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Summary: Why it's important to study the deep similarities, and the critical differences, between humans and
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A timeline of the major events/outcomes in the human lineage across the Pleistocene and into the Holocene.
Credit: Fuentes
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26/05/2018 How humans and apes are different, and why it matters -- ScienceDaily
In "How Humans and Apes Are Different and Why It Matters," published in the Journal of
humans and apes by examining characteristics that the two share. Conversely, Fuentes
draws upon anthropological evidence to examine the ways in which the hominin lineage
underwent changes during the Pleistocene that led to the emergence of a distinct human
niche. Fuentes concludes that these divergent traits -- along with the distinctive space
humans inhabit -- give humans the ability to drastically change the environment, other
Research Distinguished Lecture, the article explains why these evolutionary differences
Throughout the article, Fuentes asserts that humans are distinctive, not unique. Humans are classified as
mammals and as primates. Both humans and apes belong to a group of primates known as the Hominoidea. As
hominoids, humans and apes exhibit a range of similarities, including complex social relationships, large brains,
Evidence indicates that in the past 2 million years, individuals belonging to the genus Homo experienced
significant evolutionary developments. The increasingly complex patterns that resulted served as the foundation of
the human niche. A niche consists of the ecosystem an organism inhabits and all of the organism's interactions
within that space. Processes occurring within this niche, including the use of fire and new modes of teaching and
Fuentes, in fact, proposes that the most distinctive feature of humanity is its ability to significantly alter
ecosystems. Fuentes applies anthropological theory to emphasize the highly significant role humans play in
"The human baseline of creative cooperation, the ability to think, communicate, and collaborate with increasing
prowess, transformed us into beings who invented the technologies that support domestication, economies, large-
scale societies, warfare, and broad-scale peace. This collaborative and imaginative capacity for creativity also
drove the development of religious beliefs and ethical systems, and even the production of artwork. Such
capacities fueled and facilitated our ability to compete in more deadly ways. Today humans deploy many of the
same capacities that enabled our success as a species to kill/control other humans and manipulate the planet to
While elaborating on our role in the global ecosystem, Fuentes suggests humans should engage with our
"Today we are reshaping the entire world, the globe, the way in which our earth exists. We are also, at more than
7 billion strong, changing the very social landscape of the human experience. We know that inequality and
insecurities have broad-scale individual life-history impacts, changing the way in which people experience the
world, and changing the ways in which our children grow, or don't. We created a new niche, and now we have to
live with and in it, and so does pretty much everything else on the planet."
Story Source:
Materials provided by University of Chicago Press Journals. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Journal Reference:
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26/05/2018 How humans and apes are different, and why it matters -- ScienceDaily
1. Agustin Fuentes. How Humans and Apes Are Different, and Why It Matters. Journal of Anthropological
University of Chicago Press Journals. "How humans and apes are different, and why it matters." ScienceDaily.
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