Sapiens means “Wise”. Evolution of wise man had started 200.000 years ago. They populated East Africa even Levant. However they could not make it and left the Levant to its owners Neanderthals.
They were the prototype of modern man, according to many religious teachings he is the perfect machine that whole the universe was created for. They did not look like beasts, ape or rude caveman. They were handsome and beautiful. Of course these two definitions are relative for individuals; however most of women like broad shoulders and bony face whereas most of men look wide hips while walking behind. These common sexual likes had been shaped through millions of year evolution process and these were common and effective only among our specie. Homo-Sapiens. So, our prototypes were just like us, and also had big brains as big as ours. But there were something different, if we had any chance to try scientists believe that it is impossible to communicate with them. Neither they can understand and learn our language nor we can understand their way of thinking.
They were losing evolutionary battles, however something had been changed 70.000 years ago and this would completely had changed the fate of Sapiens. May be it would be happened like that. A handsome man followed a beautiful woman at one of the beaches of Ethiopia under the moonlight. Lights of moon gloved on sea and cool wind followed them from behind. Woman noticed him however did not worry since she knew him from their tribe which could be as most as 150 sapiens, and liked him too. They found a rock on the beach and mated. Everything was usual however something inside woman went wrong as many times it can be. Though many times mutations do not cause significant changes, consequences of a slight mutation on their baby were great. Baby would be the ancestor of farmers, kings, peasants, moon walkers, space travellers, ecological serial killers.
Offspring of this baby were intelligent from now on. They had several cognitive abilities like learning, remembering, teaching, communicating and problem solving. This was the beginning of the first Cognitive Revolution (This is the definition of Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
Cognitive Revolution had completely changed the world, not immediately but at the near future Sapiens would began to affect nature. They learned how the nature works and found many secrets. They noticed many cycles at nature and began to control them. Now, they had achieved the great adaptation potential.
Cognitive Revolution gave Sapiens complex and flexible language. Experiences could be related from parents to their children, children not had had to learn things by their own experiences. Knowledge of humans grew year by year. Furthermore, they had become more social animals, they gossiped. They began to imagine. Collective imagining caused more and more populated tribes, more than 150 peoples, nowadays millions. There were no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws, and no justice outside the common imagination of human beings. Sapiens had built sophisticated tools, arts and graves. They exchanged many tools and materials, they traded. Migrated, caused many extinctions, and changed ecosystems.
70.000 years ago, intelligent homo-sapiens migrated from East Africa and conquered the world. I suggest you to read this story from Yuval Noah Harari. He summarized this revolution with this table,
New ability: The ability to transmit larger quantities of information about the world surrounding Homo sapiens
Wider Consequences: Planning and carrying out complex actions, such as avoiding lions and hunting bisons.
New Ability: The ability to transmit larger quantities of information about Sapiens social relationships
Wider Consequences: Larger and more cohesive groups numbering up to 150 individuals.
New Ability: The ability to transmit information about things that do not really exist, such as tribal spirits, nations, limited liability companies, and human rights
Wider Consequences: Cooperation between very large numbers of strangers and rapid innovation of social behaviour.
