Chapter 1. An animal of No Significance
Starts off with big bang, quickly clarify that it will talk about human, explains biology term that will be used through out the book.
Skeletons in the Closet
“Sapiens” will talk about the species Homo sapiens, and “humans” to all member of the genus “Homo”. Talks about other member of the species
The Cost of Thinking
Tells you what evolution did to Homo sapiens, big brain and walking upright with two dexterous hand. Baby were born earlier, making them needy, but allowing them to molded and shaped in all kinds of different ways. Tells us that we’ll talk about ecological effect of our rapid ascent into the top of the food chain
For more than 2 million years, human neural networks kept growing and growing, but apart from some flint knives and pointed sticks, human had little precious little to show for it. What then drove forward the evolution of the massive human brain during those 2 million years? Frankly, we don’t know.
A Race of Cooks
Tells us about fire, and it’s most significant effect, cooking
Large brains, use of tools, superior learning abilities and complex social structures, we enjoyed these for 2 million years yet we didn’t do anything really big with them.
Our Brother’s Keepers
Talks about two theories that is used to explain why Homo sapiens is the only surviving member of genus Homo, Interbreeding Theory, and Replacement Theory, and talks about sub theories of Replacement Theory
Replacement Theory can be seen as a bit dark, but Interbreeding Theory is a racial Pandora’s box.
But there is DNA evidence that interbreeding theory is atleast not wrong. So maybe there were some lucky (or unlucky) few who bred together.
For Replacement Theory, either they died down due to lack of resource, or we killed them. I personally think we killed them
Next chapter’s cliffhanger: Characteristics of Sapiens language