The Third Chimpanzee summary

According to many anthropologists, human development underwent a “great leap forward” about 40,000 years ago in Europe.

But to really understand human evolution, we’ve got to begin a lot earlier than that – at the first stage of human evolution.

For centuries, sophisticated human language and communication seemed utterly unlike the grunts and howls of the lower beasts. But scientists have recently analyzed animal communication methods and have shown that they’re actually not so distant from human language.

The animal that has probably come closest to developing a "language” is the vervet, a small African monkey. Electronic analysis of vervets has shown that they react with different vocalizations to different environmental stimuli. Attacks from leopards, eagles or snakes, for instance, cause the vervets to produce varying sound-alarms. They also produce distinct sounds in various social contexts and they can communicate with grunts to indicate whether something is edible or inedible.

As you’ve doubtless noticed, not all human beings look the same. There are tall humans and short humans, humans with lighter skin and humans with darker skin. These are known as racial characteristics, and there are two scientific theories that posit how they developed: natural selection and sexual selection.

Most biologists are proponents of natural selection. This theory claims that racial characteristics emerged in order to improve a population’s chances of survival. For instance, the large chests of Andean Indians enable them to absorb more oxygen from the thin air found at high altitudes.

Most historians and anthropologists believe that humanity’s embracing of agriculture increased quality of life and gave us the free time to develop art and new technologies.

Nowadays, however, that logic is being turned on its head.

You probably think that only perverted psychopaths resort to genocide. But you’d be wrong. History shows us that genocide is no one-off phenomenon, and that each of us could potentially commit it.

For starters, many instances of genocide have simply been forgotten by the vast majority of humanity.

Ever since the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century, primitive peoples have been portrayed as noble savages – as a purer kind of person living in harmony with nature.

However, we now know that human societies have always posed a threat to the environment.