{"id":315,"date":"2009-12-10T10:33:34","date_gmt":"2009-12-10T15:33:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/humanspark\/?p=315"},"modified":"2009-12-09T18:34:57","modified_gmt":"2009-12-09T23:34:57","slug":"expert-blogger-a-spark-or-an-ember-by-john-shea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/humanspark\/blog\/expert-blogger-a-spark-or-an-ember-by-john-shea\/315\/","title":{"rendered":"Expert Blogger: A Spark or an Ember? by John Shea"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the <\/em>Human Spark crew, one of the coolest things about traveling all around to talk to scientists is the chance we get to cross-pollinate ideas between researchers in widely disparate fields. We frequently discover interesting but unexpected points of overlap. And sometimes a visit from our film crew can jostle a scientist\u2019s thinking about his own work. In the case of John Shea, the way we posed our questions about the human spark got him pondering the evolution of our human uniqueness in a new way. Here he shares his thoughts.<\/em><\/p>\n

A Spark or an Ember? <\/strong><\/p>\n

By John J. Shea, Anthropology Department, Stony Brook University<\/p>\n

\"John<\/a>

John Shea with some of his stone age technology. Photo: Larry Engel<\/p><\/div>\n

Filming The Human Spark<\/em> with Alan Alda led me to question some of the assumptions we make about the evolution of human uniqueness \u2013 the metaphorical \u201cspark\u201d in the title of this series.\u00a0 Most anthropologists assume that the qualities that made humans unique evolved recently and only among members of our species, Homo sapiens<\/em>.\u00a0 But what if this assumption is an accident of history?\u00a0 Might the things we think make us unique actually be characteristics we share with other hominins who are now extinct?\u00a0 A spark can be the beginning of a fire, but it can also be the last ember of a conflagration.\u00a0 What if our spark is not the start of something new, but rather the culmination of a long-running evolutionary trend?<\/p>\n

In evolution, only differences matter.\u00a0 The differences between humans and our nearest primate relatives, the chimpanzees, are not subtle.\u00a0 We differ in locomotion, in how we use tools, in our diets, in how we get along with one another.\u00a0 In virtually every way anthropologists care to make comparisons, we differ more from chimpanzees than chimpanzees differ from other apes.\u00a0 Genetic studies suggest these differences accumulated over nearly 6 million years.\u00a0 If all one had to work with were comparisons of the morphology, genetics and behavior of living species, one could not help but conclude that we are special, that we humans have a \u201cspark\u201d that chimpanzees and other apes do not.<\/p>\n

But we know there is a fossil record for human evolution, and it tells a very different story.\u00a0 Humans evolved in the Pleistocene Epoch (2.5 Million to 12,500 years ago).\u00a0 This was a momentous period in the evolution of life on Earth.\u00a0 It was a great time to be a hominin.\u00a0 The term hominin refers to the group of bipedal primates that includes humans.\u00a0 Two million years ago there were at least three major groups of hominins, Australopithecus<\/em>, Paranthropus<\/em>, and Homo<\/em>, all living in Africa.\u00a0 Each of these groups comprised at least two and almost certainly more distinct species.\u00a0 For much of the Pleistocene, there was more than one human-like species walking the Earth at any one point in time.\u00a0 As recently as 40,000 years ago, there were at least three, Neandertals in Europe, Homo sapiens<\/em> in Africa and Asia, and Homo floresiensis<\/em> in Indonesia.\u00a0 Today there is only one hominin species, us.<\/p>\n

Being the sole remaining contestant of \u201cSurvivor: Pleistocene\u201d influences our ideas about our \u201chuman spark\u201d and about the nature of human uniqueness.\u00a0 Our \u201chuman spark\u201d looks special to us because we cannot compare it directly to those of our extinct hominin relatives.\u00a0 The evolutionary gulf between living apes and us is a recent evolutionary condition.\u00a0 If one takes extinct hominins into account, the gulf between humans and apes will appear not so wide, because it would be populated by countless ape and hominin species.\u00a0 Each species would have had its own \u201cspark,\u201d its own uniquely evolved characteristics, and those characteristics would differ with evolutionary distance.\u00a0 Species with a recent common ancestor would be more similar to one another.\u00a0 Our \u201chuman spark\u201d would be very similar to that of the Neandertals, less similar to that of Homo floresiensis<\/em>, and very different from that of Australopithecus<\/em>.\u00a0 Our \u201chuman spark\u201d would still differ from those of living apes, but along a complex continuum of ape and hominin variation.<\/p>\n

What caused the reduction of species in the Genus Homo<\/em>?\u00a0 The simple answer is that we do not know, but we can venture some well-founded hypotheses.\u00a0 Climate change and habitat loss almost certainly played a role, as they do in recent animal extinctions.\u00a0 Many early hominin fossils (particularly australopithecus<\/em> and paranthropus<\/em>) are found in woodland habitats.\u00a0 Such woodlands have been losing ground to grasslands for the last two million years.\u00a0 Predators may have played a role.\u00a0 The carnivores that preyed on australopithecines<\/em> and paranthropines<\/em> were mostly solitary felids (large cats like leopards).\u00a0 The Pleistocene witnessed the evolution of large social carnivores, like lions and wolves.\u00a0 These carnivores may have caused problems for some hominin species, either preying on them directly or out-competing them for access to meat and fat from large animal carcasses.\u00a0 Bad luck may have played a role, as well.\u00a0 Neandertals lived in some of the coldest habitats ever occupied by primates during a period of rapid, near chaotic climate change.\u00a0 Their extinction, though tragic, is not particularly surprising.<\/p>\n

Paleoanthropologists have been strangely reluctant to consider the role of competition among hominin species in the evolution of the Genus Homo<\/em>.\u00a0 Yet, competition is the engine that drives evolution.\u00a0 In evolutionary competition, your most formidable rivals are those to whom you are most closely related.\u00a0 Homo sapiens<\/em>\u2019 evolutionary success must have come at the expense of other hominin species, most likely those closely related to us.\u00a0 One can see proof of this in a pattern that occurs in the fossil record.\u00a0 In region after region, the first appearance date of Homo sapiens<\/em> fossils is closely correlated with the last appearance dates of other hominin species.\u00a0 There appear to have been some places where other species \u201cheld their ground:\u201d Neandertals in southern Spain, Homo floresiensis<\/em> in the forests of Indonesia, but these are exceptions, and in neither case is there clear and convincing evidence for long-term, face-to-face encounters between our species and other hominins.<\/p>\n

This is why I am skeptical about arguments that early Homo sapiens<\/em> killed off the Neandertals and other hominins.\u00a0 It is not that I think they were necessarily good-natured.\u00a0 Their moral sentiments probably varied widely, just as ours do.\u00a0 Rather, I think they just did not encounter other hominin species often enough for the benefits of sustained conflict to exceed the risks and costs.<\/p>\n

So, why did Homo sapiens<\/em> survive and other hominins become extinct?\u00a0 One key to our \u201chuman spark\u201d is our uniquely broad ecological niche.\u00a0 An ecological niche is the network of predator-prey relationships between one species and other species.\u00a0 In evolutionary competition, generalists (species with a complex niche) always beat specialists (species with a simple one).\u00a0 Homo sapiens<\/em> is the ultimate generalist.\u00a0 We sustain ourselves on animal prey ranging from snails to elephants, on birds, fish, and countless plant foods.\u00a0 Much of this niche breadth reflects recent innovations, such as agriculture and pastoralism.\u00a0 I am increasingly convinced that there was an earlier \u201crevolution\u201d in our ancestral human niche, one underwritten by the use of projectile weaponry.\u00a0 Projectile weapons, such as the bow and arrow are niche-broadening tools.\u00a0 The same bow that can launch an arrow at a fish or rodent can bring down an elephant, when it is tipped with poison.\u00a0 Projectile weaponry is uniquely human and culturally universal.\u00a0\u00a0 We are the only species that uses projectile weaponry, and no human society has ever abandoned its use.<\/p>\n

In seeking the origins of human uniqueness, I think it is absolutely crucial for archaeologists to work out when and where humans began using projectile weaponry to broaden their ecological niche.\u00a0 Right now, evidence in the form of stone points similar to recent arrowheads is strongest in equatorial Africa, the region in which Homo sapiens<\/em> first evolved.\u00a0 The strongest such evidence dates to between 50,000 to 100,000 years ago, but as noted in the Human Spark,<\/em> new discoveries will almost certainly push these dates back further.\u00a0 I do not think that projectile technology alone explains human uniqueness.\u00a0 Nothing in evolution is that simple.\u00a0 Yet, projectile weaponry is an interesting piece of our human evolutionary puzzle that has not received the scientific attention it deserves.<\/p>\n

Some academics look down at television programming as \u201cmerely\u201d entertainment.\u00a0 I disagree.\u00a0 If you take public money for your education (as I did), and expend such funds in your research (as I do), you have a moral obligation share the fruits of your studies as broadly and effectively as possible.\u00a0 Far more people will view the Human Spark<\/em> than will ever listen to my academic lectures or read any of my scientific papers.\u00a0 The most effective way to show how scientific research about human evolution matters is by working with people like Alan and his colleagues to create a thought-provoking program like the Human Spark<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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