Homo Erectus: Fucking idiots. (Image by Steveoc 86.)

Why is Homo Sapiens the only human species on Earth? Why did other species, Homo Erectus for istance, not make it? The BBC provides some answers:

“Yet Homo erectus was slightly bigger and more powerful than Homo sapiens, so why did we thrive when they did not? The most obvious answer is that we had bigger brains – but it turns out that what matters is not overall brain size but the areas where the brain is larger.

“The Homo erectus brain did not devote a lot of space to the part of the brain that controls language and speech,” said John Shea, professor of palaeoanthropology at Stony Brook University in New York.

‘One of the crucial elements of Homo sapiens’ adaptations is that it combines complex planning, developed in the front of the brain, with language and the ability to spread new ideas from one individual to another.’

Planning, communication and even trade led, among other things, to the development of better tools and weapons which spread rapidly across the population.

The fossil records suggest that H. erectus went on making the same basic hand axe for more than a million years.

Our ancestors, by contrast, created smaller, more sophisticated weapons, like a spear, which can be thrown, with obvious advantages when it comes to hunting and to fighting.”