The theory of evolution is approaching its 150th anniversary, and the origins of the human species are now fully integrated into an evolutionary explanatory framework. Thanks to significant epistemological revisions in evolutionary models, we now agree that the human species has had a natural history similar to that of many other mammalian species, emerging from a branching path characterized by diversity and contingent environmental changes. Today, we are the sole representatives of the hominid family on this planet, but genetic comparisons between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals, along with the recent discovery of the small and surprising Homo floresiensis in Indonesia, reveal that other species similar to ours existed until relatively recently. The solitude of sapiens might be more a result of intricate adaptive processes than of inevitable progress.
Certainly, there have been many ways of being human in the past. Some of these persisted until just a few thousand years ago, well adapted to their environments, with refined intellectual, social, and manipulative capabilities. They may have occasionally buried their dead, had their own languages, and possibly questioned the world around them. We are now the only surviving human experiment, for entirely natural reasons that science will continue to unravel. Yet, the history of the hominid bush represents a significant achievement in knowledge, making us increasingly question our anthropocentric claims. We are an African species, as Darwin had already suspected—a young species shaped by evolutionary mechanisms, but now capable of dominating natural environments and transforming our evolutionary destiny through culture and technology.
