28Ze6Ni http://bit.ly/28NPJSb http://kgs.link/patreon who support us every month and made this video possible:http://www.youtube.com/timedtext_cs_p …
Content
0.76 -> The world we live in feels normal, ordinary.
3.72 -> It feels like this is just how humans exist and always existed.
9.4 -> But, it's not.
11.68 -> Never before have we humans lived in a world as sophisticated and engineered to our needs as today.
18.54 -> Giving us the luxury to forget about ourselves and not worry about survival.
24.22 -> Food, shelter, security – all of this is, more or less, taken for granted.
29.74 -> But we're a special few; for more than 99.99% of human history, life was completely different.
36.66 -> And there's no such thing as just one human history.
49 -> Our story begins 6 million years ago, when the tribe of hominini split and our relationship with the apes ended.
56.62 -> 2.8 million years ago, the genus of homo, the first humans, emerged.
62.2 -> We like to think about ourselves as the only humans, but this is far from the truth.
67.7 -> When we, homo sapiens sapiens, came into existence 200,000 years ago, there were at least six other human species around.
75.94 -> Cousins of comparable intelligence and ability, which must have been incredibly scary, kind of like living with aliens.
83.94 -> Some of them were very successful.
86.3 -> Homo erectus, for example, survived for 2 million years.
90.08 -> Ten times longer than modern humans have existed.
93.24 -> The last of the other humans disappeared around 10,000 years ago.
98.12 -> We don't know what caused them to die out.
101.32 -> Modern humans have at least a few percent of neanderthal and other human DNA, so there was some mixing,
106.74 -> but certainly not enough to be a merger between species.
110.12 -> So we don't know if our cousins went away because they lost the battle over resources, or because of a series of minor genocides.
116.72 -> Either way, only we remain.
120.28 -> Back to the beginnings of humanity.
122.46 -> 2.8 million years ago, early humans used tools, but did not make a lot of progress for nearly 2 million years.
129.06 -> Until they learned to control fire.
132.8 -> Fire meant cooking, which made food more nutritious, which contributed to the development of our brain.
139.02 -> It also produced light and warmth, which made days longer and winters less gruesome.
144.62 -> On top of that, it not only scared predators away, it could also be used for hunting.
149.48 -> A torched wood or grassland provided small animals, nuts and tubers that were pre-roasted.
155.7 -> From 300,000 years ago, most of the different human species lived in small hunter-gatherer societies.
162.06 -> They had fire, wood and stone tools, planned for the future, buried their dead, and had cultures of their own.
169.16 -> But most importantly, they spoke to each other.
172.36 -> Probably in a kind of proto-language, less complex than ours.
176.9 -> If we had a time machine, how far would we be able to go back,
181.28 -> steal a few babies and raise them today without anyone noticing that they're a bit different?
187.22 -> There is much debate.
189.04 -> Anatomically, modern humans emerged 200,000 years ago,
193 -> but probably 70,000 years is as far as we could travel back and still snatch a behaviourally modern human.
200.3 -> Before that, the babies would probably lack a few crucial gene mutations
204.34 -> Necessary to build a brain with modern language and abstract thinking abilities.
209.24 -> At some point, around 50,000 years ago, there was an explosion in innovation.
214.44 -> Tools and weapons became more sophisticated and culture became more complex,
219.34 -> because at this point, humans had a multi-purpose brain,
222.48 -> and a more advanced language to communicate information with each other effectively,
226.56 -> and down to the last detail.
228.62 -> This allowed much closer cooperation, and is what really makes us different from any other creature on Earth.
235.2 -> Not our comparatively weak bodies and inferior senses,
238.9 -> but the ability to cooperate flexibly in large groups, unlike, for example, rigid beehives
245.54 -> or intimate, but tiny wolf packs.
248.6 -> As our brain evolved, we became able to do something, life had been unable to do up to this point.
254.96 -> One – expand knowledge quickly.
257.82 -> Two – preserve the knowledge gained over generations.
261.54 -> Three – build on past knowledge, to gain even deeper insight.
266.84 -> This seems daft, but until then, information had to be passed on from generation to generation,
272.22 -> mostly through genetics, which is not efficient.
276.3 -> Still, for the next 40,000 years, human life remained more or less the same.
281.78 -> There was little to build upon.
283.86 -> Our ancestors were only one animal among many.
287.32 -> Building a skyscraper without knowing what a house is… is hard.
291.8 -> But while it is easy to be arrogant in our attitude to our ancestors, this would be ignorant.
296.74 -> Humans 50,000 years ago were survival specialists.
300.84 -> They had a detailed mental map of their territory,
303.26 -> their senses were fine-tuned to the environment,
305.82 -> they knew and memorized a great amount of information about plants and animals.
310.22 -> They could make complicated tools that required years of careful training and very fine motor skills
317.02 -> Their bodies compared to our athletes today just because of their daily routines,
321.36 -> and they lived a rich social life within their tribe
324.9 -> Survival required so many skills that the average brain volume of early modern humans
330 -> might even have been bigger than it is today
332.88 -> As a group we know more today, but as individuals our ancestors were superior to us
339.12 -> But then around 12,000 years ago, in multiple locations, humans developed agriculture.
345.3 -> Everything changed very quickly.
347.34 -> Before, survival as a hunter and forager required superb physical and mental abilities in all fields from everybody
354.38 -> With the rise of the agricultural age, individuals could increasingly rely on the skills of others for survival.
362.04 -> This meant that some of them could specialize.
364.26 -> Maybe they worked on better tools, maybe they took time to breed more resistant crops or better livestock,
370.02 -> Maybe they started inventing things.
373.16 -> As farming got more and more efficient, what we call civilization began
378.06 -> Agriculture gave us a reliable and predictable food source,
381.16 -> which allowed humans to hoard food on a large scale for the first time,
384.66 -> which is much easier to do with grains than meat,
387.92 -> The food stock required protection, which led to communities living together in tighter spaces
393 -> First, early defense structures were built, the need for organization grew
397.74 -> The more organized we got, the faster things became efficient
401.4 -> Villages became cities, cities became kingdoms, kingdoms became empires
408.3 -> Connections between humans exploded which led to opportunities to exchange knowledge
414.04 -> Progress became exponential
416.88 -> About 500 years ago the Scientific Revolution began
420.46 -> Mathematics, Physics, Astronomy, Biology, and Chemistry transformed everything we thought we knew
427.58 -> The Industrial Revolution followed soon after laying the foundation for the modern world
433.12 -> As our overall efficiency grew exponentially,
435.76 -> more people could spend their lifetime contributing to the progress of humanity
440.52 -> Revolutions kept happening.
441.98 -> The invention of the computer, its evolution into a medium we all use on a daily basis,
446.26 -> and the rise of the Internet shaped our world
450.2 -> It's hard to grasp how fast all of that happened
453 -> It's been about 125,000 generations since the emergence of the first human species
459.06 -> About 7,500 generations since the physiologically modern humans saw the light of day
465.46 -> 500 generations ago, what we call civilization began
469.56 -> 20 generations ago, we learned how to do science
473.24 -> And the Internet became available to most people only one generation ago
477.96 -> Today we live in the most prosperous age humanity has ever experienced
482.68 -> We have transformed this planet, from the composition of its atmosphere to large-scale changes in its landscape
488.92 -> and also in terms of the other animals in existence.
492.26 -> We light up the night with artificial stars and put people in a metal box in the sky
497.42 -> Some have even walked on our Moon
499.32 -> We put robots on other planets
501.4 -> We've looked deep into the past of the universe with mechanical eyes
505.5 -> Our knowledge and our way of acquiring and storing more of it has exploded
510.2 -> The average high school student today knows more about the universe than a scholar a few centuries ago
515.32 -> Humans dominate this planet, even if our rule is very fragile
521.3 -> We are still not that different from our ancestors 70,000 years ago
525.78 -> But your lifestyle has existed for less than 0.001% of human history
531.56 -> From here on, there's no saying what the future holds for us
536.2 -> We're building a skyscraper, but we're not sure if it's standing on a solid foundation
540.52 -> or if we're building it on quicksand
543.04 -> Let's leave it with that for now
544.58 -> The next time you miss your train, your burger is not hot enough, or someone cuts in line
549.26 -> Remember how special this made-up human world is
552.14 -> Maybe it's not worth being upset about all those little things.
557.024 -> OK, so this was our first take on making a history-related video
560.264 -> we'd love to make much more of them, but they take even more time than our average video.
564.024 -> So we might do 3 or 4 a year.
566.024 -> Your feedback's very welcome here
568.024 -> Thank you so much for watching,
and if you want to support us directly,
571.344 -> you can do so on Patreon.
572.984 -> It really helps us out.
574.184 -> While you think about it, here are more videos, if you need more distraction.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGiQaabX3_o
