Every hour of every day, a man risks his life at a moment’s notice to save another. We are capable-as our ancestors were-of incredible breathtaking acts of kindness. If anything, our problem-solving skills have actually diminished with the advent of technology and our ubiquitous modern conveniences.Īnd yet, despite our predisposition toward fear-driven hostility, toward what we anachronistically term “primitive” behavior, another instinct is just as firmly encoded in our makeup. We appear to be doomed by our DNA to repeat the same destructive behaviors our forebears have repeated for millennia. On the contrary, present-day humans are capable of the same self-destructive behavior, the same crimes against humanity, the same violent power struggles as our ancestors. We possess no significant physiological differences from the Cro-Magnons or the Neanderthals, nor does evidence suggest our tendencies toward the barbaric have lessened over time. In fact, Homo sapien sapiens-modern humans-share an inherited gene pool with the earliest hominids like Australopithecus who lived 2.5 million years ago. We imagine these peoples as ignorant, primitive, barbaric.
Surely we are more sophisticated, more capable of reason than the hunter-gatherers of 13,000 BC, more civilized than the marauding Vikings of 1,000 years ago. If one should ask the average citizen whether or not they believe humans are more highly evolved than our ancient ancestors, they will more often than not express the belief that we are indeed far, far superior. We in the modern age operate under a dangerous misconception regarding our heritage.