Did we REALLY dominate the earth?
Ch.4 - The Flood
How come humans were able to expand their territory so much more than other animals?
The first humans to live in modern day Canada, USA, Mexico, Argentina, Chile and everything in between all came from a band of people that lived in Siberia. They crossed a land bridge from Siberia to Alaska that doesn’t exist anymore because of rising sea levels. Then, once some glaciers in Alaska melted 12,000 years ago, the humans migrated south at record speed.
In just 2,000 years, humans settled the arctic tundra, the dense forests and the deserts of North America; and the tropical climates and mountain regions of South America. Keep in mind that humans had never left the Afro-Asian continent (Africa and Asia before the man-made Suez Canal existed) for their first few million years of existence.
Improved cooperation and innovation allowed us to make the first snowshoes and fur pelts; the first organized hunts of large predators, and the first… everything! For millions of years, we invented nothing except fire and wooden tools. Then suddenly, we gained the ability to communicate about things outside the physical realm and we began to dominate the earth.
Did we really dominate the earth?
Yes. We were and still are the undisputed alpha predators of this planet. Even back when we were mostly animalist tribes (believe that everything has a soul and we are all equals, even the spider, the rats and the dirt), we did the most damage the earth has seen before or since. The first mass extinction.
For millions of years, homo-neanderthals, home-erectus, homo-sapiens and other “cousins” of ours roamed the Afro-Asian continent. As we became better hunters, animals learned to fear us. But it took tens or hundreds of thousands of years for animals to develop an instinct to stay away from scrawny little humans.
When we finally managed to leave the Afro-Asia and landed in Australia, America and other islands, no animal was prepared. Large mammals saw us as scrawny, small, insignificant creatures. They would pay us no mind if they weren’t hungry. That’s why we were able to kill them. They didn’t have enough time to learn to avoid us. That sort of genetic knowledge takes thousands of years to learn.
“At the time of the Cognitive Revolution, the planet was home to about 200 genera of large terrestrial mammals weighing over 50 kilograms. At the time of the Agricultural Revolution, only about a hundred remained. Homo Sapiens drove to extinction about half of the planet’s big beasts long before humans invented the wheel, writing or iron tools.” (Sapiens, 80)
And for those who want to blame climate change, consider this:
Mass extinctions in practically every part of the earth coincided with the discovery of human tools or fossils. Simply put, wherever archaeologists find signs of first Sapiens0life, they also find remains of an ensuing extinction. That’s held true from Australia to Siberia and up and down the Americas.
The climate is always changing. Constantly. Every single event in history happened during some type of climate change. Why would this one suddenly kill everything except Sapiens and aquatic animals?
So yes. We’ve dominated the earth for tens of thousands of years. Remember, when people pretend our ancestors were hippies who lived in peace with the natural world, those same hippies eradicated more species of mammals than modern humans. It was never kumbaya.
Question of The Day
Does knowing that our ancestors also didn’t take care of the planet make you feel more or less inclined to hug trees?
Your Biggest Fan,
Noah “BigNerd” Sochaczevski
PS. I just had the pleasure of announcing a new project on Instagram. I’ve spent months formulating the perfect protein powder to get from the gym to the office. If you want behind-the-scenes updates as we prepare for launch, click here.