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In the

previous

lesson, we saw

that for more than 2 million years, earth
was populated by a number of human

species, not just by one.
We also saw that all these human species

were unimportant animals with only a small
impact on the ecosystem around them.

Then about 70,000 years ago, something
changed.

One particular human specie, our specie,
Homo sapiens, spread out of East Africa.

Settled the entire world.

Drove to extinction all the other human
species, and became the most powerful

animal and most important animal on planet
earth.

How did this happen?

What is the sapiens secret of success?

It is not easy to answer this

question because Homo Sapians has actually
been around for

much more than just 70,000 years and
previous

to that date, it didn't do anything
special.

Sapians living

in East Africa, say about a 100,000 years
ago.

Already looked just like us.

They had bodies similar to ours.

If you put them in jeans and t-shirts you

couldn't tell the difference between them
and modern people.

And if you took a dead body of a sapiens
from about one hundred thousand years ago

and you gave a modern doctor, a modern anatomist to
dissect and analysis and

look inside, look in it.

He couldn't tell that there was anything
different between

[UNKNOWN]

bodies and our bodies.
Even the brains of people a

100,000 years ago were the same as ours in
both size and

external shape.
Yet, these archaic sapiens from a 100 to

120,000 years ago, they did not produce.
Any

sophisticated tool.
They did not accomplish any special feats.

And they did not enjoy any marked
advantage over the other human

species around like the Neanderthals or
the Erectus or a Homo Denisova.

In fact, when some ancient sapiens
migrated for

the first time to the Middle East about
100,000

years ago, they were driven back by the
Neanderthals

who were the local population in the
Middle East

we have evidence.

We found the remains of sapiens in various
sites in Middle East

mainly around what is today Israel and
Palestine, and Jordan, and Lebanon.

We have evidence that sapiens actually
reached for this, for the first

time these areas about a 100,000 years ago
and not 70,000 years ago.

And after some time the remains of the
sapiens

disappear And we find, and we continue to
find only Neanderthal remains.

So these leads most scholars to agree that
sapiens made the

first attempt to migrate from East
Africa to towards

the Middle East, about a 100,000 years ago
and during that first encounter

between sapiens and Neanderthals, the
Neanderthals were better.

They were more powerful, they were more
adaptive

to the environment and they won.

And the sapiens disappeared from the
Middle

East and stayed only in East Africa.

However, 30,000 years later, which is
about 70,000 years ago, something amazing

happened to Homo sapiens and it then began
doing very special things not only

in East Africa but spreading from there
and settling all over the world.

The first amazing thing, the first
evidence we have, that something truly

remarkable was happening to sapiens about
70,000 years ago is that,

at that time, sapiens bands left Africa
for a second time.

Not all the sapiens.

Some sapiens stayed behind in East Africa.
But some sapiens bands

around 70,000 years ago.

Again, migrated from East Africa to the
Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East.

And this time, they drove the Neanderthal
and all the other human species,

not only for the Middle East but from the
face of the Earth.

Droves them to complete extinction.

Within a remarkably short time, sapiens
managed to settle not only

the Middle East but also Europe, and

Central Asia, and South Asia, and East
Asia.

sapiens reached China and Korea about
60,000 years ago.

About 45,000 years ago sapiens did
something even more remarkable.

They crossed the open sea and landed in
Australia.

A continent to which no previous human
species

have managed to reach.
No, no previous species.

No, no, no, not the Erectus, not the
Neanderthal.

Nobody reached Australia until sapiens
landed on

the Australian beach about 45,000 years
ago.

Later on sapiens spread to another
continent which no previous human reached.

Which is the continent of America.

No previous human species reached America
before

sapiens did it about 15,000 years ago, 15,
1, 5

thousand years ago.
These were extraordinary achievements.

because in order to reach Australia,
sapiens, they couldn't

swim to Austrlia, they had to somehow
cross the ocean.

And in order to reach America, sapiens
had first

to find out how to survive in the very,
very cold arctic climate of

Northern Siberia and Alaska, where
temperatures drop

to minus 50 degrees Celsius in winter.

Because this is how sapiens reached
America from Siberian Alaska.

So in order to reach America, sapiens
coming from East

Africa, first had to find out how you can
survive in

Siberia and Alaska.
In order to settle all these places,

Europe, Asia, Australia, America.
Sapiens had to adopt very, very quickly.

Quickly in evolutionary terms, to
completely new ecological conditions.

As you remember, sapiens evolved for the
first time in East Africa.

And lived in East Africa

for 100,00 or 200,000 years.
And sapiens were, was very well adapted to

the warm climate of the African Savannah.
And to the other ecological conditions.

To the animals of African savanna, to the
plants of

African savanna, to the geography, to the
topography, and so fort.

But once sapiens begins spreading over the
world, they had within a few thousand

years To adapt themselves to complely new
conditons.

The same sapiens, basically the same
sapiens, who lived for tens of

thousands of years in East Africa,
suddenly you find them in Russia.

You find them in India.

You find them in New Guinea.

And they had to adapt to living in the
very

cold conditions of Russia or in the
jungles of New Guinea.

Even though for hundreds of thousands

of years, they have been adapting to the
very different conditions of East Africa.

So, this is the first indication that
something truly amazing

was happening to Homo sapiens beginning
about 70,000 years ago.

And this is that sapiens suddenly spread.

All over the world and not only spread all
over the world,

but some how managed to adapt to
completely

new ecological conditions within a very,
very short time.

The second indication that something truly
amazing was happening to Homo

sapiens about 70,000 years ago, was the
appearance of new technologies.

one of the most important technologies to
appear, to start appearing around 70,000

years ago is probably boats or other kinds
of sailing craft.

As I mentioned earlier, around 45,000 or
50,000 years ago,

sapiens for the first time, reached the
continent of Australia.

Which no previous human specie has managed
to do.

And it was a very, eh, eh, difficult thing
to

do because in order to reach Australia
from Southeast Asia

you some how had to cross the ocean and
it's

a big, it's quite a big gap separating the
two.

You couldn't swim there, even if you knew
that Australia is waiting for you.

And how could you know that if you've
never been there?

So most scholars estimate that around that
time

45,000, 50,000 years ago.
Sapiens in Southeast Asia in what is today

Indonesia, in the island of Indonesia.
They already developed some kind of

sailing craft or boats or rafts and also
began developing a sea faring society.

A society of people who were used to
sailing, to sailing on the sea.

And this is how they reached Australia,
and later

on reached other islands, like Japan and
Taiwan and

so forth.

So this was one very important invention
the boat or the sailing craft.

Another very important invention, which we
begin to see in the,

in archaeological record about 40, 50
thousand years ago is the needle.

Now, this may not strike as you as a

particularly revolutionary invention, the
needle, but the needle was actually

one of the most important inventions in
the whole of, whole history of human kind.

What was so important about needles.

Well, well people were able to make all
kinds

of, of cloth even before the invention of
the needle.

Like Neanderthals, apparently also had
some kind of clothing.

They killed a bear or they killed some,
some,

and a deer and they took the skin or the

fur and put it, put it on them to, to to
warm themselves This is something that

previous human species could do.
But they could not sew things together.

Because they didn't have needles and, and,
and it couldn't be done.

Once sapiens invented needles, sapiens
were able to

start sewing and making all kinds of, of
new things.

New clothes especially thermal thermal
clothes.

Which were made from layers of fur eh,
inter spaced with layers

of skin sewn close together with the help
of needles, and

they could start making all kinds of boots
and tents and, and things like this.

And this was the key for the sapiens,
settlement of very cold

areas like Siberia and Alaska.

Even the Neanderthals were very well
adapted to living in ice age Europe.

They were unable to move into Scandinavia
or into

eh, Northern Siberia because it was too
cold for them.

But sapiens was adapted to the hot
conditions of Africa

did manage to settle Siberia because they
had the needle and

they could sew these tents and boots and
thermal outfits and, and things like that.

Another interesting invention that people
that sapiens

probably made around that time is oil
lamps.

small lamps made of stone or clay, in
which

sapiens put the fat of animals that they
hunted.

And then lighted it and they had a lamp.
And this is

how they were able not only to crawl into

all kinds of caves but also to produce
magnificent art.

On the walls of the caves the famous cave
paintings.

Well think about it, how could they, okay,

they could crawl into caves even without
light.

But, how to produce amazing pictures on
the walls.

And what's the purpose of producing them
if you can't see them?

Unless you have light.

And these oil lamps, which arcahologists
have, have found the remains of,

of a few of these oil lamps from 40,
50,000 years ago.

Were the key to this artistic revolution.

One of the keys to this artistic
revolution.

aside from the invention of a new
technology.

Like the oil lamp and the boat and the and
the needle.

There were also, also constant development
of all technology.

Like stone knives and spear points, and
hammers, and axes, and things like that.

Previously, up to about 70,000 years ago

we find that people, Neanderthals,
Erectus, were making,

and also sapiens, were making exactly the

same tools, exactly the same, say, spear
points

for hundred of thousands of years without
change.

From about 70,000 years ago onwards we
begin to see continuous change.

In the technology of things like spear
points.

Every few thousands of hundreds of years,
you have

a new style of spear points or of knives.

So this is another thing that, that

happened, not only the invention of
completely

new technolgy, but the continuous
improvement.

Of all technology.

During the same period, beginning 70,000
years ago.

We also have the first evidence for art
and for jewelry.

We find the first evidence for trade
between different bands.

We'll speak about it later on.

We find the first evidence for complex
societies.

Societies comprising hundreds of people,
and not just dozens of people.

And we find the first evidence of
religion.

As an example look at this remarkable
ivory

statue made by sapiens in Germany about
30,000 years ago.

What do you see?
You see a lion man or lioness woman.

It's, it's a bit difficult it would tell
the gender.

But it's very clear that the body of
whatever is depicted in the statue.

The body is human.

Whereas the head is the head of a lion or
a lioness.

This is one of the earliest pieces of
evidence.

Not only for art, but also for the ability
of sapiens to imagine things that don't

really exist.

There weren't any lion man alive in
Germany about 30,000 years ago.

There was nowhere that the artists who
have made

this statue could have seen a lion man.

Lion men only existed only in the fertile
imagination of sapiens.

How to account for this wave of invention,
new inventions and

changes, and technological revolutions.

How to account for the sudden appearance
of art and religion and

the new political structures and perhaps,
above all, how to account for the

quick spreading of sapiens over the entire
world, the extinctions of the other

human species and the settlement of new
territories like Australia and America.

Well, most scholars believe

that all these achievements were the
result

of a revolution in sapiens' cognitive
abilities.

What are the cognitive abilities?

Well, cognitive abilities are the
abilities to

communicate, to remember to learn, to
think.

These are all the cognitive abilities.
It seems that sapiens who lived

100,000 years ago in East Africa, they may
have looked exactly like us.

And they may have had brains the same size
and shape external shape as our brains

but they had very different, more limited,
cognitive abilities.

They could not talk and think

like you and me.

They, they talk and they thought in some
way but in

a much more restricted and less
sophisticated way than you and me.

In contrast the people who drove the
Neanderthals to extinction

about 30,000 years ago, the people who
settled the continent

of Australia for the first time, and the
people who

calmed the Stael lion man, already
talked and thought like

you and me.

They did not talk and think in English,
they had their own language but

in, in the basic abilities of thinking and
talking, they were like you and me.

The disappearance of new ways of talking
and thinking, between about 70,000 years

ago and about 30,000 years ago, is called
the cognitive revolution.

The first

big revolution of history basically the
revolution that started history.

Prior to the cognitive revolution humans
were no different from any other animal.

They had biology and not history.

History begins with the cognitive
revolution.

Now how to explain this revolution.

After all, there was as I said before,
there was no big change in the body

of sapiens.

there was not even any significant change
in the

size or in the external shape of the
sapiens brain.

So how to account for the fact that
without any any change that

we can see in the body or the brain,
suddenly there appeared amazing

new cognitive abilities.
Well, scholars, most scholars,

believe that there must have been some
relatively small change.

In the internal structure of the brain,
not in the size or external shape but in

the internal structure of the brain that
led

to all the big revolutions in sapiens'
abilities.

Perhaps, this is just a theorist
speculation.

We don't have any firm evidence, but it's
the best speculation we have.

Perhaps there were some relative,
relatively

small genetic mutation that caused two
parts

of the brain, which were previously

separate separated to connect to each
other.

And this resulted in all the new amazing
cognitive abilities.

Now, it's just a theory.

We don't really know it for sure because
there are no

frozen brains from 50,000 years ago and
100,000

years ago that we can compare to each
other.

But it's the best theory we have at the
present.

If we accept this.

That there was some small change in the
internal structure of the brain.

how to account for it?

Or more precisely, how to account for the

fact that this, remarkable change happened
to sapiens.

And not to Neanderthals or Denisovans or
some

other human species or some other animal
species.

As far as we know it was pure chance that,
that might well have been the result of

some tiny biological reaction in sapiens
DNA that lead to the, to the mutation.

And if this tiny biochemical a, a, a

reaction did not take place, then human
may

well have remained insignificant animals
to this day or

the world today might have been governed
by Neanderthals.

And the sapiens would've become extinct.

So we don't really know, we don't have a
good answer why this

change happened to sapiens and not to
Neanderthals.

And also, we don't have a very clear
theory about what was the biological and

the more logical factors that lead to the
whole cognitive change.

But this is less important for our
purposes.

What is very important for understanding
human history

is to understand what exactly was the
change in sapiens cognitive abilities.

What was so special about the new way in
which sapiens

thought and talked?

What was so special about the new sap,
sapiens language?

This is what we will discuss throughout
all

the next parts of the this entire lesson.

We'll try to understand what is so special
about the way that we sapiens think and

talk and how is it different from the

way all other animals and Neanderthals and
chimpanzees

think and talk.

In other words, these, all the other
sections of this lesson will be

dedicated to understanding what is so
special about our language.

In order to answer this question.

In the next segments, we will discuss not
only the world of the Stone

Age but also the world today, which is
more familiar to most of you.

In order again to understand what
is so special about our language that has

made us the masters of the world

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