WEBVTT 00:00:00.006 --> 00:00:00.006 [MUSIC] 00:00:00.006 --> 00:00:03.908 In the 00:00:03.908 --> 00:00:10.138 previous 00:00:10.138 --> 00:00:15.250 lesson, we saw 00:00:15.250 --> 00:00:20.450 that for more than 2 million years, earth was populated by a number of human 00:00:20.450 --> 00:00:25.510 species, not just by one. We also saw that all these human species 00:00:25.510 --> 00:00:31.048 were unimportant animals with only a small impact on the ecosystem around them. 00:00:31.048 --> 00:00:36.090 Then about 70,000 years ago, something changed. 00:00:36.090 --> 00:00:43.150 One particular human specie, our specie, Homo sapiens, spread out of East Africa. 00:00:43.150 --> 00:00:44.958 Settled the entire world. 00:00:44.958 --> 00:00:51.190 Drove to extinction all the other human species, and became the most powerful 00:00:51.190 --> 00:00:54.336 animal and most important animal on planet earth. 00:00:54.336 --> 00:00:56.980 How did this happen? 00:00:56.980 --> 00:01:00.230 What is the sapiens secret of success? 00:01:01.660 --> 00:01:03.610 It is not easy to answer this 00:01:03.610 --> 00:01:07.900 question because Homo Sapians has actually been around for 00:01:07.900 --> 00:01:12.130 much more than just 70,000 years and previous 00:01:12.130 --> 00:01:14.705 to that date, it didn't do anything special. 00:01:14.705 --> 00:01:16.560 Sapians living 00:01:16.560 --> 00:01:20.650 in East Africa, say about a 100,000 years ago. 00:01:20.650 --> 00:01:23.020 Already looked just like us. 00:01:23.020 --> 00:01:25.270 They had bodies similar to ours. 00:01:25.270 --> 00:01:27.590 If you put them in jeans and t-shirts you 00:01:27.590 --> 00:01:31.390 couldn't tell the difference between them and modern people. 00:01:31.390 --> 00:01:36.130 And if you took a dead body of a sapiens from about one hundred thousand years ago 00:01:36.130 --> 00:01:42.280 and you gave a modern doctor, a modern anatomist to dissect and analysis and 00:01:42.280 --> 00:01:42.940 look inside, look in it. 00:01:42.940 --> 00:01:46.710 He couldn't tell that there was anything different between 00:01:46.710 --> 00:01:46.718 [UNKNOWN] 00:01:46.718 --> 00:01:51.665 bodies and our bodies. Even the brains of people a 00:01:51.665 --> 00:01:57.070 100,000 years ago were the same as ours in both size and 00:01:57.070 --> 00:02:02.481 external shape. Yet, these archaic sapiens from a 100 to 00:02:02.481 --> 00:02:07.130 120,000 years ago, they did not produce. Any 00:02:07.130 --> 00:02:13.430 sophisticated tool. They did not accomplish any special feats. 00:02:13.430 --> 00:02:18.336 And they did not enjoy any marked advantage over the other human 00:02:18.336 --> 00:02:22.772 species around like the Neanderthals or the Erectus or a Homo Denisova. 00:02:24.010 --> 00:02:29.210 In fact, when some ancient sapiens migrated for 00:02:29.210 --> 00:02:32.780 the first time to the Middle East about 100,000 00:02:32.780 --> 00:02:36.640 years ago, they were driven back by the Neanderthals 00:02:36.640 --> 00:02:38.680 who were the local population in the Middle East 00:02:39.770 --> 00:02:41.810 we have evidence. 00:02:41.810 --> 00:02:47.240 We found the remains of sapiens in various sites in Middle East 00:02:47.240 --> 00:02:51.410 mainly around what is today Israel and Palestine, and Jordan, and Lebanon. 00:02:51.410 --> 00:02:53.880 We have evidence that sapiens actually reached for this, for the first 00:02:55.210 --> 00:03:00.640 time these areas about a 100,000 years ago and not 70,000 years ago. 00:03:00.640 --> 00:03:05.100 And after some time the remains of the sapiens 00:03:05.100 --> 00:03:10.190 disappear And we find, and we continue to find only Neanderthal remains. 00:03:10.190 --> 00:03:14.760 So these leads most scholars to agree that sapiens made the 00:03:14.760 --> 00:03:19.730 first attempt to migrate from East Africa to towards 00:03:19.730 --> 00:03:25.680 the Middle East, about a 100,000 years ago and during that first encounter 00:03:25.680 --> 00:03:30.120 between sapiens and Neanderthals, the Neanderthals were better. 00:03:30.120 --> 00:03:31.860 They were more powerful, they were more adaptive 00:03:31.860 --> 00:03:34.410 to the environment and they won. 00:03:34.410 --> 00:03:36.830 And the sapiens disappeared from the Middle 00:03:36.830 --> 00:03:39.410 East and stayed only in East Africa. 00:03:40.630 --> 00:03:48.930 However, 30,000 years later, which is about 70,000 years ago, something amazing 00:03:48.930 --> 00:03:55.220 happened to Homo sapiens and it then began doing very special things not only 00:03:55.220 --> 00:03:59.970 in East Africa but spreading from there and settling all over the world. 00:03:59.970 --> 00:04:04.840 The first amazing thing, the first evidence we have, that something truly 00:04:04.840 --> 00:04:10.000 remarkable was happening to sapiens about 70,000 years ago is that, 00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:15.170 at that time, sapiens bands left Africa for a second time. 00:04:15.170 --> 00:04:16.690 Not all the sapiens. 00:04:16.690 --> 00:04:20.610 Some sapiens stayed behind in East Africa. But some sapiens bands 00:04:20.610 --> 00:04:22.400 around 70,000 years ago. 00:04:22.400 --> 00:04:28.250 Again, migrated from East Africa to the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East. 00:04:28.250 --> 00:04:33.860 And this time, they drove the Neanderthal and all the other human species, 00:04:33.860 --> 00:04:37.500 not only for the Middle East but from the face of the Earth. 00:04:37.500 --> 00:04:39.099 Droves them to complete extinction. 00:04:40.110 --> 00:04:45.970 Within a remarkably short time, sapiens managed to settle not only 00:04:45.970 --> 00:04:48.580 the Middle East but also Europe, and 00:04:48.580 --> 00:04:52.060 Central Asia, and South Asia, and East Asia. 00:04:52.060 --> 00:04:56.309 sapiens reached China and Korea about 60,000 years ago. 00:04:56.309 --> 00:05:02.440 About 45,000 years ago sapiens did something even more remarkable. 00:05:02.440 --> 00:05:07.690 They crossed the open sea and landed in Australia. 00:05:07.690 --> 00:05:11.675 A continent to which no previous human species 00:05:11.675 --> 00:05:14.360 have managed to reach. No, no previous species. 00:05:14.360 --> 00:05:16.520 No, no, no, not the Erectus, not the Neanderthal. 00:05:16.520 --> 00:05:19.870 Nobody reached Australia until sapiens landed on 00:05:19.870 --> 00:05:23.770 the Australian beach about 45,000 years ago. 00:05:23.770 --> 00:05:30.250 Later on sapiens spread to another continent which no previous human reached. 00:05:30.250 --> 00:05:33.010 Which is the continent of America. 00:05:33.010 --> 00:05:36.750 No previous human species reached America before 00:05:36.750 --> 00:05:42.576 sapiens did it about 15,000 years ago, 15, 1, 5 00:05:42.576 --> 00:05:49.220 thousand years ago. These were extraordinary achievements. 00:05:49.220 --> 00:05:53.530 because in order to reach Australia, sapiens, they couldn't 00:05:53.530 --> 00:05:57.720 swim to Austrlia, they had to somehow cross the ocean. 00:05:57.720 --> 00:06:02.280 And in order to reach America, sapiens had first 00:06:02.280 --> 00:06:08.300 to find out how to survive in the very, very cold arctic climate of 00:06:08.300 --> 00:06:12.690 Northern Siberia and Alaska, where temperatures drop 00:06:12.690 --> 00:06:14.850 to minus 50 degrees Celsius in winter. 00:06:14.850 --> 00:06:19.020 Because this is how sapiens reached America from Siberian Alaska. 00:06:19.020 --> 00:06:22.180 So in order to reach America, sapiens coming from East 00:06:22.180 --> 00:06:26.830 Africa, first had to find out how you can survive in 00:06:26.830 --> 00:06:32.520 Siberia and Alaska. In order to settle all these places, 00:06:32.520 --> 00:06:39.230 Europe, Asia, Australia, America. Sapiens had to adopt very, very quickly. 00:06:39.230 --> 00:06:45.210 Quickly in evolutionary terms, to completely new ecological conditions. 00:06:45.210 --> 00:06:50.430 As you remember, sapiens evolved for the first time in East Africa. 00:06:50.430 --> 00:06:52.200 And lived in East Africa 00:06:52.200 --> 00:06:57.890 for 100,00 or 200,000 years. And sapiens were, was very well adapted to 00:06:57.890 --> 00:07:03.790 the warm climate of the African Savannah. And to the other ecological conditions. 00:07:03.790 --> 00:07:06.560 To the animals of African savanna, to the plants of 00:07:06.560 --> 00:07:10.650 African savanna, to the geography, to the topography, and so fort. 00:07:10.650 --> 00:07:17.590 But once sapiens begins spreading over the world, they had within a few thousand 00:07:17.590 --> 00:07:21.660 years To adapt themselves to complely new conditons. 00:07:21.660 --> 00:07:25.890 The same sapiens, basically the same sapiens, who lived for tens of 00:07:25.890 --> 00:07:31.190 thousands of years in East Africa, suddenly you find them in Russia. 00:07:31.190 --> 00:07:32.480 You find them in India. 00:07:32.480 --> 00:07:34.030 You find them in New Guinea. 00:07:34.030 --> 00:07:37.330 And they had to adapt to living in the very 00:07:37.330 --> 00:07:40.980 cold conditions of Russia or in the jungles of New Guinea. 00:07:40.980 --> 00:07:42.920 Even though for hundreds of thousands 00:07:42.920 --> 00:07:48.710 of years, they have been adapting to the very different conditions of East Africa. 00:07:48.710 --> 00:07:54.870 So, this is the first indication that something truly amazing 00:07:54.870 --> 00:08:00.900 was happening to Homo sapiens beginning about 70,000 years ago. 00:08:00.900 --> 00:08:04.040 And this is that sapiens suddenly spread. 00:08:04.040 --> 00:08:08.060 All over the world and not only spread all over the world, 00:08:08.060 --> 00:08:12.490 but some how managed to adapt to completely 00:08:12.490 --> 00:08:16.850 new ecological conditions within a very, very short time. 00:08:16.850 --> 00:08:21.740 The second indication that something truly amazing was happening to Homo 00:08:21.740 --> 00:08:27.079 sapiens about 70,000 years ago, was the appearance of new technologies. 00:08:28.560 --> 00:08:33.350 one of the most important technologies to appear, to start appearing around 70,000 00:08:33.350 --> 00:08:38.250 years ago is probably boats or other kinds of sailing craft. 00:08:38.250 --> 00:08:42.720 As I mentioned earlier, around 45,000 or 50,000 years ago, 00:08:42.720 --> 00:08:46.750 sapiens for the first time, reached the continent of Australia. 00:08:46.750 --> 00:08:50.129 Which no previous human specie has managed to do. 00:08:51.220 --> 00:08:54.280 And it was a very, eh, eh, difficult thing to 00:08:54.280 --> 00:08:58.520 do because in order to reach Australia from Southeast Asia 00:08:58.520 --> 00:09:01.280 you some how had to cross the ocean and it's 00:09:01.280 --> 00:09:05.400 a big, it's quite a big gap separating the two. 00:09:05.400 --> 00:09:09.550 You couldn't swim there, even if you knew that Australia is waiting for you. 00:09:09.550 --> 00:09:11.606 And how could you know that if you've never been there? 00:09:11.606 --> 00:09:17.446 So most scholars estimate that around that time 00:09:17.446 --> 00:09:23.590 45,000, 50,000 years ago. Sapiens in Southeast Asia in what is today 00:09:23.590 --> 00:09:28.890 Indonesia, in the island of Indonesia. They already developed some kind of 00:09:28.890 --> 00:09:35.200 sailing craft or boats or rafts and also began developing a sea faring society. 00:09:35.200 --> 00:09:41.470 A society of people who were used to sailing, to sailing on the sea. 00:09:41.470 --> 00:09:44.450 And this is how they reached Australia, and later 00:09:44.450 --> 00:09:48.960 on reached other islands, like Japan and Taiwan and 00:09:48.960 --> 00:09:49.760 so forth. 00:09:49.760 --> 00:09:55.960 So this was one very important invention the boat or the sailing craft. 00:09:55.960 --> 00:09:59.873 Another very important invention, which we begin to see in the, 00:09:59.873 --> 00:10:05.745 in archaeological record about 40, 50 thousand years ago is the needle. 00:10:05.745 --> 00:10:09.455 Now, this may not strike as you as a 00:10:09.455 --> 00:10:14.410 particularly revolutionary invention, the needle, but the needle was actually 00:10:14.410 --> 00:10:19.230 one of the most important inventions in the whole of, whole history of human kind. 00:10:20.690 --> 00:10:22.800 What was so important about needles. 00:10:22.800 --> 00:10:26.820 Well, well people were able to make all kinds 00:10:26.820 --> 00:10:30.230 of, of cloth even before the invention of the needle. 00:10:30.230 --> 00:10:34.190 Like Neanderthals, apparently also had some kind of clothing. 00:10:34.190 --> 00:10:37.160 They killed a bear or they killed some, some, 00:10:37.160 --> 00:10:39.430 and a deer and they took the skin or the 00:10:39.430 --> 00:10:44.160 fur and put it, put it on them to, to to warm themselves This is something that 00:10:44.160 --> 00:10:50.350 previous human species could do. But they could not sew things together. 00:10:50.350 --> 00:10:54.360 Because they didn't have needles and, and, and it couldn't be done. 00:10:54.360 --> 00:10:59.530 Once sapiens invented needles, sapiens were able to 00:10:59.530 --> 00:11:04.620 start sewing and making all kinds of, of new things. 00:11:04.620 --> 00:11:08.420 New clothes especially thermal thermal clothes. 00:11:08.420 --> 00:11:13.380 Which were made from layers of fur eh, inter spaced with layers 00:11:13.380 --> 00:11:18.490 of skin sewn close together with the help of needles, and 00:11:18.490 --> 00:11:23.430 they could start making all kinds of boots and tents and, and things like this. 00:11:23.430 --> 00:11:30.015 And this was the key for the sapiens, settlement of very cold 00:11:30.015 --> 00:11:33.189 areas like Siberia and Alaska. 00:11:33.189 --> 00:11:38.750 Even the Neanderthals were very well adapted to living in ice age Europe. 00:11:38.750 --> 00:11:42.900 They were unable to move into Scandinavia or into 00:11:42.900 --> 00:11:45.840 eh, Northern Siberia because it was too cold for them. 00:11:45.840 --> 00:11:49.600 But sapiens was adapted to the hot conditions of Africa 00:11:49.600 --> 00:11:55.170 did manage to settle Siberia because they had the needle and 00:11:55.170 --> 00:11:59.250 they could sew these tents and boots and thermal outfits and, and things like that. 00:12:00.440 --> 00:12:04.230 Another interesting invention that people that sapiens 00:12:04.230 --> 00:12:07.288 probably made around that time is oil lamps. 00:12:07.288 --> 00:12:11.334 small lamps made of stone or clay, in which 00:12:11.334 --> 00:12:15.975 sapiens put the fat of animals that they hunted. 00:12:15.975 --> 00:12:20.210 And then lighted it and they had a lamp. And this is 00:12:20.210 --> 00:12:23.050 how they were able not only to crawl into 00:12:23.050 --> 00:12:28.280 all kinds of caves but also to produce magnificent art. 00:12:28.280 --> 00:12:33.010 On the walls of the caves the famous cave paintings. 00:12:33.010 --> 00:12:35.600 Well think about it, how could they, okay, 00:12:35.600 --> 00:12:39.030 they could crawl into caves even without light. 00:12:39.030 --> 00:12:42.140 But, how to produce amazing pictures on the walls. 00:12:42.140 --> 00:12:44.840 And what's the purpose of producing them if you can't see them? 00:12:44.840 --> 00:12:45.970 Unless you have light. 00:12:45.970 --> 00:12:50.380 And these oil lamps, which arcahologists have, have found the remains of, 00:12:50.380 --> 00:12:53.240 of a few of these oil lamps from 40, 50,000 years ago. 00:12:53.240 --> 00:12:57.910 Were the key to this artistic revolution. 00:12:57.910 --> 00:13:00.199 One of the keys to this artistic revolution. 00:13:01.900 --> 00:13:05.690 aside from the invention of a new technology. 00:13:05.690 --> 00:13:10.260 Like the oil lamp and the boat and the and the needle. 00:13:10.260 --> 00:13:15.380 There were also, also constant development of all technology. 00:13:15.380 --> 00:13:20.740 Like stone knives and spear points, and hammers, and axes, and things like that. 00:13:20.740 --> 00:13:24.870 Previously, up to about 70,000 years ago 00:13:24.870 --> 00:13:28.940 we find that people, Neanderthals, Erectus, were making, 00:13:28.940 --> 00:13:32.260 and also sapiens, were making exactly the 00:13:32.260 --> 00:13:36.010 same tools, exactly the same, say, spear points 00:13:36.010 --> 00:13:39.270 for hundred of thousands of years without change. 00:13:39.270 --> 00:13:45.452 From about 70,000 years ago onwards we begin to see continuous change. 00:13:45.452 --> 00:13:49.650 In the technology of things like spear points. 00:13:49.650 --> 00:13:53.160 Every few thousands of hundreds of years, you have 00:13:53.160 --> 00:13:56.200 a new style of spear points or of knives. 00:13:57.740 --> 00:13:59.140 So this is another thing that, that 00:13:59.140 --> 00:14:01.430 happened, not only the invention of completely 00:14:01.430 --> 00:14:04.848 new technolgy, but the continuous improvement. 00:14:04.848 --> 00:14:08.010 Of all technology. 00:14:08.010 --> 00:14:11.470 During the same period, beginning 70,000 years ago. 00:14:11.470 --> 00:14:16.240 We also have the first evidence for art and for jewelry. 00:14:16.240 --> 00:14:20.940 We find the first evidence for trade between different bands. 00:14:20.940 --> 00:14:22.220 We'll speak about it later on. 00:14:22.220 --> 00:14:26.120 We find the first evidence for complex societies. 00:14:26.120 --> 00:14:30.565 Societies comprising hundreds of people, and not just dozens of people. 00:14:30.565 --> 00:14:34.648 And we find the first evidence of religion. 00:14:34.648 --> 00:14:40.190 As an example look at this remarkable ivory 00:14:40.190 --> 00:14:46.090 statue made by sapiens in Germany about 30,000 years ago. 00:14:46.090 --> 00:14:52.050 What do you see? You see a lion man or lioness woman. 00:14:52.050 --> 00:14:55.365 It's, it's a bit difficult it would tell the gender. 00:14:55.365 --> 00:15:00.630 But it's very clear that the body of whatever is depicted in the statue. 00:15:00.630 --> 00:15:02.710 The body is human. 00:15:02.710 --> 00:15:06.790 Whereas the head is the head of a lion or a lioness. 00:15:06.790 --> 00:15:09.970 This is one of the earliest pieces of evidence. 00:15:09.970 --> 00:15:17.220 Not only for art, but also for the ability of sapiens to imagine things that don't 00:15:17.220 --> 00:15:18.490 really exist. 00:15:18.490 --> 00:15:23.670 There weren't any lion man alive in Germany about 30,000 years ago. 00:15:23.670 --> 00:15:27.800 There was nowhere that the artists who have made 00:15:27.800 --> 00:15:31.920 this statue could have seen a lion man. 00:15:31.920 --> 00:15:37.162 Lion men only existed only in the fertile imagination of sapiens. 00:15:37.162 --> 00:15:42.770 How to account for this wave of invention, new inventions and 00:15:42.770 --> 00:15:45.280 changes, and technological revolutions. 00:15:45.280 --> 00:15:49.690 How to account for the sudden appearance of art and religion and 00:15:49.690 --> 00:15:54.210 the new political structures and perhaps, above all, how to account for the 00:15:54.210 --> 00:15:59.760 quick spreading of sapiens over the entire world, the extinctions of the other 00:15:59.760 --> 00:16:05.590 human species and the settlement of new territories like Australia and America. 00:16:05.590 --> 00:16:08.110 Well, most scholars believe 00:16:08.110 --> 00:16:11.406 that all these achievements were the result 00:16:11.406 --> 00:16:16.060 of a revolution in sapiens' cognitive abilities. 00:16:16.060 --> 00:16:17.360 What are the cognitive abilities? 00:16:17.360 --> 00:16:20.540 Well, cognitive abilities are the abilities to 00:16:20.540 --> 00:16:21.430 communicate, to remember to learn, to think. 00:16:25.090 --> 00:16:30.585 These are all the cognitive abilities. It seems that sapiens who lived 00:16:30.585 --> 00:16:36.480 100,000 years ago in East Africa, they may have looked exactly like us. 00:16:37.520 --> 00:16:42.915 And they may have had brains the same size and shape external shape as our brains 00:16:42.915 --> 00:16:48.690 but they had very different, more limited, cognitive abilities. 00:16:48.690 --> 00:16:50.880 They could not talk and think 00:16:50.880 --> 00:16:52.250 like you and me. 00:16:52.250 --> 00:16:55.070 They, they talk and they thought in some way but in 00:16:55.070 --> 00:16:58.630 a much more restricted and less sophisticated way than you and me. 00:16:59.630 --> 00:17:04.500 In contrast the people who drove the Neanderthals to extinction 00:17:04.500 --> 00:17:08.349 about 30,000 years ago, the people who settled the continent 00:17:08.349 --> 00:17:10.910 of Australia for the first time, and the people who 00:17:10.910 --> 00:17:16.540 calmed the Stael lion man, already talked and thought like 00:17:16.540 --> 00:17:16.950 you and me. 00:17:16.950 --> 00:17:21.500 They did not talk and think in English, they had their own language but 00:17:21.500 --> 00:17:26.409 in, in the basic abilities of thinking and talking, they were like you and me. 00:17:27.540 --> 00:17:33.280 The disappearance of new ways of talking and thinking, between about 70,000 years 00:17:33.280 --> 00:17:40.840 ago and about 30,000 years ago, is called the cognitive revolution. 00:17:40.840 --> 00:17:41.980 The first 00:17:41.980 --> 00:17:46.225 big revolution of history basically the revolution that started history. 00:17:46.225 --> 00:17:51.190 Prior to the cognitive revolution humans were no different from any other animal. 00:17:51.190 --> 00:17:53.800 They had biology and not history. 00:17:53.800 --> 00:17:56.660 History begins with the cognitive revolution. 00:17:58.230 --> 00:18:01.470 Now how to explain this revolution. 00:18:01.470 --> 00:18:07.214 After all, there was as I said before, there was no big change in the body 00:18:07.214 --> 00:18:09.400 of sapiens. 00:18:09.400 --> 00:18:12.400 there was not even any significant change in the 00:18:12.400 --> 00:18:16.580 size or in the external shape of the sapiens brain. 00:18:16.580 --> 00:18:21.710 So how to account for the fact that without any any change that 00:18:21.710 --> 00:18:26.720 we can see in the body or the brain, suddenly there appeared amazing 00:18:26.720 --> 00:18:31.625 new cognitive abilities. Well, scholars, most scholars, 00:18:31.625 --> 00:18:37.180 believe that there must have been some relatively small change. 00:18:37.180 --> 00:18:42.970 In the internal structure of the brain, not in the size or external shape but in 00:18:42.970 --> 00:18:46.680 the internal structure of the brain that led 00:18:46.680 --> 00:18:50.640 to all the big revolutions in sapiens' abilities. 00:18:50.640 --> 00:18:53.080 Perhaps, this is just a theorist speculation. 00:18:53.080 --> 00:18:56.480 We don't have any firm evidence, but it's the best speculation we have. 00:18:56.480 --> 00:19:00.360 Perhaps there were some relative, relatively 00:19:00.360 --> 00:19:04.630 small genetic mutation that caused two parts 00:19:04.630 --> 00:19:06.680 of the brain, which were previously 00:19:06.680 --> 00:19:11.170 separate separated to connect to each other. 00:19:11.170 --> 00:19:15.995 And this resulted in all the new amazing cognitive abilities. 00:19:15.995 --> 00:19:17.620 Now, it's just a theory. 00:19:17.620 --> 00:19:21.610 We don't really know it for sure because there are no 00:19:21.610 --> 00:19:25.250 frozen brains from 50,000 years ago and 100,000 00:19:25.250 --> 00:19:27.660 years ago that we can compare to each other. 00:19:27.660 --> 00:19:30.960 But it's the best theory we have at the present. 00:19:32.630 --> 00:19:33.600 If we accept this. 00:19:33.600 --> 00:19:36.570 That there was some small change in the internal structure of the brain. 00:19:37.740 --> 00:19:39.360 how to account for it? 00:19:39.360 --> 00:19:41.960 Or more precisely, how to account for the 00:19:41.960 --> 00:19:47.420 fact that this, remarkable change happened to sapiens. 00:19:47.420 --> 00:19:50.960 And not to Neanderthals or Denisovans or some 00:19:50.960 --> 00:19:53.600 other human species or some other animal species. 00:19:53.600 --> 00:19:59.750 As far as we know it was pure chance that, that might well have been the result of 00:19:59.750 --> 00:20:05.730 some tiny biological reaction in sapiens DNA that lead to the, to the mutation. 00:20:05.730 --> 00:20:09.070 And if this tiny biochemical a, a, a 00:20:09.070 --> 00:20:12.599 reaction did not take place, then human may 00:20:12.599 --> 00:20:16.500 well have remained insignificant animals to this day or 00:20:16.500 --> 00:20:20.710 the world today might have been governed by Neanderthals. 00:20:20.710 --> 00:20:23.370 And the sapiens would've become extinct. 00:20:23.370 --> 00:20:27.010 So we don't really know, we don't have a good answer why this 00:20:27.010 --> 00:20:30.900 change happened to sapiens and not to Neanderthals. 00:20:30.900 --> 00:20:38.560 And also, we don't have a very clear theory about what was the biological and 00:20:38.560 --> 00:20:43.570 the more logical factors that lead to the whole cognitive change. 00:20:43.570 --> 00:20:47.260 But this is less important for our purposes. 00:20:47.260 --> 00:20:52.920 What is very important for understanding human history 00:20:52.920 --> 00:20:59.420 is to understand what exactly was the change in sapiens cognitive abilities. 00:20:59.420 --> 00:21:03.880 What was so special about the new way in which sapiens 00:21:03.880 --> 00:21:05.770 thought and talked? 00:21:05.770 --> 00:21:10.740 What was so special about the new sap, sapiens language? 00:21:10.740 --> 00:21:13.650 This is what we will discuss throughout all 00:21:13.650 --> 00:21:16.700 the next parts of the this entire lesson. 00:21:16.700 --> 00:21:23.050 We'll try to understand what is so special about the way that we sapiens think and 00:21:23.050 --> 00:21:25.070 talk and how is it different from the 00:21:25.070 --> 00:21:28.680 way all other animals and Neanderthals and chimpanzees 00:21:28.680 --> 00:21:29.316 think and talk. 00:21:29.316 --> 00:21:34.608 In other words, these, all the other sections of this lesson will be 00:21:34.608 --> 00:21:40.170 dedicated to understanding what is so special about our language. 00:21:41.280 --> 00:21:43.580 In order to answer this question. 00:21:43.580 --> 00:21:48.330 In the next segments, we will discuss not only the world of the Stone 00:21:48.330 --> 00:21:53.065 Age but also the world today, which is more familiar to most of you. 00:21:53.065 --> 00:22:00.460 In order again to understand what is so special about our language that has 00:22:00.460 --> 00:22:03.040 made us the masters of the world 00:22:03.040 --> 00:22:15.725 [MUSIC]