ABSTRACT
Evolutionary origins of social intelligence and culture Modern humans, Homo sapiens, emerged as a distinct species only 200,000 years ago. Over time, this new species developed a variety of tools, produced elaborate art, and began to bury their dead in ornate rituals. In the last few hundred years, they invented computers, visited the moon, and discovered the basic physical laws that govern the universe. We are separated from our nearest living ancestor, the chimpanzee, by only 1.6% of DNA (King & Wilson, 1975), and we shared a common ancestor with the chimpanzee around six or seven million years ago (see Figure 3.1). What is it in this 1.6% of DNA that has enabled humans to achieve such a level of
Figure 3.1 A history of primate evolution. The extinction of the dinosaurs occurred around 65 million years ago and, at this time, the primates’ ancestral relative was like a tree-dwelling shrew. Changes in the genetic code between species act as a ‘molecular clock’ that enables more accurate timing of branching.
