Humans: The Past and the Future

Kristina Elkins 

Homo sapiens descended from the trees in recent evolutionary history, forced to find a way of life in the niche-filled habitat of the African plains. Bipedal, over-sized cranium, opposable thumbs, man was adapted to roam far from home to find food and other resources. Despite large hunting territories, man always returned home. This is an action not unfamiliar to us today. After a long day of work, school, running errands, we tend to come back to the same location. Of course, what is deemed home can change. In some cases, both in the present and in the past, home base can change quite frequently throughout a life-time. Nevertheless, early man and modern man claim a territory, often surrounded by claimed territory of other humans within the social group. This marked location serves as a sanctuary for himself and his family. Not all species, however, are home-based, so why are we? 

Home is a place that is safe, a place that provides protection from predators, weather, stochastic events and more. In the natural habitat of our early ancestors, the plains and grasslands of Africa, H. sapiens were not the most physically inept organism, capable of battling intense predators or withstanding extreme weather fluctuations. In order to survive, we relied on our brain power. For this reason, we needed a territory that allowed a break from constantly being alert. This sense of safety provides the ability to rest and restore the mind and body by reducing emotional and physical stress. The brain uses home to restore directed attention. Restoration of directed attention is needed for precision, accuracy and duration when out of home hunting, gathering, exploring, building, or testing.

Even today, we use home as a place to let our guard down. Not all of us are fortunate enough to have a home, and some of us may not want a home but these are small exceptions to an over-arching trend in our species throughout time. Humans as a home-based species helps to explain why we have additional adaptions such as way-finding.

Those that were capable of exploring topography of greater distances were more likely to find greater resources, assuming they could bring them back home to share with kin and other members of the group. If they could not find their way back home, food would not be shared with offspring, halting the spread of genes incapable of way-find. If an individual/group of individuals out hunting and gathering great distances could find their way back home with the increased collected resources, their offspring would survive to pass along those genes. This is the selective pressure for way-finding. 

As time goes on, the selective pressure for way-finding is near non-existent with the development of public transportation and GPS. Whether this is a “productive” course of action for evolution is definitely up for debate. In the event of societal collapse, way-finding will definitely be an adaption worth having. However, in the event of any other energy scenario (explosion, stability, or descent) this adaption is not needed, so it may not be worth the time and energy to maintain it.

There is often an evolutionary explanation for why a species is the way that it is, or else it would not have been able to survive and reproduce, passing on those genes of higher fitness. On the other hand, what is considered fit depends on the environment--an environment that is going to drastically change for humans in the not so far off future.