Humans
At this point in our journey, mammals have evolved, and these mammals have brains that have given them a degree of sentience. These brains consist of neurons wired to form enormous networks that allow at least one mammal species – us – to understand and remember things about the world. The stage is now set to consider how humans came to be, and how they conquered the planet. We are an important species, but we are still just a species. One of many hundreds of millions to inhabit the Earth.
Every now and again a species – or group of species – evolves that changes the planet. Humans are one of these, but by no means the first, and they are unlikely to be the last. Species of Cyanobacteria changed the planet billions of years ago via oxygenating the atmosphere. The first eukaryote species heralded an era of complex organisms. The first predator created a way of life never seen before, and the first land plants opened up the ability of life to colonize continents. Humans are just another species in a list of those that have changed the planet. We are an unusual species in that we have altered the planet very quickly, but we are a product of nature just like every other. The evolutionary biologist Olivia Judson has a nice way of describing epochs of life based on the way organisms acquire their energy: ‘geochemical energy, sunlight, oxygen, flesh and fire’. Humans are one of the first, but probably not the first, species to use fire as a form of energy. I focus on humans in this chapter because this is a book on why you and I exist. We are special because we have unusual attributes, but we are not so special we should think these traits mean we are in some way separate from, or above, nature. We are not.
The next step on our journey from the Big Bang to us involves understanding how modern humans, that have changed the world, came to be. You already know how evolution proceeds, so the next step is to consider how it moulded modern humans. Mammals needed to evolve from being small, solitary beasts into primates, and then into us. This required the evolution of several traits, and the ability to develop technology of increasing complexity, and that is the focus of this chapter. But before we start, let’s consider the end point – modern humans.
One thing that we do as a species that is unique is create ways to make our day-to-day lives frustratingly difficult by putting in place layers of bureaucracy. You might think that because universities are full of supposedly clever people they might run smoothly. You’d be wrong. The University of Oxford where I work is administratively complex, but I am sure that any organization that has been around for over 800 years would have generated enough red tape to drive even the career bureaucrat round the bend. In October last year, a colleague’s computer went missing during an office move. It was never found, and quite understandably she urgently wanted a replacement. She was told she could have one but would have to order it from a specific company. The company didn’t have any in stock and had no idea when they might be able to supply it, but it would likely take a few months. A local business could supply the desired model for the same price within twenty-four hours, but my colleague was not permitted to buy from that business as it was not an approved supplier. The process to approve a new supplier can take several months, the outcome is not guaranteed, and as far as I can tell appears to be entirely random. Almost equally astonishing is that six different people have to approve any expenses claim I put in. I have no idea why this degree of scrutiny is necessary, but wouldn’t be entirely surprised if it goes back to a ruling by Ralph of Maidstone, who was chancellor in 1231.
The head of the University of Oxford is the chancellor, which these days is a largely honorary and ceremonial role. His deputy is the vice-chancellor, and she is responsible for the day-to-day running of the university. She chairs a partially elected board of trustees that challenge or endorse programmes of reform. A group of pro-vice-chancellors report to the vice-chancellor, and those with portfolios are responsible for research, education, people, buildings or financials. Research and teaching are conducted within departments that group people by subjects such as History, Biology or Economics. Within these departments, various ranks of professors are responsible for delivering courses and conducting research, and they are managed by heads of department, such as me, who are ultimately responsible for hitting budgets, the successful delivery of taught courses, health and safety, and various other aspects of administration. Departments are grouped into four divisions called Humanities, Social Sciences, Medical Sciences and Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences, and this level of organization is responsible for budget setting and strategy in these four broad areas. Thirty-nine independent colleges, some of which are extremely ancient and wealthy, admit students to courses, with many university-employed academics having second contracts with a college to deliver tutorials in support of the course the students they admit are studying. Staff employed by the university can join Congregation, which is the sovereign body of the university. Congregation can overturn decisions approved by the trustees, the vice-chancellor and the pro-vice-chancellors, but only occasionally does so. No other university is organized like Oxford, and although it has employed leading academics for over eight centuries, I am confident none of them would have advocated for the governance structure we have. A question that has long intrigued me is, how did evolution take us from a solitary mammal with a small brain to intelligent, highly sentient beings that work in complicated organizations and live in diverse societies that are so complex we do not really understand how they function?
Humans are the only species to have formed nation states and complex organizations with structures like the University of Oxford. We have been able to do this because of our abilities to think and communicate abstract ideas via language, coupled with most people’s general acceptance of the laws of the nation state in which they reside, however crazy they may be. In this chapter I explore how this astonishing social and organizational complexity arose.
The first hominins, species in the same evolutionary family as humans, walked the planet about 6.5 million years ago, while the first cities were formed about 9,500 years ago, and it is the period between these dates I focus on in this chapter. Once humans had developed cities, art and writing, the rest is history (literally). There are very many good books on this topic, and I do not attempt to summarize human history over the last 9,000 years or so, instead focusing on the journey from the first hominin to the first city. A key role of science in piecing together what happened between the first hominin and the first city is in ageing bones, teeth and artefacts. Palaeontologists and archaeologists have pieced together this history from bones, artefacts and genetics, and although a new find can lead to a revision of this history, we now have a reasonable account of the journey from a fruit-eating primate to a space-age ape.
There are a number of key phenotypic traits that needed to evolve for humans to form complex organizations, cities and nation states. One is the ability to communicate with language. If we were unable to describe complicated ideas, explain why we were taking particular actions, or understand and articulate the motivation of others, complex societies could not have emerged. Woofler cannot learn what his nemesis dog next-door has been up to by talking to him, but I can find out via a conversation with Bilbo’s owner.