by Briar Miller

Created on: March 05, 2008   Last Updated: March 10, 2009

"What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and how admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world - the paragon of animals!"

William Shakespeare, Hamlet Act II Sc.II

In evolutionary terms, humans are already at the top of the tree. We have the biggest brains, proportionate to our body size. We have the finest motor skills and, most importantly, we have the greatest power of innovation. So where can we go next?

The subject of whether or not we are still evolving is one discussed over many a pint of beer. The most often heard opinion says we are not. We have already become top dogs so why would we need to evolve? Another commonly held opinion is that we are not evolving, have never evolved, but arrived on the planet as perfect as God intended us to be.

In any case, looking at the past shows that there has been a progression. Once upon a time, all hominids had much smaller brains than ours and walked on all fours.

Modern humans, Homo sapiens sapiens may have 'emerged' on the planet, in Africa, as long ago as 200,000 years ago. There are many difficulties with the dating, and often confusion as to the attributes of these early humans. Fossil evidence is fragmentary. Genetically, they were the same as us.

There were a few other species of genus Homo around then. Some of these were nearly as clever as us. H.neanderthalis, a 'branch' of our genus who we may have had a common ancestor with, made and used, tools. They were very simple items like hatchets and scrapers, cut from flint. But neanderthalis died out. Their brains were not as big as ours so they could not adapt. The same could be said of H.heidelbergensis which also coexisted with us for a time.

Our own species did not have an easy time of it. At one point, around 60,000 years ago, we were down to an estimated 2 thousand individuals. The Earth was very much harsher and colder in those days. No central heating or supermarkets. In some ways, H.sapiens sapiens was less well adapted to those conditions than earlier hominids like H. erectus. We were altogether less robust. The only thing we had going for us was our big brain,and our opposable thumbs, which we had been using for the previous 100,000 years. And yet we were struggling.

Then something happened. There was a 'great leap forward' in our sophistication. Palaeontologists find finer and more differentiated blades, cut by a more complex processes and made

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