Gadfly Plays Archaeologist The Earliest History of Homo sapiens — A Thesis

Homo sapiens, a gracile creature, first appeared on Planet Earth about 200,000 years ago. He/She were not well suited for survival. Neither strong, nor fleet a-foot, no rapier canines or sharp claws, humans were poor hunters and not so good at gathering either. For the first 100,000 years, human populations grew agonizingly slowly. At some points, according to geneticists studying m-DNA, they were down to 5,000 breeding females, a recipe for extinction. 

The one saving grace was the high level of cooperation among the females, both in gathering plant-foods and in caring for children, who matured very slowly. OK, they had fire, too — a help. At about 90,000 to 70,000 BP, the men started to copy the females and formed hunting parties instead of only hunting in ones and twos. They became more successful and brought in more and larger prey. The meat was cooked slowly over a campfire, and the amount of nicotinamide (vitamin D3) in the diet increased sharply. Brain changes occurred, leading to a high level of conceptual thinking. It was a whole new ball game, and some empathy was thrown in for good measure. The time was the Upper Paleolithic Era, when our genome became established.

But in the Bronze Age, only 5,000 years ago, a question arose and became more insistent recently. We began to ask if man was violent by nature? We were hunters, after all. That’s ipso facto violence, isn’t it? A look at the archaeological record of the Middle and Upper Paleolithic periods says otherwise. Two evolutionary anthropologists reviewed 400 widely scattered excavation sites, including 2900 skeletons, dated to that time. There were only five or six injuries that could be interpreted as involving human violence. 

The Thesis asks: Our Genetic Heritage: Are We Wired For Violence & War OR For Cooperation & Caring?  The Thesis Answers: Cooperation.

A book is almost complete — nine chapters — and is being sent to publishers. Chapter 5 is the last chapter being completed: Peace Heroes. It starts with ancient Sumerian and Egyptian times — Urukagina and Hatshepsut, Gadfly will offer a brief summary of a long list  of Peace Heroes right into the 21st century. We all should be familiar with them.  They carry our genetic and cultural heritage of peace.